Saturday June 29 2069
San Francisco

Greg Montoya entered the motion lab, and saw light and motion in one section of the floor; he followed it to where Dewey was working. A ghostly, life-size image of Adriana spun, her hair flying out around her. "This is it? The fight scene?"

Dewey shook his head. "No, just the raw recording. I work in 2D, you know that. We don't upload in holo."

"Well, why not? The tech's been out for years."

"The equipment's expensive. Market research says there aren't enough consumers with holo to justify buying the upload hardware."

"Uh huh. And if you're a consumer, why buy an expensive holo display if there's nothing to watch on it?"

"Oh, games and recordings-for-sale should bump the numbers of receivers up eventually; then Magnus will go holo." He repeated the image. "Till then, the only place you can watch The Defenders in three dimensions is right here. Beautiful to watch, isn't she?"

Montoya gave the short recording a studied glance. "Lots of predators are, when they're on the hunt."

"She's nice."

"She's a cyber. She's anything she wants to be. Is this all you've got?"

"No." The image disappeared, and was replaced by six large screens floating in the air, showing the cyber standing on the grid from six angles simultaneously. Two large, mannequin-like figures approached her from either side, bringing rifles to bear as they advanced. She sprang towards the one on the left, brought the side of her foot into his knee, and the figure tumbled, weapon flying away. Before it was halfway to the floor, she'd bounced away, spinning like a figure skater as she rocketed across the grid. Her long hair flew out around her like a parasol as she planted an elbow into the other target, and immediately brought her fist up into the crumpling figure's chin. She fired herself across the floor once more and brought the blade of her extended hand down on the neck of the first figure, whose hands and knees had just hit the floor. Then, with her opponents laid out on the gridwork, she straightened and looked towards the camera. The scene immediately began again.

"Slow it down to normal, will you?" Before he finished the request, the scene was ended and starting again.

Dewey looked at him and said slowly, "You're seeing it at seventy percent now. The scene didn't last three seconds realtime."

He blew out. "I knew they're fast. You don't understand what it means, though, until you see. She could take down half a dozen men before they knew she was there. Slow it down to thirty percent." He watched the scene again. Even slowed down to less than a third of realtime, the attack was over in less than eight seconds. "You haven't changed her."

"It's all cosmetic, and not much of it. I'll do it last. This is what's got me in a quandary." On the screens, she was spinning as she approached the second figure, hair flying out in a disc almost parallel to the floor. "I love what her hair does right here. But it passes right through the second figure. I'm either gonna have to cut it way short, or spend a lot of time making it bounce off his chest as she turns into him."

"What about after it's sticky with blood?"

Dewey's brows came together. "Eh?"

He indicated the upward punch rocking the figure's head back. "Depending on the angle, that fist is going to come out through his face or the top of his skull. That is, if his head doesn't pop into the air like a tiddlywink."

Dewey stared at him. "Are you putting me on?"

"Not in the least." He indicated the second man, as she brought her hand down on his neck like a guillotine blade. "That one should roll a bit before it comes to rest. Or maybe she would have just broken it, since he's headed for the floor anyway."

"They're both dead?"

"Very. And she snapped that knee; you should show it bending backward like a dog's hind leg. And… this whole scene should be awash in blood from the second victim when you're done. It'd never make the family version, Wilson."

Dewey studied the scene. "When she was doing it, it was just an amazing little dance. Then, when I found out she was a cyber, I remembered all the childhood stories, and I was scared. Then I talked to her, and I couldn't believe she'd ever hurt anybody. Now you've got me scared again. Are you one of Shane's people, Greg?"

"Shane's a demagogue. I'm a realist. He's an idiot who thinks he can turn cybers back into machines by legislation. Guess he doesn't remember how poorly they took it the last time humans tried to wipe them out."

"She said she's a schoolteacher." Dewey added thoughtfully, "And she said they all know how to… do this."

"And other things, I bet. Their lives depended on those skills once. I don't suppose they'd forget. Tell me something, Wilson. You remember your history, how they got citizenship?"

"The Accords."

"The Accords, right." He watched the fight scene loop over and over as he spoke. "The UN declared open season on them, back in the Twenties, at the worst of the Troubles. The world was a rumor away from anarchy. Some key world leaders thought concocting a public threat to make people forget they were cold and hungry was just the ticket. When cybers were discovered, it seemed like a bunch of retired military robots would make a perfect focus for mass hatred that wasn't the people in power.

