It was a perkier, more upbeat version of the old Beatles song, “Julia.”
All of what I say is magical. But I say it for I love you . . . Ben-ja-min.
There were people on each level waving Nexus Humanus flags and yelling their lungs out. It brought a tear to Charles’s eye. Men, women, young women, all looking at the Twins with acceptance. And more than acceptance: wonder, joy. Like teenagers gazing at rock stars.
Now Charles’s own smile broke out. “Hah,” he said. Then again, a chuckle. “Hah.”
He was looking at other people, face-to-face, albeit from a distance. Seeing them and being seen in return. Not cowed employees, not the hired AmericaStrong thugs whose tolerance and impassivity was bought with dollars and pounds and euros. Not the disdain of the twitchers, or the seething, barely concealed contempt of Burnofsky.
Here was true acceptance. Here was adoration.
Here was love.
They descended, and at last the platform was nearing the commons floor, where the bulk of Benjaminia’s happy residents waited, arms upraised, waving.
Charles searched each face, winked at some he recognized, raised a hand slightly to old friends. Or at least people who thought of themselves as old friends, though none of the villagers on this second Doll Ship had been here longer than two years, and in that time the Twins had been able to visit on only three occasions.
Then… a new face. A girl. Tall, but obviously young. Pretty. A beauty, even, maybe, though the freckles across her nose made him think of . . .
And then her eyes widened.
Her mouth formed an O, and the girl with Sadie McLure’s freckles screamed.
TWELVE
“We’re going,” Nijinsky announced as soon as Plath walked in and tossed him his ChapStick. “Pack up.”
“What do you mean we’re—” Plath demanded.
“We’re out of here, Washington cell was wiped out yesterday. Killed. Lear just told me, or maybe he just found out, in any case … There’s a single survivor.” His face was the color of cigarette ashes. “Grab whatever gear you have. You two are on a plane. I’m going to drive down with Wilkes and Anya.”
Keats walked into the room, and Plath handed him a Snickers bar she’d picked up at the drugstore. He took it, made a dubious face, and stuck it in his jacket pocket. “What about Vincent?” he asked Nijinsky. “You’re not leaving him . . .” A terrible thought occurred to him. “Tell me Caligula is not coming for Vincent.”
Nijinsky wiped his mouth with his hand, a nervous gesture. He was a wreck; that was plain to see. “No. Lear has left that decision up to me.”
“Up to you?” Plath asked, not meaning to sound incredulous.
“Up to me, that’s right, up to me,” Nijinsky snapped. “I’m taking Vincent with us. We’re going to grow some new-generation biots and try a deep wire on Vincent. If that works . . .”
“If it works he lives …and if it doesn’t?”
“Do me a favor,” Nijinsky interrupted. “Don’t lecture me. And don’t give me your outrage, I have no time for your outrage. Pack. Now. This place could be hit next.”
Keats said, “If this deep-wire thing works on Vincent, it could work on Al …on Kerouac. My brother.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Nijinsky said. “Let’s just get out of here alive.”
“He means don’t start hoping,” Wilkes said sourly. “We’re BZRK. We don’t do hope. You know who had hope?”
Nijinsky gritted his teeth. Wilkes came right up to him, her face up next to his neck. “Ophelia. She had hope.”
“I didn’t order that, goddamnit, Wilkes!”
“Nah, but you would, right? Because you’ll do whatever it takes to impress Lear. Right?”
But Plath had a different take. She wondered why Lear would have let Nijinksy decide Vincent’s fate, but not Ophelia’s. Was Nijinsky lying?
Pia Valquist finished her report, logged it, and saved it into the system. It would be automatically encrypted. It would also be forgotten. The story was horrific. Ghastly. It would have been unbelievable but for the missing arm and the terrible scars.