Join (21 page)

An older man in an
aisle seat across from Leap Four leans toward her.

“You're all joined, aren't you?” the man says, meaning her, Chance Two on her left, and Leap One. The three of them fill the row's three center seats. He's about sixty-five, medium build, wearing a dark blue tank top, with a broad, bristly jaw and a walrus mustache. His gray hair shows remnants of an auburn color.

Leap Four, sitting closest to him, says, “Video-ID us.”

“Ah, nah, I wouldn't be much if I couldn't tell,” says the man. “The three of you are joined. Two women and a man. ‘You are not a gendered entity.'” He puts the last sentence in air quotes.

During the trial of one thousand, Hamish Lyons had tried to popularize the phrase “It is not a gendered entity” as a way to counter the sloppy use of gender pronouns when referring to a join. But people didn't stop using gender pronouns, and the saying lost currency. Now, pronouns are chosen to emphasize the action of a particular drive or to highlight an idea. There's still wide variation in their use, influenced by fashion and regional differences. The old phrase is considered something between cutely and clumsily ironic.

Leap can't quite smile at the man's joke and instead says, “Have you ever guessed wrong?”

To Chance's left, Leap One sits back and closes his eyes. Chance smells sour alcohol from the man whom Leap is talking with.

“Not that I know of,” the man says, with a smile that's actually charming.

“Well, I guess your intuition is pretty good,” Leap Four says, and turns to face forward, hoping to end the conversation.

“I like your music,” the man says.

Surprised, Leap says, “What?” And immediately regrets reengaging the man in conversation.

“You know,” he says, “the music that joins make, I like it. I think it's sexy.”

Leap Four turns to him again. “You're solo?”

“Like the good Lord made me.”

Leap thinks it over, then says, “Sounds like you think we've done something wrong.”

“Oh, no, no. Not at all. I'm all for it, Join. But not for me. I don't swing that way, but, you know, whatever floats your boat.”

Leap nods and turns to face forward again.

“I think it's kind of sexy,” the man says. “The three of you. The one of me.”

Leap Four is ignoring him.

“Anyway,” the man continues, “I like your music. Your a cappella music. Harmonies are unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah. And jazz. Don't get me started. I wanted to play jazz, but nobody listens to jazz from solos anymore. How about that? We invented it. We invented jazz.”

Leap Four pointedly closes her eyes, her broad face tense. Chance faces forward as well.

“Even people who want more than one perspective in their music still think having a lot of different joins is better than solos,” the man says. “Can you believe that?”

In the face of silence from Leap and Chance, the man's voice softens, becomes reflective. “I am a musical genius,” he says. “I think.
I
think I am. Alto sax. I am a damn alto sax musical genius, and I can't get a job.”

Leap Four opens her eyes; something that the man has said has gotten to Leap. She turns toward him. “I'm sorry,” she says.

After observing her for a moment, he says, “You're a musician, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it. I just knew it. You three are all joined, and you're probably an all-alto-sax musical trio! Aren't you? Aren't you?”

Leap laughs. “No, no,” she says. “That's me,” she indicates Leap One on the other side of Chance. Then points to Chance. “She's a friend.”

“Ah,” says the man. “Two alto saxes and percussion.”

Leap laughs again, “No. I play guitar. I was a fanatic for it, in one of my childhoods. With that drive I'm pretty good. With the rest, well, I can plunk around.”

“One of your childhoods,” the man says. “Huh. That's such a strange phrase, ‘one of my childhoods,' you know? I mean, I only had those years once. I spent them learning alto sax. Because I loved it. It was everything to me, you know?”

“Yes,” says Leap.

“No, you don't,” says the man. “Nothing has ever meant that much to you. You know, I've thought about moving to a feral community. Really. To fight for solos. But, nah, I'm just too old. I'm not serious enough about things, you know? But I sure do hate what the world has become. And I mean it. Your kind. Everything.”

Leap turns away from the
man, stares forward again, and closes her eyes. The drive's pulse was quickened by the bitterness in the man's last few words. With many solos, there are topics that are understandably painful, often around decisions they've made or regrets they have about what might have happened if they had chosen some other path in life.

Leap believes they're often thinking, If I were a join, I could have tried both options. But you can't rerun time, no matter how many drives you have. They don't understand that. Even if they're sensitive and listening closely. And if they do experience insight that's similar to real understanding, it's only temporary. And the truth is, joins do experience choice differently. After a join, each choice is still final, but no choice is as critical. There's a difference; it's just not the difference that solos imagine.

Within that distinction lies a gap that separates joins and solos utterly. Joins have lived on both sides of the gap. For solos who resist joining—because they can't afford it, because they're proud, they're afraid, or they just don't want to—the gap can become a cipher, encoding what they desire, what they've lost, what they want to destroy.

