Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5) (9 page)

Around four in the morning, when Laura returned to the LA
apartment, her mother was staring at an on-line shopping screen. These things
soothed her.
Then again, so does the screen saver
. Even though Laura
held her shoes in her hand, Kaguya snapped awake the moment her daughter passed
within seven meters. “What took you so long?”

Laura rolled her eyes. “I paid a
visit to our dashing prosecutor and milked him for some strategy hints.”

“All night?” Kaguya complained.

“I can’t stun them with a touch the
way you can. I had to use the special perfume and wait until he fell asleep
afterward to use his computer.”

“Dangerous. You might get caught
and cause a mistrial, or whatever it’s called.”

“I paid the rent for Enrico, a male
stripper in the same apartment building. I made sure the media drones saw us
kissing. I grabbed his butt for effect.”

“Wait, you rented him or his
apartment?”

“Potayto, potahto. I used his
shower to eliminate the perfume, and he threw in the rest for free.”

Her mother smirked. “Llewellyn
stirred up some unexpected emotions?”

“I needed to get rid of my excess
hormones if I want to think with a clear head tomorrow.”

“What did you find out about your
own history?”

Laura chose her words carefully,
unsure what would push her mother’s fragile psyche over the edge. “Did my
father … force you to do something on his last visit?”

“Never. He woke something in me. He
visited me more than my own family during the dark times.”

“He was married.”

“He also didn’t want me to be stuck
in a trance for decades without him. He left a vial for me as a gift, and you
were born on Christmas.”

“Artificial insemination?”

“Conrad would never cheat on his
wife, even though his marriage was a farce.”

“How so?”

Kaguya crossed her arms in front of
her newest kimono. “He had been selected to command the shuttle trip to the
artifact. No one could turn that down. We trained our entire lives for it. When
I was disqualified, he had to pair with one of the other crew members. Those
were the mission rules.” Her voice had a spun-sugar fantasy edge to it. She had
obviously told herself this tale many times. “He was forced to choose Mira
because she had most of my talents and the key team members for the mission.”

Laura probed the fantasy gingerly.
“Why were you disqualified?”

Her mother averted her eyes. “Your
grandfather made me commit a little harmless corporate espionage. Mira’s
friends on the faculty found out and blackmailed me into leaving the academy.”
Kaguya began to twist the belt on her kimono like a neck.

Pulling the loose strap out of her
mother’s hand, Laura changed the subject. “I couldn’t find the files for
my
modifications, but the fertility doctor supervised a follow-on, Project
Legion.” Laura paused, searching for a delicate way to state this. “Based on
the notes, the doctor must have harvested the rest of your eggs after my birth
to prevent a repeat performance.”

“I got to keep you. It was worth
the trade,” Kaguya said, touching the back of Laura’s hand affectionately.

Laura made a fist. “That bastard
used them all in experiments. Fifty potential brothers and sisters, and he
played dice with their lives. Grandfather had them do something to the eggs to
make all of them come up male.”
He was trying to mass-produce for some
genetic trait. A woman could only supply a limited number of eggs—the ones she
was born with. A man could produce millions of sperm a day.

Kaguya covered her mouth. “One in
twenty children should have survived.”

Holding her mother tight, she
whispered, “Only one of the batch made it to adulthood, a fluke. I’m so sorry.
All the others died.”
Some of them in slow and painful ways, all for the
gods of science and profit.

“I have another child? You have a
brother?”

“Sort of. He was marked defective.”
Laura swallowed hard. “He’s six centimeters taller than our father as a result
of XYY syndrome. They worry about his … aggressiveness. Though they won’t let
him study math because of the Quantum Computing, he spends most of his time
reading.”

“Conrad was so tall they had to
give him special permission to enter the space program. This boy must be a
giant.”

“The boy’s nickname is Monty. It’s
French for mountain, and
The Count of Monte Cristo
is his favorite book.
His IQ is high enough that he’s escaped custody twice.” Laura could feel the
bittersweet shine of her mother’s pride. “They’ve moved him to the Antarctic
observatory, on the part that hasn’t melted yet. Monty likes the sled dogs.”

