The Unincorporated Woman Read online

  “You’re partially correct,” he admitted. “In fact, I was kidnapped but over the course of my brief internment here, I was made to—how shall I put this?—see the error of my ways. Still, I’m curious. How is it you came to the conclusion you were to replace Justin? It seems quite a stretch.”

  “Not really.” She reached for her soda and took a long swig. “You see, I realized that your reintegration of me must have come at some expense both in time and effort. I also realized that the only person capable of replacing Justin at the helm would be this Admiral Black woman, a clear nonstarter if what the Neuro says about her military prowess is true.”

  “All true,” he said, confirming the report.

  “Well, then, that’s who you’d need out in the field … uh, space … whatever. Which led me to Justin, or more specifically the Presidency. That’s what you’re prepping me for, yes?”

  Thaddeus was still somewhat awestruck. “Yes, yes,” was all he managed to say.

  Sandra’s face brightened perceptibly as she had another epiphany. “Wow. I’m guessing there’s a room full of very nervous bureaucrats quite anxious to meet me.”

  “They already have, my dear.” Thaddeus’s eyes deliberately canvassed the room.

  “Right.” Sandra nodded. “I assumed I was being watched, but just by doctors.” She then looked up to the ceiling, eyes fixed on no particular place. “Hi, there,” she said with a wide smile. “No worries. I’m in.” She then looked back to Thaddeus.

  “It’s not so simple an endeavor,” he warned, now looking more concerned. “There’s so much for you to know and so little time for you to get to know it!”

  “Thaddeus,” Sandra placed a comforting hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “Things were obviously going wrong enough that they had to resort to kidnapping you and defrosting me. There are clearly a lot worse things I could be doing than cramming for a job that will ultimately have me kissing babies and smiling for the camera … or whatever it is you smile for these days. So don’t worry,” she said, patting his shoulder lightly, “I’ll get as up to speed as time and technology will allow.”

  “Quite reassuring, Sandra,” replied Thaddeus. “I suppose a thank-you is in order.”

  “It’s me who should be thanking you.”

  Thaddeus cocked his head.

  “Hey, I’m alive, aren’t I?” A perfect row of teeth glinted through an ebullient smile. “You even gave me back—” Sandra’s hands pointed inward, indicating her lithe and youthful figure. “—this. Helping out’s the least I can do.”

  Thaddeus shrugged. “I’d say we got the better end of the deal.”

  “That’s because you’ve never had to stand in front of a mirror, staring at a pair of sagging breasts.”

  The doctor’s bushy brow shot upward. “I … uh … Oh, never mind,” he finally relented. “I suppose we should get started, then.”

  “Yes, we should,” she agreed, sliding her DijAssist across the small table. “And I’d like to start with one of those.”

  Thaddeus looked down at what was written on the DijAssist and almost spat out the drink he’d just taken a sip of.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I couldn’t be more.”

  He put both hands on the edge of the table and jerked his head slightly back.

  “Damsah’s balls, woman, do you have any idea how dangerous a virtual reality unit can be?”

  “I should think so, Thaddeus. I used to own one.”

  Burroughs, Mars, Executive Office

  Hektor Sambianco was walking in slow, measured steps around a table at which were seated the members of his Cabinet. His eyes were cold and his bloodless lips appeared as two rigid lines on a face that would’ve put fear in the heart of an inquisitor. Not one of the Cabinet members was making eye contact with him—or anyone else, for that matter. The President’s hands were folded neatly behind his back, and his steps had about them the deliberate and silent precision of a panther readying to strike. When he finally did speak, the calm in his voice was in stark contrast to the obvious rage within, thereby heightening the room’s already precipitous tension.

  “I’m curious about something,” he began. “You see I just can’t—” He paused as his face contorted into a mask of confusion. “—get my head around this.” Hektor smiled stiffly at the Minister of Justice, Franklin Higgins. “Know what I mean … Franklin?”

