Si Vis Pacem (Heinlein's Finches) Read online

  “How the fuck did you know? Have you been doing your thing at me?”

  She raises an eyebrow. “As if I needed to. Honey, I know you. You melt into a puddle every time he’s in sight and no, nobody else could tell. In the eyes of the world you’re still a cast-iron badass. But I’m willing to bet you know his name, have memorized his public record, and have already planned where and how you’ll get hitched and how many kids you won’t have. You’re in way over your head. You always do this. It’s painful to watch.”

  “I don’t do shit.”

  “True dat. It’s all in your head, but I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse. Your head is where you live, after all. It’d be nice if you didn’t trash it on a regular basis. And you could do with getting laid.”

  My face starts burning up. “Shut the fuck up about that, OK?”

  “No. Sorry if the truth hurts, but if you spent a fraction of the time you waste mooning over the pretty boy du jour on getting laid…”

  “I don’t want to fuck some rando. I tried that. It sucked. Just because it’s legal, it doesn’t mean it’s good. I can do better on my own.” I wiggle my fingers in her face.

  She rolls her eyes. “Then don’t fuck randos. Find someone to love and love him.”

  “Yes, because it’s that simple.”

  “No, it’s not. But you’re not even trying. You could actually go out, physically and mentally, speak to some guy, and see how it goes. Let somebody get to know you. Give it a chance. Make your own chances.”

  “I do plenty of that.”

  “You do nothing but, but none of the chances you make have a romantic component.”

  “Maybe it’s because I don’t have a romantic component.”

  She snorts so loudly people turn to watch us. “Yeah, right. That’s why you’re madly in love with some guy you’ve only ever seen walking down a corridor.”

  “Actually, we’re in the same tech lab this term.”

  She raises her damn eyebrow again. “Oh? That happened by chance?”

  “No. It happened because we both signed up for it. But I didn’t know he was going to, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m just following my plan. I’m not stalking the guy.”

  “That’s why we’re sitting on the one bench he’s guaranteed to walk past on his way to his room?”

  “Him and half the school. Shut your face, will you? This is important. It’s a work thing. And political.”

  She mutters something under her breath about how the content of my pants is important, too, but I stare her down until she shuts up.

  “There is a chance I could do him a service. A major service.”

  “And then he could service you?”

  “Cut it out! But it would probably mean getting in with that lot, or at least being closely associated with them. I’m not sure it’d be wise, politically.”

  She finally gets it in her head that this is serious. Her expression loses most of its customary whimsy. “Are we talking about breaking neutrality?”

  “Not quite, but it would be edging in that direction.”

  “Huh. You want to know my opinion, honey?”

  “No. I’m just running this past you because I can’t think of a better way to pass the time.”

  “You’re charming. Anyway, I think you need to be careful, and not about the political side of things. We can deal with that if it becomes a problem. At the moment everything is pretty quiet on that front, and if there ever is a major upheaval we’re going to get fucked anyway, so I wouldn’t worry. But do you really want to get in this guy’s pocket?”

  “It wouldn’t be like that. If anything it’d be the opposite. He’d need me until the job is done, and he’d owe me afterwards.”

  “That may be safer.”

  “Why?”

  “I know you’re the greatest ball-buster who ever lived, but you’re painfully uninterested in even power dynamics.”

  “Say what?”

  “While you think the guy is above you, you’re gonna be mooning at his general direction from a safe distance, wasting untold brain-space on him, mentally dedicating every slushy song you hear to him, and so on. You’ll see him in every glimmer of light and every stain on the floor. You’ll see his face in your soup. But as soon as he becomes your equal or lesser, you’ll lose all interest in him. You may actually come to see him as a person. Bit of luck, you may even bang him.”

  I run through a few breath cycles to remind myself that she’s my best friend and that I don’t really want to bludgeon her to death with my reader. When I’ve calmed down enough to tell her how wrong she is without screaming, I find that I can’t. She’s fucking right. To make matters worse, I can tell that she can tell that I can’t disagree with her, and she’s being nice about it. The whole thing is so infuriating that I have to run through a few more breath cycles.

  She sighs. “Look, it’s not a bad thing. It’s not a good thing either. It’s just a thing, you know? Something you need to manage so it doesn’t manage you. I say if the job appeals to you and it’s not totally going to fuck everything up, go for it. What is the job, anyway?”

  “Same as always. Tutoring.”

  “Tutoring him?”

  “Nope.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Any reason why you’re keeping this a secret? Apart from the fact that I pissed you off.”

  “It’s not that at all. It might be a non-starter. There are too many variables. I’ll tell you if I pull it off. Until then I don’t want to jinx it.”

  “And you don’t want to lose face if it doesn’t work out.”

  “That too.”

