—I don’t understand.
—Obviously. How do I put this? I like my job, Dr. Franklin. I really do. I can make a difference here. I have a good team of people working for me. I chose every single one of them. They’re loyal, competent. We’ve made so much progress the last few years.
—That’s … That’s great. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. I really don’t. Maybe it seems obvious to you, but it’s not to me. When I asked you if I could help, I meant just that. I’ve been gone for a while, but I still think I can contribute. I know Themis better than anyone. I know these robots. Maybe not as much as you do, but enough to be useful, I’m sure of that.
—Dr. Franklin, you’re … They’re going to ask you to take my place.
—Me? I … I don’t even know what you’ve been doing. You said it yourself, you’ve made a lot of progress. You got that robot working again. Why would they replace you?
—You really don’t know anything, do you?
—That’s what I’ve been trying to say for the last five minutes.
—No one will care if you’re up to speed or not. You know enough. They’ll trust you more than they trust me.
—Why? I’ve been gone nine years. I was in Russia with—you just called him a traitor.
—It won’t matter. You’re a pureblood. You’re white.
—I’m white? Surely that can’t—
—I’m an A1. That’s about as good as it gets, because purebloods are so rare. None of them are scientists. Well, you are, but there are only a handful. I’m an A1, but my grandfather was from Tunisia.
—What difference does that make? I’m sorry, I just—
—Muslims don’t get government jobs. They get put in camps. I’m an atheist, but hey, you can never be really sure, can you?
—That’s insane. I understand that a lot of people died just before we left. I understand that people are scared. But this A1, A2 system, it’s crazy. Recombination is completely random, you know that. My parents could have had more alien DNA than you have. Your children could be just like me.
—It doesn’t matter. People don’t know what science was made by “real” humans and what wasn’t. They don’t trust anything anymore.
—This feels like a bad dream.
—It’s the world, Dr. Franklin. You’d better get used to it.
—And Muslims? What could that possibly have to do with anything?
—The first A4s we found were from the Middle East. Most of them are.
—That’s not … If the story we’ve been told is true, the first aliens to come here lived in what is now Turkey. It would make sense for more of their descendants to be from—
—Now you’re getting it.
—No! I’m not! They came for them! A lot of us died, but the ones that did it came here specifically to kill those people.
—We don’t know if that’s true! We don’t know if they’ll come back for them. We don’t know anything. We know they’re closer to the aliens than the rest of us.
—Who is? The descendants of the aliens are more alien, yes. People in the Middle East aren’t. They’re also not all Muslims. Even if they were, it doesn’t make any sense … Muslims?! Most Muslims are Asians, for crying out loud!
—Asian Muslims don’t count.
—I don’t even know what that means. You’re talking about a religion. There’s nothing biological about that. What about Muslims here?
—There might be a connection.
—How? Muslims were victims too. The aliens destroyed Riyadh. Kuala Lumpur.
—Those were large cities with lots of foreigners. Both al-Qaeda and Daesh said Saudi Arabia was an infidel country. Look, I don’t have all the answers, but why take the chance?
—You mean you agree with that craziness?
—I mean I can’t rule it out.
—Then you’re not a very good scientist.
— …
—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you’ve been through.
—It’s OK. They said you would have a hard time adjusting. Just give it time.
—I just don’t understand. That’s all. Borders are closed. People are suspicious of everyone. I understand why people are scared, but wouldn’t we be safer, stronger, if we all worked together?
—The world doesn’t like us very much anymore. And I don’t have the answer to your question. I don’t know if this is better. All I know is that we tried it your way before, and a lot of people died.
—There would have been more.
—Are you sure about that?
—Yes!
—Elsewhere, maybe. But here? Our armed forces were spread out all over the world … My parents were in New York. My friends. Maybe, just maybe, some of them would still be alive if we’d only taken care of our people.
—That’s nonsense. A minute ago you were ready to put your family in a camp, just in case. And don’t talk to me about New York. I was there, remember. I lost people too. A lot of us did.
—I know. And you left. Themis was there, and she left. You left everyone behind.
—Themis couldn’t fight. And I didn’t leave. I was locked inside a glass room waiting to die. I watched a friend die right in front of me. So don’t talk to me about loss as if I didn’t suffer. I survived. Those are two very different things.
— …
—And tell me, what would you have done if we’d had all our armed forces? All our tanks, all our planes. Say they were all there, all in New York by some crazy miracle. What would you have done? Bomb the city? Your parents were in it. The Russians tried that in Moscow. We nuked Madrid for no reason, and it didn’t help.
—We didn’t bomb Madrid. The aliens destroyed it.
—I must remember it wrong, then. Maybe we should have nuked New York. Would that have helped?
—How about I give you that tour, now?
—I think I’ll walk the city. It’d be a shame to spend such a nice day inside. But I do have one question.
—By all means.
—The robot, Lapetus, you call it. It’s the one I disabled in Central Park, isn’t it?
—Yes, it is.
—Then I’m curious. When we assembled Themis, we couldn’t get her working without all the pieces. How did you manage to make this one work without one of its legs? We understood so very little about how those pieces work when I left, I—
—We still don’t. Well, at least I don’t. We do high-level research here, anything connected to Lapetus is handled directly by the military. We don’t even have access to it, not to the parts that work. We have the nonfunctioning leg in storage. Would you like to see it?
—No thank you. I know where I need to go.
FILE NO. 2137
INTERVIEW BETWEEN MAJOR KATHERINE LEBEDEV, RUSSIAN MAIN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (GRU), AND VINCENT COUTURE
Location: GRU building, Saint Petersburg, Russia
—Vincent, I’d like you to meet Sergeant Vasiliev.
[It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Couture.]
—Hi! So you’re my copilot.
[I think you are my copilot.]
I like him.
—I knew you would.
—Where did you find him?
—Prison.
—Really?
[I did nothing wrong.]
—He’s right about that. My original idea was to test everyone in work camps—
—How? I didn’t think you had a blood test for pilots.
—We still don’t. I thought we could bring everyone here and have them try the helmets.
—That’s crazy. It would take—
—I assumed we’d find someone after a few thousand tries. The camps are filled with the right kind of people, so part of the job is already done, but you didn’t let me finish. I was about to start when I remembered we put everyone with military training in prison instead of camps. We didn’t want trained soldiers stirring up trouble.
—So that’s where they found you? I bet you were happy to get out of there.
[I won’t miss the food.]
Your English is pretty good. Why is it that every Russian I meet speaks English?
[I lived in Canada before. Like you, right? Bonjour. Je m’appelle Alexander.]
Nice. What’d you do? Were you a spy?
[I play hockey.]
Oh! Cool!
[When do we start? Major said you’d teach me how to fight.]
I have to teach you how to walk first. Have you ever done any modeling?
[Is he serious, Major?]
—I’m afraid he is. Just do what he says, Sergeant.