  A bead of sweat formed at the top of the Minister’s head. “Uh—”

  “Good. Then maybe you can all help me out with this. See,” Hektor’s voice continued rising, “what I’d really like to know is … how is it that the system’s greatest reanimation psychologist—a man so skilled, he rewrote the book on PTSD from fucking scratch—can, I don’t know, just up and disappear?”

  No one dared proffer an answer, though a few eyes did shift apprehensively toward Tricia Pakagopolis, Head of Internal Affairs. If she noticed, it would have been hard to tell. Like everyone else in the room, she sat rigid, staring straight forward with a blank expression on her face.

  “A man,” continued Hektor, “so renowned, the largest and most prestigious of the Vegas clinics offered to name their entire complex after him if only he would stay—an offer he turned down, by the way, without any inducement from me, I can assure you. I mean, for Damsah’s sake, this guy was so critical to our war effort, I personally … personally requested he be given his own security detail just to make sure that something like—oh, I don’t know—” His voice reached a fever pitch. “—a kidnapping wouldn’t happen!”

  The rage now spilled out of the President, punctuating his every word. “But wait, it gets even better. This guy not only disappears, but is apparently shlepped through a cordoned-off section of our capital’s fucking orport in a suspension tube by his kidnapper! And the kidnapper is not only not stopped by our own intelligence officers, but is fucking saluted!” Hektor laughed in contempt. “At which point, the kidnapper walks unaccompanied to her transport, where another intelligence officer gets her all nice and comfy in her t.o.p., which she takes to a restricted orbiting platform and where another officer fuels up the fucking shuttle that she has the balls to steal from us in order to make her escape.” The slow circuit he’d been making around the room came to an abrupt halt with the sound of his clenched fists hitting the conference table.

  Porfirio had the misfortune of being closest to the impact and was caught off guard. He gasped but quickly comported himself.

  “Now,” beseeched Hektor, “did I miss anything, or should I just hop on the next shuttle to Ceres so I can go and kiss the ass of the Alliance’s new President and save us all the trouble of continuing this farce?”

  For a moment, total silence reigned. Hektor folded his arms across his chest and waited to see who would be the first to fall on their sword. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “I take full responsibility, Mr. President,” said the Minister of Internal Affairs. Tricia stared blankly at Hektor, waiting for the excoriation she knew must be coming, but the President said nothing … did nothing. He just waited, regarding her with the callous eyes of an executioner. The woman whose entire reputation was based on being cold and ruthless swallowed nervously. “We did manage to root out one operative from the orport.”

  “And?”

  “Killed himself before we could question him.”

  “How?”

  “Again. My fault. I set a wide perimeter and sent the order out to cordon off his living space but under no circumstances to approach him. One of the local police thought he’d be a hero and attempted to apprehend the suspect. Once the operative realized we were on to him, it was only a matter of seconds. He was dead before my men got within even a kilometer of him.”

  “So we got nothing?”

  “We’re going through his stuff now, but he was a pro. I doubt we’ll find anything.”

  Hektor shook his head in disbelief.

  “One last thing, sir.”

  “Why not?” he asked
sardonically.

  “His last words … at least according to the cop.”

  “Yeah?”

  “‘For God and Justin.’”

  A shiver went through the Cabinet.

  “I’m not sure which Justin I hate more,” scoffed Hektor, “the old one or the martyred one.”

  “There is some good news, sir.”

  “Please, anything.”

  “We managed to crack the core identity of the primary operative.”

  “And?”

  “You know her, sir.”

  Hektor’s eyes blinked in disbelief.

  “Come again?”

  “Her name is Agnes Goldstein.”

  Hektor nodded slowly as the memory of Agnes came back to him. Years previously, he’d used her as a human pawn in a game of high-stakes chess with Justin. Rather effectively, as he recalled.

