Five thirty. The door buzzer was going off, and it was five thirty in the morning. Lori groaned as she rolled over and flung both arms over the edge of the bed. She was never able to get right up in the mornings under the best of circumstances. And at five thirty in the morning, if someone wasn't already dead or dying, they were about to be.
“Lori!” Her mother was pounding on her door, now. “Lori, get up! Get dressed right now!”
Her heart contracted with fear as Lori shoved herself up. If someone really was dead, which was the only reason she could think of, since the alarms weren't going off, that her mother would wake her up so violently, then she was going to feel very, very bad. Exceedingly bad.
“I'm coming!” Lori pulled her thick pants on with shaking hands, then grabbed a long – sleeved shirt and pulled it over her head. She left her veil and visors off; she shouldn't need to put them on. Probably. Maybe. She shoved her veil into her back pocket and tucked her visors into the front of her sweater. “Oh!” Lori ducked and had to grab the door frame because Tanya wasn't looking, and therefore didn't stop knocking, and Lori didn't need a black eye. Ever. “Mother!”
“Oh! Lori! Get out here, now! Who are these people?” Tanya grabbed Lori's upper arm and yanked her down the hallway, ignoring Lori's yelp of pain.
Ahmed was talking quietly with a tall man in a dark blue uniform. His arm patches denoted some sort of Family connection, but he wasn't full military, and certainly wasn't a Member. The man was directing a group of similarly clad workers, who were taking measurements and setting up equipment. He was gesturing, then Ahmed saw Lori and Tanya.
“What did you do, Lori?”
She stumbled and almost fell into the tall man. “What did I do? I didn't do anything! What did I do?” she asked the man in front of her. Ahmed ran both of his hands through his pale hair and rubbed his temples.
The man smiled down at her. “Not quite sure, Doctor. All I know is that you're getting a firmware upgrade. That'll be the second level, Gentry,” he said to a passing woman.
“Aye, Caps.”
“Why?” Lori almost wailed. It wasn't professional or even polite of her, but she was exhausted, and she could feel the bruise forming where her mother had grabbed her.
“No clue.” Caps looked down at his hand computer and rolled his eyes before poking through the screen. It beeped irritably at him. “We just got orders to upgrade your firmware, courtesy of the Families, with the General's compliments.”
“Which General? I've never met a Family Member!”
He sighed and looked at her over the tops of his media glasses. “I. Don't. Know. Look, Doctor, my only reason to be here is to upgrade your decidedly out – of – date firmware. I wasn't told why, or by whom. I got my orders a week ago.” His eyes flicked back and forth for a moment, reading information from his lenses. “If we're lucky, we'll be done by noon. Excuse me.”
He wandered off, muttering to himself, and Ahmed turned to his daughter.
“I don't know!” Lori exclaimed before he could open his mouth. “I don't know what I did! I don't remember meeting --- oh my good high --- bloody hell!” She crumpled to the floor and held shaking hands to her face, bursting into tears. “Oh . . . oh my . . . oh, no . . .”
“What?” Tanya demanded as she, too, sank down to the floor. Ahmed joined them and put his arms around Lori. “Lori, what happened?”
“General Mischa,” the young woman sobbed. “General Mischa! That's who that woman was, Mother! That was General Mischa!”
“Tanya, what's she talking about?” Ahmed was understandably confused as he rubbed Lori's back.
His wife sounded shook up as things fell into place for her, as well. “The day before yesterday, someone came into Lori's lab without logged entry, or something,” she breathed. “Lori said that only someone very high up would be able to override the system like that. You think that was General Mischa, Lori? The Chief Engineer said he'd gotten his orders last week. She only came in the day before yesterday.”
“I know, but who else could it be?” she moaned. “She was supposed to visit the Centre that day, and the woman gave me her compliments, then last night we got that message from that messenger, and now this . . . I'm in so much trouble . . .”
“If you were in trouble, you would have been taken into custody,” Ahmed rationalised. “Tanya?”
“He's right, Lori. And a Family Member wouldn't come to dinner just to arrest you; they'd leave it to the police.” Ahmed had passed Madison's Syndrome to his daughter; Tanya was the only Citizen in their immediate family, and had the most knowledge of the laws. “What about the formulas? Did she see what you were working on?”
“I don't know,” Lori whimpered. “I didn't see her come into the lab; I don't know if she looked at my computer or not.”
“Hey, hey, hey, we're working, here!” someone snapped as she almost ran into the group on the floor. “Go out and get breakfast or something!”
Tanya pulled her family up and they were directed outside, where the early morning storms crackled around the protective sphere that covered the housing complex and tinted the sky a dark, mottled orange. The work crew milled about, not taking any heed of them until a short woman waved them over.
