Join (5 page)

Soon, Five's pulse is a lightly driving tympanic time-and-a-half beat above the structuring bass of the other three hearts that are beating together. For a brief time, Chance falls into something of a trance, maintaining just enough awareness to keep connected to Chance Two's routine.

It's that entrancing, peaceful sensation that explains why Chance barely gets out of the house in time to make the meeting with Rope. Chance Three and Chance Four fly off in different pods.

One and Five are going back to sleep.

Bartender Apple is sitting on
a stool in back of the bar when Chance Three enters. Across a pony wall, the restaurant has a weekend crowd bustling in for breakfast. Waitress Apple isn't around. A short, bald drive with a pleasant, relaxed demeanor rises from conversation at the bar with Apple and walks toward the door. “Glad you could make it,” he says. “Rope Three.” He extends his hand, and Chance shakes it. He appears to be in his midsixties, wearing a loose gray cardigan, tan slacks, and loafers.

“I guess your other drive is probably—” Chance begins.

“Knocked out,” Rope finishes the thought. His smile is avuncular. His eyes crinkle in a friendly way. “How's this one doing?” he asks, meaning Chance Three.

“All right,” Chance says. “I was moving slowly this morning, though.”

“I bet. You want to step into the restaurant?”

“Sure. I'll have coffee.”

“Oh, you already ate?”

Leap Two does that twitch
thing. They've completed their ascent, and Chance Two just notices it from the corner of her eye. She says, “You did it again.” They hit an air pocket, and the plane shudders.

“Start a vid if you're so excited,” Leap says, deadpan.

“Look,” Chance says, “I don't know what it is. But I'm seeing something real. You know I'm a doctor, right? Does it happen to your other drives too, or is it just this one.”

“I think you're maybe stressed by the cancer,” Leap says. “As a doctor, you know the odds of that too. I bet you're outlying right now, running all five drives and not getting enough rest. I'm gonna be completely straight with you, Chance.” Leap stops watching her instruments and turns to Chance. She's calm, her voice even, concerned. “I don't have a tic, or whatever it is you think you've seen. I'd know if I did. I'd have seen it in a mirror. I'd have felt it. I'd have knocked something over.”

When she's annoyed, Leap is always willing to say whatever she thinks will give her space. It's ludicrous to suggest that Chance's sick drive is creating perceptual distortion in Chance's join. There are documented cases, but that's an absurdly rare syndrome that requires real weakness in the rest of the join.

“If you're implying what I think you're implying, then I'm fine,” Chance says. “I'm only running three right now. The sick one's down. And my One.”

“Not enough,” says Leap. A smile is teasing the corners of her mouth.

Chance can't help but laugh. “Jeez. I'm the doctor,” she says.

“I'm an EMT,” says Leap.

“In an ER,” says Chance.

“You should be careful,” Leap says. “You're experiencing a trauma.”

“I know what I'm doing,” Chance says. “I can't rest all my other drives. I have things to do.”

“Nothing that important,” Leap says.

“So now we're talking about me.”

“Yes. But like I'm saying, I'm pretty sure that's what we've been doing all along.”

“
Yeah, I ate, that's why
I'm a little late.” Chance knows his Three drive just showed a hint of guilt, which is fine. Three felt stretched and dried this morning and needed the food when he got it.

Rope looks thoughtful. “We could walk,” he offers.

“No, no, I could use another cup of coffee. You probably haven't eaten.”

“No, I haven't.” Rope smiles. Chance motions toward the restaurant, and they start walking.

As they cross into the restaurant with Rope in front, a big man walks with them, walking beside Chance. He's about as tall as the drive Chance met last night but broader in the shoulders.

Rope stops for a moment and turns to face Chance. The big man stops as well. “That's me,” Rope says, indicating the other man. “I hope you don't mind.”

“No, not at all,” says Chance, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. This additional Rope is wearing charcoal slacks, a white dress shirt. He looks like a bodybuilder. The aisle through the bar is not wide. The new Rope drops back, and Chance is now walking between Rope's drives.

