Page 35 of Tyton: The Spider and the Dragonfly (Tyton #1)

T

he access hatch blew and not a single member of the SecTac team survived.

Anticlimactic, to be sure, but not unexpected.

By either side. After all, how could it be?

The only biosig signals Black’s men could read were their own.

And they may as well have been broadcasting their arrival to the Adlets.

The first SecTac officer poked the muzzle of his IntelArms rifle through the door, only to have it yanked away.

Tornit’s scarred grin greeted him, but his gaze was fixed on the giant man’s black-market mechanical fingers folding the barrel like cheap origami paper.

The last thing the SecTac officer saw were those same fingers around his face.

The sight alone caused a rookie’s bladder to release.

He didn’t have long to appreciate the embarrassment, though his superiors did get to witness his limb removal.

The rest of the SecTac team stood uselessly gazing into space, waiting for their IntelArms targeting system to lock on to something, wasting precious seconds as the SmartCartridges came up blank.

They shot rounds as quickly and as impotently as teenage boys on their first dates.

Black arrived after the avant garde had been slaughtered, his palm held out in surrender. “You can’t blame me for trying,” he said through an arrogant smirk.

“I’m pretty sure their families can.” Siku’s face gave nothing away.

“I agree, it was a waste, but I only sent what I could spare.”

Siku kept his muscles under control, but he wanted to show this arrogant prick just how disgusting he thought he was. “You’re here for Talia,” he managed instead.

Black nodded. “I like you. You’re efficient. If you ever…”

Siku chuckled lowly, avoiding eye contact. “We won’t be giving you Talia.”

“Then why drop her face on my camera? These deaths,” he gestured to the corpses littering the floor, “are as much on your hands as mine.”

“That’s quite the leap,” Siku adjusted his lapel. “We’re offering to clean up your mess. And you’re going to help.”

“The Natalists are expecting Talia.”

“Oh, they’ll get her. As well as everything they say they want. They won’t survive to see it though.”

Black smiled through his annoyance. “You may enjoy being a cryptic little shit, but it doesn’t give you any power. My family built this city. You’re just a parasite clinging on to it for dear life.”

“Parasite.” Siku laughed. “That’s a very interesting word.” He held out a dossier, but Black didn’t take it. “What do you think the city will do when they find out your nanoids consider foetuses parasites? What do you think the Natalists will do?”

Callum scoffed. “Why would I give a shit what they think? They’re going extinct like the rest of us.”

Siku shoved the dossier toward him, more forcefully this time. Callum took it. “Where did you get this?”

“Ghosts. Remember?” Siku huffed. “And your family?” he continued. “We know what Morgan Black did. We know who he is now. And we know there’s no way to reverse it.” Siku sighed. “And you don’t have the men to take care of us, let alone the Natalists, or an angry city. It’s all show.”

“So, you brought me here to threaten me,” Black ground out through his teeth.

Siku shook his head. “We don’t threaten. We brought you here to offer you a mutually beneficial solution.”

“Which is?”

“Let’s go somewhere more comfortable.” Siku gestured.

Black hesitated. “Please,” Siku snorted a laugh.

“If we wanted to kill you, it would have happened already. Sesi isn’t here at the moment, but you can wait for her in her office.

Unless you’d rather stand around the corpses of the men you sent to die, of course. ”

Black wrinkled his nose.

Siku tilted his body toward him. “I know. The smell of viscera can be pretty intense if you’ve never been around it.” He started off toward Sesi’s office. Callum followed, back straight and head high. He wouldn’t be cowed by this filth.

“Tomorrow, you’re going to need to start training surgeons.” Siku spoke without turning.

“Why? DocPods are superior in every way.”

“Not for much longer. You’re also going to need equipment to extract nuclei and organelles.

“That’s impossible. DocPods can’t see cells once nuclei and organelles are removed.”

“It isn’t. You just need a cell big enough for your newly trained lab technicians to work on without AI enhanced tools.”

“Why?”

“Reproduction.”

Callum made a face. “Why not just use sperm?”

Siku leaned against the wall. “You’ll forgive me, I’m tired with this leg.”

“Why not get it fixed?”

“The same reason your scanners can’t see me. Synthetic organelles.”

Callum curled his lip. “Talk sense.”

Siku pointed to the dossier. “It’s in there. Most of us have them, thanks to you. Now, we need to get rid of them.”

Callum snarled, “Then find another ghost. Go breed somewhere in the snow. I don’t care.”

“The initial organelle instructions were encoded onto the Y chromosome. I’m infected. You’re infected. Almost any Y chromosome carrier will restart the whole thing. How do you not know your own tech?” Siku shook his head.

“That makes no sense. The organelle would only be present in boys, then.” Callum curled his lip.

“Oh, so you do know some basic biology then. Your great grand whatever thought of that. The new organelle has its own DNA and is present in every cell – including sperm.”

Black stared blankly. “Once it’s built, it self-replicates, like mitochondria, just from the male line. It’s all in there.” Siku pointed at the dossier. Black gazed, vacuous at the thick folder in his hands.

“So, you’re just going to eliminate men from your new cell line?”

Siku opened the door and directed Black to sit. “I didn’t fuck up the world. You did. You can make your arrangements while you wait. The rest, Sesi can explain when she gets here.”

“And if I call for backup?”

Siku smiled. “Here I thought you became a CEO by being smarter and working harder than the rest of us.” He closed the door and Black heard his footsteps fade away.

Cat handed her daughter a cup of tea and slid across the faded orange plastic cushion. Suddenly, Callie missed holding a mug. Missed how they warmed her hands. Missed how they felt so solid. These Hexcel cups seemed inferior in every way. Cat caught her staring at the cup.

