Page 54 of Butterfly Effects

The stranger was quiet for several seconds, clearly thinking about this and not liking the fact that it was patently true. “I—well— You shouldn’t be able to see me.”

“No, probably not,” I agreed. “Did you make that jumpsuit yourself? Is it supposed to hide you?”

They finally peeled their face away from the wall, turning to look at me. Their eyes were very wide. I couldn’t pick up on what they were actually feeling, but here on Johrlar, being able to tell anything from a person’s expression was barely shy of a superpower.

I gentled my voice still further, talking to the stranger like they were a wild animal I was afraid of spooking. “Hey,” I said. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. My name’s Sarah. What’s yours?”

“Name?” They paused, considering their options. “You’re a cuckoo,” they said finally. “That’s what you are. You could be someone who’s just been called home by the collective of queens to be reabsorbed and set to what they call honest work, but if you were, you wouldn’t be able to see me, and so you’re a cuckoo, and that’s why you can see red, even though you oughtn’t to be able to, not a bit of it. I couldn’t have been expected to know a cuckoo was lurking around in the halls. That’s a no-one-knows thing. So I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, you didn’t,” I affirmed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Who are you? Why are you here?” The question I really wanted to ask—What are you?—would have been rude beyond belief, and so I had to leave it floating between us, silent but still visible, at least to me.

“Ikko,” said the stranger, after a long, contemplative pause. “Here to watch what happens. The collective’s been all in a tizzy for days now. They’re supposed to be arresting somebody for doing what they’re calling awful, awful things on a whole different world, and I’m supposed to be watching for that person to come through so’s we can try to intercept them. Only trouble is, all you wasps look just the same to me.”

“Want to hear a secret?” I asked, and leaned closer before I said, in a conspiratorial tone, “We all look the same to each other, too. That’s why we have to wear the jumpsuits. It’s so we can tell each other apart.”

Startled, Ikko giggled. That moment of surprise caused her shields to drop enough that I could get a glimpse of her mind’s surface, coming away with two salient facts: first, that she was a girl, and second, that she wasn’t supposed to be here. Oh, the mission she’d described was real, but it wasn’t intended to be hers. She was still a child by the standards of her people, the local equivalent of twelve at best, and they didn’t want to risk her.

“Well, Ikko,” I said. “It’s very brave of you to be here. This is a dangerous place for someone to be on their own.”

“You’re on your own. Is it all dangerous for you, too?”

She looked at me with wide brown eyes, waiting for my answer, and I realized I didn’t have one. I hesitated. Was it dangerous for me? Yes, absolutely. The whole collective wanted me, and my “hide directly under their noses” tactic would only distract them for so long. I didn’t understand how anything here worked. I didn’t know how long it would take for them to notice the blank space I created in their perfect pattern. And when they did, they would destroy me.

I could handle them in the mindscape, where they were devoting a portion of their strength to holding me down in the void, into making a pleasant face to come and talk to me. Could I really deal with all five of them when they had full access to their resources and were standing on home ground? I’d been so angry about Annalist’s actions that I hadn’t really stopped to think my own through the way I should have.

“It’s very dangerous for me here,” I said honestly. “But I don’t have anyplace else that I can go.”

“You can come back to my village with me,” said Ikko. “The Eldest Living would be happy to hide you if you haven’t been reassumed into the collective. You see me. That means you’re using your eyes, and not theirs. It’s how we know a safe wasp from a stinging one.”

“I would be happy to come back to your village,” I said. That was overstating things a bit, but it would get a child out of a dangerous situation that she wasn’t supposed to be in, and that made it true enough for me. “If you can promise I’ll be allowed to leave after I’ve been there, I think it would be safer for the both of us.”

“Safe is as safe does,” said Ikko philosophically. She pushed fully away from the wall. “You know how to exit?”

“I don’t, actually,” I admitted. “Last time I went out, I claimed afternoon leisure, which I’m guessing is sort of like a lunch break. But that isn’t going to work twice in a row. You have any ideas?”

“You can work the doors. That makes it easier. You look like an adult wasp—you’re an adult?”

I nodded.

“Great. Tell them you’ve been called for a reproductive assessment. They’ll let you leave. Nothing suspicious about a reproductive assessment.”

“All right,” I said. “Lead the way.”

She did, walking back down the hall and waiting at the door for me to follow. The atrium was exactly as it had been before, busy and bustling and as flawlessly choreographed as a Broadway musical. I forgot to slam my shields back up before we stepped into the open, and for just a moment, I could see the tracks telling them where they should step, the guidelines set down by the collective to order their movements. I could also see the allure. It hadn’t been clear before, but as soon as I understood what it was like, the simple brilliance of it all slammed down.

I forced my partition back into place, shutting out that terrifying appeal before it could convince me that I needed to surrender myself to the collective. I looked at Ikko, who was watching me, eyes wide again. I was sure if I’d been able to brush against her emotions, I would have found concern and even a little fear lingering there. I was supposed to be one of the nice wasps. What would happen to her if I gave in to the urge for community and fell into the collective when she was right beside me and I knew where she was well enough to grab her?

My partition came up, and the trails were gone, the call of the collective going silent. I approached the doors, Ikko by my side, and waited for the guards to acknowledge me. They turned their attention to me, minds brushing against my partition, and I detected neither surprise nor true recognition from that touch.

“Business?” asked one of the guards.

“I have been summoned for a reproductive assessment,” I said, keeping my voice level and faintly disinterested, like this was something that happened every day.

The guard’s mind brushed against mine again, harder this time, with an insistence behind it that made me feel like dropping the partition would be the correct choice. I summoned the memory of Verity’s first pregnancy, and the emotions that had been rolling off of her as we made our way to St. Giles’s for her prenatal appointments. She’d been excited and scared, in awe of the tiny life she was building inside her own body, and terrified of the idea that she’d have to set that life loose to crash through the world on its own terms. I pressed those emotions flat and gray, trying to reduce them to something that would suit this place, these people.

Pushing them forward, I lowered my partition enough to let the guard reach through and touch that emotional response. He studied it for a moment, eyes gleaming white, then pulled back with a nod.

“Acceptable reason to depart during working hours,” he said, and his eyes flashed a brighter white, obscuring pupils and irises entirely.