When it was over, the guard let Agata fall, leaving her to reshape herself and catch the rope again. ‘This is your pass,’ the woman explained, handing her a red disc. ‘Please don’t lose it.’
‘Do I lose it?’ Agata asked.
‘Of course you don’t,’ the guard replied. ‘Because I asked you not to.’
‘Right.’ Agata suppressed a shiver.
‘Visiting room three. Go through.’
Agata pushed open the swinging doors and followed the corridor into the prison complex. It was quieter than she’d expected, given the number of people still interned; all she could make out were some faint scraping noises in the distance, barely audible over the twang of the guide rope as she advanced. The two visiting rooms she passed were empty; she entered the third and harnessed herself to the desk. As she waited, she forced herself to glance around the room – she didn’t want to be seen searching obsessively for the cameras, but to have stared at a fixed spot on the wall and shown no curiosity about her surroundings would have been equally suspicious.
She struggled to keep the possibilities straight in her mind: if the authorities were going to catch her conspiring with saboteurs then they would have known that for the last three years – but they couldn’t arrest her until she’d had a chance to do whatever deed revealed her guilt. Once she’d been arrested, though, even if they kept that from becoming public knowledge, surely Lila or Serena would notice her absence and send her a message about it? Or better yet, send a message to their earlier selves to be passed on to her in person; that would be less likely to be detected and intercepted.
So was the lack of any warning a proof that she wouldn’t be caught? Or did the fact that she’d received no messages at all from her future self mean that everything would turn bad very quickly?
Agata heard a door creak open in the distance, then the clank of hardstone links, an almost rhythmic sound as the prisoner approached. When the guard escorting Pio reached the doorway, Agata loosened the harness and pulled herself closer, but she still couldn’t see her brother.
‘Please stay back,’ the guard instructed her. The woman held a loop of chain in one hand. She dragged herself over to the wall and attached it to a clamp, then turned and said, ‘Come.’
Pio pulled himself into the room along the guide rope, moving nimbly despite the stone bar that transected his torso. ‘Hello Agata,’ he said.
‘Hello.’ For a moment she was numb, then the sight of Pio’s gaunt frame became too much and she started humming softly. She was far from convinced of his innocence, but no one had come close to establishing his guilt. If he had murdered Medoro and the others then he deserved to be locked up until he died – but what did she know for sure? Only that he’d viewed the messaging system with the same degree of alarm and revulsion from the start as she now felt for it herself.
The guard watched as Pio climbed into the harness on his side of the desk. ‘You have three chimes,’ she told Agata. Then she withdrew into the corridor.
Agata composed herself, but she reached over and squeezed her brother’s shoulder while the gesture still had a chance of seeming innocent and spontaneous. In the flicker before her palm touched his skin, she formed the words: On your side. Tell me how to help. She tried not to worry about how long it would take him to read the message if he hadn’t been expecting it; the action had a natural timescale of its own, and if she over-thought it that would show.
Pio leant back and examined her appraisingly. ‘Detours really do work the way they taught us in school,’ he marvelled. ‘Twelve years in that box. How did you stay sane?’
‘The time passed quickly,’ she said. ‘After the first year.’
‘I can’t say the same, though maybe with the ratios it almost evens out.’ He buzzed suddenly. ‘Cira told me about your big discovery. The ancestors don’t burn, we don’t wipe ourselves out – what could be better than that?’
‘People acting on it,’ Agata replied. ‘I thought I’d come back to find that everyone had buried their differences.’
‘Not yet.’
Agata didn’t want to start interrogating him about his views on the disruption, but it would seem strange if they didn’t discuss it at all. ‘Do you think the Councillors are going to pull the plug?’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘They’ve seen the problems that the system’s created,’ she said. ‘We can’t spend the next six generations stuck with the same technology.’
‘But how would they explain the shutdown afterwards, without admitting that they’d planned it all along?’ Pio wondered.
‘They could claim that there’d been some kind of minor impact,’ Agata suggested. ‘With just the right size and trajectory to take out all twelve channels at once, but do no real damage elsewhere.’
‘All of which they’d more or less guessed, of course. But lacking proof, they couldn’t announce it officially.’ Pio inclined his head. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. We’ll know soon enough.’
‘Yes.’
Pio changed the subject. ‘Are you going to see Cira?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Agata supposed it might sound suspicious that she was prepared to reconcile with Pio but not her mother. But she wasn’t a good enough actor to pull off that encounter, and Cira would have much less motivation to play along. ‘If she’s stood by you, that’s admirable, but I think she and I reached the point a long time ago where we’ll be happier if we stay out of each other’s way.’
‘I understand.’
‘Can I bring you anything?’ she asked. ‘They let you have books, don’t they?’
‘I can always use more paper and dye,’ Pio said. ‘I’m writing a book of my own.’
‘What kind of book?’ Agata couldn’t help mocking him a little. ‘Surely there’s no need for a migrationist manifesto now?’
‘It’s a history of women and men,’ he replied.
‘You mean the discovery of shedding – that kind of thing?’
‘More or less. You can read it when it’s finished, if you like.’
Agata couldn’t imagine what he thought he could add to the version in the archives, but if he had a project to help him pass the time that could only be a good thing.
When the guard returned to fetch him, Pio leant across the desk and executed an awkward hug. As he drew back, Agata was still trying to memorise the sensation of his palm on her shoulder.
‘Will I see you again?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ she replied. The guard looked amused; apparently not in the next five stints.
Agata sat at the desk for a while, self-consciously pensive, her palms resting on her thighs as she passed copies of Pio’s tightly scrawled instructions back and forth between the two hidden patches of skin.
The food hall was close to the rim of the Peerless, and even at the second bell it was crowded. Agata entered and queued at the counter, trying to remain unfazed as she noticed people looking her way twice, probably recognising her from the archival image of the Surveyor’s return. At least their faces showed a flicker of surprise, proving that they wouldn’t make so much of the encounter that they let themselves know about it in advance.
She’d barely slept the night before, and then as she’d prepared to leave her apartment her console had beeped and offered up a message from her future self:
I still don’t agree.
It would be sent three stints before the disruption; that didn’t quite prove that she’d be walking free right to the end, but it was more reassuring than absolute silence. And if the meaning was opaque to her at present, she could only hope that anyone spying on her would find the lack of context unremarkable. There was no reason for anyone’s private messages to spell out every detail of the dilemmas they were intended to resolve. The bandwidth quotas weren’t infinite: gnomic brevity would generally be a virtue, not a sign that the sender had something to hide.