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  She smiled. “Sure. Anything you want me to keep an eye out for, exactly?”

  “No,” Grant said. She was one of the most skilled human beings he’d ever met. An expert communications officer, a specialist in sensor data methods and analysis, zero-gravity combat, knitting of all things, and many others. She looked perhaps twenty, but Grant knew that was an illusion granted by anti-aging gene surgery. The years had allowed her many opportunities to learn, and shots at a lot of weird jobs.

  “Put your spy hat on, Spencer,” he said. “I want everything you can dig up.”

  4

  “So, you’re a borderlander,” Bad Cop said to Dex. Good Cop only sat passively across the small table, fingers laced together.

  “I’m from Threnody, yes,” Dex replied evenly. “We don’t call ourselves that. Haven’t for a few generations.”

  Good Cop sat forward. “How many gene complex mods do you have?”

  Dex cocked his head. “How often does your wife climax when you have sex with her?”

  Good Cop blanched, then turned an almost cartoonish shade of red. “What did you just say to me?”

  “I asked how often your wife reaches orgasm while you engage in sexual congress with her,” Dex said, affecting the tone and style of one of his professors back home. Talking to someone as if they were an idiot was a great way to irritate them, and that professor was a master. “Though maybe it’s a question your partner here can answer, too, because I somehow think you’re not getting the job done.”

  Good Cop lunged across the table and reached for Dex’s throat. Dex pushed himself back in his chair as far as he could, arching backward. He flinched and narrowed his eyes to slits, but the attack never landed.

  Bad Cop had reached out and snatched his partner’s collar, yanking him back down into his seat.

  “Calm down, Mucci,” Bad Cop said. “You were out of line.”

  “Fuck I was, Thompson,” Mucci said. “You heard what this little shit said to me.”

  Bad Cop—Thompson—glanced at Dex. “You want to explain it to him, kid?”

  Mucci glared at Dex, furious hate in his eyes. “Explain what?”

  With a sigh, Dex relaxed somewhat, settling back into a normal position. “Your question about my enhancements is what he means. In Threnodian culture it’s as intimate as asking your spouse to do that kinky thing you love no matter how much shame it makes you feel and your medical history rolled into one. It touches on the core building blocks of who we are and how we’re shaped. I was trying to show you how inappropriate asking me was.”

  “Without asking if it was okay to ask,” Thompson said. “That’s the key here, right?”

  Dex nodded. “Yes. On Threnody you always begin any discussion about the blessings—our enhancements—by asking permission to discuss them.”

  Mucci, however, didn’t seem capable of suppressing his anger enough to internalize this logic. Thompson saw it as well, and frowned slightly. “Leave the room,” he said to his partner.

  “What?” Mucci said, snapping his gaze toward Thompson. “Why?”

  “Because you’re embarrassing yourself, Rick,” Thompson said. “You clearly didn’t bother to do more than glance at his file, or you’d have seen the notes on cultural differences. Now, leave. That’s an order.”

  Mucci complied, but Dex made a note not to be alone with the guy if he could help it.

  When they were alone, Thompson waved his hands in a ‘what are you gonna do’ gesture. “Sorry about that.”

  Dex cocked his head. “No, you aren’t.”

  “Oh?” Thompson said, cocking an eyebrow.

  Frustrated by the game and deciding not to play, Dex rubbed a hand across his stubbly scalp. “Are we really going to do this? You’re not fooling me, Lieutenant.”

  Thompson leaned back in his chair, scratching absently at his jaw. “I wasn’t trying to. Why don’t you tell me what you’re seeing that I’m not?”

  “Fine,” Dex said, irritated. “You’re obviously an intelligent man. You wouldn’t have brought someone that easily provoked in here if you weren’t trying to get a reaction from him. My guess, since Threnodians are so rare in the PA, is that you wanted to see if I’d go into an adrenaline storm.” That was an easy guess since the modifications for enhanced combat were the first ones created and had made the planet famous during the bad old days when it really had been a border planet. “You’re also testing me psychologically, by putting me in a room with someone that volatile.”

