“What you waiting for?” asks Marco.
“Nothing,” says Derek.
With the digients watching, he signs the contract from Binary Desire and sends it to Janelle Chase.
“When I go to Binary Desire?” asks Marco.
“We’ll take a snapshot of you after I get a countersigned copy of the contract,” he replies. “Then we’ll send it to them.”
“Okay,” says Marco. As the digients talk excitedly about what this means, Derek thinks about what to say to Ana. He can’t tell her he’s doing it for her, of course. She’d feel horribly guilty if she thought he was sacrificing Marco for her benefit. This is his decision, and it’s better that Ana put the blame on him.
#
Ana and Jax are playing Jerk Vector, a racing game that Ana recently added to Data Earth; they pilot their hovercars across a landscape as hilly as egg-crate foam. Ana manages to gain enough velocity within a basin that she can jump across a nearby ravine, while Jax doesn’t make it, and his hovercar tumbles spectacularly to the bottom.
“Wait me catch up,” he says over the intercom.
“Okay,” Ana says, and sets her hovercar in neutral. While she’s waiting for Jax to ascend the switchback trail along the ravine wall, she switches to another window to check her messages. What she sees startles her.
Felix has sent a message to the entire user group, triumphantly beginning a countdown until humanity’s first contact with the Xenotherians. Initially Ana wonders if she’s misunderstanding Felix because of his eccentric use of language, but a couple of messages from others in the user group confirm that the Neuroblast port is underway and Binary Desire is paying for it. Someone in the user group has sold their digient as a sex toy.
Then she sees a message saying that Derek was the one, that he sold Marco. She’s about to post a reply saying that it can’t be true, but she stops herself. Instead, she switches back to the Data Earth window.
“Jax, I’ve got to make a call. Why don’t you practice jumping the ravine for a while?”
“You become sorry,” says Jax. “I beat you next race.”
Ana switches the game into practice mode so Jax can try jumping the ravine again without having to climb up from the bottom each time he misses. Then she opens up a video phone window and calls up Derek.
“Tell me it’s not true,” she says, but one look at his face confirms that it is. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way. I was going to call you, but–”
Ana’s so astonished she can barely find the words. “Why did you do it?” Derek hesitates so long that she says, “Was it for the money?”
“No! Of course not. I just decided that Marco’s arguments made sense, and that he was old enough to choose.”
“We talked about that. You agreed that it was better to wait until he had more experience.”
“I know. But then I–I decided I was being overly cautious.”
“Overly cautious? You’re not letting Marco risk scraping his knee; Binary Desire is going to perform brain surgery on him. How can you be too cautious about that?”
He pauses, and then says, “I realized it was time to let go.”
“Let go?” As if the idea of protecting Marco and Polo were some childish fancy he’d outgrown. “I didn’t know you thought of it that way.”
“I didn’t either, until recently.”
“Does this mean you don’t plan on incorporating Marco and Polo someday?”
“No, I still plan to do that. I just won’t be as–” Again he hesitates. “Fixated.”
“Not as fixated.” Ana wonders how well she knew Derek at all. “Good for you, I guess.”
He looks hurt by that, which is fine with her. “It’s good for everyone,” he says. “The digients get access to Real Space–”
“I know, I know.”
“Really, I think it’s for the best,” he says, but he doesn’t seem to believe it himself.
“How can it be for the best?” she asks. Derek doesn’t say anything, and she just stares at him.
“I’ll talk to you later,” says Ana, and closes the phone window. Thinking about the ways Marco might be used–without ever realizing that he’s being used–makes her heart break. You can’t save them all, she reminds herself. But it never occurred to her that Marco might be one of those at risk. She assumed Derek felt the same way she does, that he understood the need to make sacrifices.
In her Data Earth window she can see Jax gleefully piloting his hovercar up and down slopes like a kid on a trackless rollercoaster. She doesn’t want to tell him about the deal with Binary Desire right now; they would have to discuss what it means for Marco, and she doesn’t have the energy for that conversation right now. For the moment, all she wants to do is watch him and, tentatively, try to get used to the idea that the Neuroblast port is actually underway. It’s a peculiar sensation. She can’t call it relief, because of the cost entailed, but it’s undeniably a good thing that this enormous obstacle to Jax’s future has been removed, and she didn’t have to take the job with Polytope to do it. It’ll be months before the port is finished, but the time will pass quickly now that the destination is known. Jax will be able to enter Real Space, see his friends again and rejoin the rest of the social universe.
Not that the future will be all smooth sailing. There are still an endless series of obstacles ahead, but at least she and Jax will have a chance to tackle them. Briefly, Ana indulges herself, fantasizing about what might happen if they succeed.
She imagines Jax maturing over the years, both in Real Space and in the real world. Imagines him incorporated, a legal person, employed and earning a living. Imagines him as a participant in the digient subculture, a community with enough money and skills to port itself to new platforms when the need arises. Imagines him accepted by a generation of humans who have grown up with digients and view them as potential relationship partners in a way that members of her generation will never be able to. Imagines him loving and being loved, arguing and compromising. Imagines him making sacrifices, some hard and some made easy because they’re for a person he truly cares about.
A few minutes pass, and Ana tells herself to stop daydreaming. There’s no guarantee that Jax is capable of any of those things. But if he’s ever going to get the chance to try them, she has to get on with the job in front of her now: teaching him, as best she can, the business of living.
She initiates the game’s shutdown procedure and calls Jax on the intercom. “Playtime’s over, Jax,” she says. “Time to do your homework.”