"Instead, they found they'd let a plague loose on the world. For ten years, every politician or media personality or industrialist who stood to profit from making scapegoats out of cybers… well, they died by the thousands. Top people. Hell, they assassinated the President of the United States three times in those ten years. In the end, the UN cut them a deal that amounted to a peace treaty, as if they were dealing with a sovereign state. Members scrambled to sign, because the cybers let it be known that they'd cease operations in any country that did, and honored its provisions, whether the Accords were ratified or not… and concentrate their assassination efforts in those countries that had refused. Nobody wanted their homeland turned into a hunting preserve for them. I know the history books say different, but I say the machines won that war."

He turned to Dewey. "They were the most effective and dangerous terrorist organization in history. Best guess is that there were only a hundred of them then, raising holy hell with world order and making people all over the world fear for their lives. How many of them are there now?"

"I don't know. Not many."

"If they've built new units to the limit of the Accords, there are about fifteen thousand. We're stronger, lots stronger, but so are they." He flicked a finger at the images of the charming little schoolteacher as she turned instantly into a trained killer. "I think if there's another war, they'll be better prepared for it than we are."

San Pablo California

That evening, Adriana felt Natalia drop in for a visit, just as she and, by link, Ina were watching the end of the opening credits for a Defenders episode. [Are you two getting hooked on this drivel?]

(This is an archival episode from the adults-only version. Sister and I are indulging a prurient interest.)

The episode opened with a shot of Diana standing in a moonlit bedroom, the disastrously rumpled bed behind her. She was wearing only a pair of panties and a brassiere, still undone in front and hanging loose as she pulled the cups together. She fastened the clasp between her breasts and reached for more discarded clothing on a chair nearby. "I didn't think you'd wake so soon."

A low groan sounded from the bed, and the sheets stirred. "God. I can barely move. I'm sore all over. Even my teeth hurt."

She wrapped her skirt around her and fastened it, keeping her back to him. Her face was a mask. "Perhaps you should have just screamed, instead of trying to hold it in."

[Oh, Creator!]

{It isn't really like that, is it?}

[No, little one. This is just fantasy compounded with ignorance.]

{Good. I wouldn't want to risk hurting Brad, if and when.}

"Where are you going?"

Diana slipped on a button-front shirt and worked her way up the fasteners. "To work. I have a job. If I leave now, I can get home in time to shower and change."

"You could call in sick. Uh, no, I guess you can't, can you?" He rolled towards her. "But you get days off anyway, don't you?"

{Eek. It's like that guy George said. For a millisecond, I thought it was James.}

(A rather blatant transference, don't you think?)

Diana pulled her hair out of the collar and tucked the shirt in carefully. "I don't just have a job. I have work to do."

He flung off the sheets, planted his feet on the floor, and stood up behind her. Although he was obviously naked, Diana's position and the camera's provided strategic coverage. "Last night was incredible. Unbelievable." He started to put his arms around her, and bent his head towards the back of her neck.

"Ah." She raised a hand to her shoulder, palm forward, like an old-fashioned traffic cop signaling a stop; the man froze. "The night is over, Carlo – or whatever your name is. You lived your little fantasy, and satisfied your curiosity."

His face clouded. "Angela, why are you angry? What did I do?"

"You did exactly what I expected. And I'm not angry, I'm just getting back to work." She stepped into her shoes. She reached into her small purse, pulled out a wristwatch, and fastened it to her wrist.

{Why does a cyber need a watch?}

(It's a comlink. That's why she took it off.)

{Why does a cyber need a comlink?}

(Hush.)

"Can I call you?"

She pulled her hair back into its trademark bun and fastened it with a small clip. "Unlikely, since you don't have my code, and I'm not giving it to you." She removed a phone from her purse and appeared to check the call log, then put it away again.

Then she turned to face him. He bent again, hesitantly, as if to kiss her, but again she raised a hand, stopping him. "You had your night with a cyber. Tell your friends if you like, but it's in your best interest not to divulge any details."

"Oh?" Anger stirred on his face.

"Yes. Think about what we did last night. Who'd believe you?"

He stilled. "There is that."

"And something else. You enjoyed it, didn't you?"

"Yes." He took a quick breath. "Words can't describe how much."

"Then you won't do something that will guarantee no cyber will waste a smile on you ever again. We all talk, you see. And if you didn't keep quiet, we'd find out."