  Dee is right about one thing: I have been tracking the guy pretty closely. I haven’t found out much about him, definitely nowhere near as much as I’d like to know, but I have all the information I could gather without stirring trouble. He’s seventeen. He’s a tuber. He’s on a practical track and he’s doing pretty well, even though in those courses nobody cares. I know where he sits to eat, the corridor where he sleeps, who his best friends are, and what his position is in his gang. I know the stuff that anyone else could know, but that doesn’t tell me anything about the kind of person he is. That in itself tells me something: in order to keep that level of privacy around here one must either have very little in the way of a personality or be very skilled at hiding it. I don’t know what to hope for. If he’s dull I’ll be disappointed, but if he’s not then I could really fall for him. Not that it would matter, because he’s so far out of my league that we’re barely members of the same species, but it would make the situation harder to navigate. It’s not enough of a risk to put me off a good job, though.

  My biggest problem is how to get the ball rolling. I can’t just go up to the guy and talk to him about it: I don’t have the connections to meet him privately, and this is not the kind of matter that can be discussed in public. Trying to get a message over to him is dicey. Dee and I get on by being our own two-person gang. Our interactions with other parties are either free of obligations for all involved, or lead to short-term debts that are settled as quickly as practical. This keeps us mostly out of the shit and free to do our own thing, because we’re not beholden to anyone. The flipside is that nobody much is beholden to us – not enough to potentially get embroiled in a power play with one of the major gangs, anyway.

  If I want this thing to happen, I have to go ahead and make it. I have Dee’s go-ahead, though that doesn’t absolve me if any fallout were to land on her. There’s nothing for it but doing it, though. The first time I get a chance, I seize it.

  We’re in the same tech lab. Most of the time, all that means is that I find it almost impossible to focus on my work. I keep catching myself looking at him – at Kris, he has a name, though I don’t like to use it – out of the corner of my eye, paying more attention to what his hands are doing than mine. I’m still doing OK, because it’s not as if the work is hard on the brain, but I could be doing better. Now, though, with this possibility on the plate, w
hat has been a giant pain in the ass could be useful. If I don’t chicken out of it, that is.

  The first time we’re split into pairs for a project, I make myself stand next to Kris. This is a breach of protocol: he has a buddy he normally pairs up with and I usually end up working with the least invasive nonentity in the class. I don’t like my work interfered with and everyone knows that I always get top marks, so it works out fine for all concerned. Crowbarring my way into Kris’ work like this is profoundly not OK.

  He looks at me with that dead, reptilian stare of his, that look that shows that he’s paying attention but says nothing about what he’s thinking. The dude who normally pairs up with him doesn’t bother to be subtle about his bewilderment: he eyeballs me with open contempt. Kris stops him taking action with the smallest shake of his head. The guy wanders off to find another lab buddy and I stay as I am, trying not to show how much Kris’ eyes are affecting me. I’d rather feed my hand into the nearest biomass disposal unit than blush in front of him.

  We get to work without a word. It’s hard for me to let someone else take lead, but the last thing I need to do right now is piss him off. Once we’ve gotten into our activity and the room is too loud for people to overhear us, I expect him to ask me to explain my actions. Of course, he doesn’t: he’s not going to expose himself like that. Instead he carries on as if nothing was out of the ordinary and leaves it up to me to make the first move. That maximizes my opportunities to fuck this up from the onset.

  I could try a subtle approach, but I don’t bother. I don’t see how it could help. “Your brother is in gen pop.”

  A sharp intake of breath lets me know that I hit one of his sore spots. Just as well, because his expression doesn’t show a damn thing.

  “I don’t know how you derived that notion,” he drawls. “I don’t much care, though.”

  “You are similar enough to be twins, and you have the same last name.”

  His eyes narrow. “It’s a common last name.”

  “It’s not that common. And were you merely homonyms, that wouldn’t explain the way he looks at you in the refectory.”

  “And that’d be like what?”

  “Like someone who’s drifting off into space looking at a handhold they can’t quite reach.”

  “You are starting to piss me off.” He says that perfectly calmly, his voice just as slow and slurred as ever. I don’t doubt that he’s telling the truth, though.

  “He’s not doing well. I can help him.”

  He stares at me for so long and so blankly that I feel myself shrinking. When he finally nods, I realize I’ve been holding my breath.

  “Explain yourself.”

  “I can get him through his basic ed in a term, two max. He’ll do much better once he’s out of the dormitories. You can pull a few strings and get him installed in your area. He would have no problems there.”

  He blinks once. “How do you plan to achieve that?”

  “I can tutor him. It takes hardly any effort to get enough points to get out of gen pop.”

  “Right. That’s why most people are in there until they turn sixteen.”

  I shrug. “You just have to know how to play the game.”

  “And you do?”

  “And I do. I can help him select the classes that will get him the best results for his efforts, and I can help him pass them, too.”

  He blinks twice. “He’s never been too good at his classes.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. I’m extremely good at teaching. And if I don’t succeed, you won’t owe me anything.”

  “What would I owe you if you do succeed?”

  “That would depend on how much of my time it takes. You know my rates.”

  “I don’t, actually. But I know people who do.”

  “So?”

  “So I’ll think about it.”

  He removes his eyes from my face and goes back to work. When the lab period is over we part without a word.