“Doctor Tencha, correct? So sorry about the suddenness of this all. When General Mischa wants something done, you know, it gets done, and she wants this done yesterday. So here we are! We've cooked you some breakfast; it's supposed to be your favourite. Do tell me if it's wrong, please. My name is Maybelle Tanaka, Communications Liaison. You really made someone happy, didn't you?”
Lori was staring at her, and she raised her hand to her hair.
“What? Do I have something on my face? Is my hair all right?” She was confused by the Tenchas' confusion.
“Madam Liaison,” Tanya burst out, “we didn't even get notice of the General's impending visit until last night. Nothing was said about . . . about . . . about this!” She flung her arm out, once again narrowly missing Lori, to indicate the bustle of activity in and around their duplex. The shock was wearing off and she was starting to get angry.
Tanaka stared at her for a moment, the her hands flew to her mouth and muffled giggles shook her shoulders. “I'm so sorry!” she mumbled. “I'm sorry! Oh, oh my . . . my apologies, ma'am, my apologies . . .” She continued to chortle as she waved them to a food unit. “The General certainly has a way with people.”
“And about that! Why is General Mischa coming to visit? And why does that require a firmware upgrade, which was ordered last week, when the General only saw Lori the day before yesterday?”
Tanaka rolled her eyes. “My first hunch? It will make the General's visit more comfortable for her. You'll find that a lot of what General Mischa does for others is simply to make her own life easier. But you get to keep the upgrades, and she must be very pleased with you. As for the timing of the orders, she's possibly had her eye on you for a while. Do you know what you did?”
Well, at least the Liaison was no longer assuming the Tenchas knew what was going on. Lori was shaking her head.
“Not surprising. Be glad you got more than a day's warning; if your firmware had been to the General's standards, your only notice would have been her knocking on your front door.” Tanaka was filling plates for them.
“So you've met the General?”
General Mischa and her partner, Admiral Leland, were the two most decorated Officers of the war. They had the most victories against the Benders, and had become the focus point for the beleaguered planet. No one feared for family members who served directly under the pair; ships were rarely lost when Admiral Leland commanded, and ninety five percent of the troops reporting directly to General Mischa returned. When one's enemies could kill one with a thought, the survival rates alone said everything about the pair's abilities that needed to be said. And with that said, the awe in Ahmed's voice was not surprising in the least.
Tanaka rolled her eyes. “Every time she doesn't want to go through the proper channels --- which is more often than not --- General Mischa comes to me. The Admiral says it's because I had a hole in my yard.” She set their plates on a table, then pulled out a chair and pushed Lori into it.
“A hole?”
Tanaka smiled at Ahmed. “The General has a fascination with holes, apparently. Left Admiral Leland to do the talking and climbed right in. She built a pyramid. It seemed to irritate Admiral Leland, which is partially why she did it, I suspect.” The woman shrugged. “Eat, eat! Are you feeling well, Doctor?”
Lori was rubbing her arm and Tanya winced. “I'm so sorry, Lori. I didn't ---”
“It's all right,” Lori muttered. “I, ah . . .” She tugged her sleeves over the tops of her hands and hunched her shoulders. The Liaison probably hadn't noticed her white skin or violet eyes; the hair colour could be attributed to fashion, but the other two were a dead give – away for Madison's Syndrome.
“What? Oh.” Tanaka looked closely at Lori and her eyes widened. “Are you --- do you need ---”
“I'll be fine,” Lori said shortly. She didn't look up when Tanaka grabbed a man's arm and whispered in his ear. He glanced at Lori and nodded before walking back the way he'd come. Just perfect. Now people would stare covertly, and whisper as she walked by. Look at the girl with Madison's Syndrome. Look at the modern – day albino. Look at the dark violet eyes, that white hair, the white skin tinged with pink. She's frail, haven't you heard? Bruises with a gentle touch. Genetically inferior. She's got no chance at Citizenship, no matter how good she is. Light – and sound – sensitive, you know. Easily breakable. Easily exhausted. Lori had heard it all before, had suffered through the stares and whispers and prejudices all her life. She got it worse than her father; his case wasn't nearly as severe as hers.
Tanaka had started up a cheery topic with her parents, talking about what their new firmware would be capable of, how they'd get to keep it once they'd moved to Venus after the terra forming was complete enough, how it was an honour, yadda yadda yadda. Lori was no longer listening. Her day was, effectively, ruined. She pushed her food around her plate and tried to ignore the large bruise on her upper arm.
“Madam Liaison.” The man had come back, offering Tanaka a small bottle.
“Thank you, Ricardo.” She turned to Lori and ducked her head a little, trying to see past the hair the young woman had let fall around her face. “Doctor Tencha? Put this on the bruise.”
Lori looked up at that, not having expected what was happening. Her parents, who had been almost as uneasy, tilted their heads. The Liaison smiled warmly.
