Up Against It - M. J. Locke [101]
The aerospheres must have shattered the aquarium, and its destruction had taken out most of the park’s trees and plants. The water had finally all settled in the wedge made by two walls: it was filled with debris, dead greenery, lumps of nutrient gel that looked like giant jellyfish, and many dead and dying fish in water that still sloshed gently from the earlier violence. Gone were the cherry trees and the picnic tables; the Goh boards stood out against what was now nearly the ceiling. Even the plants still hanging were dead. Though there was plenty of air now, the area must have been at least partially decompressed for some time. The hole to the “lower levels” was now nearly overhead. Fragments of light shot through it, revealing glimpses of further damage to other areas. Pham, Emil, and several other adults floated here and there, picking through the debris in a search for what was left of their belongings.
Jane caught a glimpse of something terrifying: what appeared to be a child’s skeleton. She rushed over and bent next to it, but when she touched it, it spasmed, and exploded into a cloud of glass beads and silicone tendrils.
“What the hell?” she said.
“Ah! That was on the news. An assembler hacking prank at the university.”
“What’s it doing here, then? This means we’ve got an assembler contaminant in the system, using up resources at a crucial time, that might screw up repairs. On top of everything else!” Furious, exasperated, she called Aaron to let him know. When she got off, Xuan said, “I’ve arranged for us to stay with some friends of mine from the university.”
“I can’t do that! Don’t you see? This puts me, and them, in a very awkward position.”
“Why?” he asked.
“You know damn well why. All their work and funding comes from Kukuyoshi.”
He sighed. “Jane, they already know about Kukuyoshi. The night is half gone and you have a meeting with the prime minister in the morning. Nobody is blaming you but you.”
“Have you seen my sammy cache lately?”
“Set aside your pride, Jane. Come with me and get some good rest.”
She gave in, of course.
A slender, narrow-shouldered man in a bathrobe answered the door.
“I’m sorry to disturb you so late, Charles,” Xuan said.
A little terrier bounced out, yapping and bounding off the walls just out of reach. “No trouble at all. Glad to see you weathered the disturbance safely. Do come in. Quiet, Muffet! Away with you.” He shooed the dog away. “The wife’s asleep in the other room, or I’d introduce you…”
“I’m not asleep,” came her voice. “I’ll be out in a moment. Miss Muffet! Come here, right now!”
As they lofted over the door’s top frame, the dog sproinged off the ceiling and into the other room.
Xuan introduced the man to Jane as Charles Winford. They brushed hands. He had an English accent left over from his pre-Upsider days, sprinkled with plenty of stroiderisms and Upsider pronunciations. His glance at Jane held curiosity. A woman floated out of the bedroom.
“We’re very sorry to disturb you,” Jane said.
“Quite all right,” she replied, “the disturbance had us up. Glad you decided to take us up on our offer, Xuan.” Her accent, too, was British. She gave Xuan a peck on the cheek, and then put out her hand to Jane. “Rowan Fairchild. I’m a researcher at the university. I know who you are, of course. It’s a pleasure.”
They offered them tea and marmite on toast, while they set up a hammock in Charles’s office. They must know Jane had something to do with the disturbance that had just happened—word was already all over the wave—but they forbore from asking about it, and chatted instead about their work at the university. Rowan’s specialty was adaptive ecosystems; she was working on a project monitoring the genetic changes the animals had been undergoing in Kukuyoshi, and producing predictive simulations. Charles was a cellular biologist studying the long-term effects of low-gravity environments on certain fungi. It was clear to Jane that they