Join (39 page)

It's late afternoon and, after
a long shift, Leap Three is sleeping fitfully under light covers. Leap Two dresses in a pair of tidy gray slacks and a fine white blouse and adds a touch of perfume that Ian had given Aurora before they joined. It has become one of Leap's favorites. The perfume isn't for Mark Pearsun. It's a scent for special occasions.

Leap Two finds Leap One's old handgun, a Bersa Thunder 380 CC, and cinches the holster up to fit Leap Two's more petite frame. She doesn't wear a suit jacket because she wants Mark to see the gun.

Before leaving, she puts on her long, green tweed overcoat. A gift from Josette. Then she flashes through photos on her retinal display—low-resolution, mostly transparent reproductions—until she finds a picture of Tomohiro that she loves. He's unaware that he's being captured.

He's reaching out to touch phlox that's growing in a place he hadn't planted. “How did you get here?” she can hear him saying, the way he would when he was thinking about moving a plant. He was always gentle with the garden's volunteers.

Mark is nervous and doing
a poor job of hiding it. He helps her out of her coat, a slightly awkward, old-fashioned thing to do. His hands linger on her shoulders. But she hears a
woof
of surprise when he sees the handgun.

“I'm sorry about that,” she says, laughing it off. “I brought it for you.”

“Oh, you came to kill me.” He's making a joke.

“Mark,” she says, as Josette would have.

“Yeah. I'm . . . this has all been moving very fast.”

“What has?”

“The change. You. Everything. And our conversations, which I've enjoyed. I'm off-balance, I suppose.”

He hangs up her coat but doesn't walk behind his desk. Instead, he sits in the guest chair beside her.

“Why
did
you bring the gun?” he asks.

“I guess I'm off-balance too, and frightened.”

He waits for her to say more. When she doesn't, he says, “I understand.”

“I'm glad we can talk,” Leap Two says. She looks away and allows herself to show the embarrassment and uncertainty she feels. “Well,” she says, “things really have changed, haven't they.”

“Yeah,” he says, “some things have.”

They both start talking at the same time, then stop. She stays quiet longer than he does.

“It's just incredible to see you and hear you like this,” he says. “Like the strangest dream.”

“I get a do-over,” she says. “I get to make things right.”

“You're so young. I've seen other people do it, join, but . . . what is it like? How does it feel?”

He reaches a hand toward her face, and she leans into it, letting him touch her. From the narrowed distance she can see clearly how time is hastening the changes on his face, the roughening of his skin and spreading of lines engraved by years of tension and focus. She sees the stiffness of his neck and the unconscious forward tilt that his muscles are just beginning to surrender to.

“It's too confusing,” she says. Almost a question.

“No,” he says. “It's strange, but I'm very happy you're still here.”

“And I'm glad you took my advice,” she begins. Leap suddenly feels that she is speaking through resistance. Her voice roughens and lowers as she fights herself to say the words. The difficulty makes them sound more deeply felt. “I'm glad you took my advice, and you didn't join,” she says at last. “I don't like to share.”

Their kiss is tentative, slow, as if neither fully believes it. After they separate, she watches him.

“I'm not really sure what this is, Josette,” he says. “I want to believe, but I'm not a dim schoolboy. I see what you're doing, that you're talking to me with this body.”

“It's not like that. This
is
me, Mark. It is. And I couldn't close the gap between us before. But like I said, I can do things over, in the short time I have left. Make it right.”

“Is it you—”

“Yes. It is me. I'm strong, Mark,” Leap Two says, gently speaking over his voice, quieting him. “That's important in a join.”

She leans toward him and runs a hand slowly up his arm. She is tense, her muscles flexed, but he relaxes and presses forward. Her hands are under his shirt, her nails wanting to cut, to dig into his skin. She pulls her hands down and begins loosening his belt. He's helping, and then his hands are on her back and shoulders.

“And Himiko,” she says, feeling the conflict overtake her, whispering near his cheek. “Do you feel right making love to Himiko?”

He snaps backward in the chair, but she's already standing and not where he expects her to be. She takes a step away from him.

“I should take the gun off,” she says, unholstering it.

“Josette—”

“Yes. Also here.”

