Ten minutes later, the Minnow’s brethren are packed onto the trainer deck, all leering out at me in the water. In the front of the crowd, I spot Varma dangling a bill over Chuck. She has to jump to swipe the money from him, but there’s a self-satisfied grin that accompanies it and lets me know that I just helped her win a bet. And it seems like Varma bet against me. That’s interesting.
Bao’s large eyes flick back and forth, taking in the crowd staring down at him. He hasn’t been around this many people since the day he was born, and I worry that it’ll throw some switch in him, something that will make him dangerous. Already he’s starting to lean away from my grip, and I can feel the tension in him building, like a wound-up spring ready to burst forward.
Santa Elena’s got one arm wrapped around her son, the other resting easily on the gun in her holster. She looks like a founder of a city, meant to be immortalized in bronze. “Well done, Cassandra,” she says, her tone musical.
Her praise stings, but I can’t let it take my focus.
There’s an urge building up inside me, and I don’t realize quite what it is until I release my hold on Bao and slide one of my arms across his back. When I’m out in the water, I’m free from the Minnow and everything it stands for. I’m my own entity, with all the power that a Reckoner can give. And I want to show them just how powerful I am.
I’ve tried this trick with a few terrapoid pups, but Bao’s no ordinary terrapoid. His eyes roll when he realizes what I’m doing, and he beats his forelegs against the sea, a growl of protest building up in his throat. I shift my weight on top of him, push my torso up, and bring my leg swinging around so that I sit squarely on top of his keratin-plated back.
Bao tenses. I can feel his intention to buck me off building in the coils of his muscles, but before he can act on it, a wave of noise paralyzes him. The trainer deck erupts into cheers.
It comes all at once, in a cacophony of shouts and hollers and slaps on the back. But the pirates aren’t cheering for me. They’re celebrating what I’ve done, and a horrible, sick feeling rushes over me as I realize exactly what that is. I’ve taken a monster used to destroy them and tamed it in their favor. I’ve hatched the enemy’s tool and shaped it into something they can wield. And here, sitting squarely on his back, I’m the very image of a conqueror, my full weight thrown on the subjugated.
I’m not a girl. I’m a symbol.
And I represent everything that I shouldn’t.
The shame burns from the back of my eyes and I feel tears start to well up. But I can’t let them see how this is affecting me. I’ve got to keep playing the part they want me to play. So I wind my fingers tight around a plate protruding from Bao’s neck and thrust my fist in the air, swallowing back the salt water threatening to drown my eyes.
I force myself to smile when the cheers get louder.
13
Swift pretends she’s not interested in the training process when she knows I’m looking at her, but I catch her curiosity out of the corner of my eye. Whenever I change around the patterning in the LED beacon, I can feel her leaning over to get a good look at what I’m keying in. She reminds me of a cat who used to lurk around the pens back home. He’d try to steal fish right out of our feed buckets, but if you ever caught him looking at one, he’d feign disinterest and start preening himself. Swift’s not out for fish, though—she’s just morbidly curious about the way a Reckoner becomes a fighting machine.
“You can ask questions, you know?” I tell her one afternoon while I work with Bao on the “stay” command. It’s slow going because he’s already got it so ingrained into his system that any LED signal means come to the ship and get fed. I have to start getting him to notice the nuances of the lighting patterns.
Swift ruffles her side-swept hair and folds her arms. “Fine. Why’s he such a slow learner?”
“’Cause he’s a terrapoid. His brain’s not as suited for this kind of stuff. Anything reptilian is a brute-force sort of animal. Cetoids are much faster—mammalian Reckoners have more logical capabilities. And … ”
Swift catches my pause and mulls it over before prompting, “And?”
“Simioids,” I tell her, and even saying the word brings a shudder up my spine. “Simioids are the fastest learners, but that’s what makes them so terrifying. You guys ever run afoul of one?”
“I don’t even know what ‘simioid’ means.”
I kick on the LEDs with the “stay” patterning and Bao wavers, still puzzling whether he’s supposed to keep where he is or come in. “Monkey-type. They’re much smaller animals, but their intelligence is through the roof. I never want to be a simioid trainer. It’s the one type of Reckoner I’ve always refused to work with.”
“How come?”
“People aren’t even sure if we should be making simioids. They’ve been shown to have really advanced language capabilities, and there’s an argument in the Reckoner development community that by making them, we’re engineering a new intelligent species. We’ve had a few simioids in our pens, and … I don’t know, you look in their eyes and you can see it. See them as thinking beings. And it’s never felt right to me.”
Swift scoffs. Her hand drops to the pistol in her holster, and I steel myself. She always touches the gun right before she starts a fight.
“What?” I ask. There’s no avoiding a spat, but if I play along, maybe we won’t waste much daylight on it.
“Thinking beings, huh? You’re all soft over a bunch of genetically engineered monsters, but those same monsters go out to kill thousands of people and you’re fine with it?”
My lip twitches involuntarily, and for a moment I forget Bao, forget training, forget anything but meeting Swift’s fiery gaze. “The people Reckoners kill are pirates. Murderers who sack ships and steal from the innocent. Excuse me if I have more sympathy for a trained animal.”
There’s something Swift wants to say. I can see it in the way her lips tense as if she’s about to spit the words out, but she curbs herself and instead mutters, “Can I try the thing with the lights?”
It’s the first time she’s ever asked to be involved in something related to Bao, and it throws me off. I don’t realize that I’ve frozen until she checks me with her shoulder, crouching to the level of the LED’s controls. “I, uh … sure,” I manage to say.
We’re in the beginning stages of training. There’s no harm in her learning the basics of the beacon, though I’d hesitate to teach her anything beyond things like “stay” and “come.” And it could be useful—if I’m out in the water with him and he gets rowdy, it’d be handy to have someone on deck who could throw him a signal.
“How do you make it change?” she asks, her hands already prying at the switches.
I take a knee and slap her fingers away from the controls. “Opcode. Basically throwing down the right switches. You memorize the switchboard and hit the ones that give the right command.” I can’t show off every combination without confusing Bao, but I’ve had the board memorized since I was ten. “First switch is the basic ‘come’ command. It’s the easiest to key in, so someone can bring in a Reckoner and put them to rest no matter what.” I flick off the other active switches, and the LEDs flash with the homing signal.
A plume of steamy breath jets from where Bao floats, and the pup swims right for us, the water cutting in a neat V-shape around his snout. When he reaches the beacon, he knocks it once with his nose and then tilts his head back, his mouth hanging expectantly open.
“Toss him a reward,” I press, elbowing Swift.
She reaches into the bucket, pulling a face as she squelches a fish in her grip. Then she straightens and holds it out over Bao, her other hand resting casually at her hip.
The pup’s eyes flick upward.