“What?” Local said. Gretyl had a moment’s disorientation. She’d started to think of them as aspects of one person, which they were, but not in the sense that they both had the same knowledge. Remote could wonder something and Local couldn’t know what it was until Remote told her.
“Jacob Redwater’s not the baddest zotta, not even in the top tier, but he’s still rich and ruthless. I can’t imagine him giving up his little bolt-hole without having another one. I just bet there’s another place like this, only 2.0—”
“Heard anyone discuss it? Seen any traffic?”
“Nope, but if it’s there, maybe that’s something we could use.”
“Push it onto the stack,” Local said, sounding irritated, which also made Gretyl’s head ache. She could get upset with herself. Why should that stop once there were multiple instances of herself? “Come back to it later.”
“They’re coming. Jacob and his security, that woman merc—”
Silence.
Tam took Gretyl’s hand. Gretyl hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye, to again tell Iceweasel that she loved her.
[x]
The last time she’d seen her father, he’d been stalking out of the room, with rare, visible fury. Usually he kept it icy and only let it emerge as a dangerous calm tone. When Jacob Redwater’s face twisted into a rage-mask and he raised his voice and clenched his fists, he was at the point of snapping.
Once, she’d have quailed at the thought. Her mother always assured her Jacob Redwater was a good and patient man, though not a man she had any particular affection for. Natalie and Cordelia were in good hands with him. Anything they did that made him snap was their own fault.
She could not have given fewer fucks about his rage. She’d flopped on the ground, trying to scream as her skin burned and her muscles contracted, a pain-seizure eclipsing every emotion except for self-pity and towering fury.
He had changed clothes. He wore tailored weekend stuff, a soft flannel shirt and jeans hid his incipient paunch unless you knew to look for it. He smelled of his sandalwood soap. He’d had a shower and calmed down and fetched the merc, who stood within arm’s reach and slightly ahead, body slightly rotated toward Iceweasel, impassive but alert.
“There are things you need to know about your friends, things that might help you see what’s going on there.”
“Is this part of the program? Did your snatch-consultant give you a ten-point process for deprogramming me and this is stage six?”
He shook his head. “Can you stop? I want to have an adult conversation and present the evidence. I think once you see it, you’ll understand—”
“Adults don’t have rational discussions that involve kidnapping and violent coercion. You set the terms when you sent her to drag me here. When you tied me up. When you used that on me.”
Her dad looked at the merc, a flush creeping up his cheeks. Natalie knew from Dis that the cameras in her room fed the control room, even when he was with her, so the merc and the med-tech and anyone else there heard and saw it all. Being called out as a father who’d use the pain-machine on his daughter was not Jacob Redwater’s style. He liked to be liked. He was likable—handsome, with an easy smile and enormous confidence. Natalie had seen friends fall under his spell, mistaking his friendliness for friendworthiness. It was flattering to be friended by a powerful zotta who could really listen to you with an intensity that made it clear he was interested in you, only you.
That hadn’t worked on Natalie since she was ten.
He made his eyes sad. “I wish I could tell you how much this has hurt me. I know you don’t think I love you, but I do. I’ve tried to be a good father. I know work kept me away too often. There were times when I should have been there for you—”
She swallowed her reaction: to tell him she’d always wished he was away more.
“But I have responsibilities, ones that you haven’t ever understood. I’m willing to take the blame. I’ve tried to shield you and your sister and your mother from what I do to keep us safe. It’s a rough world. I didn’t want to scare you.” His eyes grew moist. That was new. She’d never seen him mist up. He was pulling out the stops. “Natty, don’t tell your sister, but I assumed you’d take over some day. Cordelia is a lovely girl, but she doesn’t have any edge. You’ve got edge. Too much edge. But that’s good, because this world demands edge from the people who run it.”
He tentatively maneuvered a chair to her bedside. She steeled herself. She didn’t shrink when he sat. The merc positioned herself a little ahead of him. Natalie couldn’t say why, but this made her feel safer. She and the merc were on the same side, ultimately. Both were beholden to Jacob Redwater, though of course the merc had a lot more leeway about the terms of engagement.
“Your mother and sister never got that, but you did. This family, families like ours, we steer this world. It’s in trouble, Natalie. There’s too many people. Lots of them are bad people who’d destroy everything. Nihilists. They don’t care about human rights or property rights. They’d take everything we have. Jealous people who think they have nothing because we have something.
“You’ve seen the real world. There are people plenty richer than us. We’re comfortable, I’ll grant you, but we’re not ‘zottas’—not real ones. A couple mistakes, a few changes in the world, we lose everything. Bums on the street.
“I’ll tell you what would happen next: we’d rebuild. Without handouts. We’d get to work, figure things out, and before long, we’d be on top.
“The world is lean and mean, and shakes. When you shake the cornflakes box, little flakes sink to the bottom and big flakes end up on top. I’m a hell of a big flake.” He smiled. His charming schtick.
“I know what you think of that: that I’m deluding myself. I’ve heard your talk about special snowflakes. I know your arguments. I disagree with them. You don’t know my arguments. You think you’ve found a better way. You think your walkabouts can make their way in the world without having someone in charge, without big and small cornflakes.
“That’s what I want to talk about. You need to know some things about your friends that might be hard to hear. Walkways say the worst thing you can do is bullshit yourself. I want to demonstrate how you’ve bullshitted yourself—about them. They’re not hard to figure. Where there are walkways, there are sellouts, happy to take free food and easy sex, but who also want money, and have a way to get both. Since you left, I’ve known everything that happened in your little world. I get videos. I’ve been inside your networks. I’ve seen traffic analysis.”