[Well. I suppose that's one explanation. What did I say about 'a little knowledge'?]

His face stiffened in an expression of hurt. "I'm sorry it wasn't good for you. You should have told me if you wanted it different."

Her voice softened slightly. "You were as good as any man I've ever had. But I warned you last night. I'm not going to invest any lasting emotion in someone I meet in a bar, and I'm not going to make any pretense the morning after. I was affectionate enough for you last night, was I not?"

He blinked. "Yes. Oh, yes."

"Well, then. Goodbye."

His expression turned blank as a statue's. "As they say, not even a kiss?"

"I think that would end our relationship on a false note." She turned, picked up her purse, and moved briskly to the door. The camera followed her.

"Angela. Don't do this. Call me. You won't be sorry."

Diana made no sign, just turned the knob and exited into a twilit hotel hallway. She stood silently until the door clicked shut behind her. "I'm already sorry," she said softly, and walked down the hall.

The scene changed to a different set of characters in a busy and futuristic office, presumably Defenders HQ. [Well,] Natalia said again. [Now we know what Jack's expecting of you. Think you're up to it?]

(Jack knows better than anyone that it's all make-believe. And there's no reason to assume things will ever go beyond company and conversation with us.)

{Sybil's a very good actress, isn't she? I can see where someone else might have sounded unbelievable and wooden, saying those lines. Instead, she almost made me cry for her.}

[Good grief.]

(It's true. I don't know how she does it. She seems so insensitive in real life. But she has the key to people's hearts when she's working. The Defenders wouldn't be half as successful without her, I think.)

[Humph. So you think this show's favorite character is a cyber, inaccurately portrayed as she is.]

{Well, she's my favorite character.} Ina was in some underground space illuminated by portable flood lamps. Decrepit electronics and antiquated work consoles surrounded her, and dust rose up to drift in the cool air whenever she touched something. Looking through the younger cyber's eyes, Adriana saw a slender young man sitting at one of the workstations, intently studying the equipment. His features were Oriental and quite handsome. He glanced up at Ina, smiled, and went back to his work.

[If the boy's so fascinated by machinery, you'd think he'd be more interested in your inner workings.]

{Stop it. He's just immersed in his work. It's very important. I'm not going to distract him. But I get all warm and soft looking at him, thinking about it.} Ina moved one of the portable lamps to give Brad more light, casting the beam down over his shoulder. The move left her standing behind his seat, close enough to feel his body heat in the cool air.

[It's going to be a very long year, little one. I think you should turn his chair around and sit in his lap, right now. He can get back to work later.]

{You're teasing. Aren't you?}

The boy handed her a PDA. "Ina, can you go over to Station Six and copy the readings? They don't come up on this one."

"Sure thing."

[A little, maybe. But you really can't expect him to make the first move. Men worry about seeming too forward with Companions. The good ones do, anyway. Have you told him how you feel?]

{I was afraid he'd think I was a kid with a crush. After all, I went straight from Domestic to Companion. A bio girl might not be out of diapers yet.} "There's a graph in the display too. Looks like decay rate on the warhead. Do you want me to sketch it in?"

"Do I! Paydirt!"

[Bios don't think about us that way. To them we're all the same age. You didn't have any infants in your household, so you don't know how they treat their younglings. But I bet your bio family had a hard time thinking of you as a child, even when you were brand new. And if Brad thinks cybers are people, he thinks you're a grown woman.]

"Okay, fuel state next. Now that I know how, I can get the stats on every missile in the silos. We'll know which ones are safe to dismantle, and with what equipment." Ina, and through Link, her sisters, heard Brad's chair roll back, and his footsteps as he joined her at the workstation.

She tilted her head slightly to look him in the eye. "You could just have the cybers do it."

"And leave you and Jessica in some leper colony till the counters stop chattering?" He smiled down at her. "It'd be an awfully long hundred years, Ina."

"Would you visit me?"

"Every day. Until I was too feeble to get into the isolation suit." They stood side by side gazing down at the faded display, and then she/they felt his arm slip around her waist. "Thank you, Ina. For being here." Ina turned to him, and his eyes widened just as she broke com.

[Spoilsport.]

