No Life But This (5 page)

I looked up at the ceiling. Finally,
I touched my forehead and signed,
‘I don’t know.’

‘How could you just ignore this?’ Quin said. The anger was back, but it simmered now under every word.

I couldn’t hold it back anymore, as much as I wanted to. Tears burned up my face until a few leaked from my eyes. I tried to blink them away. ‘
I didn’t want it to be true,’
I signed, my gestures small and inhibited.

With a sound of annoyance,
Quin took my hand and held the backs of my fingers to his forehead. I so rarely touched him that his mind was a bit of a shock. Usually his mind was nothing but scornful contempt, and I never wanted to spend much time there. Indeed, his surface thoughts at this moment were the words, ‘
You burning sped
,’ but it was venomless. His anger was broken now, an armour that had been breached. His skin
felt hot, and beneath his hopeless words his mind was one long, slow death knell of ‘
No!’

It was worse than Penny’s panic. And much deeper. Quin gripped my fingers so hard they hurt. I hadn’t realized until this moment how much of Quin’s identity was based around us. He was always so cruel and violent it was hard to remember he loved us. He loved us with a passion as violent as the rest of his
nature, and the idea that I was dying was a stake through his heart. I tried to comfort him, but it was too deep a pain to be reached, let alone soothed. Maybe if I was more used to his mindscape I could have found my way to do it, but he had always made it such an unfriendly atmosphere. Quin was alone in this. Finally, he let me go.

‘
Don’t tell the girls,
’ I signed to him.

‘I wouldn’t,’ Quin
said. He looked at me. ‘You need to tell Dr Svarog.’

‘I know.’

He nodded his head and left. He paused in the doorway. ‘Get some rest, brother,’ he said gently.

With one hand I flashed him the sign for
I love you.
He said nothing, but he did wave it back.

Quin had never done such a thing before.

They kept me in bed for two days. At first they wouldn’t even let me have my notescreen. I lay battling headaches and boredom and bouts of nausea as my muscles ached – and my heart ached, too.

I wanted to talk to Rose. She hadn’t come to visit me, and I wondered if I’d scared her off. When Tristan finally brought me my screen I was so glad I could have jumped up and hugged her, except
that my head hurt so badly I could barely move it.

I hooked on a link to Rose immediately, but it was far too early. Her name just blinked unanswered on my screen. I assumed she was in her studio. She never brought her screen or her cell into her studio when she was painting seriously. I’d only been in Rose’s studio a few times, but every time I had I just wanted to sit there for hours. On the
wall at the foot of my bed at UniPrep I had one of Rose’s landscapes. A large blue-black icescape which Rose always said was meant to be Europa. She’d seen some photographs of the glaciers, but this was her own composition. It was stunningly beautiful, the lights and shadows drawing your eye from one portion of the canvas to another. Most people thought it was abstract, but I could see the intricate
accuracy she had painted into the shadows. I could stare at that painting for hours. Staring at the blank wall at the lab, I wished someone had brought me Rose’s painting.

She had given it to me last spring, as I was getting over my broken arm. I’d sustained that broken arm trying to protect her from the Plastine assassin her parents had set after her. I probably shouldn’t have put myself in
the way of an undead plasticized robotic corpse, but I was in love – I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I couldn’t take much in the way of painkillers, and the electricity-based bone structure accelerators made my head short out, so I had to just wait until my body adapted and healed. I couldn’t do much. Rose had brought me the blue ice world of Europa as a thank you.

Last spring, everything had
seemed so easy. I had felt so sure of myself, so secure of my place with Rose. Like a fool, I had thought that once we cleared the Plastine out of the way, and I’d helped Rose find her strength, we’d fall in naturally. Like I had with Nabiki. I had been far too confident in my abilities. It hadn’t happened that way. Once she had moved in with Xavier she’d actually distanced herself from me. It made
sense, in a way. In her old life, it was Xavier she had shared things with. When she thought he was gone, she had desperately reached out for that kind of connection with someone – anyone – else. Now that reaching tendril of her emotional briars was anchored again, and it wasn’t connected to me. Instead of things getting easier, they got harder and even more confused.

And I had no Nabiki to discuss
it with. I couldn’t talk about it to Bren or to Rose, since they were both principal players. That left Dr Bija, and my crush seemed so petty and juvenile compared to what I’d gone through with the dying times and my adjustment to the world outside the lab that I felt silly trying to sort it out with her.

I lightly touched Rose’s name on my screen. As if I could caress her that way.

(
You’re
being very stupid about her, you know.)

I closed my eyes.
‘Stop it.’

(Why should I? You dance back and forth about her, moaning in your sleep, no less, and I have to listen to it.)

