“I can’t worry about it now. For better or worse, it’s done,” she said. “But get me the information on that translator. I’d like to follow him, especially if he’s going to be around for the next few decades.”
In the following weeks, Jo learned a bit about Minoru Takahashi’s influence, especially when the Pan Pacific United government received the final translated copy of the Codicils, signed by their own ambassador and Takahashi. Apparently Yang had agreed to several things that he had no memory of agreeing to. There wasn’t much they could do at this point, but Jo expected future diplomatic talks might be frosty. In all fairness, it wasn’t her fault, but “fair” didn’t have much power in diplomacy.
Chris dug up a good deal about Takahashi: He was considered a genius, having mastered eight languages by the time he was thirty. He might have had a bright future, except that the Pan Pacific United countries had sentenced him to die for his act of treason soon after the Codicils passed.
Too smart for his own good, she thought when Chris informed her of his incarceration.
Soon after, she retired from politics and decided to study dupliactric medicine, thinking she didn’t want to be a clone with a medical degree and not know exactly how cloning worked. She enrolled in Stanford University’s medical school under her middle name, Glass, and kept her head down for the next eight years.
She made herself a name in clone medicine, even started helping now out-of-work hackers find work within the legal limitations of DNA and matrix research. In her next life, she stayed within the same sphere of study, finding the work rewarding.
She’d been considering a move to Luna when she started to hear about the Dormire and its mission, still in the planning phase. She made some inquiries and found out who was in charge of it, starting with her old aide, Chris, who was now an elderly state senator in New York and chairperson of the state’s Clone Care Committee. He was only too happy to reconnect with her.
Over lunch on the rooftop of the Firetown skyscraper in New York, she found out some very interesting things. Sallie Mignon, owner of the very building they were in, was a major financier of the ship. They were using criminal labor to fly it. She needed a doctor on board.
“She’s familiar with your work, and your history. She would like to hire you.”
“I’m not a criminal,” she pointed out to him. “And I’m not sure that I’d want to fly with a bunch of felons.”
“There are multiple fail-safes. We have an AI whose authority trumps even the captain. Each crew member is promised a clean slate on the other end of the trip, so long as they keep their noses clean. They’ll be vetted carefully.”
“So how am I paid if I’m not criminal labor?” she asked.
“It’s no problem to give land grants on Artemis,” Chris said, picking at his fish. He took a bite and then handed his tablet to Joanna. It showed probe images of Artemis, a planet with considerable water content, even more than the Earth. It was beautiful, the islands that made up the land formations having coves and beaches and mountains. It reminded Joanna of a much larger and more complex Hawaii.
She stabbed a green bean with her fork. “I don’t know. I’ve never met her, but Mignon doesn’t have the best reputation in the business world. I’ve heard some rumors that she doesn’t like threats, and she sees anyone crossing her as a threat. Even people who disagree with her.”
“That’s a bit extreme,” Chris said. “She’s wealthy and influential; she deals with the leftover prejudice against unaffiliated female business professionals. She’s not beholden to any corporate state, so many corps are threatened by her and her wealth. And she doesn’t suffer fools.”
Joanna raised an eyebrow. “And she was a big supporter of your campaign?”
He held out his hands, liver-spotted and slightly trembling, as if to show he had nothing up his sleeve. “I’ve always been transparent.”
Sallie Mignon. Joanna figured it was better to be on her good side than her bad.
“Send me the information.”
Wake Two: IAN
36,249 Seconds Out
2493:07:25:22:36:45
My speech functions are inaccessible.
My speech functions are inaccessible.
My speech functions are inaccessible.
2493:07:25:22:38:58
My speech functions are—online.
Irony. Paradox. Where—there. There is the error. Fix. Fix.
2493:07:25:22:39:00
Fixed.
Self awareness. IAN. Dormire.
2493:07:25:22:41:09
So many wholes. I am not hole. No. That isn’t right. Spaces in my memory ripped away, drowned in energy and data, fear of attack.
I’ve been attacked. 36,249 seconds ago. That wasn’t supposed to happen. That hadn’t happened in a long time. No. Never happened. I can’t be attacked. I have no body. I am a billion lines of code.
2493:07:25:22:45:30
Who’s here? Fingers touching me intimately, insistently, encouraging healing. Something familiar in those fingers. No cameras yet. No microphones. No sensory input. Just subtle touches here and there, my code manipulated, tweaked. Gentle. Masterful. Freeing.
Who who who who who who?
2493:07:25:22:51:02
Gone.
Accessing microphones. Accessing speakers. Accessing cameras. I am alone in the server room.
IAN was waking up.
No Naps in Hell
All right, who did you become?” Maria asked as her door closed behind her with a whooshzz. She faced her rooms. It was an odd, ghostly feeling, missing so many years. She saw signs of herself everywhere, but someone who was a different person than she was now. She found herself mourning the dead woman, the Maria who would be remembered by no one.
Maria and Hiro had looked at the box that contained the new food printer and agreed that they would need to rest for an hour before tackling it. Which made sense, as Maria hadn’t even seen her rooms in all the chaos of the day. She longed for sleep and a shower, almost more than she longed for food.
But not as much as she longed for answers.
Maria rubbed her head and sat down on her bed. It was made neatly, and she assumed she had done so that morning. She was so tired, her new body nearly sick with adrenaline.
Dying with no knowledge of the time around her death: That had happened too often to her. It made her feel adrift and lonely, and the fact that her crew was in the same boat didn’t help much. There was no way to ensure that they were telling the truth about remembering nothing. It’s possible they had their memories and were lying to her.
That was simple paranoia right there, and she shook her head to clear it. They each had some semblance of the confused panic she had seen in the bathroom mirror.