“It's an anaesthetic,” she was told. “The General ordered this particular one to be included in our med kit, but she never said why.” Tanaka hesitated a bit, then continued in a softer, kind voice. “If the General had thought the Syndrome was important, Doctor, she would have mentioned it. All she did was ensure that we had an anaesthetic you could use.” She offered Lori a napkin to wipe her eyes with. “I don't know what you did, but General Mischa was reportedly mad as all get – out when Admiral Leland wouldn't let her barge into your home the day before yesterday. He's had to keep a tight watch on her to make sure she doesn't ambush you somewhere, just to talk with you. She can be quite . . . intimidating, when she's intent on something.”
She was remarkably well – informed, so Lori ventured the question that had been eating at her since Elsie's message. “Madam Liaison, about this whole thing, and the General's visit . . . I've, uhm . . . I have access to the original . . .” She looked around and lowered her voice. “I have the original formulas, from the guests, you know. I'm a geneticist, and I've been ---”
“Whatever you did,” Tanaka interrupted quickly and loudly, “is between you and the General.” She shook her head minutely, but her eyes were sparkling.
Lori could have kicked herself. Of course she shouldn't be talking about any work on the formulas, especially in public. The government and Families were certain that the Benders hadn't infiltrated Earth, but there was always that terrifying possibility. She nodded and wiped her eyes again, gently, then pushed her sleeve up and undid the bottle. The bruise was large and ugly, already a mottled purple – yellow, and she made a nasty face. The anaesthetic started working as soon as she brushed it gently onto her skin, however, and that made Lori sigh with both relief and surprise.
“Works great, doesn't it?” Tanaka asked smugly. “Top of the line. The bruise ought to start fading in a few hours, if you put the ointment on every half hour. It's yours to keep, with the General's compliments.”
“The General certainly likes to compliment people,” Ahmed remarked as they started eating again.
Tanaka shrugged and watched the work around the duplex. “It's a courtesy thing. Every Family Member does it. Sometimes it's strictly an ingrained formality. The General came to see an Officer that she was having issues with, I remember, and the first words out of her mouth when she walked into the room were 'My compliments, Sir, and you're an ---' well, I can't say it. One Family Member swearing at another doesn't get one fined, though, I can tell you that.”
Lori smiled at that. “What sort of person is the General? If I may ask?”
Tanaka sighed. “She's . . . well, she's . . . intense. She's friendly, of course. All Family Members are very personable, even when they don't have to be. I know they're enhanced for it, but you just can't help but like them, and be easy with them around. Most of the time. I suspect that the General often forgets to put people at ease before she concentrates on them. I tell you, being the sole focus of a Family Member's unwavering attention when they're not trying to put you at ease is one of the most unsettling experiences I've ever had. I hadn't expected her sense of humour. It's . . . rather quirky. Micah says they're both crazy.”
“He thinks that most people are crazy. I think it's a case of recognising in others what you dislike about yourself.”
“I don't think he dislikes it, though.”
Lori waved a dismissive hand. “It's the same principle.” She gave her parents a worried look. “Do we need to give the General a gift . . . ?”
Tanaka laughed. “Heavens, no. As the visited, you and your family are under no obligation to provide anything but refreshments for your guests. The General, by contrast, being the visitor, is required to bring you a gift befitting your status.”
“Well, being at the bottom of the food chain, I suppose her presence will be all the gift I get,” Lori quipped. She meant it in jest, but there was a little bitterness in her tone.
The Communications Liaison raised her eyebrow at Lori. “My duties are to provide communications between people who would not normally come into contact with one another, generally because of a significant status gap, Doctor Tencha.”
“Please, call me Lori. And I assume it's mostly between non-Citizens and everyone else?”
“In this case, yes. Occasionally I represent communications between the Elders and other Family Members; it depends on the situation. The Mother Elder is irritated with General Mischa, Dr. Lori. That means that the General is doing as she wishes, without regard to what the Elders wish. It happens more often than one would think, but regardless, the General is out to woo you, Doctor. She wants something from you, and she will do whatever she deems necessary to get whatever it is you may provide her. She will start out politely, with visits and presents, and slowly move on to firmer and more severe methods. An outright order to provide her with what she desires, should that be a legal possibility, will be her absolute last resort.” Tanaka smiled wryly. “A Family Member at her most persuasive rarely has to resort to a legal order, Doctor. From the admittedly little that I know about this particular situation, I should be very surprised if anything past 'I would much appreciate . . .' is required.” She dabbed at her lips with her napkin and set it next to her plate before pushing her chair back and standing with a smile. “But there's absolutely nothing to worry about. You're in no trouble whatsoever, and the General is reportedly chomping at the bit to see you. At the very least, the General's visit will be very, very educational for you, and the potential benefits far outweigh your current discomfort.” She raised her arm and waved. “If you'll excuse me, I have to get to work.” She placed a packet on the table. “Tickets to the theatre today, compliments of General Mischa. Enjoy.”
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