Hwa didn’t breathe. She had really only skimmed the safety warnings about the wildlife. The real danger, the guide had assured them, was the fact that it was moose season, and there were hunters in other areas of the park. Thus those terrible orange t-shirts. They were so nobody got shot by accident.
A hand closed over her mouth. She reacted: reached up and grabbed the little finger on her attacker’s hand and yanked it down and away. Heard the snap when the bone broke free of his hand. Bounced up to her feet, slamming her head back. Felt it connect with bone. Whirled around, other hand already cupped and outstretched to box his ear. It was Beaudry. She cuffed him upside the head. When she advanced on him, he scuttled away up through the brush toward the trail.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hoarsed, cradling his hand. “I was protecting you from that fucking bear!”
Hwa turned. The bear was long gone. Ferns wavered in its wake. Apparently that whole thing in the brochure about animals being more scared of you than you should be of them was actually true.
“What bear?” Hwa asked.
“Oh, come on.” Beaudry stood up He hawked back and spat blood. It glowed white for a moment in the infrared, and then cooled to grey. “That thing was staring straight at you. You’re lucky I came along.”
“Oh yeah. I’m real lucky you snuck up on me.” Something sparked in her mind. An idea. A gamble. “That’s just your M.O., right?”
Beaudry wiped his nose. “What?”
“And at the school. I saw you. Under the sprinklers. Your shiny new invisibility suits ain’t shit under the water.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you know about those?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m on to you.”
His face closed. She watched him take a deep, calming breath. The kind of one you took before you told a big lie. He swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. You think I don’t know how your boss feels about his baby brother? Of course I know. It’s fucking obvious. But if you think you’re gonna scare me off this job, you better think again.” Hwa snatched his hurt hand. Squeezed the fingers together. Watched tears rise up in his eyes. Smelled his chicken soup-y fear sweat mingling with black earth and pine resin. She lowered her voice to keep it from shaking. “And if I find out that you or any of your fucking Lynch Mob over there had something to do with my friend Layne dying, your finger won’t be the only thing of yours that gets broken. Do you understand me?”
He pushed her away, hard. She stumbled back. Almost fell. Corrected herself. “No,” Beaudry said, “I don’t. You’re a crazy bitch. I shouldn’t have helped you.”
Hwa watched him making his way back to the trail. When he was a good three paces ahead, the adrenaline trickled in. It had been a long time since anybody put hands on her like that. She forced the air from her lungs. Made fists. Pictured the master control room. All the buttons. All the switches. Big convex screens with her problem on them, walking away, getting smaller, turning into mere pixels.
She’d given the whole game away. She’d let their whole theory slip right past her lips. But there was nothing for it. It was done, now. And it was time to attend Joel’s press conference.
*
The press conference was more like a briefing. Only a couple of local journalists came, and the rest was done by telepresence. The questions—or at least, their focus and tone—had all been approved by stratcomm the day before. That was how each telepresence journalist earned the right to their log-in. They’d tag in to the conversation as it unfolded, their avatars briefly lighting up the same spot of floor positioned so that Joel and the folks who’d handed out the scholarships could talk. Hwa spent most of her time just scanning the crowd and not really listening. The pain that she’d managed to keep at bay had redoubled its efforts, and now it felt like someone was excavating her uterus with a rusty garden trowel. It was hard to stand up straight. She had to pretend that her chin was balanced on a shelf in order to maintain her posture. She kept her hands behind her back so she could knuckle it once in a while, when she thought no one was looking.
“Joel, your father’s company has come under fire for using self-replicating nano-scale machines to build this new reactor, and not human crews.”
Hwa snapped to attention. She focused on the reporter asking the question. She was a round-faced blonde from the PST. Her avatar moved its lips at a slight lag behind her voice. It made her look like an old cartoon. The extra eyelashes she’d tattooed onto her cheekbones didn’t help matters, either.
“My father believes in the power of innovative technology to accomplish large-scale projects that help people.”
The reporter smiled winningly. Dimples appeared in her cheeks. “And do you share those beliefs?”
“Yes,” Joel said. “I think mankind has always used tools to improve basic standards of living. In this case, we’re using these machines to do dangerous work that would put human crews at serious risk.”