Kaguya said, “Don’t tell anyone
about this. If your grandparents find out, they’ll move him again. They
probably want to use him as a bargaining chip with Conrad.”

Laura urged her mother to sit. “I
have an important question.”

“You can ask me anything, dearest
Tsukiko.”

“Why did you try to fry my father’s
brain?”

Kaguya frowned, but she didn’t
crumble. “It was an accident. Your grandfather wanted to eliminate Daniel
Fortune. I arranged that without killing a single human being. When I put
Fortune into a coma, Conrad experienced backlash through the collective link.
He always was sensitive. Clearly, he forgave me.” She began retelling the story
of how the great Conrad visited her in the institution.

Kissing her mother on the forehead,
Laura said, “I have to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.” Glancing at the wall
screen, she asked, “Did you buy anything interesting tonight?”

“Camping gear and a spacesuit for
you—for when your father returns for us. Since you’re going to be free, you can
come, too. As soon as the UN absolves Conrad, we can be a family.”

****

The next day of court, Laura monitored several aspects of
the proceedings and napped in the waiting room during the slow periods. She
wore a red pantsuit to appear more modest. She woke at one point to find Stu
covering her with his jacket. No one but her mother had ever treated her so
tenderly.

At noon Tuesday, Stewart returned
from a session to eat lunch. Once in the room with her, he removed his surgical
mask. “Your disease expert bored the stuffing out of everyone.”

She nodded. “We could tell by the
amount of Internet surfing going on inside while he lectured. Several people
had to look up the concept of a naïve immune system.”

“Yeah. The prosecutor wrote a
one-line summary on the whiteboard. No herpes or flu virus means I was either
raised in a sterile lab or in space.”

“I assume he was referring to
chicken pox.”

“Sure. What else would he mean?”

“Never mind. Did they believe him?”
Laura asked.

“They may not have understood him.
I explained how
Sanctuary
scrubbed all viruses from my folks before they
entered the biosphere.”

With awe in her voice, Laura asked,
“You’ve never been sick?”

“Just once. When the prosecutor
asked me to prove my parentage in layman’s terms, I pointed them to the tape of
my reaction to those painkillers on the last court-hearing recording. Mom’s
allergy was pretty well known.” He held up a Medic-Alert bracelet. “Lena brought this for me before she testified again.”

“About?”

“Me being from off-planet.”

“We’re making great progress,” she
said, clasping his hand.

He closed his eyes to savor her
touch. “Maybe we could eat lunch outside. It’s a beautiful day.”

She shook her head. “Too many media
bots crowding around. They’re desperate for anything to report about this case,
but you can’t repeat anything you’ve learned from the jury proceedings.”

“What surprises do you have in
store for me today?”

“Kobe steak with tempura.” She
showed him a tray with artfully arranged, battered-and-fried vegetables. The
shredded carrots resembled frost-covered trees.

“Gorgeous, as usual,” he said,
glancing up into her face.

She gazed deep into his eyes, a
common seduction technique. “Wait until you try a mouthful of this beef. It’s
been pampered its whole life, massaged, and then bathed in butter. It will melt
in your mouth as it willingly yields up its flavor to you.”

“Oo. Could you cut that for me?”
Stu asked. “I promised I wouldn’t hold any weapons while I’m in custody.”

Gladly, Laura fed him the steak as
he looked heavenward in bliss. “You have got to try some of this,” he insisted.

“This
is
my lunch. My mother
brought it for me.”

“Then why aren’t you shaped like a
Sumo wrestler?” he asked.

“Vigorous exercise,” she replied.

“You should have some, at least
half. I feel guilty.”

With her fingers, she dipped a
cauliflower into thin tempura sauce. “This will cleanse your palette so you can
experience the next bite with the same enjoyment.”

He licked the sauce from her
lingering fingers. “Your mom has to be the best cook ever.”

Doesn’t he know about takeout
food?
She blurted the next words automatically. “Would you like to tell her
that in person?”

Stu wiped his mouth on a napkin.
“Me meet your mother? I’d be honored.”

“I’ll arrange a late meal tonight.
Eight?”