Monday July 1 2069
El Sobrante California

El Dorado Form School was located in El Sobrante, a bedroom community nestled among the hills a few kilometers east of Adriana's home in San Pablo. She used public transportation, even though she could easily have halved her short commute by going on foot; the bus felt more comfortable than walking the busy streets alone and enduring the stares of a thousand strangers. The regulars on the bus had gotten used to her; some were even friendly. She could chat or people-watch or be left alone as the big electric vehicle carried her silently on the fifteen minute ride to work.

Today she was sharing a bench with Rory, a retired sixty-something who claimed to have been a Secret Service agent during the War, and nearly been killed by a cyber attacking a Cabinet member's motorcade. Rather than making him a hater of cybers, it had started a lifelong fascination with them, and he'd been delighted to share a bus regularly with a 'civvie cyber,' as he called her. "Did you fight?"

"Rory, I can't say. It's considered impolite, even among us."

He huffed. "For all I know, it was you that day."

"Would it make a difference?"

"Damn straight. If it was you, it'd be impolite to deny it." He smiled, showing perfect re-engineered teeth. "Doubt it, though. You seem too young. Killing people puts its mark on you. I bet it's the same for your kind."

Softly, she said, "Did you ever kill someone?"

"Heh. Now I know you're a kid. No." His voice softened. "Almost did once. A fourteen-year-old girl I mistook for a cyber. Only the look on her face stopped me, when I pulled my weapon. Somehow, I knew someone that scared of me couldn't be one of you." The bus stopped in front of the school. "Have a good day at work, kid. Teach em good."

She entered the small classroom, and detected a faint hiss of microwave transmission from the hidden camera in the back wall. She ignored it and prepared for her students' arrival. Her first class flooded in ten minutes later: ten girls, eight boys, ages from eight to ten; children of affluent families whose parents were business owners or held technical jobs and could afford private school. The ones who greeted her did so with easy familiarity, even though she doubted any of them had ever met another cyber.

After giving them a minute to settle in, she began the day's work, pressing the key on her desk keyboard that downloaded last night's homework from their schoolbook computers into her terminal and sent a shared copy to her home computer. Then she began the day's lesson. "Today we'll discuss some aspects of relativity; specifically, time dilation. What factors alter the way we perceive time?" She observed her students carefully for signs of interest or unease.

"How close it is to lunch," Berin said.

Adriana smiled as the others laughed. "Okay, class clown. Now a real answer."

"Well… speed. Starship crews don't age as fast as people on Earth."

She nodded. "Neither do crews on the insystem ships, but the effect's much subtler. Another?"

Carrie, one of the older girls, spoke. "Orbit. Clocks on the GPS satellites run fast. They must have to be corrected all the time, or they'd get people lost."

"Actually, the deviations are calculated for, and that helps make GPS even more accurate. Nevertheless, your answer is correct. But it's incomplete. What is it about their orbit that makes them run fast?"

The girl shrugged. Another girl, Billie, said, "Distance from the Earth's mass."

Adriana beamed at her. "Yes. Why was I so fussy about Carrie's answer?" She looked around the room. "Anyone?" After an uncomfortable pause, she said, "Hint: geostat satellites like the GPS relays always appear to be above the same spot on the ground."

"Relative motion." Buck, one of the youngest boys, and the quickest; Adriana didn't expect to keep him long.

"Yes. The geostat satellites are special cases, because they're stationary relative to an observer on Earth, but satellites in lower orbits experience the effects of both velocity and gravitational time dilation. In fact, two satellites orbiting at the same altitude may be observed to experience time differently by a ground observer if their orbital paths are different. Why would that be?" She fastened her eyes on a new boy in the back of the classroom. "Will, can you tell us?"

The boy shifted, uncomfortable. "No."

"Then let's figure it out together. Will the effects of gravity be different for two such satellites?"

"No."

"That leaves relative motion then. Orbital mechanics says that two satellites the same distance from a planet's center of mass must have the same orbital period; they circle the Earth at the same speed. What other relative motions need to be considered?" She added softly, "The key words here are 'relative' and 'observer'."

One of the other kids started to speak; she shushed her with a gesture. "I think you have an answer," she said to Will, still softly. "If it's not right, we'll get it the next time, or the next. Everybody makes mistakes when they're doing something new. What's the missing factor, Will? The missing motion."

"Spin of the Earth?" He said hopefully.

She nodded. "If the satellites are orbiting in different directions, an observer on the ground would notice a difference in their relative speeds, as much as nine hundred meters per second. That would produce a difference in their relative clocks; nothing you'd notice without a good watch, but enough to be important in many technical applications."

