“Yes.”
“Insert me into a normal interface.”
“Yes.”
“And leave me alone.”
“Yes.”
“Forever.”
No “yes” this time. “For as long as I am in charge.”
“You won’t be in charge forever.”
“It’s the most I can offer, Alfred.”
“And if you lose your job . . . or when you retire . . . or maybe if somebody does something to you . . . then I’m fair game.”
“What’s done is done,” she said carefully. “I can’t go back and undo the past, Alfred.”
“I guess that’s been my biggest problem,” I said. “Getting hung up on that—the undoable part.”
“You have another choice. An alternative.”
“Those are good to have. What is it?”
“Do you remember a year ago my telling you that we are always looking for fresh talent?”
“Yes. And I called you after I got home and you basically told me to grow up first.”
She smiled and again for about the tenth time I reminded myself to ask her about her oral-hygiene regimen. Her smile had the power to blind you.
“A lot of that has happened, hasn’t it?” She didn’t wait for my take on it, but hurried on. “Alfred, I’d like to offer you a position with the Company.”
She waited for it to sink in. It had a long way to sink, but Abby Smith was a patient person. She didn’t move a muscle while I stared at her.
“A couple of days ago you people are sharpening the knives to lobotomize me, and now you’re offering me a job?”
“That wasn’t us,” she answered. “That wasn’t my Company. We weren’t created for it and we will not tolerate it. No, Alfred, you would be working directly for me. In return, I will see to it you receive the best of educations as well as the safest environment to pursue it. And, when you’re eighteen, you can decide if you wish to stay with us.”
“What’s the catch?”
“It might prove a bit . . . dangerous at times. But you’ve proven more than once that you’re more than capable of handling yourself.”
“What about SOFIA? How do I know you’re not just bringing me onboard to use me again?”
When I said the word “SOFIA,” her smile evaporated. The room got dimmer, as if she had flipped off a light.
“SOFIA is dead. The data has been purged from our systems and all the samples destroyed.”
“You could have told me about it. You had the chance. I asked in Knoxville about SOFIA and you said there was no such thing.”
“I believe I said there was no such person. ”
“Ho, well, at least you were being honest about it. How do I know you’re being honest now? How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t, Alfred,” she said, and she sounded sad. “We’ve done very little to earn it. I can’t give you a reason to say yes. To be perfectly honest, if the roles were reversed, I might very well say no.”
“So why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re something very special, and I’m not.” She stroked my forearm as she talked. “Though I’ve studied it all my life, I’ve never quite touched it, Alfred, not in the way you have.”
“Touched what?” I asked, though I knew what.
She put a hand on my shoulder. “I shall tell you a secret: I envy you, Alfred Kropp. We long for the divine. We long to touch it. We long for it to touch us. At every turn in this affair you were met by betrayal and treachery—Samuel, Nueve, Ashley, among God knows how many others—and yet at the end, you were willing to sacrifice yourself for a world that must seem cold and brutal and quite unforgiving.”
“Well,” I said. “It wouldn’t be right to let your personal hang-ups get in the way of the stuff that really matters. There wouldn’t even be a thing like OIPEP if the world wasn’t worth saving, right?”
“Then your answer is yes?”
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course. Take all the time you need. It will take a while to decide Nueve’s fate.”
“What does Nueve’s fate have to do with me saying yes?”
“The day is coming, Alfred, sooner rather than later, when I must designate a new Operative Nine.”
She waited patiently for that one to sink in. I let it sink till it reached bottom, and then I said, “You’re going to train me to be an Operative Nine?”
“I can’t think of anyone better suited for the job. Perhaps, in the most ironic sense, you’ve been training for it for quite some time.”
I didn’t say anything. She gave my hand a squeeze.
“Don’t answer now. You’ll have two years to think about it. The Company needs people like you, Alfred. Sometimes we lose sight of what really matters in our relentless pursuit of our goals—but through all this, you never lost sight of that. Of the things that really matter. It’s a rare quality, and something without which our organization—well, the entire world, as a matter of fact—will perish.”
“Sounds like you’re asking me to save the world.”
“Yet again,” she said with a smile. “Do you think you’re up for it?”
An orderly brought me a light meal after Abby left. Beef broth, hot tea, and some tasteless crackers. After I ate, a doctor came in and checked my vitals.
“Hey, I know you,” I said. “You’re Dr. Watson from the Pandora.”
“My name isn’t Watson,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “That was just my name for you.”
“Is that what you do?” he asked. “Give people names?”
“I was filling in the void,” I said. “You remember, we talked about butts.”
“I don’t remember talking about your butt.”
“It wasn’t my butt in particular.”
“Whose butt, then?”
“Nobody’s really.”
“It was a philosophical discussion about butts?”
“I didn’t know why we had cracks.”
“And did we resolve the issue?”
“When somebody laughs really hard, you say they ‘cracked up.’ ”