“I’m easy.” He offered her a piece
of the exquisite steak. “Your turn.”

Laura accepted the bite. “When the
grand jury is over, is there anywhere special you’d like to go? Anything you’d
like to see?”

Leaning close to her, Stu said, “Mo
asked the same thing, but I was too embarrassed to tell him. I learned from my
folks that the unicorn in the Bible is probably based on the African Black
Rhino. I’d like to see one of those in the wild.”

“Maybe we’ll go on a photographic
safari together.”
His unicorns are extinct, but I don’t want to hurt his
feelings.

The meal was sweet and over too
soon.

Laura hummed to herself the rest of
the afternoon and thought about what touring an alien biosphere would be like …
on his arm. When she realized what she was doing, she muttered, “God, I’m
turning into my mother.”

Stu and Onesemo left the
courthouse during rush hour. While waiting for the limo, he visited a nearby
construction site. A large crane arm with a concrete nozzle was “printing” a
building the way Oleander had iced his birthday cakes. Every couple meters, a
smaller robot would whir over to insert an electrical or plumbing segment. As
he watched the apartment complex take shape, the usual cloud of drones gathered
behind him. On a whim, he waved to the virtual masses online. “The prosecutor
won’t let me talk about the case, but I love your food. Pizza and steak are
great. Your girls are really nice, too.”

In
the back of the limo, Onesemo said, “Don’t encourage the media! You’d be better
off slathering yourself in sugar water and wading into mosquitoes.” On the
bench seat opposite Stu, he kept an eye out the back window and one hand on his
weapon.

“What’s
a mosquito?” Stu asked.

“You
don’t have them in paradise?”

“Nope.”

“That
alone might be reason to consider your offer to join
Sanctuary
.”

Stu
glanced out the tinted windows at the glacial traffic. “Could we stop at a
clothing fabricator?”

“You
can wear that same suit tomorrow with a different shirt,” Onesemo explained.
“They gave you eight to choose from.”

“I
need something to wear for a date with Laura at eight.”

“Whoa,
Romeo. She’s a little fast for you.”

“What
do you mean?”

The
car jerked to a halt for some reason Stu couldn’t see. Sometimes pedestrians or
bicyclists crossed where they weren’t supposed to.

Onesemo
said, “I hear she uses guys and throws them away like tissues.”

Stu
puffed his chest out. “Well, she happens to be taking me to meet her mother.
How would you feel if I talked about Kelly that way?”

A
guard in Fortune body armor climbed out of the front passenger side of the
limo.

Onesemo
shook his head. “I’d break your freaking face, but this is different. Do you
know who her family is?”

The
corporate guard opened the door to the back seat. “Mr. Onesemo, sir, your
presence has been requested in the lead car.”

The
Rescue Corps member raised an eyebrow. “That’s the way it is? One wrong word,
and I’m in the doghouse?”

“We
were just having a conversation,” Stu said, attempting to intervene. “He didn’t
do anything wrong.”

“Orders,
sir,” the front-seat guard said.

“Did
I lie to the man?” Onesemo asked belligerently.

More
men were climbing out of the lead vehicle. The guard beside them whispered,
“Please?”

“Fine,
but only if you ride back here,” Onesemo demanded as he slid out. “Anything
happens to him, and I’ll take it out of your hide.”

“Yes,
sir.” The Fortune guard took Onesemo’s place.

When
the fire drill was complete, Stu said, “So what do I call you?”

“Dmitri.”

The
caravan moved once more. “So, Big D, can we stop to pick up some clothes for my
date tonight?”

“The
tailor will meet us en route with additional clothing, sir.”

Flowers and wine would be a nice touch.
“I’d also like to pick—”

“Talking
is a distraction to us, sir. Please only speak to us in an emergency. Feel free
to watch the feeds or order merchandise online.” The new guard indicated Stu’s
left knee.

Stu
pointed at the same knee. “Here?” He moved his leg and examined the upholstery.

Sighing,
Dmitri ran his finger along a pinstripe on Stu’s trouser leg. A square patch
lit up. Stu reached over and tried the same trick on the guard’s leg. Dmitri
caught the finger and moved it back to Stu’s square, tapping. A menu came up:
sports, sex, shopping, infotainment, movies, and search.