‘Shut up!’

(It doesn’t matter anyway. You’ll be like me soon enough.)

‘And what will happen to you then?’
I asked angrily. As usual, 42 didn’t have an answer for that one.

I had to wait quite a bit before Rose
noticed I’d linked up. I updated my journal as I waited, and tried to work on some poetry, but my head wasn’t in it. It ached too much.

My screen dinged and I turned back to the netfeed page. Otto! Are you still there? Are you okay?

I ache a bit. Are you all right?

Your doctors say so. But I’m worried. They got really quiet at one point and wanted to talk to Xavier privately.

Don’t worry about
it. It’s just the stass reaction stuff I noticed the first time I touched you.

Briars and bright spots.

Yeah. I’ll bet it’s the same stuff they see in the brain scans of frequent interplanetary travellers, just more advanced.

I hope so. Otto, what happened? I was really scared.

No one’s sure
,
I wrote. This was true. No one was sure what had caused the dying time, either. I’ll be okay
.
That
was a blatant lie. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to protect her. Are you?

I think so.

I felt ill even thinking about it, but I needed to ask her. Did I hurt you?

I’m okay.

I stared at that. That’s not answering my question.

And I said I’m okay.

She still wasn’t answering my question. I take it I don’t want to know the answer?

She didn’t reply.

I’m sorry.

It’s not your fault.

Yes it is.
It was reckless, and I shouldn’t have done it.

Done what? Gone for a swim?

With you.

There was a long pause before Rose wrote, Quin said much the same. He said it was my fault.

I tried really hard not to throw the screen across the room in frustration. Quin doesn’t know coit all about it. And after I kill him, I’ll tell him that.

Quin was just trying to protect you.

Quin’s protection in
the past has resulted in weeks in the lab infirmary, I wrote. His idea of what’s best for me is usually loud insults, cruel pranks, or his fist in my face.

I’ve never seen him hit you.

Well, I conceded. He has grown up some in the last few years. And he’s worried he’ll get sent back to the lab if he’s as violent as he usually wants to be. That doesn’t mean he knows what’s best for me. I’m the
only one who gets to decide that.

Rose didn’t respond for a long time. I’m not used to thinking that way, she admitted.

I suddenly felt like a sped. I was saying that to a victim of emotional abuse. I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring stuff up.

That’s okay. It’s my own can of worms.

We have plenty of those to share between us.

We do, don’t we. She paused. I miss you.

That surprised
me. Then come see me.

They won’t let me.

What? Who won’t?

I’m not sure.

I sighed. Sometimes Rose became so biddable and passive it was exasperating. It was a habit she would fall back to, like nicohol or nail-biting. It had once been a survival mechanism – the only method she had to keep her parents from stassing her – but it was only detrimental now. She didn’t have to be like that. Is it
Xavier or the lab?  I asked, trying to point out the obvious. This question was basically a wash, because if the lab said no, Mr Zellwegger could have made them change their minds.

I’m not sure if it’s your doctors or your brother.

I heard laughter in my mind that wasn’t mine. Cruel laughter.
‘Shut up!’
I told 42 fiercely. I think you can be reasonably assured that it’s Quin, I wrote. He’s decided
not to like you.

What a shock, Rose wrote, with her occasional wry sense of humour. I chuckled. You mean I haven’t won him over with my charming personality?

It would take a lump hammer to charm Quin.

I’ll go buy one.

Get the super family pack, I wrote. You’ll likely need more than one.

I will. But your doctors agree with Quin, and I think Xavier agrees with them. He kept making them take
neuroscans on me. At first Xavier thought you were the one messing ME up. He was really angry. Well, no, he was all stiff and dark sounding, but that’s how he gets angry, now he’s older. Quin thinks it’s the other way around, that I’m the one who hurt you. Are you sure Quin’s not right? I mean … my brain is weird. You said so yourself. If I wasn’t all stass twisted, would you be hospitalized at the
lab right now?

Rose, you are who you are. There’s no ‘if’ about it. You can have no one’s life but yours.

But my life just sent you into convulsions.

I closed my eyes. Whatever it was
,
I wrote carefully, it wasn’t you.

She didn’t answer.

So what are you dreaming that’s making you feel guilty? I frequently asked her about her dreams. I’d realized several months ago that Rose’s dreams usually
spoke more for Rose’s world as it really was than her conscious mind.

You’re turning inside out. I’m in the pool and I’ve reached inside your head and turned you inside out. There was a long pause before she added, There was a lot of blood. They had to drain the pool.

