Regeneration (21 page)

“If I didn't know who she was,” he said to Aryel later, “if I hadn't witnessed for myself some of the things she'd done, I think I might almost have ended up
liking
her.”

“It's one of Zavcka's tragedies,” Aryel replied. “She is so
almost
likable. It wouldn't have taken much: a handful of different decisions when she was younger; a mother who lived; a father who loved but didn't worship her; friends to call her out on her arrogance.” A chill breeze gusted, scattering leaves and sending stray wisps of dark hair across her face. She shook her head and blew at the strands to clear them, hands too full of fruit to brush them away. The raised vegetable beds in the roof garden on the top of Maryam House were almost barren this late in the year, but the espaliered and cordoned fruit trees had not yet dropped the last of their bounty. Eli carefully placed his handfuls of pears into the basket at their feet, reached out and tucked the unruly tendrils behind Aryel's ear and relieved her of the remaining apples.

“I hate to say this, but so much about her makes me think of Eve. The expressions on her face when she's telling a story, the way she commandeers a line of inquiry. I wish I didn't, but—” He shrugged helplessly.

“I felt the same when I saw her. Did she ask?”

“About Eve? Not yet. I reckon that'll be for the next visit.”

It had been possibly the most astonishing moment of the interview: the discovery that Zavcka Klist was willing—keen, even—to repeat it. “Believe it or not, I have another meeting,” she'd said almost sheepishly, when Marcus had tapped on the door to tell her that Mr. Crawford had arrived. “Old habit. I must remember to ration my visitors.”

“There's a great deal more I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind me coming back sometime.”

“I don't mind. Let me know when you want to come.” She'd shrugged, sardonic. “I'll be here.”

They walked out to the hall together, where she bid him a crisp farewell and took delivery of a man of around Eli's age, although his clothes and grooming pegged him as some sort of executive rather than an itinerant professor. There was a peculiar disparity between the almost obsequious diffidence with which he greeted Zavcka and the naked curiosity in the look he threw back at Eli as she led him toward the study. Were it not for that odd moment of discordance, the man would have been entirely unmemorable; as it was, Eli's own curiosity was aroused.

“Mr. Crawford?” he murmured as Marcus showed him to the door. He half expected the servant not to reply, and there was indeed a moment's pause before he did.

“Dhahab Investments,” Marcus murmured back. “An adviser to Ms. Klist.” He held the door open for Eli. “Good afternoon, Dr. Walker.”

“Good afternoon to you, Marcus.”

And then he was back on the quiet, expensive street in blustery autumn sunshine, tablet in hand, reviewing what the infostreams had thrown up on Dhahab Investments.

Aryel, of course, already knew all about them. “Brokers and business managers to the super-rich,” she said when he got to that part of the story. “Two of their people are on her list of unrestricted contacts. The head of department is a woman, so he must be the one who actually does the work. Interesting he's coming over instead of doing business via tablet. Zavcka never used to have much time for peons.”

“She's hungry for company, like you said. He didn't strike me as a particularly exciting type, but after eight years inside I imagine she's less choosy. Hell, if she's having me back she must be desperate.”

Aryel laughed at that, although what he'd said made her gaze sharpen. “This Crawford person. He'd been there before?”

“I think so—though no one said so, it was just—” Eli paused, trying to work out why that had been his assumption. “There was something about the way they interacted. He seemed familiar with the place.”

“It stands to reason,” Aryel said musingly, “that there are instructions she'd prefer to give in person.”

“Her communications with those contacts are supposed to be private, aren't they?”

“They are. Anyone else has to go through Offender Management like you did. The authorities won't be monitoring her, but she'll assume Herran is.”

“Ah.” Eli looked at her askance. “This would all be a lot easier to work out if that were true.”