When
Stu tapped Infotainment, the choices staggered him. After scrolling through
what seemed like a thousand titles, he asked, “What show is popular in
California?” The menu responded to voice commands like Snowflake might, listing
the top ten choices. Number one by a large factor was a feed called
Ballbusters. He raised an eyebrow toward the guard.

Dmitri
held a thumb up. “Funny stuff.”

Shrugging,
Stu tapped his knee and a list of episodes appeared. He requested the one with
the most stars.

The
documentary began with an aerial view of a squalid camp, emphasizing what seemed
to be a solid kilometer of tents behind a wire fence. Latrines were sparse.
Clouds of flies hovered over the narrow mud streets and swarmed anyone who sat
in one place too long. A voice-over said, “Six hundred thousand refugees were
displaced in the first week of the latest African civil war.” The camera panned
to show a female Asian narrator in combat armor sitting in the open bay door of
a helicopter. She shouted into her helmet microphone, “The lucky ones who cross
hundreds of miles of wilderness on foot end up in camps like this.
Approximately 70 percent of the people here are women and children. If the
conflict lasts the standard five to seven years, a tenth of them will die of
disease—twice that number from starvation.”

The
screen filled with photos of people in loose clothing, some with covered faces.
Their skin spanned every shade imaginable from raw peanut to dark walnut.

This is certainly educational.

The
Asian narrator was sweating profusely in her heavy armor because of the
tropical climate. She had the name Sif stenciled on her chest plate. “The
refugees have no running water, so every morning the mother in each family must
make a two-hour journey lugging one of these filtration units.” Sif held up an
enormous jug marked “15 liters.”

“She
has to wait in line at the docks to fill it. On the way back, the jug weighs
about 16 kilograms. This is the minimum UN refugee daily requirement per
person. A mother of two children would need two of these, or 32 kilograms. The
US military ruled that 30 kilos is too much for male soldiers to bear without
causing long-term back and muscle problems. That means she would need multiple
trips, wheelbarrows, or a daughter who helps.”

The
helicopter swooped over a long path dotted with hunched women. “Unfortunately,
this is ‘rape alley.’ As in Rwanda, Darfur, Sudan, and Congo before it,
violence toward women has become an accepted strategy in war. Militiamen from
over the border race down on horseback to kidnap and savage these women on a
regular basis. Rape is used as a form of genocide to dilute the opposing ethnic
group and deter them from staying. Peacekeepers say they can’t police the camp,
the trail, and the kilometer of shoreline. By the time they arrive, the
perpetrators are often gone. Even when they catch the rapists in the act, the
peacekeepers are not allowed to fire until fired upon. As long as the horsemen
don’t use their rifles, they can easily evade a jeep.”

Stu
covered his knee to block the graphic scene and the wailing from a collection
of women. When he peeked in order to turn it off, the image paused with the
jeep flattening a full jug of water. That indignity made the entire event more
horrifying.
After all she’s suffered, that victim is going to have to walk
all the way back to camp, get a new jug, and start over again. Worse she’ll
need to do the same thing tomorrow.
He couldn’t catch his breath. This show
gave him the same feeling as the end of that book,
A Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich
. Hearing the hell these people had to endure squeezed his emotions
like an orange juicer.

Stu
looked up at his guard. “Is this real? Are they serious?”

“As
a heart attack, sir.”

“Why
did so many people mark this with smiley faces?” Stu asked, aghast.

The
guard shrugged. “Usually people use stars. The boss said you like smileys.
Please. I have to work.”

Stu
tapped the picture on his knee in an attempt to dismiss it, and the narrator
screen said, “We decided to take this problem back to our roundtable to
brainstorm solutions.”

They’re going to fix it. Maybe that’s what the high rating is for.
The team planned how to use their limited budget
for the show. A blonde with the nametag Freya opened with, “We could buy camera
drones to follow every woman traveling to the water source. Teams in the
refugee camp could monitor each feed and signal troops in the event of
trouble.”