“This is my Fourteen,” says the big Rope, from behind Chance.

Chance Four is sitting in
a closed pod near a reflecting pool, a couple of minutes from the restaurant. She's found Rope online and is stepping through public records for his drives, trying to calculate the number of people who joined to create Rope. Twelve of them are documented, but there are current references to him being a nine. The few older references she finds set him at different numbers, up to eighteen, and there doesn't seem to be a pattern to the numbers. Sometimes, he's mentioned as a nine, maybe a month later a fourteen, then a three. It's very strange, and there isn't any explanation of how he might be adding or subtracting drives.

But there is an article from several years ago about a drive's death from alcohol poisoning. The article notes Rope's “tragic history,” explaining that this is the third of Rope's drives to die over a very short period.

There's a little information about Rope Fourteen, the big drive who just sat down to breakfast with Chance. The drive was a feral. “Feral” is a term applied mostly to solos in communities that reject Join, but it also sometimes means people who are ideologically against it. Rope Fourteen grew up outside of civilization. He was living near the lava plains in eastern Washington when he joined. He's got security training but doesn't have a job.

Rope Three, on the other hand, is a city administrator and the oldest remaining drive in the join. A very well preserved ninety-one years old. Rope has apparently scrubbed his data stream. Rope Three's daily activities are locked up, and what Civ News can be found about him is pretty generic.

Both Ropes are on one
side of a restaurant booth; Chance Three is on the other. Rope Fourteen is saying, “As you may be aware by now, Fourteen was feral. It's very rare and potentially dangerous to join a feral. I include a few. So I guess I'm a little feral myself now.” Fourteen and Three both produce an identical, toothy smile. Nothing friendly about it.

“I've read the literature,” Chance responds. (Chance Four is now doing a quick review of the join literature for feral solos.)

Chance Three says, “With multiple feral joins, there's a significantly elevated risk of—”

“Yes,” Rope Fourteen cuts him off. “Whatever your Four is reading right now, I've already read it. I did the risk analysis. I found mitigations. I did the joins. They were without ill effect.” The Ropes smile again.

Chance is surprised. “How did you know it was my Four?”

“I'm something of a network geek.”

Chance leans back. Rope includes the accumulated experience of—if Civ News is to be believed—a staggering number of individuals, up to twenty-five. Chance is one of those who believe that very large joins can be at risk of acquiring an arrogance so potent and overweening that it becomes their dominant trait. It's far more likely when a join is composed of similar individuals, though. Rope doesn't strike Chance as overly arrogant, but ignoring the warnings of good research is definitely a negative indication.

“I found mitigations,” Rope Three continues, “that are not in the literature.”

“Do you mean you're,” Chance says, “experimenting on yourself? What sort of mitigations?”

This time, only Rope Three smiles. He says, “Why did you come over and talk with me last night?”

Chance says, “Well, what sort of mitigations are you using? You know this kind of thing is right in my professional wheelhouse.”

“Yes,” Rope Three says. “You're a join doctor. I thought mentioning that might get your attention. I'll tell you soon. But I know you're unlikely to believe that what I'm practicing, my techniques, actually work. You'll think, If they're effective, why aren't they documented? Right? So I promise I'll tell you what they are. But before that, I think we should learn a little more about each other. Why did you come over to talk to me last night? You have a new drive that's terminally ill. I think you said it was cancer, is that right?”

“Yes,” says Chance.

“Fourteen will order for us. You want a doppio and a turmeric bear claw?”

Chance's biopage notes those as favorites. Rope has done his research.

“Thanks,” Chance says. “Okay. Well, my Five's a student. My name was Javier, before joining.”

And Chance suddenly remembers playing the hologame Fatal Ride with his best friend, Alain, in the old apartment that smelled of mildew. Alain was ruthless, an invaluable ally until the critical moment. Then he did whatever was needed to win.