“I talked to him about it again, but he won't intercept private communications anymore, not unless it's to protect Eve. I did find
out why, finally: it's because he's become friends with Gabriel and he's had to try and comprehend why Gabriel would want the band even though it blocks his telepathy. Herran understands now that for many people the idea of someone reading their thoughts is a violation. Gabriel's experience appears to have given him a new perspective on the whole concept of privacy.”

“So the thing he learned from the person who can read other people's thoughts mostly choosing not to is that it's wrong to read other people's messages?”

“That's about right. He'll keep an eye on Zavcka only insofar as she might be a threat to Eve. But Zavcka doesn't know that, so she'll be doing whatever she's doing through others, so even if Herran
were
to monitor her fully, I doubt it would help much.”

One strong beat of her wings lifted her high enough to grab a final apple from an upper bough. She dropped lightly back to the path and placed it in the basket, frowning. “Remember how she ran searches from prison, trying to find out what had become of the baby?”

“I do,” said Eli, “but after the first few months she more or less stopped trying, didn't she?”

“Yes, but I thought she'd start up again once she got home. Apart from the redactions she's got close to standard stream access, and it would make sense, her looking to see what she could turn up. She knows we'd expect it, and it might distract us from noticing whatever else she's up to. But Herran tells me she hasn't, so I'm thinking she must have outsourced the search.”

“To this Crawford person? I could believe she's using him for the Bel'Natur shenanigans, since they only started since she's been out. He'd probably consider things like manipulating the share price, trying to maneuver executives into bad decisions, maybe trying to gain her influence via a third party all just part of the job. But would he really break the law to hunt down a small child with whom she has been forbidden contact? Why would he take that risk, knowing the penalties if they got caught?”

“Maybe he wouldn't, but she's rich and he's in the money business. Who knows what she has that he wants?”

If she'd heard Aryel's question Zavcka would have laughed, and enjoyed a moment's satisfaction that her famously perspicacious adversary had for once got it at least partly wrong. It was Crawford who had what she wanted, and she had only smoke and mirrors with which to bargain.

And money, of course. She would have appreciated Aryel's acuity on that point. Her wealth made the deception not only possible but easy, for he and his associates in what he ostentatiously called the “K Club” were the type for whom great riches indicated something beyond power and ease, something akin to wisdom, some deeper knowledge of the world and its works. She was finding that instructing him in the manipulation of her vast Bel'Natur shareholdings was a nicely subtle way of pursuing her original project, while simultaneously reinforcing his already well-developed sense of awe. She let him see enough of her other holdings and portfolios to deepen his faith: a range of property assets beyond anything even his obsessive group had uncovered, safety deposits in banks they'd never heard of, exotic investments, and obscure foundations. The trick was to reassure them that she
could
have secret formulae and black-lab protocols for genetic surgery locked safely away somewhere, along with access to the kind of private genmed clinics that she could anonymously disappear into every generation or so.

She chose one of her most remote hiding places, revealed during the trial as a place to which she had indeed periodically vanished, only to reappear sometime later as a daughter, a niece, a cousin. There was enough verifiable history there to make the deception plausible, and it was distant enough from her now, both in time and in space, that she could reasonably decline any requests to prove it was truly the repository of her secret.

In fact, there were no requests for proof, which should have pleased her but instead made her irritable. His associates in the K Club, Crawford informed her, were very happy. He confided that some had been nervous at the prospect of making contact given her previous disregard; now they understood that she had been protecting herself—and them—from the scrutiny of those who failed to grasp the significance
of who she was and what she represented. Their fears had been overturned, Crawford had said with a simper; now they knew she was everything they had always believed her to be, and more.

She found their gullibility tiresome and their reverence distasteful, but she could not dismiss the usefulness of the other tale from the trial that they, unlike the jury, had believed: that the baby had never been intended to replace an aging body increasingly afflicted by illness, but to be the beloved child of someone who was fit but barren. The inestimably wise, infinitely wealthy Zavcka Klist had made herself a daughter. Any harm that had come to lesser beings in the pursuit of that goal was unintended, but more fundamentally, unimportant.