  “She’d been classified, under that name, as a person of interest for her primary relationship to Mr. Cord. It was assumed that she’d fled to the Alliance, and rather conveniently, there was an Agnes Goldstein registered as a new émigré to Eris, working in an agricultural complex.”

  “This has Kirk Olmstead written all over it,” Hektor said darkly. “I shoulda killed the son of a bitch when I had the chance. Tell me, Tricia, what’s to stop this from happening again?”

  “Nothing,” she stated with her usual brute honesty, before adding a moment later, “sir.” Hektor waved his hand for her to continue as he sank wearily into his seat at the head of the table.

  “A well-placed deep cover operation is exactly that—deep. The operative doesn’t even know they’re a weapon until set off by a signal … which could be anything or anyone.”

  “Great. And do we have any ‘weapons’ like this of our own?”

  “We have covert operations, yes, but none like this. However, sir, they’ve tipped their hand so now we know what to look for and how to hit back. In fact, we’re working on setting up a similar operation.”

  “How long does it usually take to establish the kind of cover they just pulled on us?”

  Tricia’s eyes flittered nervously. “Three to five years.”

  * * *

  Sandra stared intently at the device resting on the table, hardly believing its size. In her day, virtual reality machines were quite large and looked more like a dental chair melded to a magnetic resonance machine. The VR rig she was looking at was reduced to nothing more than a thick headband attached to a box that looked like an old VHS tape. And it was the memory of that ancient technology that brought a smile to her face. As a precocious nine-year-old, Sandra had been repairing and improving her family’s VCR machine, which was what ultimately led her to a career in engineering and research. She laughed quietly.

  “What’s so funny, ma’am,” asked Captain Marilynn Nitelowsen, eyeing the VR rig with suspicion.

  Sandra stared blithely at her newly assigned guardian. “It just occurred to me that if my parents had bought a Betamax instead of a VHS, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

  Marilynn’s look of total incomprehension and grab for her DijAssist as a means to find an explanation were not-so-subtle reminders of just how far off the beaten track Sandra now was.

  “Don’t bother,” confided Sandra. “Take too long to explain. Just a joke from a long time ago, Captain.”

  “President Cord used to do that a lot, ma’am. His wife called it the ‘laugh of the lonely.’”

  Sandra laughed again. “Yeah, well, I never was that much into self-pity. Tell me, Captain, what did you think of the President?”

  “Honestly?”

  Sandra nodded.

  “Amazing, ma’am. Just amazing. You knew things were going to work out when he was around. Can’t explain it, really.”

  “Don’t have to. That sounds a lot like our Justin.”

  “I’m sorry you missed him, ma’am.”

  “You have no idea. On the upside, I did get him for the first half of his life.”

  Marilynn shot Sandra a humorous look. “True. Guess we both had our time.”

  “Look at us,” chortled Sandra, “sitting here like forlorn lovers. Ridiculous!”

  “Yes, ma’am. I suppose it is.”

  “You allowed to answer any of my questions, Captain?”

  “That would depend on the question, ma’am.”

  Sandra grinned. “When I found out you needed me up to speed in so short a period of time, I would’ve figured you’d throw a VR rig at me. Instead, I had to cajole it out of you.”

  “It’s complicated, ma’am. Perhaps if you used your Dij—”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Marilynn, I understand the history of the thing. I just figured what with the situation and all, they’d loosen up a bit.”

  “What can I say, ma’am? Old habits die hard. How did you get them to agree, by the way?”

  Sandra paused a moment, reflecting. “One of the little-known aspects of virtual reality, even today, is the time dilation effect of a brain operating on purely impulse input. To put it simply, a properly modulated and moderated VR unit can slow objective time for the person in it. Used properly, the four days I have left could become six weeks or more of learning time in virtual reality.”

  Marilynn’s eyes took on a distant look. “Six weeks in VR. You could do almost anything.”