“No Sparx today? Did you have a falling out?” she asked.

“Do you really think Sparx wouldn’t have told you if we had?

” Callie felt that her smile had grown lopsided.

She must have picked it up from Talia. Just the thought of her and Sesi made her heart feel like it was going to burst. She hadn’t felt this way since Brin.

And even then, not to this extent. Was she falling in love?

That was supposed to happen before you discussed having kids, not after, idiot.

Callie spun the cup slowly on the table. “I know I don’t share as much with you as I probably should, but I need to tell you something and I need you to just listen for a minute.”

“Do I not listen to you?” Cat wrapped her hands around Callie’s, still fidgeting with the cup.”

“No, you do, it’s just…I don’t know.” Callie sighed. “It just felt weird. Like stuff you’re not supposed to talk to your mom about ‘cause moms don’t want to hear that about their daughters.”

“I don’t need all the details.” Cat made an exaggerated roll of her eyes. It made Callie smile, at least.

“Okay.” Callie steeled herself.

Callie explained the situation, skipping the part about how the three of them got together in the first place.

Cat sipped her tea, keeping her face as neutral as possible, though she did catch the blush on her daughter’s face when she glossed over parts.

She didn’t want to know, but she was glad Callie had found someone, someones , who made her happy.

“Isn’t that going to cause a population bottleneck?” Cat asked once Callie had finished, skipping many details.

Callie shrugged. “I don’t know everything. I assume they’ll try to find other willing women who don’t carry the organelles.”

Cat poured herself some more tea and returned to the booth. “And she won’t use men because she’s a lesbian?”

“Mom!”

“What? I’m allowed to ask!”

“I don’t know. All I know is that she asked me .” Callie slumped onto her elbows.

Cat refilled her tea. “What are you really worried about?”

Callie sighed and leaned back into the plastic cushion. She took a few more breaths to sort her thoughts. Cat waited.

“I guess, I just don’t know anything about kids.

I never wanted one. It was never a realistic thing anyway.

And now, I’ve been offered this opportunity to have one, way past twenty-four, with two amazing women that I’ve known for less than a month and I feel like if I pass on this because I’m not a hundred percent sure, I’ll never have this opportunity again and I’ll regret it forever.

” Callie heaved. Cat slid into her side of the booth and held Callie close until she calmed down.

Cat squeezed Callie’s arm. “So, basically the same choice as every woman ever.”

“What?”

Cat laughed. “Every woman goes through this.” Callie made to interrupt, but her mom cut her off, “At least, every woman who can have kids. I didn’t forget about Sparx.”

“He’s in he mode right now.”

“What? When?” Cat frowned.

“A few days ago.”

Cat shrugged. “ Almost every woman goes through this. None of them think they’re good enough, life goes on.”

“But I’ve only known them for…” Callie protested before she got cut off again.

“I knew your father for three days before I got pregnant with you. I could have had an abortion. No-one would have judged me. But I worried that if I did, I would never have another chance again.” Cat sighed. “Turns out, I was right.”

“You got Sparx,” Callie offered.

“I never would have gotten Sparx if it weren’t for you being such an amazing daughter. Sparx is extremely lucky to have you.” Cat kissed the top of her head.

Callie lay against her mother’s shoulder for a few moments. “You’re saying that I should give them an egg?”

“No, I’m saying that it worked out for me.”

“What’s the chance that it won’t work out for me?”

Cat chuckled. “This is why you always got along with Sparx. He needed someone to boss around and you needed to be told what to do.”

“So…”

“So, nothing. It’s a decision you have to make.

I can only tell you what happened to me.

If you talk to a hundred women, they’ll all tell you something different.

They all have their own stories and their own experiences.

” Cat squeezed tighter. Callie sulked. “There’s no right answer, Cal.

For any of this. This is your story and your experience.

It might work out. It might not. It’ll probably be a mix of good and bad.

But you have to choose to do it or not.”

Callie sat upright. “Thanks mom.” She leaned in for a proper hug. “You know this is absurd, right? Three women having a kid at the end of the world?”

“It’s all absurd, Cal. None of it is normal. It’s just what you’re used to.” Cat ran her hand along Callie’s arm. “If it makes you feel better, when I had to make this decision, I thought my situation was unique too. We’re not so different.” There was a long pause.

“If,” Callie sighed, “if I decide to, will you help?”

Cat burst into laughter. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted a granddaughter?”

“I thought you said you knew you weren’t getting one since I was sixteen!”

“And you thought you couldn’t have kids after twenty-four, but here we are.”

Callie stepped out into the dark afternoon. The sun wouldn’t peek out for a month or so yet, but Callie thought she saw a hint of orange in the horizon.

Callie wondered how much of the world had started healing. How long it would take before they could move south again. Without the ability to use cyberware or DocPods, there would be no reason to remain this far north.

She knew nothing about surviving outside of a city. She wouldn’t have to, but her kids would. Sesi knew, though. She would teach them. And Talia would fuck up anyone who came near them.

Callie laughed to herself at how quickly her perception of Sesi and Talia had changed. And at how differently they saw her – a ball of stress, crippled by indecision and anxiety, she was good .

But it was true. She was the one who convinced her mother to adopt Sparx after her parents had thrown her out. She was the one who stood up to her bullies at creche. She left out food for the homeless. She had tried so hard with Brin, even if she had failed.

The thought of Brin brought a fresh wave of anxiety. She texted Sparx.

Right , she thought. Sparx has no idea about this absurd plan. Callie tried to think of the best way to tell him.

Callie explained as best she could, including everything her mom had told her.