Zavcka wondered what they would think if they knew how completely she had lied, how they would react when they discovered that it was the little people they looked down on who had understood the truth. She wondered what they would be able to justify then, and she thought of the child who was not her daughter, and she feared for them both.

Several hours into a work day in which stream attention had shifted dramatically from Thames Tidal Power and its poisoned workforce to Bankside BioMass and agricultural technicians-turned-terrorists, Gabriel was surprised to discover that having fewer fires to put out was, if anything, leaving him even more weary and stressed. There had been no sign of Kaboom since the previous evening and he was finding the tension of waiting for them to emerge harder on his nerves than actually dealing with it when they did. He did not know whether they had gone quiet in preparation for some new onslaught, or if Aunt Sharon had taken steps to shut them down; the Met bulletins made no mention of any propaganda angle to the investigation, nor of any arrests beyond the Environmental Management officer who had been detained the day before.

He wondered if he should try to contact DI Achebe, and then decided against it; he had been diligent in sending Achebe the links to his onstream duels with Kaboom, so if he found it strange that they'd stopped, he'd get in touch. As he hadn't, Achebe most likely knew more about what was going on right now than Gabriel did.

Or maybe the inspector was just too busy; the streams were gleefully reporting how many offices, farms, and factories he had to search. Maybe he just hadn't noticed that Kaboom's streaming had stopped—maybe he was relying on Gabriel to bring any changes in their behavior to his attention. That wouldn't count as the “amateur investigating” Sharon had told him not to do, would it . . . or would it? He rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn.

“You,” declared a voice close to his ear, “are worn out. Why are you here? You haven't taken a day off in more than a week. They're going to chuck you out of school at this rate.”

He looked blearily around at Agwé. “They'll have to chuck us both, then,” he said. “We've been in crisis mode for more than a week and you haven't taken time off either.”

She hoisted herself gracefully up to sit on the worktop and looked down at him with arms folded and a grave expression on her face. Her bodysuit today was a rich orangey-gold, with emerald-green trim almost as bright as her hair. Both hair and suit looked slightly damp; many gillungs were venturing back into the water now that it appeared their attackers were on the run, and Agwé never had the patience to stay under the dryers any longer than it took for her to actually stop dripping.

“Ah, but I don't work twelve, fourteen hours a day like some people,” she said. “Also, we're not in crisis anymore, are we? Look.” She waved at the quietly humming office, where almost every workstation was occupied. “Everyone's back. Everything's running smoothly. And you said yourself the streams aren't a problem today—”

“I didn't say that. It's bedlam.”

“It's bedlam for Bankside, and about damn time too. Let them enjoy having the police and politicians on their case for a change.”

“Yeah, but they could be back on
our
case any minute, Ag—we don't know if Bankside is really involved, or whether the danger's actually over, do we?” He tapped her damp thigh. “Are you sure you should be swimming?”

“No,” she said serenely, “but I'm doing it anyway. Don't change the subject. Lapsa's already said you should hand over to the publicity
service and go home. And Pilan's not going to argue, is he, not when he owes you for making him look all statesmanlike.”

Gabriel looked around cautiously. Pilan had been in earlier, but he wasn't anywhere to be seen now. “Where's he gone? Is he still getting press calls?”

“Not so many, I don't think, or maybe he's dodging them. I passed him on the way in—he said he was catching a shuttle, heading out to poke around the battery banks.”

“There's a problem?” he asked quickly.

“No, there is
not
.” He knew the eye-roll was coming and she didn't disappoint. “
Honestly,
Gabe: everything's
fine
. It's just that he hasn't been out there for ten days now, since before the TideFair—and you know what he's like, Mr. Micro-Manager. He might have all the telemetry in the world streaming into his tablet, but he never feels like he's on top of things unless he's on site himself.”

