‘Ethan, right?’
‘Look, I know you don’t like to—’
She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter, Tom. I. You know, maybe I’m way too sensitive around certain topics. Maybe it’s time. Right? You were going to ask about Ethan? If he was like this?’
Small pause.
‘Was he?’
She sighed, testing the seals on her self-control. Breath a little shuddery, but otherwise fuck it, Sev, it’s four years gone, you need to…
To what? Need what?
You need… something, Sev. Some fucking thing, you need.
Sigh again. Gesture at the door Marsalis just walked out of.
‘Ethan was a different man, Tom. Ethan wasn’t his gene code, he wasn’t just a jazzed-up area thirteen and a custom-wired limbic system. He—’
Another helpless gesture.
‘Do I see similarities? Yeah. Did Ethan have the same “hey, cut my fucking throat, see if I care”attitude? Yeah. Did Ethan make any normal male in the room itch up the way Marsalis is making you itch up? Yeah. Does that—’
‘Sev, I’m not—’
‘You are, Tom.’ She spread her hands, offered up the smile she’d repressed earlier. ‘You are. It’s how they built them, it’s what they’re for. And your reaction – that’s how they built you. It’s just it took evolution a hundred thousand generations to put you together, and it took human science less than a century to build them. Faster systems management, that’s all.’
‘What’s that, a quote from the Project Lawman brochure?’
Sevgi shook her head, kept the smile. ‘No. Just something Ethan used to say. Look, you asked me if Ethan and this guy are alike? How would I know? Ethan used to get up half an hour before me every morning and grind fresh coffee for us both. Would this guy do that? Who knows?’
‘One way to find out,’ said Norton, deadpan.
Sevgi lost her smile. Levelled a warning finger. ‘Don’t even go there.’
‘Sorry.’ There wasn’t much sincerity in the way he said it. A grin hovered in one corner of his mouth. ‘Got to get down to Fifth Avenue, sort out that sense of humour.’
‘You got that right.’
He grew abruptly serious. ‘Look, I’m just curious, is all. Both these guys do share some pretty substantial engineered genetic traits.’
‘Yeah, so what? Your parents engineered some similar genetic material into you and your brother way back at the start of Project Norton. Does that make the two of you similar?’
Norton grimaced. ‘Hardly.’
‘So why assume that because Ethan and Marsalis have some basic genetic traits in common, there’d be any similarity in what kind of men they are? You can’t equate them just because they’re both variant thirteen, any more than you can equate them because, I don’t know, because they’re both black.’
‘Oh, come on, Sev. Be serious. We’re talking about substantial genetic tendency, not skin colour.’
‘I am serious.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re flailing, and you know it. It’s not a good analogy.’
‘Maybe not for you, Tom. But take a walk out that gate and see what kind of thinking you knock up against. It’s the same knee-jerk prejudice, just out of fucking date like everything else in Jesusland.’
Norton gave her a pained look. His tone tugged towards reproach. ‘Now you’re just letting your Union bigotry run away with you.’
‘Think so?’ She didn’t want to be this angry, but it was swelling and she couldn’t find a way to shut it down. Her voice was tight with the rising pulse of it. ‘You know, Ethan tracked down his sourcemat mother once. Turns out she’s this drop-dead smart academic up in Seattle now, but she’s from here originally.’
‘From Florida?’
‘No, not from Florida.’ Sevgi waved a hand irritably. ‘Louisiana, Mississippi, someplace like that. Jesusland, however you want to look at it. She grew up in the southern US, before secession.’
Norton shrugged. ‘From what I hear, that’s pretty standard. They got most of the sourcemat mothers from the poverty belt back then. Cheap raw materials, fresh eggs for quick cash, right?’
‘Yeah, well she was luckier. She let some West Coast clinic harvest her in exchange for enough cash to set up and study in Seattle. Point is, I went across there with Ethan to see her.’ Sevgi knew she was staring off into space, but she couldn’t make herself stop that either. It was the last trip they’d made together. ‘You wouldn’t believe some of the shit she told us she went through, purely based on the colour of her fucking skin. And that’s a single generation back.’
‘You’re talking about Jesusland, Sev.’
‘Oh, so who’s pulling Union rank now?’
‘Fine.’ For the first time, anger sharpened Norton’s voice. ‘Look Sev, you don’t want to talk about this stuff, that’s fine with me. But make up your mind. I’m just trying to get a lock on our new-found friend.’
Sevgi held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. She sighed. ‘No, you’re not, Tom. That’s not it.’
‘No? Now you’re a telepath?’
She smiled wearily. ‘I don’t need to be. I’m used to this. From before, from when I was with Ethan. This isn’t about Marsalis. It’s about me.’
‘Hey, a telepath and modest too.’ But she saw how he faltered as he said it. She shrugged.
‘Suit yourself, Tom. Maybe you haven’t spotted it yet, maybe you just don’t want to see it. But what you’re really trying to get a lock on, is Marsalis and me. How I’m going to react to him, how I am reacting to him.’
Norton stared at her for a long moment. Long enough that she thought he would turn away. Then he gave her a shrug of his own.
‘Okay,’ he said quietly. ‘So how are you reacting to him, Sev?’
Norton was on the money, about going home, if nothing else. It took the rest of the day to get clearance, and when it finally came, the crowds were still at the gate. Someone had set up big portable LCLS panels along the road, jacked into car batteries or run off their own integral power packs. From the tower, it looked like a bizarre outdoor art gallery, little knots of figures gathered in front of each panel, or walking between. The chanting had died down with the onset of night and the eventual arrival of three cherry-topped state police teardrops. They were parked now, in amongst the other vehicles, but if the officers they’d brought were doing any crowd control, they were keeping a low profile while they did it. And the media had apparently all gone home.
‘Seen it before,’ said the tower guard, a slim Hispanic just on for the graveyard shift. ‘Staties usually chase them off, so there’s no adverse coverage if the shit hits the fan. Shit does hit the fan, everyone runs the same sanitised broadcast the next morning. Tallahassee got deals with most of the networks, privileged access to legislature and like that. No one breaks ranks.’
‘Yeah,’ rumbled Marsalis. ‘Responsible reporting. I’m going to miss that.’
The night wind coming off the sea was cool and faintly sewn with salt. Sevgi felt it stir strands of hair on her cheek, felt cop instinct twitch awake inside her at the same moment. She kept herself from turning to look at him, kept her tone casual.
‘Going to miss it? Where you going then?’
He did turn. She offered him a sideways glance, clashed gazes.
‘New York, right?’ he said easily. ‘North Atlantic Union territory, proud home of the free American press?’