The boy said, "Would you notice?"

Half the children in the room stared at him, half at her. Should have figured. I met all the others at once, and they all got to know me together. He's not only put off by a cyber teacher, but by the other kids' casual attitude about it, which makes him feel like even more of an outsider. "This isn't a class on cyber engineering, Will." She smiled, to take any sting out of the remark. "Today, the school's paying me to teach you how to apply the Lorentz equation, and get your heads around some concepts that run counter to human intuition."

For thirty minutes, she ran them through a lively discussion of general and special relativity. She made sure every kid in the room participated and was keeping up with the discussion. "All right, young geniuses." She grinned at them. "You've come to the end of the lesson plan ten minutes early. We could get a head start on tomorrow's work…" She paused as every child in the room groaned theatrically. "But then I'd probably have to come up with a way to fill twenty extra minutes tomorrow. Open discussion. Pick a subject… Renae."

The girl turned in her seat, giving Will a deliberate look. Then she turned back. "Would you notice?"

She folded her arms. "I was expecting a science discussion."

"You said, 'Open discussion. Pick a subject.' You didn't say it had to be about school stuff."

She glanced again at Will, who was leaning forward in his seat. She wondered if Renae was trying to include the boy by letting them all indulge their curiosity together. "Four hundred milliseconds per hour? Yes, if there was a reason to."

Jennifer waved a hand, smiling mischievously. "Do you have a boyfriend?" This was accompanied by an exaggerated intake of breath from most of the girls, and elevated infrared return from the three oldest boys.

"I have a lot of friends. Some of them are men. But I'm not dating anyone right now." She raised an eyebrow. "This is supposed to be a discussion, not a grilling. If there's a topic, state it."

"Okay." The girl's look was challenging. "The topic is, 'What do people think they know about cybers, and where have they got it wrong?'" She looked back at Will. "Well? You've been staring at her like a freak all class. What did you think she was gonna be like?"

Good grief, Adriana thought, the girl's being protective.

The boy dropped his eyes. "I dunno." He looked up at Adriana. "I guess I've been waiting for you to do something weird."

"My dad says cybers can lift a truck." Aladdin, whose father owned a shipping company.

She smiled and shook her head. "Only with the grav field on." That drew a laugh; any child in the room could lift a cargo carrier that used gravity cancellation instead of wheels. "Seriously. I'm stronger and faster than most people when I want to be, but there are limits, and you'd be surprised how little use I have for the abilities."

Gary looked at her with solemn eyes. "Were you in the war?"

She drew a slow breath while the students watched. "I'm sorry. I can't answer that one. It's a question even cybers don't ask each other."

"Sorry. My dad says we almost wiped you out."

She shrugged. "There weren't many when the Accords were signed. But there weren't many to begin with."

"How many are there now?"

She smiled. "Thousands."

"You all have families? People families?"

Her mouth twitched. "We sort of think of ourselves as people, actually. But if you're talking about bios – biological people – then yes. Any cyber you're likely to meet was adopted into a family with a mom and dad and brothers and sisters."

"And some of them have their own families," Paulo put in. "They adopt kids and everything."

"You really all talk to each other all the time? You've got built-in radios or something?"

"Or something," she agreed. "But we don't all talk to each other all the time. We can't hold thousands of conversations at the same time." She grinned. "Even if we are all girls." A few of the girls giggled, but a couple of boys brayed, earning them dirty looks from female classmates. "I have a couple of cyber girlfriends I talk to every day. But it's not a whole lot different from talking on the phone." Unless we want it to be. "We're not ants. We don't all think with one mind or anything. I don't even know more than a hundred cybers."

"How old are you?"

"Another question I can't answer. Sorry." She looked from one inquisitive face to the other. "I might only be two years old. Or I might remember the signing of the Accords. Whichever, I'm still Adriana the physics teacher. That's what's important."

"Do you know any Gens?"

She shook her head. "If I do, they never told me."

Gary said quietly, "Who has parents who gossip about Miss Adriana?" He raised his hand. The kids looked at each other. Aladdin raised his hand, then a couple of the girls. Ten seconds later, every right hand in the classroom was raised, except for Adriana's and Will's.

Renae looked at him. "Your parents just haven't got together with any of ours yet. They all do it. As soon as they start talking with our folks at a school meeting or something, yours will too."

The boy shook his head. "They don't know about her at all. As soon as they find out one of them is teaching school here, I'll be gone."