  The message arrives two days later and nearly gives me a heart attack in the process. I’m woken up in the middle of the night by a mental scream from Dee and turn to find a girl standing in our room. I’ve never spoken to her before. She looks like she’s not too keen to speak to me now.

  “‘Freshers, corridor G4. Quick as you can.”

  “Say what?”

  She doesn’t bother to answer. She just walks off. I put on my uniform and climb off my bunk.

  “Honey, what the hell is going on?” Dee sounds as spooked as she is drowsy.

  “I’m not sure, but it may be that deal I was talking to you about.”

  “And you’re going?”

  “Only way to find out.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yes. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “If I started to make you a list I’d scare myself rigid in the process. Honey, if it all starts to go south, think at me, OK?”

  “All the way from G4? No chance.”

  “I might not hear what you’re trying to say, but I’ll hear that you’re trying to say it.”

  “And what would you do?”

  “I’d come for you.”

  “Then we’d both be in the shit.”

  “Maybe. I don’t care. I can make enough of a racket to get us all on lockdown. I’d do something. Honey, stay safe.”

  “I’ll do my best. See you soon. If you don’t hear from me, it means it’s all good, OK? Don’t do anything silly.”

  She grumbles something under her breath, but I don’t bother to decipher it. I know she doesn't like this, and I know that she’s right not to. I don’t like this either. It could be a set-up, and even if it’s not, it could all go to shit in the most spectacular way.

  I walk down our corridor unchallenged. The girls standing guard don’t even look at me. Once I get to the main door, I find it open. I push it ajar just enough to be able to look outside: there are no Supervisors there. If I take a single step outside my corridor at this time of night and I get caught I will land myself in a world of shit. If I don’t, this whole deal is a non-starter. I squeeze myself through the open door, cross the recreation area trying not to scurry, and find the door to the G section. That’s open too. The guy standing guard behind it points up the stairs with his chin. G4 is not far, and the ‘freshers are right by the entrance.

  When I walk into the ‘freshers I can’t see anyone. That tightens the knot in my stomach. I’m wondering whether to run the fuck back to my room when I start to hear breathing. The door of the first stall opens slowly, with a low moan. Kris is sitting on the can, fully dressed, looking at me with something that could be amusement. I’m about to let him know what I think of his games when he gets up and taps on the partition of the second stall, which also opens.

  The guy inside is Kris’ brother. When I told Kris that they could be twins I was only partly truthful. They look like they’re mostly made out of the same building blocks, but you’d have to look at them quite carefully to spot it because everything else about them is so damn different that they could be members of a different species. Kris’ face is not only perfectly carved and arranged, but has the ability to be completely expressionless. His brother’s, on the other hand, is ever-so-slightly off, slightly too irregular to be anything but homely. It’s also too expressive, as if he had no control whatsoever either over his emotions or how they manifest. The fact that his eyes cross slightly at all times and that stress makes one of them wander wildly from its intended path doesn’t help in the least. It took no time at all for the kids in gen pop to find that out, and it was inevitable that they’d have their fun with it. In a place like gen pop, something like that makes you the juiciest kind of target.

  He’s half-staring at me now, his right eye looking directly at me while the left one is aimed halfway towards the ceiling. For just a moment I’m fiercely sorry for him but I recollect myself: this is business.

  Kris nods at me. “This is Warner. Do your thing. Work him as hard as y
ou need, but do it in a term. I’ll settle with you at the end. Don’t try and fuck me over.”

  “I won’t. And ditto.”

  Kris strolls out without a second look at his brother, who’s still in the stall and looks unlikely to get out in a hurry. The kid needs to get his head in the right place.

  “Come on. Get out of there. We’ve got work to do.”

  Working with Warner is exhausting. It’s not that he’s that bad at his classes or that he doesn’t want to do the work. Quite the contrary: he’s almost frighteningly biddable, doing everything I tell him to do as well as he can and without a single word of complaint. His main problem is that he doesn’t think he can do anything. He’s constantly overwhelmed, and I reckon 90% of that is because he’s wasting so much godsdamned energy worrying that he’s got hardly any left to actually do the work. He’s a nice kid and I feel sorry for him, but I kinda wanna hit him around the head with something solid and heavy to see if I can knock some of that nonsense out of him, too.

  Warner is having a terrible time in gen pop, which doesn’t surprise me. He’s one of the bigger kids in the dorm, but he’s got no fight in him. Kris could have tried to get him under his protection, but the dormitories are in no-man’s-land, with none of the gangs laying a positive claim on them, so his power is limited. If Warner was publicly associated with Kris that could make things much worse for him; he could become a handy tool through which someone could punish Kris or his gang. The whole thing is a clusterfuck, and the fact that Warner just doesn’t have it in himself to keep his head out of the shit doesn’t help in the least.

  He does his work, though. It took him no time at all to grok that spending the majority of his time in his study room is safer, as well as useful. He still gets picked on, which is inevitable: he’s just too good a victim. For anyone else that may be a motivation to work harder. For Warner it’s just another source of stress.