  Thompson smiled appreciatively. “I’m impressed. You—”

  “I wasn’t finished,” Dex said. “You’re also trying to gauge my intelligence, or at least my perceptiveness. You maneuvered me into this conversation using a combination of situational triggers, neurolinguistic programming, and an award-winning control over your own mannerisms and reactions. Based on the fact that you’ve read my file, I have to assume you already know the answers to questions about my physiology.”

  Thompson’s tightly controlled mask hadn’t slipped, but it was loose. Dex saw the flickers of fascination and mild concern behind it. “Yes, of course.”

  Dex grinned, feeling a little manic as the specialized set of glands in his torso warmed up despite his efforts. “Then two things: one is that you’re wrong. What’s in that file isn’t the entire truth. The other is that you know if I wanted, I could be across this table before you could process the movement and tear your eyes and tongue out of your head with my bare hands and no one could save you.”

  His voice dropped and developed a rasp toward the end, a consequence of the unique adrenaline variant now flooding his body. Thompson had guts, that much was clear. The man’s eyes barely widened before he nodded. “Yes, I know. Why haven’t you?”

  Dex put his hands flat on the table, now certain that some kind of hidden weaponry was aimed at him. “Because I don’t want to. I’d rather talk than fight. And because we both know I’d be dead as soon as I tried.”

  Thompson stared hard at Dex as the younger man blinked and opened his eyes. Normally they were the color of ground chicory, but he knew at that moment the irises would be glazed with a dark blue, the whites a much brighter version.

  “Holy shit,” Thompson said. “How are you controlling it? I didn’t think that was possible.”

  Dex smiled, and there was nothing of joy in it. Only the raw anger of a waiting predator. “I told you, that file doesn’t have the whole story.”

  Thompson gave him time to cool off, and sat down twenty minutes later after putting a huge plate of food and a bottle of water in front of Dex. “Here you go. Takes a lot out of you, huh?”

  The difference in the young man was profound. During the adrenaline storm, his veins popped out like snakes across muscles gone as rigid as steel. The mad sense of vitality radiating from him winked out, replaced by bloodshot eyes and tired chagrin.

  “Yeah, it’ll be better once I eat something. My body doesn’t know I didn’t burn many calories, but it’ll keep thinking so until I fill up.”

  Thompson nodded toward the plate, piled with sandwiches and mashed potatoes, the only food already made in the galley. “Eat up, kid. You’re not gonna offend me by talking with your mouth full. Before we get started again, is it okay to talk about your, uh, what did you call them? Blessings?”

  Dex nodded as he stuffed most of a sandwich into his craw. “Sure.”

  “One thing I’m wondering, and it’s not necessarily the point of this interview as much as my own curiosity, but you seem pretty strict about adhering to a culture you fought hard to leave.” Thompson said it with genuine interest, as a psychologist or anthropologist might.

  Dex cocked his head, considering. “Cultural influence is hard to leave behind, no matter how you feel about it. I mean, we call them blessings as if there’s a higher power to genetic enhancements. That should tell you everything you need to know about how badly Threnody can fuck you up.”

  Thompson produced a hard copy file, about half an inch
thick and printed on vat-paper judging from the faint greenish color of the sheets. He picked one of the flags poking out of the top and opened it near the middle. “You have all five of the primary blessings, it says here. Five enhanced traits.”

  Dex nodded as he forked potatoes into his mouth. “Technically six, and it’s a misnomer anyway. People say traits because it’s easier than explaining the details, but really each one is a bunch of different enhancements in one bundle.”

  “Six,” said Thompson, something like awe in his voice. “Isn’t that rare?”

  “I’m the first,” Dex said flatly. “Five standard gene cluster enhancements, and most people never have more than three. It’s a class thing. But every thousand births, a baby is selected for what are called Millenary Trials.”

