SUGAR AND SPICE AND ALL THINGS NICE
Part 4 of 8
The staff commons faced flowerbeds and a reflecting pool with red granite obelisks. Miss Zugasti avoided her office most evenings, bringing late work on her tablet. She occupied a spot under the loggia to review reports and jot notes. She nursed a coffee, enjoying the nightingale and the sunset-bloodied obelisks. The first stars trembled in the east. The breeze carried the scent of bougainvillea. She had the commons to herself.
A stocky woman in white with a blue shawl strode in, deep olive-toned, black hair shot with gray. A maid attended her, drifting to the counter for coffee. Miss Zugasti spied the woman at once and regarded her nervously.
“Zugasti,” she said as the designer stood hastily and bobbed a curtsey.
“Good evening, Director Scyros.”
“How’s the reviews?”
“They’re going well!” She patted her tablet. “The ten-years are on track—perfectly trained. I couldn’t be happier. At all.”
Director Scyros loomed, chewing her lip, fists on hips. Her maid returned with a thick black coffee, curtseyed deeply during its presentation, and withdrew four steps to bow her head and fold her hands. Scyros ignored her, sipping after inhaling its fragrance. Zugasti had to look up at her.
“Thought I’d find you here this evening. I wanted to talk to you. Why, you think?”
Miss Zugasti spread her hands. “The new genesets, yes? There are tweaks on the m-points against the rho-cultural movement. We’ve been running embryonics to double-check viability, and they’re positive. The Investors, of course, must approve, and you—”
“Yes, there’s all that.” Scyros waved her hand. “Cultural course-corrective balance against geneset, lovely party conversation.” She chuckled fruitily. She tapped the tabletop with heavy knuckles. “Not unimportant! Genesets are essential. Don’t want to tamper with ’em, no indeed—unauthorized-like.”
Miss Zugasti smiled weakly. “Oh no, oh no.”
“Now where is—ah! Miss Yilmaz!”
Zugasti and Yilmaz stared at each other. The Director folded her arms, teeth white and gleaming. “Hello, hello, Miss Yilmaz.” She snapped her fingers. “Zosime, coffee for Miss Yilmaz.”
“Miss.”
“Sit, Yilmaz.”
Yilmaz sat.
“How are you?”
The mentist’s coffee appeared before her but it might as well have been on one of the moons for all she cared. She held the edge of the table. “Fine, busy. I…I was working on the seven-years’ non-crit subpsychologs when you pinged me—”
“Be quiet.”
The two sat mute as she glowered, then jumped as she banged down her cup.
“Either of you care to guess why we’re here? Lovely coincidence, maybe?”
Sick expressions at each other. Scyros’s jowly mirthless grin grew and evolved into something more dangerous.
“Ah! Here’s our girl.”
A class assistant entered the commons—nervous, as they were not ordinarily permitted. With her, pale as snow, was Andromache.
She looked around, jittery, unfocused, hands repetitively straightening her waist-tie. Her left upper arm bore bruises.
The designer and the mentist recoiled like she was a snake tossed into a picnic—the real kind, not a native one.
“She understands why she’s here, don’t you, Andromache?”
“Yes, Miss.” Her voice was faint, green eyes large, swimming with tears.
“You—you—and you, out!”
The assistant, the maid, and the commons-attendant fled into the gardens.
“Girl,” Scyros said to the child. “Why are you here?”
She looked at the floor. “I went on Miss the Director’s terminal this afternoon.”
The mentist stared, horrified. “Andromache!”
The designer half rose, then subsided.
The little creature broke into tears and began curtseying spastically. “I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry…”
“Be quiet, girl,” the Director said.
She knelt and put her head on the floor between her arms.
“So this snip of a human, instead of sweeping and mopping my office, gets on my terminal—with your logins!—and starts fishing inside her records. I badly wish to understand how she learned to do this. You may guess I’m curious to know how she’s able to do this. No tank-girl should be able to conceive of the idea, much less act on it. Stop blubbering, you!”
“…yes, Miss…”
“Director Scyros—”
“Not yet, Miss Zugasti.—She’s not as intelligent as she thought, or she’d have known breaking into my terminal alerts me directly. She’d have been better off using my assistant’s terminal.” She prodded the girl in the ribs with the tip of her sandal. “Little fool. You know what she was doing?”
The women shook their heads.
“Checking her meds. Honestly, I’m happy she did. Some curious adjustments have been made, quite out of balance. It’s almost as if you thought she’d be unusually strong-willed. I spent my afternoon burrowing through her records, asking myself, Why? Why would you medicate against it when she should’ve either been adjusted or culled? So I went deeper.”
She turned her eyes on Miss Zugasti. “I find that someone relaxed her genesets for initiative and willpower. Substantially. Her intelligence is too high also, as anyone may judge who bothered to read the code. Funnily enough, I don’t find research authorization for this.”
“I—” began Zugasti.
“We—”
“Yes, what was the intent?” Director Scyros relaxed in her chair and crossed her legs, rotating a sandaled foot and tapping her fingertips together. “Hmm?—You, I told you to stop sniffling!”
“Miss,” Andromache said into the floor mosaic.
“I was approached,” Miss Zugasti said after an awful pause.
“Yes?”
“By an Investor who wished a privately designed contract.”
Miss Scyros’s eyebrows rose. “Highly irregular!” She put both her feet on the floor hard, stamp. The girl flinched. “Special orders are made through Administration only. This is sackable. This is labor theft.”
“He paid a considerable sum…much of it remains…”
Miss Scyros flushed. “You should bribe me to keep silent, you think? To what end was this…anomaly designed?”
“He wanted a…specimen with autonomy to assist him with…delicate matters.”
“Delicate?”
“Illegal.”
Scyros glowered. “How much?”
Zugasti mentioned a figure. The Director’s thick neck seemed to swell even more as she choked. “And annuals for special training until she left crèche.”
“Of course, a nice fat annual stipend?”
“Yes, Director.”
“Who is he?” she snarled.
Zugasti, mouth as dry as paper, said his name.
The Director passed her hand over her eyes. “Oh, he is notorious.”
“Yes, Director.”
“This…project is over. I shall determine what to do with this…error. You’re in disgrace. Do not speak of this to anyone, or it’ll be the worse for you. Get out.”
They left trembling. The Director provided the child another kick.
“Get up!”
Andromache scrambled to her feet.
“Let me have you.” She seized the silver braids and turned her head one way and then the other. “What good are you? What do you do?”
“I’m very good with numbers, Miss.”
“Numbers, eh?”
“I’ve been taught to play cards, Miss. I do not often lose at them.”
Snorting, Scyros released her braids with a shove. “All this to manufacture a card counter?”
“As Miss says.”
“Worthless bit of rag-and-bone.” The Director of the Helioshad State Labor Facility considered her. “I’ll contact this man myself,” she said slowly. “Unbalanced as your meds are, I doubt you’re useful for anything. Someone may as well benefit, otherwise you’ll be culled.” She pitched her voice, harsh and clanging. “You will be silent and speak to no one about this, understood?”
She swayed. “Yes, Miss.”
“Or something ’specially bad will happen to you.—Girl!” she shouted at the gardens. Andromache flinched.
All three women reappeared—commons-attendant, personal maid, and teaching assistant. Scyros snapped her fingers at the last. “Take…this back to her lyrik.”
“Yes, Miss.”
The assistant led Andromache, face tear-streaked, by the hand into the young night, the walkway lamps already lit, gas flames flickering.
Unseen in the dark, the weepy expression faded and her shoulders straightened. She showed her teeth in a small, feral smile.