She stopped talking, looked wildly for her pain’s source, saw a visored cop in an M.R.A.P. turret, one eye covered with a bulging magnifier/scope, lower half of her face impassive as she played her wand over Gretyl’s body. It auto-tracked targets, shaping the pulse to keep it center-mass as the perp jerked and writhed.
No one shouted orders at her. Seconds later, pain blossomed like a thousand razors bursting out of her skin all over, all at once. There were no words for it. It didn’t let up at all. Pain got as bad as it could get, got worse. It was unimaginable. The boi immediately understood what was happening and dumped their backpack, seizing a sheet and snapping it over her. The pain had sizzled off/on-off/on, then stopped, leaving her twitching.
(The chivalry cost the poor boi their own safety—they were the sniper’s next target and it took Gretyl an eternity before she was recovered enough to get the blanket over them.)
The thought of Iceweasel with one of those cuffs—her father’s finger on the button—made her want to cry as memories of that day flooded back.
Gradually, Seth and Tam became aware of her upset and stopped bantering. “Hey,” Tam said. “Be strong. We’ll sort this out.”
“Yeah.” Seth sounded less convinced, despite his hope-talk. “This is a temporary situation.”
“How is she?” Gretyl said, and was alarmed by how small her voice sounded.
Remote noticed, too. Her voice lost its flippancy: “She’s resting. Withdrawn.” Then: “Would you like to talk to her?”
“Can I?” The thought made her heart thunder.
“One sec.” Gretyl noticed a tic of Remote’s voice. When she finished speaking, the sound cut off too perfectly on the last syllable, cleanly clipping at the end of the sound-wave, without open-mic hiss while the sound duplexing algorithm made extra certain the squishy human was finished, not wool-gathering. When you conversed with someone hosted on a machine, metadata became data. She wondered what a conversation between Remote and Local would sound like, then realized they wouldn’t use sound at all, then realized that she was trying to distract herself from the fact that she was about to speak to—
“Okay, put them on.” The voice was thready.
“Dude!” Seth said. “How’s prison?”
Tam slugged him. He grunted and Iceweasel said, “You’re such an asshole, Seth.”
“But I’m a lovable scamp, you have to admit.”
“I admit it.” Her voice quavered.
“How are you hanging in, darling?” Tam said.
“I, uh—” A pause, shuddering breath. “I’m scared. I don’t see how they can ever let me go now.”
“We’ll get you.” Gretyl surprised herself.
“Gretyl?” Iceweasel’s voice quavered more, cracking on the second syllable.
“I love you,” she blurted. Tears coursed down her cheeks. “I love you, Iceweasel. We’re coming for you. Be strong.”
“Oh, Gretyl.” Full-blown sobs now.
Gretyl sobbed, too. The rest waited in respectful silence.
“The worst part—” Iceweasel began, then was lost to tears. “The worst thing is that it gets so normal. Like I’ve been sick for a long time, and I’m in a hospital, getting better. There are times when I can’t remember—”
“I won’t forget you.” Gretyl’s chest convulsed at the thought of the hours that passed without a thought of Iceweasel; working on the engine, just brutish stubbornness of the material world, inconvenience of weather and the suit, the brainteaser of solving the mechanical puzzle of the stricken machine. The focus felt good. It was freedom from the grief she’d carried so long.
“But.” Gretyl couldn’t speak for sobs. “But.” She mastered her breathing. “If it makes it easier—If it hurts less, it’s okay to forget about us. About me. If you can find a way to be happy, I won’t be hurt—” Oh, no? “I’ll understand.” Because you do it, too. “It’s okay.”
No reply, then sobs, then nothing. Then: “I won’t ever forget. It’ll never be okay. If I die here, I’ll die with you in my mind.”
“Don’t die,” Gretyl blurted. “Just hang on.”
“I’ll hang on.”
Gretyl’s world telescoped to the two of them, minds reaching across space, piercing walls, transcending the channel set up by the simulated Dises. It was like they were touching again. “I—”
“Yeah,” Iceweasel said. “Yes. Me, too. You, too.”
“Yes.” A terrible weight lifted from Gretyl.
“Uh,” Remote broke in.
“Yes?” they said together, still in synchrony.
“I can get you through the tunnel—I can even get you shoes. But I can’t help once you’re outside.”
“I know,” Iceweasel said.
“Let us try and find something,” Gretyl said. “We’re going to default tomorrow, a First Nations reservation, we’re delivering—never mind what we’re delivering. We’re going to be there for a day or two. Then everyone’s coming here, from all over for…” She swallowed. “A party.” She felt like she was betraying Iceweasel.
“Will you bridge me in?”
“What?”
“The party. Can you bridge me in?”
“It’s bad opsec,” Remote said. “Every time we open a channel to the world, there’s a chance that someone’s going to notice the traffic.”
“I thought you pwned the whole network?”
“Yeah, but there’s the upstream. I’ve got the connectivity contracts here, read ’em all. They’re with a Redwater subsidiary, one of your cousins, the big timers. It’s for another Redwater property, a place across the ravine they use for secure storage, and there’s a point-to-point microwave link with line-of-sight laser backup, so anyone who used the contract to figure out what building to storm to kidnap Jacob and his family would find themselves three hundred meters away, in a building with remote monitoring and nasty surprises.
“The upstream provider’s got to run intrusion detection. That’s basic opsec. It’s tolerant—didn’t go nuts when your dad brought in his team, but the more anomalous traffic we generate, the higher the likelihood it’ll fire an alarm at some ops center and generate a warning to Daddy’s security people and then—”
“I get it,” Iceweasel said. She drew a shuddering breath. Gretyl could hear how close to tears she was. Tears sprang in her eyes. “I’d be alone again, and the party would start for real. I don’t think Dad’s security knows what’s going on here. I know that dude. He runs a tighter ship than this. My dad brought in specialists, deprogrammers for rich girls who join the walkaway cult. Someone who’d insist on running his own show.”
“Pretty sure you’re right,” Remote said. “Fits available evidence. We can’t assume your dad would tell his security not to worry about alerts. Even if Boss Cop doesn’t know what your dad’s doing in his dungeon, he’s got to know that something’s going on.” She paused. “I wonder…”