  Thompson blinked. “Wait, are you saying these things are tested on random babies?”

  Dex nodded. “Lucky me, yeah. It’s purely based on birth order. The only way to make sure new gene therapies or enhancements work across the board is to give the trial subject all the approved enhancements. Sort of a reverse Sparta situation, if you think about it.” When Thompson frowned back quizzically, Dex explained, “They killed any imperfect children. On Threnody, we make ’em perfect. Then we fuck them up.”

  “That’s barbaric,” Thompson said.

  “Which is why I’m here and not there,” Dex said. “I was the first person on the planet to be given the newest approved blessing and every experimental one.”

  “Good lord,” Thompson said. He looked down at the paper and read off a list. “Combat, sure. Your adrenaline thing and stronger muscles and bones. Aging, obviously. Every society uses that one. Health? What does that do?”

  Dex paused in his sandwich assault. “Immune boost, mostly. It also bumps metabolism up a little bit to aid healing, but it’s nothing to write home about.”

  Thompson nodded. “Then...visual? What, like super sight?”

  Dex sighed and sat back in his chair. “That’s how a lot of people see these enhancements, and it’s exactly wrong. They aren’t supernatural abilities, just marginal increases, relatively speaking. The vision complex gives me really sharp eyesight and excellent night vision. But like all of them, there’s a cost. My retinas are super sensitive, which means I can take permanent light damage much easier than you. I wear lenses with a slight tint to block out the higher frequencies.”

  Thompson considered that. “Like with the food. Double-edged swords.”

  “Gods, yes,” Dex said. “Last on that list will be coordination, which explains itself. Not any real drawbacks to that one, except anything that makes you less coordinated affects me ten times as badly. Like alcohol, for example. I’m literally a fall-down drunk.”

  Thompson chuckled. “What’s the sixth one? The new one?”

  Dex knew they were dancing toward it. He suspected the entire purpose of the meeting was aimed this direction. Threnody was no longer a part of the Planetary Alliance and was so paranoid about outsiders that no communications were allowed off planet without permission from the top leadership. Even their entertainment was piped through hard lines to prevent data leakage.

  Which meant that the only real source of intelligence were people like Dex, who managed to escape.

  “Along with the many experimental modifications, most of which either didn’t do anything or are subtle enough that I don’t know their effect, I was given the sixth blessing. Intelligence. But it’s more than that. It’s not as simple as me being smart. People have been breeding for that as long as there have been people. It’s capacity. Engineers like my boss need to see a hundred interconnected facts. I can do five hundred, then. I can see them and understand how they relate to each other and I never forget anything.”

  “That’s insane,” Thompson said. “How sure are you that this is something they did to you and not just, you know, how you are?”

  Dex closed his eyes and leaned his head back, no longer hungry in the least.

  “Because I’ve been to the schools where they train children to use those abilities,” he said. “I’ve seen them getting ready for war.”

  5

  “The first thing I need to know,” Commander Sharp said, “is why the three of you are no longer in the service.” He tossed a file onto the table. “I know what it says in here, but it can’t be the whole story. You, Mrs. Cho—”

  “Commander,” Grant said.

  Sharp paused. “I’m sorry?”

  “Her rank is commander, just like yours,” Grant clarified. “She’s damn well earned it.”

  Grant saw the appraising look pass across the older man’s features. Jamal Sharp was tall and wiry, his dark gray working uniform neat and broken only by the rank insignia on his breast. His short, wavy hair was heavily salted with strands of white, though there weren’t any deep lines through the dark skin on his face. It gave him an oddly youthful look, though Grant saw the experience in those eyes.

  “Sorry,” Sharp said, a smile flickering at the corner of his mouth. “Chalk it up to navy regs and habit. But I really do need to know before we go any further.”

  Batta, arms folded over his chest tightly, frowned. “How can that matter in the slightest? We’re here because we reported an alien incursion into a system we were scouting.”

