Elizabeth Bear - Hammered

After so many years, what made you change your mind?

He came around the table to her, leaving his coffee cup behind, and touched hers to the side with two fingers on her wrist. She looked up, startled, into those earnest, cheerful eyes. How does anybody who has been through so much — wars, left widowed with children — smile like that? I wish I had his spirit.

“I admire your guts, Elspeth,” he said. “What do you think about making one of these working dates into a real date, sometime?”

Elspeth turned aside and set her coffee down on the table. Just like Momma, running around with the white boys, she thought, and the thought came very close to making her laugh out loud. Which he would have misunderstood entirely. “Actually, Gabe, I’m not looking for a… dating relationship right now.”

“Ah.” He stepped back and turned away to retrieve his coffee. “Mad at me for asking?”

“Not at all. I’ve got a counterproposal. I’d hate to ruin this friendship with expectations and the dating game foolishness. I’m not in the market for a husband; that’s never been my goal in life.”

He nodded to show that he was listening, and she was kind enough to wait until he swallowed the coffee.

“So how would you feel about a little friendly sex once in a while?”

1200 hours, Monday 11 September, 2062

Allen-Shipman Research Facility

St. George Street

Toronto, Canada Adrenaline hits. The bottom drops out of my world.

Gabe Castaign barrels down the corporate-blah hallway, arms spread wide, yelling a welcome like he hasn’t seen me since Christmas. He’s as big as Razorface, maybe bigger, but Gabe is all teddy-bear these days, while Face is a gleaming, well-oiled hunk of muscle. Ignoring Valens and Barb, prisoner’s escorts on either side of me, he’s ready to sweep me into an embrace.

Come to think of it, he hasn’t seen me since Christmas, and he seems not to notice the steaming coffee slopping over his hand. There’s a little dark-haired woman about my age four steps behind him. She balances a paper cup in her hand as well, and I see her startlement in the long moment that stretches while that rivulet of coffee trickles over Gabe’s wrist, slow as honey on an October morning.

This shouldn’t be enough to trigger me.

But my heart

hits the bottom of my chest cavity,

each beat long and slow and painful

as my hands come up and

I sidestep,

pain falling away,

left hand reaching…

Valens’s voice, then, slow as a creaking door: “ Castaign, STOP! ” and Gabe halts at the snap of the command. I struggle for control, take a step back, between my sister and the doctor, away from Gabe. I gag on bile and go down on one knee in the steep sick aftershock of the adrenaline and the thing I almost did.

Again.

Valens puts a hand on my shoulder, holds the other one out to take the coffee cup away from Castaign. Blond, blue-eyed Gabe Castaign, a man who’ll crawl through a fire for a girl he’s never met, lets hands that could half-encircle a cantaloupe hang limply by his side, looking from me to Valens and back again with an expression like a befuddled bear: intelligent, thoughtful, determined to understand what it is that’s so suddenly changed. I see him taking in the way I’m dressed — plum-colored slacks, sweater without a pill on it, wine-red turtleneck I bought yesterday, downtown. Same old scarred boots, though. I wonder what he thinks of that.

Fury sparks slowly in his eyes, then, and they focus hard on Valens.

“What the hell did you do to her, fils de pute?”

I hold up my hand to stem the flow of that anger, trying to hide how gratified I am by it. Before I can say anything, Valens interposes himself smoothly. “She’s sick, Castaign. That’s why she’s here.”

An unfamiliar voice cuts in. It must be the woman, Gabe’s coworker. “And we talk about her like she’s not here because?…” And I can’t decide if what I feel is gratitude or irritation, but whatever it is, it’s enough to get me hauling myself up straight and not leaning on Valens’s goddamned arm any longer.

“Because I’m the patient,” I answer, and take a step forward to extend my hand to her, not letting any of them see how badly I want to sway on my feet. From the look Gabe gives me, he guesses. My face must be livid and shining with cold sweat between the scars. “Jen Casey.” I can’t remember the last time I introduced myself to somebody by my right name.

“Elspeth Dunsany,” she answers, switching the coffee to her left hand. Her right is warm and dry as her smile. Golden hazel eyes crinkle at the corners, eerily pale in a face darker than my own. She’s compact, vigorous, a little chunky. “Are you a programmer?”

“I’m a pilot,” I answer. “Or at least I was.” Valens clears his throat behind me— shut up, Casey —which makes me curious.

I’ve always been smarter than I look. And Valens wouldn’t have sent Barb half a thousand miles to collect me if he could get the results he wants from whatever teenage soldiers might volunteer for the project just to get the — wetware, Valens called it.

Charming.

So there’s got to be something about me that’s special. Enhanced reflexes? Just bloody not being dead? I know Valens isn’t telling me a third of the truth, but I can deduce that he needs me at least as much as I need him. What’s he going to do if I piss him off? Send me home to die?

What the hell. I have nothing to lose but my life.

I keep talking. “Are you working on the flight simulations for the VR program?”

“Some work in VR, but…” her voice trails off, and I can tell from the direction of her gaze that she’s looking at Valens. Score. “… nothing like that,” she finishes lamely.

Interesting. He has some kind of hold over her, too. Her, me, Gabe. Same old Valens.

Pity for him I ain’t the same old Jenny. The last time we tangled, he used Gabe to control me. I’m willing to bet that’s the whole reason he’s offered Gabe this much-needed job. Which no doubt comes with health insurance that will cover what the government won’t do for Genie. Enzyme therapy is fucking expensive.

I’m not twenty-five anymore, Frederick Valens. And you’d be wise not to forget it.

“Gabe,” I say, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Dinner tonight? Bring the girls, my treat.”

“Sure,” he says, but then he glances over at Elspeth Dunsany almost as if checking to see if she minds. Not quite asking permission — Gabe would never do that. But seeing if maybe he needs to make it up to her later.

Elspeth’s emotion is unreadable behind the grin she gives me. “I hope once you two old friends have caught up, I’ll be invited to the next one.”

And I like her even more for that, dammit, in spite of myself. It’s gracious, and she’s not making a fuss about being gracious. A grown-up woman.

A woman who looks more familiar the more I look at her. “Elspeth Dunsany,” I say, thoughtfully. “ Doctor Dunsany?”

She nods. “Yes. That Doctor Dunsany.” Her face falls, as she wouldn’t let it before.

I understand. Oh, Nellie, do I understand. “It’s okay,” I say, and clap her lightly on the shoulder. “I’m that Master Corporal Casey. Nothing like an uncomfortable fifteen minutes of fame, is there? We’ll get along just fine.”

Valens clears his throat again, and as I turn to look at him I’m left with the unmistakable impression that he engineered this little meeting.