That probably had more to do with clearing my DNA out of the filters. I told you. I don’t own my own blood. UniCorp does. Anywhere
any of us get hurt they bleach out immediately, and we’re not allowed to throw away any of our clothes or sheets. We have to incinerate any hair we comb out.

There was a hesitation before she wrote, There was a lot of blood.

I realized something. You’ve never seen anything like that, have you.

Not in person, no. Not with anyone I cared about.

She’d missed the Dark Times. She hadn’t grown up
with the memory of all that death in the social consciousness. I’m sorry.

It’s okay.

You’d be saying that even if it wasn’t.

Probably. Oh, honestly, Otto, am I supposed to get mad at you for nearly dying at my birthday party? It’s not as if you did it on purpose.

No.

You sure it wasn’t me?

Yes.

Otto?

Yes?

Is this likely to happen again?

(
Of course it is! Again and again until it finally
wins … and you become just like me.)

I closed my eyes to block the laughter out of my head.
‘I got rid of you two years ago,
’ I told 42.
‘Shoo.’

(You never got rid of me. You just stopped paying attention.)

Rose was still linked up. You’re not answering my question. I take it I won’t like the answer?

I hedged. What did Xavier and my doctor say?

Nothing about you. Only that you were getting
the best care possible.

So, then.

Otto, are you dying?

I blinked at the screen. Wow. She just came right out and said it. I could just picture her face as she wrote it, too. Hard and pale, as it always got when she asked tough questions of people.

(Tell her the truth.)

‘I don’t want to.’

Talk to me, Rose begged.

What do you want me to say?

The truth.

I couldn’t answer. I didn’t want to
lie to her.

She realized that. Oh, hell. If everything was fine, you’d have said so.

She was right. She wasn’t stupid, Rose. I’m scared
,
I finally wrote. I didn’t think I’d be so scared.

There was nothing on the other line for a long, long time. I was afraid of what was happening, what I couldn’t see on the other side of the screen. Finally my screen dinged. I don’t know what I’d do without
you.

Carry on, my love.

What?

Read it again. The words are still on the screen.

That’s all you can say? Just go on?

Yes. Go on. There are no other choices. That’s what I did. It’s what we all do when we lose people. Keep living.

That’s not fair.

Life isn’t fair. I thought you’d figured that out a while ago.

Shut up!

Easy enough, I wrote dryly.

I can’t believe you’re just accepting this.

(Are you?)

What am I supposed to do? I wrote.

Fight!

Who?! I pounded out on my screen. What? I would give anything for the ability to even know what this was. But it isn’t anything. It’s just an end.

(
And you’ve been living on borrowed time as it is,)
42 whispered.

I don’t believe that. We could find something. Look for new doctors. Maybe we could, I don’t know … buy you some time.

I blinked
at the screen. You mean stasis, don’t you.

It couldn’t hurt. You’d be safe.

Anyone else would have been shocked that she’d even suggested it. Of all people in the world, Rose had to know the harm that prolonged stasis could cause. But I knew how Rose thought. She had grown up thinking the abuse normal. Though she was now of the opinion that the forcible stasis against her will was indeed a terrible
thing, she still couldn’t see the horror that was continued suspended animation, as the world carried on without you, and you were held back and back and back. It seemed a tool to her, sinister only in certain applications. Of course, despots think of torture as a tool, also.

I tried to be gentle. Rose. I love you. I do. But I’d rather die.

Don’t say that!

Rose.

Now you read these words. I’m
not going to let you just die!

Rose, do you think you have any choice? You can’t control whether people live or die.

She didn’t answer.

Rose?

There was no response. None at all. After a few minutes the link cut out automatically. She’d turned off her screen.

Hurriedly, I scrabbled on my bedside table for my cell. I rarely used the thing, considering I couldn’t talk, but it had its uses. It
was preprogrammed to respond to some of the noises I could make. I summoned Rose’s cell number with a low whistle, but she didn’t answer. Coit, I had to make this better! I brought up Bren with a different tune. Bren answered a second later. A hologramatic image of his head looked surprised as I held it in my hand. ‘Otto, what’s up?’

I brushed the sign of an ‘R’ by my cheek, which was the abbreviation
for Rose’s name. ‘You need Rose?’

I nodded. His image shifted as he started walking. ‘What’s wrong? Her screen not working?’ I shook my head, but I couldn’t get much more detailed than that. Finally, I heard the sound of a knock as Bren arrived at Rose’s condo.

After a minute Bren’s face disappeared as he slid the cell into his hand to talk to his grandfather. ‘Can I see Rose?’

I could hear
the old man’s voice distantly over the tiny speaker. ‘I’m afraid Rose is a bit ill right now, Bren.’

After a pause Bren asked, ‘Can I help?’