  Sharp’s gaze raked across them, measuring them. “It matters because there are factors here you’re unaware of. If I’m going to read you in, I need to know the particulars of your discharges. You, Mr. Batta, took your retirement three months after Captain Stone declined to reenlist. His refusal to reenlist came with a sizable payout from the service, which I assume helped him buy that interesting ship of his. Commander Cho was dishonorably discharged four months prior to that during an altercation all of you were involved in. The records are fuzzy and conflicting, and I want to know who I’m dealing with before I consider trusting you with this information.”

  Grant was thoroughly confused, primarily because it was supposed to be the other way around. Weren’t they the ones expected to pass on information? Still, a fundamental fact remained.

  “It’s hers to tell,” he said. Batta, sitting on Crash’s other side, nodded in agreement.

  “The three of us shipped together on the Blue Giant,” Crash said. “Big carrier, you know. Big enough to have great rec facilities. We played Ricochet together. That’s how we met. Batta was Engineer Second in Primary Systems. Grant was Gunner First. I was Lieutenant Second in Close Support.”

  Sharp had fallen into the passive stance Grant had seen other intelligence officers use, a way of making yourself so immobile and unremarkable that the people around you instinctively worked to get a reaction. Which usually involved saying more than they intended.

  “When our stretch was done, the Giant was at the dock for small refits. We got two weeks of leave and decided to meet up with another friend while we were on the station. The plan was to drink our way through a bunch of pay and chase girls.”

  Grant cleared his throat. “Except me.”

  Crash smiled. “Except Grant. He was still pining for a sweetheart back home. I, on the other hand, was just off a bad breakup with a guy whose name I had to have lasered off and decided a change of pace was in order.” She said it with a wistful smile, and Grant was amazed any part of these memories were pleasant for her.

  “Long story short,” Crash said, “my CAG showed up at the hostel we were staying at. He had no idea we’d be there. The bar in that place would serve an infant if it had the money, which was good for my boss because no other bar on station would serve him. He had a reputation, you see. Got drunk, got real handsy. And violent.”

  Sharp held up a hand. “There’s no record of this. I looked. You had no idea?”

  Crash shook her head, black hair shimmering as it moved in sheets. “Not a clue. Ellison was a great CAG. As far as any of us knew he was a hell of a guy. No idea who he was outside the uniform. Anyway, we saw he was in the bar of the hostel and he bought us drinks. Three sheets
to the wind later, he wants to talk to me in private about a promotion. I’m excited, of course. I’d heard for months he was up for a promotion himself, and I was next in line to lead the air group.”

  Now her eyes clouded over, the storm Grant knew was coming finally breaking. “I barely got in the door before he puts a hand on my shoulder. Says he can guarantee me a spot if I do him the obvious favors. I pushed his hand off and all of a sudden he sucker punches me right in the kidney. I fought like hell and a lot of it’s blurred by booze and the fact that I fucking hate thinking about it...” She glanced at Grant, nodded.

  Grant girded himself. If she could talk about it, given that it happened to her, then he could find the courage. “Batta and I heard a yell. Just barely, and maybe not the first one since the place was loud, but our suite opened right into the bar. We went to see what was going on, and Ellison’s leaning against the wall with his face busted all to hell, with Crash on the floor trying to catch her breath.”

  Sharp raised his hand again, but this time his face was drawn. “I get the idea. Jesus. You reported him, obviously, but the records only show a disciplinary action. Nothing about a brawl.”

  “Well, that was the problem,” Crash said. “Apparently someone stepped in and tried to downplay what happened. He got a reprimand and a note in his file. So I walked into the officer’s mess after the decision came down, explained loudly that this asshole beat the shit out of me because I wouldn’t fuck him for a promotion, how the local JAG let him off with a slap on the wrist, and punched him in the face with a set of metal knuckles wrapped around my fist.”

  Sharp was silent for a long time, then spoke quietly. “That explains the dishonorable discharge. Batta, I assume, took his retirement in protest.”