Mark tries to stand but hasn't positioned his feet well and falls back into the chair. He tries to push away from her but almost tips.

“Whatever we did,” he says.

“Yes.”

“We had to. We both did it.”

“But I'm already killing myself,” she says. And she racks a round and points the gun barrel at his face.

“Josette . . . ,” he says, almost a sigh. He tilts his head and closes his eyes.

“Who do you think is standing in front of you?” she asks.

When he opens his eyes again, one slender hand hangs softly at her side; the other holds the gun. “It would have gone to shit,” he says. “The press would have eaten us.” He's not pleading. He's describing his failure. He fades into himself, mouth slightly open.

She cocks the gun. But her hand is shaking. Her finger is pushing away from the trigger, pressing hard against the back of the trigger guard.

She finally uncocks the gun. Stares at it as she shakily reengages the safety.

Mark's body jerks with a caught breath. She walks cautiously around him to the hook where her coat is hanging.

“I do love you,” she says, her back to him.

She holsters the gun, lifts her coat, finds her way to the door, and leaves.

She walks past the elevators
because she's forgotten what they do. When she gets to the fire door, she opens it. In the stairwell, she tries to catch her breath but finds herself gasping. She holds unsteadily to the rail and walks slowly down the stairs.

The evening looks warm and forgiving beyond the building's cramped lobby. She makes her way into it and crosses into the street, unsure of her destination. Then she stops. There's no traffic. It's late evening, and the area is deserted. A pod passes swiftly overhead.

Her jaw aches. She unclenches it, pulling against the muscles. Then she turns back toward the building.

She enters, goes to the elevator, and stabs the button for Mark's floor. She grunts from the sudden pain of stubbing her finger. When the elevator opens on Mark's floor, the gun is in her hand.

She walks to the door of his office and pounds on it, but he doesn't answer, so she's about to try and open it when it swings inward. Mark is pale and standing far away from the door, his eyes rimmed with red. He's not surprised to see her. At her waist, the gun is pointing at him.

His voice is hoarse, and it shivers as he says, “You know how I feel. I did what I had to do for you to survive.”

“You know that I'm both Josette and Himiko?”

“Yes.”

“I'm broken by this. You were wrong. We were wrong. I didn't survive.”

Mark doesn't answer. She's holding the gun, but this time she hasn't even disengaged the safety.

Mark's office door remains open. He doesn't speak or step into the hall as she leaves.

After working so closely together
for so many years, she had seen what he was thinking. At the critical moment, she had known with absolute certainty what he was willing to do for her. He was smart about it, as usual. Carbon monoxide poisoning wasn't as messy as a gun would have been.

Element—a join of fifteen, five
of whom are surgeons—was the primary in the join procedure between Leap and Chance. Element shows them only one drive—a florid, heavyset join with a bald, bullet head and an infectious grin that complements Element's unceasingly positive tone.

By tradition, a drive's name is retired when the drive dies, memorializing its place in what is referred to as the “canon” of the join. Each of Leap's drives now has a place in Chance's canon, becoming Chance Six through Chance Ten. The drive that had been Leap Four—the only one of Leap's drives to survive—is now Chance Nine.

The day after their procedure is officially complete, Element arrives in Chance Nine's hospital room at the head of a large group of doctors. Element is beaming.

“Well,” he says, “we've just come from the morning status meeting. As I mentioned to you yesterday, this was the meeting where the most important indicators were reviewed. I can now confirm what we have all thought to be the case: initial results are quite good. We are not completely out of the woods, but I think
we can say
at this point that your procedure, from the perspective purely of the research, has been an unqualified success. And with regard to your health, we don't see any indication of the flip persisting. We've never had a case like this before, so we aren't sure what to expect. But this is, to say the least, unprecedented and very encouraging.”

A woman whom Chance does not recognize, who is standing beside Element, says, “One of the things that makes Element so essential is his optimism. In this case, I believe it may be warranted.”

Element interjects, “I believe it is!”

“Yes,” says the woman, “but, as he also said, this is completely new territory for us. We
can
say that the join procedure was without complication and that initial results regarding the flip are very encouraging.”

“They are!” Element says. “They truly are.” He moves closer to the head of the bed and peers into Chance Nine's face. “And you?” he asks. “How are you feeling?”