The
director replied, “We would have enough money for about 500 floaters with
dedicated monitors. Even if the women travel in shifts to share the cameras, we
won’t have nearly enough coverage.”

“Such
monitoring might get medical care to the injured,” said Themis, the legal panel
member, “but to get a conviction for the crime, video evidence of the
attacker’s face, bruises, and vigorous resistance need to be shown.”

The
debate about other methods to protect the women was lively. Nurse Evangeline
suggested a universal DNA database to catch the offenders. Themis explained the
impracticality.

Freya
wanted to do decoy runs and bomb the offenders via drones.

Themis
vetoed it. “If we accidentally kill one innocent or injure a perp on the soil
of his home country, we all go to jail.”

One
woman off camera suggested chastity belts.

Freya
rejected this idea. “If the woman has the key on her, they’ll force her to use
it, and then she’ll be labeled ‘willing.’ Even if a woman left her keys at the
base, three hundred thousand of these devices would only have a limited number
of keys, like police cuffs. Once the rapists steal a few of these, they can
open any belt they want.”

The
tech guru, Nemesis, spoke up suddenly. “Limpatol! We’ve used it before with
success.” According to the link at the bottom of the screen, the drug releases
an enzyme like PDE-5, which convinces the male body it’s already had an orgasm
and relaxes the arterial wall.

The
man labeled Advocate said, “So he goes flaccid. Fine, that prevents the rape,
but how do we arrange that many injections? Darts? The refugee women will never
be able to hit a man in body armor with that.”

Nemesis
bit her lip. “What about a grenade that releases an airborne agent?”

The
advocate nodded. “Maybe. We’d also need a way to mark the culprits for arrest
later. You can’t prosecute a man for
not
having an erection when you’re
waving a gun in his face.”

The tech guru laughed. “Right. How
about UV dye like they use in fire alarms to catch kids who pull them to get
out of class?”

“And the arming pin for the grenade
should link to a cheap video camera. That way, all weapon uses are documented,
and false alarms are reduced. If we see a grenade go live, we know we have an
incident brewing,” the advocate concluded.

“We may be able to prevent the act
from occurring,” Nemesis said, beaming. “If we arrest enough of the criminals,
maybe the others will stop.”

Freya looked a little sad at this
suggestion. “Honey, just because a guy can’t get it up doesn’t mean you’re
safe. Sometimes, it just makes them angry.”

For the first time, Sif spoke up.
“I’d rather be beaten and have the cavalry show up while it’s happening.
Conviction rate for that is almost 100 percent. For rape, less than 3 percent
of perps ever serve a day behind bars.”

Grant Thisbe looked down. “I’m the
advocate, and I approve this experiment.”

****

Stu managed to shut off the feed as the car stopped in a
shopping mall. “How does this happen?”

The guard explained, “The first few
trials worked until the militia wised up and wore gas masks. Then the team
added hot-pink dye to occlude the vision so the bastards had to remove their
masks and breathe in the Limpatol.”

“Not the experiment, the rape
gangs!” Stu said, incredulous. “Three percent convicted?”

“Yeah. That percent is sort of
worldwide. The gangs in some places never get punished. Like the caste violence
in India. Something on the order of a billion people live without toilets
there. When they pee in a field during the night, a lot can happen. Hey, I
think the tailor is ready with your date clothes.”

Stu
jumped out of the car into the parking lot. The cloud of media drones converged
on him like the flies in the TV show. He shouted to the collection of cameras,
“As ambassador from
Sanctuary
, I have something to say. I just watched
something you call entertainment. The Ballbusters second season finale made me
sick. This isn’t right. I can’t believe you haven’t fixed this problem yet. My
mother and my friend Mira were both raped. The women on this show are your
sisters and daughters and mothers. What is wrong with you all? This violation
shouldn’t be happening anywhere on this planet. How can we teach the pandas
this is wrong when we break the code ourselves?”

Dmitri
put a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, we should really be moving. Killers could be
converging the longer you stay here attracting attention.”

Stu
jerked his arm away, spinning to face the guard. “I don’t care. Someone has to
do something!”

Onesemo
and the other guards climbed out of the trailing car. “Sir, we need to get you
back under cover.”