He thought he saw an opening. “See, that's exactly how I feel—”

“Bad analogy,” she interrupted firmly. “Pilan also spent three days flat on his back in the hospital, and four more at home taking it easy—well, for him. Whereas I worked out that you've been in every single day since you came back from your birthday break, and if—no,
when
—Lapsa realizes that, you, my friend, will be in deep silt.” She grinned as he groaned.

He tried and failed to think of a comeback. It would be so much simpler if he could just explain about Kaboom, but that information was embargoed; he couldn't even tell Pilan and Lapsa.

“Here's the thing,” he began, not knowing what he was going to say and feeling a bit desperate. As if in answer to a prayer, he felt the buzz of an incoming call through the cranial band. The comcode that came up on his tablet belonged to Uncle Mikal. “Umm, sorry, Ag. I need to take this.”

She looked dubious but said, “Fine. I'll be back,” and pushed herself off the worktop. He watched her for a moment as she sauntered away, then shook himself back to attention and swiped to receive.

“Hi, Uncle Mik.”

“Gabe? Is that you? Why do you sound like an avatar?”

He finished slipping his earset back into place and shifted over to regular transmission. “Sorry. I was on the band. It doesn't translate to voice very convincingly yet.”

“Maybe one day you can teach me how to use mine,” Mikal said, sounding doubtful. “Look, I have some news. It's confidential, so mostly just listen, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Six people have been arrested in connection with Kaboom. They've been in custody since this morning, so I'm guessing you won't have seen any activity today. Is that correct?”

He felt himself sag with relief. “Yes. I've been wondering what was going on.”

“I thought you might be. I can't tell you very much, but I know the police are trying to keep it quiet, at least until they've confirmed a link between the people they've arrested and the Thames affair. Between you and me, I don't think the connection's in any doubt at this point. Anyway, I reckon the story will probably break tomorrow, because that's about as long as the police can go without making a statement.”

“What happens then?”

“My guess is that every journo worth their salt will start crawling all over TTP posts and stream-chatter for the past few weeks and asking questions. Better rest up.”

Yet another person telling him to take it easy, when there was so much work to be done.

“We'll need to be ready for that,” he said.

“You can't talk to anyone there about this yet, Gabe—and it shouldn't come from you anyway. We're trying to keep you out of it, remember?”

“Thanks, but you can't. I
work
here.”

“I know—” Mikal paused, and Gabriel could almost hear him thinking. “Look, I'm at the station now—for something else—but I'm going to tell Sharon that she needs to inform TTP about Kaboom ahead of any announcement so they can be ready for the fallout. She'll probably give you an hour's advance warning; that's kind of her default.” He sounded very mildly apologetic. “So that means you
can start to think about how you want to respond, but you can't tell anyone or do anything until the company is advised officially, which I expect will be first thing tomorrow morning. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.” Gabriel could not imagine how he'd be able to sit there, knowing this was coming and unable to start preparing. He made a decision. “Listen, everyone's been telling me to take the rest of the day off, so if nothing's likely to happen before then, I will—I can think at home as well as here.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Gabe. You've been working much too hard, we've all said so. The only thing is,” he added ruefully, “your sainted mother is once more collecting my children from school today. So you're not likely to get any peace at home, unless you chuck them all out in the garden.”

Gabriel snorted. “We couldn't keep them in if we tried, and Eve makes more of a racket than Mish and Suri put together.” He looked over to where Agwé was sitting at her workstation, editing something from the looks of it. “Thanks a lot, Uncle Mik. I'll get out of here now.”

Agwé was not usually overawed by her own powers of persuasion, but when Gabriel got up from his workstation, shrugged into his coat, and tucked his tablet away in its slide pocket, she pantomimed falling off her chair in shock.

“I'm taking your advice,” he said airily.

“You
are
?”

“I know. Wonders never cease, right?”

“Is everything okay?”

“Now look who's asking.”

“Seriously, Gabe—”

“Seriously, everything's fine.”

She gave him the sternest look she could manage and was gratified when he wilted a little.

