Elizabeth Bear - Hammered

And then all three of Jeanne-Marie Casey’s little girls will be dead.

Maman.

“Oh, hell.” I don’t realize I’ve said it out loud until Gabe stops in front of me, Simon flanking him right. I stand up. Not many people are all that much taller than I am, but I find myself staring at the dimple in Gabe’s chin. “What bullshit story did Doctor Frankenstein here feed you, Gabe?”

The look he gives me makes me shut my mouth. He sees right through me. He always has, and I never even noticed. “He says you’re refusing treatment.”

“I told you I was going to.” I turn away from him, looking for my boots. “I’ve accomplished what I came to Toronto for, Gabe. I don’t want any more surgery. I want to go home and die in my own bed, and will you and the girls take care of my cat for me when I’m gone? He’s kind of ugly, but he means a lot to me.” I won’t look at Simon. I can’t look at Simon. I can’t — won’t — tolerate that kind of a betrayal.

“Jenny.” His blue eyes are soft. He lays a hand on my shoulder and I shiver. “Remember what I told you this morning?”

“I’m not going to do it, Gabe.”

“Then you’ll die.”

And that’s the brutality of it. Because I don’t want to die. I want to live. I want him to kiss me again, and not stop this time.

I just can’t bear to be whole.

“Gabe.”

“Vas te faire enculé, Jenny. Tu me fais chier. Think about somebody else for once in your life. How long are you going to run away? How many people who love you are you going to turn your back on, woman?” He should be shouting, but his voice is low, uneven, as if squeezing through wire mesh just to get the words out.

Fuck you. And I deserve it, too. He’s right, every bit of it. How do I explain the cold terror that is all I can taste, the darkness pressing at the edge of my vision? I could tell him about the little Latina girl getting into the dark-windowed sedan, and I could tell him how gun oil tastes when the barrel is shoved into your mouth, and I could tell him what your lover’s eyes look like when you turn your back and leave him to his fate. He might even understand.

“Gabe, even for you I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

His hand slides down my shoulder and drops. Simon has melted away as if by magic. I’m not even sure if he’s in the room anymore. Behind the curtain? “I’m not asking for me.”

“I can’t do it for myself, either.”

“Can you do it for Leah and Genie? Because Leah deserves to make it to adulthood without losing somebody else.”

My mouth drops open in the silence that follows.

“And,” he continues, cold and inexorable as a glacier, “if anything happens to me, you’re the only one I’ve got who can take care of them, Jenny. You’re Leah’s godmother. If I die, the girls are yours.”

Yes, and when I signed the paperwork that Geniveve and Gabe put in front of me, powers of attorney and conditional custody and Christ knows what else, it had seemed like a joke. Because Gabe and Geniveve were both going to outlive me.

And Leah is around the same age I was when Maman died. A little bit younger than Nell was, when she died.

And Gabe — Gabe knows it, too, and he’s fighting dirty for what he wants, and I’ve known that he’s a ruthless son of a bitch since the day I met him. It’s hard to miss that aspect of somebody who’s willing to sever a limb to save your life.

There’s a stain on the wall shaped a little like Prince Edward Island. I can’t even draw breath to damn him for ten long seconds. “Mon ange. How can you ask me to do something that would put me in a hospital bed for thirty fucking years? Breathing on a machine?”

“It might not.”

“You won’t let Leah do something a hell of a lot safer.”

“Leah—” I’ve scored, and I feel like shit about it, too. He grabs my shoulder and forces me to face him, lifting my chin so I have to look him in the eye. There are still scars on his hands from the skin grafts, all those years ago. Faded, but there. I haven’t noticed them in years. “I’ll let her go through with the surgery if you do this. If you take this chance. And if it cripples you…”

“You’ll come and visit me in the hospital every week? That’ll get old pretty fast, mon ami.”

His voice a low growl, sharp in my ear. His touch almost bruising. “Bloody hell, vieille bique. If you ask me. Jenny. I’ll kill you myself.”

I jerk away. You got slugs in that thing? He would, damn him, and pay whatever price he had to. It isn’t an idle promise: Gabe’s hands aren’t any cleaner than mine, in the final analysis. He knows what he’s offering.

The girl has already lost her mother. At least she’s got a dad who cares about her. Genie… it’s funny. Genie and I get along well enough. Leah and I connect, and we have since she was barely old enough to grab my finger and stare deeply into my eyes. There’s something about her that reminds me of Nell, come to think of it. Wide-eyed wonder and a whim of carbon steel.

There isn’t, in the essence of it, anything I wouldn’t do for this man. For his daughters. Valens was right, and I am weak.

I breathe in, tasting antiseptic hospital air. “Vas te faire foutre, Gabriel.”

I can’t even hear him breathe.

I look up, look him level in the eyes, and let it all come out on a word. “ Dammit. Dammit! Yes.” For Leah. Yes. Because for her, I would crawl through fire.

“I’ll tell Valens.” Soft. Even. “Do you want Simon to stay?”

Damned if I trust him, but I trust him more than Valens. I nod, and Gabe leaves the examining room. I can hear Simon in the washroom. He’s left the door open a crack, and the water is running. I cross and peer in past the door. “I want you in scrubs for this thing, Simon.”

He comes into my field of vision, drying his hands. “I’m not a surgeon, Jenny. And I’m not nanotech certified, anyway.”

“No, but you’re not an idiot, either.” And you’re not Frederick Valens. I look up and meet his brown eyes, earnest and soft and weak. “Valens needs me. Needs me cooperative.” I can have Richard get in touch with Mitch. If anybody can prove what Barb did in Hartford, above and beyond the poisonings… “And you owe me, Simon.”

“Yes. And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it in my world. Pay me back, or get the hell out of my life.”

The careful smoothness at the corners of his eyes gives him away before he speaks. “Whatever you say, Jenny.”

Nightfall, Saturday 16 September, 2062

Allen-Shipman Research Facility

St. George Street

Toronto, Ontario

“How simple is it?” Alberta leaned against angled one-way glass, left arm raised over her head. Expensive blue-gold shoes lay on the steel-gray carpet, one upright and one sprawled on its side, where she had stepped out of them. Behind the mirrored wall, six young men in loose clothing variously curled or slumped in recliners. Wires linked them to the headrests of the chairs, and their eyes fluttered ceaselessly behind closed lids.

Valens, standing beside and behind her, looked away. “Very simple,” he answered, studying those shoes. “Control the kids, control Castaign. Control Castaign, control Casey. It’s easy.”

“Really?” She sighed and shuffled back, turning to face him, digging stockinged toes into the springy carpet. “It would be nice if one of these boys would work out for us. Are they all recruited through the Avatar Gamespace?”

“Yes.”

“I’d rather use a kid. A group of twenty-year-olds. Easier to manage.”