James Corey - Gods of Risk

Una Meing stared out at him, soulful and erotic. David turned out the lights, grabbed a pillow, and pulled it over his head. As his mind began to fragment down into sleep, Leelee kept coming back to him. Her face. Her voice. The soft, almost gentle way Hutch had said, I own Leelee and You don’t have enough to clear her debts . He wished that he did. He walked into a bleak, prison-like room that was half dream and half imagination. Leelee shied back from the sudden light and then saw who it was, and her face lit up. David , she said, how did you do it? How did you save me?

And with an almost electrical shock, he knew the answer.

He sat up, turned on the light. Una Meing’s sly-sad smile seemed more knowing than it had before. Took you long enough. He checked the time: well past midnight. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t wait. He listened at his door for a few seconds. No voices except the professional enunciation of the newsfeed announcer. David took his hand terminal out of his satchel, sat on the edge of his bed, and put in the connection request. He didn’t expect an answer, but Steppan’s face appeared on the screen almost instantly.

“Big Dave! Hey,” Steppan said. “Heard about your placement. Good going, cousin.”

“Thanks,” David said, keeping his voice low. “But look, I need a favor.”

“Sure,” Steppan said.

“You have lab time?”

“More time than sleep,” Steppan said ruefully. “But you’ve got placement. You don’t need to scrounge for lab hours anymore.”

“Kind of do. And I could use an extra hand.”

“How long are we talking about?”

“Ten hours,” David said. “Maybe a little more. But some of that’s waiting, so you can do your own stuff too. And I’ll help with your work if you help with mine.”

Steppan shrugged.

“All right. I’ve got hours tomorrow starting at eight. You know where my space is?”

“Do,” David said.

“See you there,” Steppan said and dropped the connection. So that was the first part. David’s mind was already leaping ahead to the rest. He had enough tryptamine to build from, and the catalysts were always easy. What he didn’t have was sodium borohydride or amoproxan in anything like the volume he’d need. Closing his eyes, he went through the inventory of his secret locker, thinking about each reagent and what he could gracefully change it into. Carbon double bonds cleaved, ketones formed, inactive isomers were forced into different configurations. Slowly, certainly, a clear biochemical path formed. He opened his eyes, jotted down a quick flowchart of the reactions, and built a wish list. When he was done, he switched his hand terminal over to the main distributor’s site and ordered the reagents he’d need with immediate delivery to Steppan’s lab. The total bill was enough to clean out his secret account, but that was fine with him. He’d never cared about the money.

When his hand terminal chirped the morning’s alarm, he’d managed a two-hour nap. He changed into clean clothes, ducked into the bathroom to wet down his hair and shave. His mind was already three steps ahead. His hand terminal chimed with breaking news, and he almost dreaded to look, but for once it was something good. Eight people had been arrested in connection with the pressure loss on the tube system and were being actively questioned about the bomb in Salton. While David brushed his teeth, he watched the newsfeed play. When the scroll of mug shots came, he had a moment’s anxiety— What if Leelee was one of them? What if that was what Hutch meant by her getting political? —but none of the faces was familiar. They were young people, none of them over eighteen, but well-worn. Two had black eyes and one of the women had been crying. Or else she’d been teargassed. David dismissed them.

“Where are you going?” his mother asked as he walked, head bowed and shoulders hunched, for the door.

“Friend needs help,” he said. He’d meant the lie that Steppan needed an extra hand at the labs, but halfway to the lower university, he noticed that by not elaborating, he’d sort of told the truth. The fact was weirdly disturbing.

The day was a massive cook. With the two of them in the space, it was crowded, and Steppan, sleepless, hadn’t showered recently. Between the chemical vapors that the fume hood didn’t whisk away and the stink of adolescent boy, the heat of the burners, and Steppan’s constant, nearly intimate presence, the day passed slowly. But it passed well. Steppan didn’t ask what David’s experiment was, and during the quiet times, David ran Steppan’s datasets and even pointed out a flaw in the statistical assumptions he was making that made the final data prettier when he corrected it. When the early afternoon came and they were flagging, David measured out a small dose of amphetamine and split it between them. When his mother requested a connection, he didn’t answer, just sent back the message that he’d be home late, to eat dinner without him. Instead of the usual indirect disapproval, she sent back a note that she supposed she’d have to get used to that. It left him sad until the timer went off and he had to cool the batch and add catalyst and the work took his attention. There was a real pleasure to the work, something he hadn’t felt in years. He knew each reaction, each bond he was breaking, each molecular reconfiguration. He could look at the milky suspension, see a subtle change in the texture, and know what had happened. This, he thought, was what mastery felt like.

The last of his run was finished, the powder measured out into pale pink gelcaps and melted into sugared lozenges. His satchel was thick with them and heavy as a bowling ball. At a guess, he had the equivalent of his father’s retirement account on his hip. The public LEDs were dim as he walked home. His eyes felt bloodshot and gritty, but his step was light.

Aunt Bobbie was in the common room, the way she always was, doing deep lunges and watching the monitor. A young woman with skin the color of coffee and cream and pale lips was speaking seriously into the camera. A red band around her had SECURITY ALERT HIGH scrolling in four languages. David paused. When Aunt Bobbie looked back at him, not pausing in her exercises, he nodded toward the screen.

“They found plans for another bomb,” Aunt Bobbie said.

“Oh,” David said, then shrugged. It was probably better that way. Let security focus on the political intrigue. It just meant there’d be fewer eyes looking at him.

“Your mother’s asleep.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“Nariman. Work emergency.”

“All right,” David said and headed back to his room. Aunt Bobbie hadn’t noticed the bulk of his satchel, or if she had, she hadn’t mentioned it. With his door safely closed, he checked the time. Late but not too late, and between the late afternoon amphetamines and the excitement and anxiety, trying to rest wasn’t an option. Now that he had the product, all he wanted to do was get rid of it. Get it all away from him so that no one would stumble across it, get this all over with. He pulled out his hand terminal and put through a connection request to the contact Hutch had given him for emergencies only. He waited. Seconds stretched. A minute passed, and the tight feeling of panic grew in David’s gut.

The screen jumped, and Hutch was there, scowling into the camera. He was naked from the waist up, his pale hair messy. The hardness in his expression was clear, even through the connection.

“Yeah?” Hutch said. It was a noncommittal greeting. If security had been watching over David’s shoulder, they wouldn’t even be sure that he and Hutch knew each other.

“We need to meet,” David said. “Tonight. It’s important.”