—Fuck you!
—Really? Is that about the beer? Because I can get vodka … No? I know you don’t like me, Eva, but I’m trying to help you here.
—If you really want to help, start by getting me out of this aquarium. Oh, wait, you’re the one who got me locked in here in the first place. Like I said, fuck you!
—All right … No beer. I’ll be straight with you, Eva. You can choose to believe me or not—that’s entirely up to you—but this wasn’t my idea. I’d like nothing more than to let you out, but I’m not the boss here. I want to help you, but you have to give me something. Maybe you don’t realize it, but you, your dad, and Dr. Franklin leaving, going to the place those robots came from, that’s—
—You astast yokits …
—I don’t know what that means.
—It means there were four of us over there. I know you don’t give a shit about General Govender, but I do. He was my friend.
—Yes! Him too! All of you going to that planet, that’s a big deal! People wanna know, Eva. Everyone does! And if I can tell my boss that you’re cooperating—
—Cooperating with what? What is it exactly that you want me to do?
—I told you the same thing I told your father. In time, I’d like you to pilot Themis for us. But first, I want to know more about the planet you were on.
—Bullshit. This whole pilot thing is utter and complete bullshit. You’d let me and my dad inside a giant robot that can lay waste to your entire army and disappear in an instant. Yeah, sure. Where do I sign up?
—So what do you think is going on here, Eva?
—I think I’m just leverage, so you can get my dad to work for you. He’s probably worth the risk, with the leg thing and all, and you’re betting he won’t do anything stupid as long as you keep a gun to my head. That means you’ll need another pilot for the upper body. You’ve been running every kind of test there is on me since I got here, so I’d say you’re trying to replicate that genetic test the Americans are using to find one. What I don’t get is why you keep wasting your time talking to me. You don’t need my help to keep me hostage, and you have to know I’m not gonna tell you shit.
—Well, you must be right. I just come here, every day, because I enjoy your company so much. You know, maybe I got this whole thing wrong. Maybe I should get you to pilot Themis for us and use your dad as leverage.
—Try me.
—Maybe not, then. But you see where that leaves us, right? I mean you. You see where that leaves you. I … Well, I’m not the one who spends my days inside a pickle jar … That was fun! As always. You let me know if you change your mind. Toodeloo!
—Why can’t you just let me leave? I won’t do anything.
—Oh, come on, Eva! You’re better than that. You know why! I can’t let you go back to the US, not with the way things are.
—Wait, you think that’s where I wanna go? To the old US of A? Do I look like a patriot to you? From what you tell me, the place has gone to hell like the rest of this world. I don’t care what you tell yourself to justify all the crazy shit you’re doing. I don’t care if you do it for the motherland, or because you think you’re the only one with freedom. I don’t give a shit about any of that. I don’t give a shit about you or them. You say I don’t like you. You’re right. I don’t. I think you’re a conniving psycho bitch. Maybe I’m wrong. That’s true, I mean that. I don’t know you. But I don’t wanna know you. I just wanna take Ekim and get the yokits out of here.
—And go where!
—Home! I just wanna go home!
FILE NO. 2116
INTERVIEW BETWEEN MAJOR KATHERINE LEBEDEV, RUSSIAN MAIN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (GRU), AND VINCENT COUTURE
Location: GRU building, Saint Petersburg, Russia
—I’ve been nice to you, Vincent, haven’t I?
—What’s that supposed to mean?
—It means it’s time for you to be nice to me. I’m trying really hard to keep things civil here, but there’s a lot happening. Like, a lot.
—Like what?
—Oh, I don’t wanna bore you with my day. It’s just your usual brink-of-war political nonsense. I’ll tell you this, though. I’m a major. Information goes through a lot of hands before it gets to me, and at every step, people lose a bit of their manners. Ambassadors meet, they have some food, a bit of wine, maybe some caviar if they really wanna threaten each other. Generals meet over coffee and croissants. Colonels will skip the croissants. By the time information gets to me, it doesn’t come with anything to eat or drink. They also lose all the remotely positive things along the way. I just get a manila folder filled with negativity. Well, today, that folder is the size of a phone book. Remember the Twinkie in Ghostbusters? Well, like that, but in a manila folder, so now would be a really good time to start talking.
—What will you do to me if I don’t?
—I’m not gonna do anything to you, Vincent. It makes me queasy when I break a nail. I’m afraid of spiders … I am! I hate those little legs. The worst are the ones with long, long legs and nothing but a little beige ball in the middle. Ahhh! Anyway, can you picture me with pliers and a blowtorch? I hope you can’t. But I don’t run this place, Vincent. Soon enough, if I don’t give my boss what he wants, it’ll be someone else asking you questions. Trust me, you don’t want to talk to that someone else. I don’t want you to either because that’ll mean I failed, and that doesn’t go well in this place. Nooooo. Not well at all. So what do you say? Do you wanna help me? I have cookies!
—What do you want to know?
—Everything! Jesus, Vincent! I wanna know everything! I wanna know how to beat the Americans. I wanna know how Themis can disable their robot. I wanna know if the aliens are coming back! I wanna know if we should be preparing for a war and against whom. People are afraid, Vincent. You show up out of nowhere after nine years, they don’t know what it means. I don’t know.
—The Ekt are not coming back.
—How can you be sure?
—I suppose I can’t. I’m telling you that they don’t mean us any harm, and that based on what I know, they’re not coming back to Earth. But you’re right, I can’t be sure. They could change their mind. If they did—and I know this is not what you wanna hear—there is absolutely nothing you could do about it. Nothing.
—We’ve been making more bacteria, the kind Dr. Franklin used against Lapetus.
—Good for you. Here’s a thought. Why not use that against the Americans? What do you need me for?
—That bacteria is useless against it now. The one thing the EDC managed to do before they were shut down is to develop a chemical shield they could put on Themis so she’d be protected if the aliens ever came back. It kills those bacteria on contact. They have it. We have it. We sprayed Themis the minute you got here. You see! I do need you! With Themis, with the other robot, we— —You don’t get it, do you. They didn’t send a dozen robots here because that’s all they had. They thought it was enough to wipe out a few people scattered across the globe. They have thousands of these robots, Katherine. Thousands! More than that. They could carpet this place so that every single person on Earth would be able to see at least one of them. They wouldn’t need to, though. They have ships, and weapons … If you wanna do something useful, find a way to stop all this nonsense with the US, and the camps. Just … make the world like it was, before all that.
—I’m not sure anyone can do that, Vincent.
—Why not? You broke it. You fix it.
—Did I? Break it? You dug up pieces of a giant robot all over the world, then the aliens came, and they killed … They killed a lot of people … I’m sorry, I just … No crying, Katherine! My point is if anyone “broke it,” Vincent, it’s you. You, and your wife, and Dr. Franklin.
— … Whom did you lose?
—Whom did I lose? Does it matter? A lot of people lost a lot of people. I’m not … special.
—Who?
—My husband. My … daughter. She was eight months old.