Apple Two is tending bar
at Whatever You Want with someone Chance doesn't recognize backing him. Leap One—a bit worn, his beard scruffier than usual, his hair darkening the top of his head again—has accompanied Chance One to the bar. Of Chance's drives, Chance One has the most natural charisma. It might help cover for Leap One's intensity.

It's late afternoon, the beginnings of a happy-hour crowd. These are people who worked at the hospital with Chance Three. Some may know Chance One. Chance has set a privacy flag on his status, if anyone bothers to check.

A woman named Relief, in one of the booths in back, catches his eye. Her mouth half opens, and she turns away quickly to say something to her two companions. She starts to rise from her seat. Then she hesitates—she probably viewed his profile. She stops, looks over toward him, and nods her sympathy. He acknowledges her. She smiles sadly and sits back down. So, some people do check profiles before saying hello. He's always liked her.

Chance and Leap have agreed that a search for Rope is likely to be fruitless, but what choice does Leap have? Leap has also mentioned reaching out to some of the better-known names in alternate quantum research for leads on either flips or on Rope. Chance thinks Leap is probably doing that, but Leap hasn't shared any results.

Chance believes that the likelihood of Leap finding a treatment is nil, whether they locate Rope or not. For Chance, this search is about spending time with a friend who is dying.

Apple gestures at Chance to
wait for a moment. At first, Chance is surprised that Apple recognizes Chance One. Then he realizes that after what happened, Apple would have looked up Chance and his drives.

Apple hands off a drink, then moves toward Chance One and Leap One. He peers at them both closely and then turns away and says, “I'm glad you came back.” He doesn't look at Chance as he continues, “Look, I thought he—Rope—was all talk. I don't know what else to say. I'm just really sorry.”

For a moment, Chance can't respond. The memory of the violent disconnection from Chance Three in this same building blinds him. Each of his drives pauses.

“He wasn't all talk,” he says, and anger settles on him.

It's a crueler response than he'd like. Apple had warned him about Rope; Apple certainly isn't to blame. But that reply is the best Chance is capable of at the moment. He realizes two things: that he does blame Apple, though he can't understand why, and that he should have prepared for this conversation, left a couple of drives sleeping so he'd have more cycles available to manage his emotional response. But he didn't. It will be more of a struggle to say things the way he'd like to.

“Yeah,” Apple says, then waits for Chance to regain his composure. He asks whether Chance wants a drink.

“No,” Chance says. Apple points at Leap One, who also declines.

“Okay,” says Apple, and waits to find out why Chance has come.

“I'd like to find him,” Chance says.

“You want to find who?”

“Rope,” Chance says. “I'd like to find him.”

Apple shakes his head slowly. “Doesn't seem like a good idea.”

“Maybe not,” says Chance.

“He's been picked up,” Apple says.

“Reports are that two of his drives are unaccounted for,” Chance says. “No one knows where they are.”

“Fuck!” Apple says. Then he holds up a hand in the face of surprise at his outburst. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry,” he says. “Look, I'm scared he's gonna come back, you know. I told you he threatened me. Threatened to kill my drives. I thought he was just an asshole, but then, when he did that to you—” Apple's face flushes. He looks down at the bar as he keeps talking. Chance has the stray thought that looking away might be a habit Apple picked up while working in bars, to help endure the reckless confidences of strangers.

“I wouldn't want my path, or yours, to cross that guy's again,” Apple continues. “Anyway, you were a join doctor. I've heard it's not that hard to find drives and maybe even kill them without getting close. Is that true?”

“It's complicated, but there's a lot of truth to it, yeah,” says Chance. “And that's the thing. They can't find his drives. My friend”—Chance indicates Leap—“thinks maybe Rope has found a way to mask his drives.”

“Is that possible?” asks Apple. “Do you think it would work?”

“I don't know. I've seen things in the last few weeks . . . maybe I don't know as much about it as I thought.”

Apple is still looking away. “Why do you think Rope would know anything unusual?” he asks. “He's just a regular guy.”

“That's not what you said before.” Chance is a bit taken aback. “You said he was one of the first five hundred. That he knew Music. I think you said he was connected. It sounded like he knew some of the original researchers or people high up at Vitalcorp.”

“Maybe,” Apple says. “He said a lot of things. I don't know. I mean, he was a big talker.”

Leap says, “You look scared.”

Apple glances at Leap. “Yeah, I am. I'm—I can't lose a drive.”

“Look, I understand,” says Chance, surprised that he's suddenly trying to make Apple feel better. “I just have a problem. I need to talk with someone . . . For my friend. If there are things that aren't commonly known about the quantum network. My friend is sick. You know, I helped invent a technique for finding drives. It should work. But Rope might be out there still. At least, according to Civ News. So maybe he knows something. We're grasping at straws.”