He made a self-deprecating smile. Carrot done, Naomi thought. Now stick.
“If you choose not to, that is your right. But as an enemy of the state, the consequences will be less pleasant. It’s going to be better for you and for me and—excuse me if this sounds grandiose—for the whole of humanity if you come as a guest. Please at least consider the option. Thank you.”
The message ended. Naomi shook her head once, tightly, and held on to her anger like it was a vaccine against something worse. Whether Duarte said it or not, the offer included trading all she knew of Saba and the underground. In return, she would be waking up next to Jim, living in a prison a thousand times larger than the one she’d imposed on herself. That was all obvious. The poison was the rest of it—access, influence, the emperor’s ear. It was exactly the path she’d argued for. Working within the system to make a revolution without starvation and hatred and dead kids. He was offering it to her on a plate, and it was possible—just possible—that he was even sincere.
Everything Saba had learned through his sources said that Jim really was being treated well. A guest as much as a prisoner. That was the cheese in the mousetrap. It was cunning almost to the point of wisdom. If she believed in her heart that Duarte would break his word, it would have been a thousand times easier to reject him. But all the stories about the devil making a deal and then cheating missed the point. The real horror was that once the bargain was struck, the devil didn’t cheat. He gave you exactly and explicitly all that had been promised.
And the price was your soul.
The knock startled her. It was like something from a different world. A moment ago, she’d been on Laconia. Eden, complete with a snake. And now she was back in her box, floating a few centimeters above the gel of her couch, the straps drifting around her like seaweed wrapping the drowned. She shifted her monitor to show the exterior of the container, half-afraid to see the Bhikaji Cama’s security chief ready to take her in, half-hoping.
The woman outside gripped a handhold and looked straight into the hidden camera. A black zippered duffel floated beside her. She was heavyset, with gray-streaked hair pulled back into a harsh bun and dark skin that got darker around her eye sockets like she’d cried too long and it had stained her. Naomi recognized her as Saba’s agent on the ship, but didn’t know her name.
Naomi pushed off from the crash couch, drifting fast toward the far end. She landed feetfirst, absorbing her momentum with her knees, and tapped her security code into the mechanism. The mag bolts clacked. In the silence, they sounded like gunshots. Before Naomi could open the door, the other woman did. She slid through, pulling the black bag with her, then shut the door behind her and glanced around the container as if there might be something unexpected in it.
“What’s the matter?” Naomi asked.
“Captain got a call middle of last shift,” the woman said in a clipped accent that sounded Europan to Naomi. “Took me longer than it should have to get a copy. That’s on me.”
She shoved the bag at Naomi. Even without opening it, the shape of mag boots and the hiss of a flight suit were unmistakable. Naomi didn’t wait. She slid the zipper open and started pulling the uniform on over her own clothes while the woman talked.
“Laconian destroyer burning in for a rendezvous. Should be here in eighteen hours. Say they’re going to make a full inspection, so alles la—” She gestured at Naomi’s things. The home she’d made for herself. “Yeah, we’re going to have to get clever about making that match the manifest.”
“Inspection?”
“Full,” the woman said. “This is all supposed to be bacterial samples. They see this . . .”
If they saw the false container, they’d know how the underground was staying hidden. And that some fraction of the Transport Union was in on the scheme. It might not be the end of the shell game, but it would be a data point too clear for Laconia to overlook for long. And it would be the end for her.
“Is it only us?” Naomi asked.
“Does it need to be more? Us is our problem. Focus on—”
“No,” Naomi snapped. “I got an offer of amnesty if I turned myself in. This just after that? Are they coming for other ships, or do they already know I’m here?”
The woman’s face went gray. “Don’t know. I can find out.”
“Do it fast. And get me a loader. I’ll try to find a way to cover this over.”
“Yeah,” the woman said. “And crew manifest. I got to put you in somehow—”
“Not the priority,” Naomi said.
“But . . . ,” the woman said. Then, “Right. All right.”
Naomi looked around her container. It seemed sadder now that she had to leave it. She’d have to wipe the system, just in case she was taken. All her belongings would have to go too. She’d be starting over from nothing again.
Or she could go to the security office, announce herself, and spend the rest of her life waking up next to Jim. Eating real food. Maybe even talking Duarte into a better, kinder, less authoritarian future for all of humanity. If it was a trap, it was a good one. Offer her an out, make the threat, and then tighten the screws. If she’d been younger, it might have been enough to panic her. Convince her to announce herself. Sign the deal. It would be easy, and she could even tell herself that she was protecting the underground and the people like the woman before her. She’d only tell Duarte things that wouldn’t compromise Saba and their network. That wouldn’t threaten Bobbie and Alex and the Storm.
She could imagine the version of herself that would have been able to do it. Not so different from who she was now. Younger. That was all.
“Emma,” the other woman said. “We’re going to pass you for crew, you’ll need to know names. I’m Emma Zomorodi.”
“You can call me Naomi.”
“I know who you are,” Emma said. “Find me someone who doesn’t.”
The woman—Emma—looked at her again, more closely, then turned away, shaking her head. The fear in her expression was thick enough to see. It’s okay, Naomi wanted to say. I know what to do. It’ll be all right. It would have been a lie.
“Come on,” Naomi said. “We don’t have time.”
Chapter Fourteen: Teresa
Yes,” Teresa said. “I know. Okay. Let me get ready.”
Muskrat barked once as if she’d understood the words. Probably she had. Dogs could have broad functional vocabularies. It was a point Dr. Cortázar often made. The fact that humans were not the only conscious animals seemed very important to him. It had always seemed obvious to her.
Teresa set her room to high privacy and sleep, dimming the lights and locking her doors. No one would disturb her now unless they were evacuating the State Building. Muskrat wagged hard enough that her back legs looked unsteady as Teresa changed into the same simple tunic and pants she normally used for gardening. They had no technology, so they weren’t connected to the palace network. She started up an entertainment feed on her system on low volume as if she were dozing and watching an old Caz Pratihari adventure.
Her window had a sensor in the frame that alerted a security officer when it was opened. So Teresa had opened it every now and then over the course of weeks, trying different ways to get around it. Was it electronic? She tried keeping the window and frame touching with a copper wire. Security still got their alert. Optical? She searched everywhere for anything resembling a pinhole camera or light sensor, but never found one. Motion activated? She tried opening the window very slowly over the course of days, but on the fifth day security got their alert. Not motion sensing, and it only went off when there was an eleven-millimeter gap between window and frame. Interesting.
It had turned out to be magnetic. A low-strength magnet in the window, when moved too far from a sensor in the frame, set off the alert. She’d solved this by using a plastic letter with a tiny magnet in it from her preschool alphabet set. Moving it a little bit every time she tried to open the window, until one time she opened it and no one showed up outside to make sure she was okay.
Now she slid her magnet to the correct spot, manually undid the window, and lifted Muskrat carefully out. She climbed out after, pulling the frame closed behind her. Muskrat chuffed and started off along the path to the edge of the palace, and Teresa followed behind.