Genocide is a very common human strategy. Some say it started all the way back with the sudden demise of the Neanderthals. Given that kind of track record, do you really think a new species with human traits has a chance?”

Hector smiled thinly and raised his shoulders. “Maybe they’re like weeds and not so easily wiped out.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Come here.” Graham gripped Hector by the shoulder and propelled him towards the windows. “Looky there,” he pointed towards Vattown. Hector could just make out the distant strobing of police flashers. “There’s your proof. That little queen of yours is down there, and they’re beating her to death.”

Hector shook. He pulled away from Graham’s grip and turned to face him. “How do you know that?”

Graham eyed him blandly. “Because I arranged it.”

“What? You can’t do that!”

Graham laughed. “You have no idea what I can do. They were going to strike anyway. It doesn’t take much to turn that crowd into a mob.”

“You’ve got to stop them.” Hector lunged forward, grabbed the transceiver from Graham’s belt loop and shoved it at him. “Now! Call them! Call it off!”

Graham’s response was preempted by the insistent bleeping of the transceiver signal. Without thinking Hector switched it to receive. “Yes?” he said, in his best imitation of Graham’s rough tenor. There was no holo. Only a voice. “It’s me. We lost her,” it said.

Hector stared at Graham with glee. “Forget it. There’s a change in plans.” he said.

“Give me that!” yelled Graham, body checking Hector and grabbing for the transceiver. They fell to the floor, Hector grunting as Graham rolled over him. The transceiver was wrested from his grasp and Graham stood up, brushing his suit. “I’ll call you back,” he muttered tersely at the transceiver and switched it off.

Hector stood and backed towards the door. Graham approached him with his right hand balled in a fist. Before he could close the distance and sock him, Hector turned and ran out the door. Breathing heavily, Hector made his way to the elevators. He had a rug burn on his cheek from wrestling with Graham. All to the good, he thought, as he entered the elevator and pressed the button for floor 29

— Anna’s office.

Chapter 16 — I Can Take You There

“I didn’t believe, still don’t believe, that you should be diving, but what happened down there today, that wasn’t what I wanted either. I wanted a real strike, with real demands, not just your dismissal but other, more important things like safety standards and better wages. Those fucking assholes, turning themselves into a mob. Don’t they realize that they’ve destroyed any chance for their demands to be taken seriously?

Why? Why must this movement always be dogged by shame?” Vonda put her head in her hands and shook it. She was sitting on Orielle’s couch.

At the far end of the room, Chango crossed and uncrossed her arms. Bitter words were collecting in her mouth. Sooner or later she was going to open it and they’d come out. “If you hadn’t all decided that Ada was blasted when she dove, there wouldn’t be any shame,” she finally blurted. Vonda looked at her wearily. “Oh God, Chango. You’re like a dog with a bone. Ada’s dead, it doesn’t matter why.”

“Doesn’t matter? You don’t think so? You just said it yourself, the shame. It doesn’t belong to her, it-”

“It doesn’t belong to me either!” Vonda suddenly stood upright and shouted. “I swear to you on the friendship we once had, I did not doctor her lab results. I did not! Except for you there probably wasn’t anyone more upset about those results than I was. How do you think I felt, being the messenger of that kind of news? Fucking-a, Chango, I knew Ada too...” Vonda paced the floor. “And to tell you the truth,” she said, “I’ve never been able to believe it myself.”

Chango stared at her, “Really? Then who-”

“Nobody! I took the samples from her and ran the tests. No one else touched them. Chango, she was gassed when she dove, but-”

“Management would have done anything to get her out of their hair. Maybe someone tampered with her tanks.”

“That’s impossible. Benny filled and checked them, just like he always did. All I know is this ancient history shit isn’t going to get us anywhere now. You ought to be thinking about your friend,” she nodded at Helix, who was sitting in a chair, holding a bag of ice to the side of her face. “What are you going to do about her?”

“She needs a vat,” said Chango.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” said Helix, “but there it is. If I don’t find a vat soon, one I can stay in, I’m going to die.”

There was a long pause in the conversation, and then Vonda spoke, her voice a pitch higher, “You’re not human at all, are you?”

Helix shook her head, “I guess not.”

Vonda stood by the television set, a reefer cigarette in her mouth and a thoughtful expression on her face.

“Word was your father worked for GeneSys, a researcher. Never did get his name,” she said.

“H-Hector Martin,” said Helix.

“Hector Martin. Dr. Hector Martin. The inventor of the multi-processor brains. I always knew there was something weird about you.”

Helix stood up and walked towards her, her arms spread wide, “Oh really?”

Vonda squinted and exhaled a plume of smoke. “It makes sense now. That’s why they didn’t fire you. The test was a success.”

“Stop,” said Chango.

Vonda shook her head, still staring as Helix slowly approached her. “I was so busy hating you because you were Chango’s squeeze, I neglected the obvious. The rest of them out there today, they knew. Or at least as a mob they knew. They didn’t want you dead for being a sport, or even for taking your suit off in the vat and surviving. They wanted you dead because your very existence is a threat to them. To all of us.”

Helix stood inches from Vonda. She reached forward and braced her arms against the wall so that they surrounded Vonda like fleshly prison bars. “What then, are you going to do about it?” she asked in a low tone.

Vonda’s eyes were wide, and she shook a little. “Remember,” she muttered, “you’re dealing with an individual here, not the species.”

“Yeah? Well it sounds to me like you’re speaking for your species.”

Vonda stepped away from the wall, forcing Helix back with her body. “Human beings need those jobs, Helix. And if GeneSys is trying to create some kind of fabricated slave labor force, then is that really what you want?”

“I just want a vat.” Helix’s arms hung at her sides now, useless.

“Well you’re not going to get one in Vattown. You can forget it. Why don’t you go back to your maker?

Maybe he can help you.”

“Why don’t you go to hell?” Helix stepped towards Vonda again, baring her teeth.

“Fine, fuck you.” Vonda pushed Helix away from her with both hands. “I’m just trying to help.”

“You just want to make me disappear. Like the rest of them.”

“Oh you are so full of shit.”

“Oh yeah?” Helix pushed Vonda back into the wall again. “Then why are you afraid of me?”

Vonda stared at her stonily. “Back off, miss thing, I’m warning you.”

“No! What if I don’t want to back off?”

Helix reeled suddenly as Vonda’s right fist connected with her jaw. She shook her head, flexed her knees, and sprang on Vonda, knocking her to the floor. The two of them rolled over one another, kicking and scrabbling for handholds. Helix got hold of Vonda’s arms, pinning her to the floor.

“Stop it!” Chango hauled on Helix’s shoulder, tearing her away from Vonda by sheer force of will.

“What’s the matter with you?” she yelled. “Aren’t you in enough trouble already? She saved your life today! And what she says is true. You’ll never get back into the vats. They’ll never let you. All you’ll do is get killed like you almost were today.”

Helix turned her back and walked to the window. She looked out of it, out across the Eastern Market with its colorful stalls to the tower that stood in the distance. It was a faded green in the haze of the sky, like a towering ghost. She stared at it, and tried very hard not to think about anything Vonda had said. A wave of itching crept over her, her skin crawling at the thought of not having a vat. They thought they could stop her; the mob and Vonda, even Chango in her own way. They thought she could just get over it, or just go away, or just be beaten. They didn’t know. They didn’t know about the hand that pushed her, they didn’t know it was a thing greater than herself. They thought they knew what she was.