Scardown-Jenny Casey-2 by Elizabeth Bear Page A

spoon out of my coffee, and stick it in my mouth to buy a couple of seconds. The coffee's bitter and rich and good. They use real whole milk here, and fuck the government cholesterol guidelines. The doc's eyes are hazel, green ringed in golden ringed in gray, catching the dim recessed light on little flecks like sunshine. The smoothed edges of hair that normally frizzes into coils blend into the dark red curtains behind her. Behind the window, a pair of headlights slides by; the cold steel table leg presses my knee.
    I remember when Valens sent her to jail. I got sensitive to hearing his name on the news, those not-rare-enough occasions when it showed up. I remember how she'd looked on the holo, in an orange jumpsuit just like the one the man
I
sent away for a lifetime wore. The news feeds characterized her as an evil genius: a brilliant woman gone down the wrong path. Speculated on her links to terrorism. Her trial records were sealed.
    I'd pitied her then. And envied her later. And now I find myself looking into the eyes of this woman, the smartest person I'd ever met other than Richard and maybe my sociopathic and blessedly dead sister Barb. And seeing the face of someone who just wanted to know she wasn't absolutely going to get hurt, and maybe she wasn't going to absolutely have to die alone.
    “Fuck, Doc.” I look down, smile at my reflection in the back of the spoon, and lie to her like I mean it. “How could we not be cool?”
    And because Gabe's in the john, of course the food comes just then. So, thank God, she gets out of answering by grabbing the stuffed mushrooms and hoarding the plate on her side of the table. Gabe shoots us a look when he gets back; I imagine he's surprised to find us giggling and fencing with our forks instead of heads bent in hushed intensity. The food on the
Montreal
was decent, but it's nice to eat something dead and unhealthy.
    We stuff ourselves on greasy tidbits and wash it down with gallons of coffee, making the kind of cheerful small talk I've almost forgotten, and after we're sated—Gabe listlessly poking the last few morsels—I keep my date with the pinball machines.
    They're the good kind, older than I am, every widget and pulley mechanical rather than computerized—although these have been refitted to run on cash cards rather than coins. I rest my left hand on the button experimentally. I had to give up pinball after I accidentally dented a couple of machines. But the new hand is sensitive enough. I can feel the hard edge of the metal ridging the hollow between my thumb and forefinger, the pressure of the flipper control against middle and ring fingers. The clarion jangle and peal of the machine's sound effects, and the faint shiver of its body when I test the flipper.
    Elspeth lays a hand on my right elbow as I pull the plunger back. “Will it take two players?”
    Gabe snorts. “Oh, you don't wanna do that, Ellie.” And Elspeth just
smiles
. I smile back. And proceed to mop the floor with her four times running, which she had to know was going to happen.
    I'm just that fast.
     
    4:00 AM

Thursday 9 November, 2062

Allen-Shipman Research Facility

St. George Street

Toronto, Ontario
    Valens steepled long, blunt fingers over the crystal of his interface plate and stared between the interleaved knuckles. His eyes felt sprayed with powdered glass. “Alberta,” he said, resisting the urge to rub them, “trust me.”
    The crisp Unitek VP paced his office, her fists balled in the pockets of her tailored suit. “We need to step up the process,” she spat. She rocked her shoulders as if they hurt. “Riel knows about
Le Québec
. I need to have pilots ready for the second ship by early next year. You're confident the system we have in place on the
Montreal
will be adequate?”
    Valens stood from his desk and came around it. “As confident as I can be. The AI is well contained. I have good control of Casey and Koske, and I'm informed that the precautionary programming in