Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [143]
The medical cops took her to Praha. It had something to do with a possible network-abuse case against her. Apparently most of the evidence was in Praha.
However, no one at the Access Bureau was willing to arrest her. The Czech Access Bureau cops apparently despised and distrusted Greek medical cops; it seemed to be some kind of weird European interservice rivalry. She did what she could to explain her circumstances. Once the Access Bureau cops down on the first floor began to fully grasp the situation, they became quite annoyed with her. They told her they would get in touch with her, and tried to convince her to leave the premises and go back with her escorts to some other country.
Maya was disgusted by the prospect of yet more time in a hospital, and refused to go. She asked them to find Helene Vauxcelles-Serusier. With profound reluctance, they said they would do this for her, and they assigned her a number.
She and Brett sat down in an elbow-shaped waiting room on a pair of nasty pink plastic chairs. After an hour, the Helleniki medical escorts carefully checked Maya’s tracking handcuffs and her tiara monitor. They were satisfied by this inspection, so they left. After this, pretty much nothing happened.
“Boy, this is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be,” said Brett.
“It’s good of you to stick with me through this, Brett. I know it’s boring.”
“No, no,” said Brett, adjusting her spex, “it’s a real privilege to be your personal media coverage. I’m so touched that you had your friends call me, and give me this great opportunity. It’s a fascinating experience. I’ve always been so terrified of the authorities. I had no idea their indifference to us was so complete and so total. They really hold young people in complete contempt.”
“That’s not it. Everyone has explained to them that I’m not a young person. It’s probably because I’m American. I mean, even nowadays, it’s always extra trouble to deal with people from outside the jurisdiction.”
Brett took off her spex and gazed at the floor’s worn and ancient tiling. “I wish I hated you, Mia.”
“Why?” she said.
“Because you’re everything I always wanted to be. It should have been me involved with exciting European artifice people. It should have been me up on the catwalk. You stole my life. And now you’ve even made a difference. You’ve even hurt them. I never even dreamed that I could hurt them.”
“I’m sorry,” Maya said.
“I dreamed about doing so much. I never had the nerve to really do much of anything. I could have done something. Maybe. Don’t you think? You’re pretty, but I’m as pretty as you. You sleep with anybody, well, I’ll sleep with anybody, too. I’m from the same town as you. I’m twenty, but I’m just as smart as you were when you were twenty. Aren’t I?”
“Of course you are.”
“I have some talent. I can make clothes. You can’t make clothes. What is it you have that I don’t have?”
Maya sighed. “Well, here I am sitting in a police station. Maybe you should tell me all about it.”
“You’re not young. That’s it, isn’t it? You stole my life because you’re older than me, and stronger than me. So for you, it was always easy. I mean, maybe you can panic, maybe you can be wracked with guilt, maybe you can even be terrified out of your skin by some stupid wired-up dog. But even when you don’t know who you are, you still know who you are. You’re five times older than me, and five times stronger than me. And you just won’t get out of the way.”
“The Tête people are young. They’re young like you.”
“Yeah, and they love you, don’t they? When you were my age, they’d have thought you were a hick and an idiot. Just like they think I’m a hick and an idiot. Because that’s what I am. They’re smart and gifted and really sophisticated, and the very best I can do is lurk outside their gates and watch them and envy them terribly. At my age, you wouldn’t have done any better than me. You would have done a lot worse. You wouldn’t even let your boyfriend take you to Europe. You dumped him and married some biotechnician. You turned into a bureaucrat, Mia.”
Maya closed her