Spin State - Chris Moriarty [180]
It was Gilead, sharp and real as if it were happening all over again. There was the mud, the filth, the constant, stomach-wrenching, soul-killing fear. There were the faces of dead friends she no longer remembered grieving for. There were the bodies of soldiers—and not only soldiers, God help her—that she hadn’t until this very moment remembered killing.
Because this wasn’t the edited spinfeed stored in her datafiles. It was the Gilead of her fears and nightmares and jump-dreams. It was the real Gilead: the original realtime feed that she’d recorded all those years ago. Somehow Cohen had accessed a file Li herself wasn’t cleared to look at, a file that should have been lying dormant in the deadwalled UNSC headquarters archives. And this file was different from the official memory. Different in ways she didn’t want to think about.
When she saw Korchow’s young, bloodied face looking up at her, when she heard herself saying those words he’d reminded her of back in the cluttered shadows of his antique shop, she broke and ran.
Shantytown: 5.11.48.
Has it occurred to you that this might not work?” Cohen asked Korchow a moment later. Li slumped in a chair, drenched in nightmare sweat, unwilling even to look at him.
“Try again.”
“God, look at her, Korchow. She’s had it.”
“One more time.”
“You keep pushing, she’ll break.”
“She’s strong enough.”
“You really are a fool, aren’t you?”
Korchow didn’t answer. After a moment Li heard the rustle of cloth and the sound of Cohen’s chair scraping against the floor as he stood up. “I’m going for a walk,” he said, and left.
“Why do you think he protects you?” Korchow asked.
“Guilt,” Li said without looking up. “Or he just feels like it. How the hell should I know?”
“Do you think a machine can feel guilt?” Korchow asked. “I would have said no.” Li didn’t answer.
“I begin to wonder if you two are holding out on me,” Korchow murmured. “And when I ask myself why you would do such a thing, I find I can imagine far too many reasons.”
“I’m not holding out on you, and you damn well know it.”
“Then why is it that you can’t seem to manage this relatively simple task?”
“I don’t know,” Li whispered, her head still in her hands. “Maybe it can’t be done.”
“Sharifi did it.”
“I’m not Sharifi.”
Korchow tapped through a few screens on the console in front of him. Just when Li thought their conversation had come to an end, he spoke again. “I talked to Cartwright this morning. The UN has sent in strikebreaking troops. We’re running out of time.”
Li looked up at him dully.
“I’m sure you understand what failure will mean, for you most of all.”
“I don’t understand anything anymore,” she said, and pushed herself to her feet. The last thing she saw as she walked out was Korchow’s narrow stare.
She stepped to the street door, opened it and looked out into the alley. It was raining again, hard enough to set the loose roof plates of the nearby houses rattling.
Korchow hadn’t actually locked her in since Alba, but there was an unspoken agreement that no one would create unnecessary risks of discovery. And where was there to go anyway? Certainly nowhere worth braving the stinging chemical rain to get to. She closed the door, turned back down the hall, and walked into the open space of the geodesic dome.
Standing under the dome was almost like being outside; it was the one place in the safe house where she didn’t feel cramped and constricted. Today it felt like stepping into an aquarium. Rain pattered on condensation-loaded panels. The evening light, filtered through wet viruflex, took on a soft, velvety, underwater quality. Li rubbed her eyes, stretched, sighed.
“Enter the love of my life, stage left,” said a voice from somewhere high overhead. She looked up and saw Ramirez’s long legs dangling from the catwalk that circled the upper flank of the dome. “Come sit with me,” Cohen said.
There was a ladder bolted into the side panels of the dome, she realized.