  “It won’t be as glamorous as you think, Captain. From my point of view, I’m going to be in a library reading … from sunup till sundown. Not exactly what I’d call a dream vacation. What exactly will you be doing while I’m under?”

  “Watching, ma’am.”

  Sandra viewed her curiously.

  “I’m Admiral Black’s adjunct. I’ve been with her from the beginning of the war.”

  “Ah, that explains it.”

  “Not quite, ma’am. I was—” She stopped herself. “—I am a VR addict. Do you know what that means?”

  “Yes,” Sandra whispered empathetically, “sadly, I do. Remember, Captain, I saw my entire civilization commit suicide with the help of VR. Truth is, it almost got me. I was part of a team researching the time dilation effects I told you about. We were doing it for the purposes of education and research. ‘Spend a week in VR and come out speaking a new language!’” she bellowed in the overhyped tonality of a television announcer. “‘Have a deadline? Put your best research team into VR time dilation, and your days turn into weeks!’ That kind of thing. Like you, I found myself never wanting to leave. To gain that much knowledge in so short an amount of time. Well I … I just couldn’t get enough.”

  “And got to rationalize it as research.”

  “Yes.”

  “So how’d you escape?”

  “I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a … was a particularly nasty form of dementia. No known treatments.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, so was I—and then reality, or at least the little I had left of it, became very precious to me. Ironic, ain’t it?”

  Marilynn nodded.

  “So,” added Sandra, now tapping the VR rig and eyeing Marilynn, “you are going to make sure I leave when I’m supposed to.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” There was a new determination in the Captain’s voice. “Four days from now, whether you want to or not, you’re leaving.”

  “Good.” Sandra strapped on the headband. “Let’s get started.”

  * * *

  After spending a subjective week in an exact replica of her once local public library, circa 1965, Sandra came to a sudden revelation. One moment she was in the library’s main hall, reading about the Astral Awakening, a rebirth of religion that had swept through the Outer Alliance, and the next moment … nothing. Just a keen awareness that something wasn’t right. But what? She surveyed the room. Everything appeared to be in order. The dark, lattice-wood four-story ceiling had been authentically rendered. As were the gently lit copper and bronze pendant lights in nice even rows above. The beautiful grains of the quarter-sawn oak wainscoting too we
re accurate. She checked one last thing. The names of authors and literary quotations were inscribed beneath each of the large arc-shaped plate glass windows on both sides of the great hall. She quickly reviewed them all, stopping momentarily at the Apostle John. His read, “The truth shall make you free.”

  Satisfied that the virtual reality matrix was holding, she soon realized that no, it wasn’t the place that was bothering her—it was the people. Sandra had spent enough time in VR to notice the glaring anomaly. In VR, almost everything could be made perfect with one exception—human interaction. Engineers had been working for years in an attempt to cross what had been affectionately referred to as the “uncanny valley,” i.e., the more human a computer-generated character looked, the more difficult it became to render the subtle and believable “human” expressions that would make him more human. At the time, it had not been considered a major problem, because most people who’d gone charging into the fledgling VR rigs weren’t looking for real human interaction. In fact, the overwhelming majority were more than happy with the slightly wooden and zombielike humans technology had so far produced. The early adopters just wanted to fly and screw and be anything they could imagine. True human interaction would only get in the way of that. And all those intent on that kind of experience in a virtual environment could simply find other true humans to interact with.

  But as Sandra looked around the main hall, she realized that everyone she’d spoken with over the course of the week had acted very much like a true human as opposed to a program trying to be one. Her first thought was that they must be real. That Alliance security must have plugged others into her VR net to keep tabs on her from the inside, much as Marilynn was currently keeping tabs on her from the outside. But a quick review of the history of the VR plague and the Virtual Reality Edicts that soon followed dispelled her of the notion. The edicts, she knew, had not only been enforced with a ruthless efficiency but had also made it almost impossible for anyone other than a true addict to even consider stepping foot into a rig.