41

Oliver Bowen

June 1, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Oliver had imagined the Triumvirate as larger than the average defender, their faces a bit more animated, but of course that was silly. They’d all been created from the same genetic blueprint, and epigenetic variation wouldn’t create such extreme differences. The defenders on the dais, sitting in enormous plush seats that looked suspiciously like thrones, looked to Oliver like any other defenders.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. One was badly burned. Oliver recognized him as Douglas, the defender who’d addressed the United Nations when the defenders asked for Australia.

“Was Francesca the only Venezuelan representative, or is someone taking her place?” Galatea asked, whispering in his ear.

“I don’t know. I think she was their only representative.”

Francesca Villanueva, the fifth emissary to die, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two defenders got into an argument over the placement of a chair alongside a parade route, and one of them—her “special friend”—accidentally slashed her before she could get out of the way. She’d been a stout woman in her sixties. Like Bolibar, she’d been the sort of person who laughed easily, although that trait hadn’t played a role in her death.

“Here we go,” Galatea said. She squeezed Oliver’s forearm, let her hand linger before taking it off. Lila thought Galatea was flirting with him. Galatea touched a lot of people, but he wondered if maybe Lila was right. He liked Galatea, and if the circumstances were different he probably would have asked her out. But here, with everything that was going on? If anything was going to develop, it would have to wait.

Oliver glanced at Lila, who was sitting two seats over, beside Alan. She smiled at him.

The defenders’ minister of defense, whose name was Walter, took the floor in front of the dais. As Walter began talking of their admiration for humans, their recognition that without humans, they would not exist, Oliver relaxed.

“We wanted this time of solitude to decide who we are, what sort of life suits us,” Walter said, reading stiltedly from a teleprompter. “What we’ve come to realize is, we crave the challenges that come with being part of the larger world. We want to learn from our mothers and fathers, to engage them in athletics, to study at their universities.”

Engage them in athletics? Oliver tried to picture a defender playing tight end for the Denver Broncos.

“We want to integrate. And to do that, we’ll require accommodations.” Walter stepped closer to the ambassadors. He squatted over the one vacant human-sized chair in the front row, pretending to sit. A few ambassadors laughed politely at the attempt at humor. Oliver couldn’t bring himself to smile, even insincerely. The empty chair was Bolibar’s. “As you can see,” Walter went on, “we’re not designed for human structures. We cannot be dignified if we must squat and crawl through spaces not built to accommodate us.”

Walter returned to the center of the floor. “To successfully integrate as equals, we’ll need fair representation and voting power in the world body, and other political bodies where appropriate.” A map of the world materialized behind Walter. Some areas were highlighted in orange. “We will also require places to live in addition to Australia. Certain blocks, towns, states, and provinces. We’ve mapped out those places.”

Oliver leaned forward, squinting at the map. New Orleans. The San Francisco Bay area. France. A large swatch of central China. What looked to be much of Nigeria and Cameroon. There were dozens of separate spots, maybe a hundred. Was that Jerusalem?

“You want us to give you these places?” Priyanka Vadra asked, her tone measured.

“We welcome humans to live in the areas we will control, but they will be refashioned to accommodate us.”

The areas we will control, not the areas we would control. It suggested they didn’t see this map as open to negotiation.

“Are these locations negotiable?” Oliver called out.

He half expected Walter to look to the triumvirate for guidance, but Walter simply closed his eyes, as if searching for words, or patience. “Our cartographers worked very hard on this map.” He sounded almost hurt. “The percentage of territory we’ll control is in direct proportion to our estimated population as compared to yours, adjusted for our larger size. We can make the calculations available if you’d like to examine them.”

How thoughtful of them. What they were asking was surely out of the question. The decision would ultimately be made by the United Nations, but Oliver couldn’t imagine the world agreeing to these demands.

Oliver pictured the mile upon mile of state-of-the-art weapons the defenders had manufactured. Now their purpose was clear. The human race was militarily weak. It was still recovering from the Luyten War and the global economic depression that followed. They’d needed bridges far more than tanks, and after the Luyten, no one had the stomach for human-on-human conflict, so there’d been little will to divert resources toward weapons manufacture.

“There’s one other thing we’ll require,” Walter said. He held out his open hands, as if in supplication. “We were left with no means to procreate. To repair this oversight, you can provide us with the expertise to create more of our kind. We plan to establish a production facility here in Sydney, staffed by visiting genetic engineers, and headed by your own Lila Easterlin.”

Oliver’s blood went cold. Galatea reached up and squeezed his shoulder.

Smiling a flat defender smile, Walter gestured toward Lila. “She was recommended for this prestigious position by Colonel Erik, who distinguished himself in Great Britain during the Luyten War.”

“Jesus.” Oliver’s lips were numb. He looked at Lila, who was staring at Walter, wide-eyed. Were they insinuating they expected her to stay in Australia permanently? Suddenly their insistence that she be the US ambassador made chilling sense.

The huge door swung open; a Luyten padded in carrying refreshments. That was another issue: If the defenders got what they wanted, would they expect to bring Luyten with them? Oliver was confident they would.

“After you’ve had something to eat, please take time to contact your respective governments and tell them the good news,” Walter said. “We have lifted the communications cloak for this evening.”

Heading toward the Luyten, Oliver resisted the urge to sprint from the room and contact Washington immediately. The other emissaries seemed to be struggling with the same urge. People were taking as little food as seemed polite. They ate hurriedly, eyeing each other as if silently asking how long propriety dictated they remain in the hall. Who knew what the defenders thought was proper? Perhaps the defenders wouldn’t have thought it unseemly if they all stampeded out of the room, shoving each other out of the way. For all Oliver knew, grabbing others by the hair and slamming their faces into the wall might not raise defenders’ eyebrows.

He moved through the crowd, following Galatea as their small contingent sought a space where they could talk.

Lila was clearly struggling to keep her composure. “We’ll fix this. Don’t worry,” Oliver said into her ear.

“You can’t be sure of that. What if the negotiations boil down to me staying, in exchange for San Francisco, or France?” She shook her head. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

“Washington won’t tolerate an emissary being taken hostage. Not a chance.”

Lila took Oliver’s plate from his hand and set it on a table. “I want to hear them say that.”