“There was something I was a bit worried about,” he explained, “and now I'm not, so I've handed over, like you said. I'm going to relax with my mom and my sister and the Varsi boys.”

Agwé grinned at him. “
That's
your afternoon off? Those three are a riot that hasn't been declared yet.”

He spread his hands. “It's that or stay here.”

“Nope, and no remote monitoring either—we should be able to stay out of trouble for half a day.”

“That's a relief.”

“Maybe even a day
and a half
.” She widened her eyes in mock horror. “You could take tomorrow off too!”

“It'll never happen, Ag.” He sounded too determined to be prodded further, but at least she'd gotten him to laugh. “I'll be in early.”

After Gabriel had gone, Agwé returned to her own task, editing clips from the week-old TideFair into a short highlights vid for the streams. She'd been meaning to do it for ages, but in all of the terror and turmoil, the task had been pushed aside. Since then TTP's public profile had been almost entirely negative: images of illness and fear, curt press releases and terse police bulletins, spats with Environmental Management, stream commentary that was either infuriating in its condescension or downright hostile. She was sure that the unrelenting nastiness of some of the trolls he had to deal with was part of what was weighing Gabriel down so much.

Now that they had a bit of a breather, she was determined to recapture some of the magic of that sparkling day, to channel into a vid some of the delight and optimism they'd all felt. Gabriel's mention of Eve, Misha, and Sural had reminded her that just about the best footage she'd gotten was from the Child's Play exhibit, and she found herself smiling as she reviewed it. There was some wonderful stuff here.

She would have shown it to Gabriel first, as she usually did, if he hadn't already left. But that was a habit, not a necessity, not when there wasn't any actual news involved. There was nothing here that hadn't already been covered on the streams. If she sent it to him now it might make him smile but perhaps he'd also feel like he hadn't really stopped working after all. He needed to learn that it was really, truly okay to take a break now and again.

And in her heart of hearts she knew that when she showed him things ahead of anyone else it was as much as anything for the pleasure of hearing him tell her how brilliant she was.
Grow up, Agwé,
she
thought.
Stop looking for validation. Be more like Gabe.
She made her final edits and sent the vid off to the publicity service.

It would be a nice surprise for him.

Gabriel would later kick himself for the fact that he had switched his band to standby; although the din he was subjected to when he rendezvoused with his mother at the school to pick up the three children was so loud that he'd never have been able to monitor the streams anyway. Eve was still giving him the cold shoulder, but he was pleased to see that she was being a bit less bossy than usual with Misha and Sural. The three were in different classes, and from the enthusiasm of their reunion anyone would have thought they hadn't seen each other for weeks instead of mere hours.

“Eve still believes it was me,” he murmured to Gaela as they walked behind the chattering trio. “I don't even need to read her again to tell.”

“I've told her you had nothing to do with it, that I was the one who knew something was up. I'm not surprised she's holding a grudge; I just don't understand why it's against the wrong person.”

“She's convinced herself that you're covering for me.”

“But
why
?”

“Because it's a lot easier to stay mad at mean big brother than lovely cuddly Mama,” he said. “Don't worry about it; I'll live. She can't keep it up forever. Any luck finding the kid who sent her the link?”

“No, the family has moved abroad. The school was very surprised—they said it wasn't a child they'd've expected such behavior from.”

“I think Herran should trace the family, just to be safe. He will if we explain it's for Eve. I wanted to ask him yesterday, but he was really rattled by the police interview; it kind of made him shut down a bit.”

“He doesn't like it when people he knows behave in ways he's not used to. Let's give him a day or two to get his equilibrium back.”

They were walking arm in arm, and when she looked up at him it made him feel a little disoriented: it was preposterous that he could,
in the last year, have grown so much taller than his mother. “Is there news?” she asked.

“Yes—‘Top Secret,' as Herran would say.” He told her about the conversation with Mikal. “So the rest of today should be fairly quiet, but tomorrow will be manic. The police will try to keep the press from finding out that it was me who tipped them off,” he added quickly.