05
The “blushing maiden brigade.”
That was what people called the medical corps. I think they meant it as a compliment.
If you were wondering whether every admedistration’s medical corps wore pink uniforms, you were right. Go to France, Russia, or Mexico, and every medical corps uniform, helmet, and armor transport was painted the color of a lightly ripened peach. Like the army always wore drab olive, and the navy black and white.
Which was why the tents in the Niger armistice monitoring camp were all pink.
Against the sea of pale pink, the deep crimson coats we Helix agents wore stood out. We stood out everywhere, for that matter. Now I was making my way through the tents, back to where the crates were being unloaded—our backyard.
I carried off the portion for myself and for our server techie— call him Alpha—and left Étienne and his crew to handle the rest of it. I would get back to my own office as quickly as possible and drink myself into a stupor, as I always did. At least, that was the plan.
I had zero interest in knowing the details of how Étienne divvied up the booty from the Kel Tamasheq, or how much money he made, or how much he skimmed for himself. He would always pass me some credit after we were done, so I knew he at least wasn’t stealing everything. That was good enough for now. All I needed were smokes and booze. That was it.
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<list:item>
<i: Things to damage my lungs.>
<i: Things to damage my liver.>
</list>
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In my world, you had to come all the way out to this hinterland, to a battlefield, just to find ways to damage yourself. Effective, yet ultimately trivial ways. Far more trivial than what I had attempted back in high school, before I lost Miach.
“I brought the goods,” I announced, stepping past the pink flap of the tent where Alpha worked—where I found not only Alpha surrounded by his infield terminal screens, but also my boss with an excessively stern look on her face. I caught the look of abject fear on Alpha’s face and realized things had taken a decided turn for the worse. “We were waiting for you, Senior Inspector Kirie,” the woman in the crimson coat just like mine announced.
“You needed to talk to me about something, Os Cara?”
“Only about what that is you’re hiding behind your back.”
I shrugged and tossed the vintage wine in her direction. I had a reputation for giving up easily.
She caught the ancient Petrus, the ruby red liquid sloshing inside the glass bottle.
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<dictionary>
<item>Château Petrus</item>
<definition>
Brand name of an alcoholic beverage originating in France’s Pomerol region. A “bordeaux wine.” Noted for its label depicting Saint Peter, the twelfth apostle. This château wine vaulted from relative obscurity to immense popularity after winning a gold medal at the 1889 Paris Exposition. One of the most expensive wines in its heyday, after the Maelstrom and the ascendance of lifeism it shared the same fate as all other alcoholic beverages.
</definition>
</dictionary>
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It had already been over forty years since anyone in a developed country had been able to freely enjoy alcohol. “What do we have here?” Os Cara breathed as she caught the bottle of forbidden pleasure lightly in her left hand. “I would ask if you have no shame, but then, I already know the answer.”
“It’s called wine.” I snorted. “Heard of it?”
She didn’t even look at the label. “A bordeaux. Lots of merlot in these—100 percent in some barrels, depending on the year. Makes for a very smooth texture.”
“No shit.”
“Most certainly not. I drank one of these when I was much younger, actually. The last generation that could truly relish alcohol. We had a Petrus just like this one in my house.”
“I hear it was quite expensive,” I said, stepping closer to the trembling Alpha and my boss, even as I felt like I was walking into a trap.
“My family was quite well-to-do before the Maelstrom.”
“You don’t say,” I said, now standing directly in front of my boss. Prime Inspector Os Cara Stauffenberg.
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<notes> Anointed the cherub of Helix agents; at Geneva HQ she’s known simply as ‘Prime.’ Single. Age seventy-two, with the looks of a beautiful woman in her late thirties due to ultrahigh resolution WatchMe, a perfect control system, regular antioxidant treatments, and periodic removal of accumulated RNA transcription errors. </notes>
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“Well, this won’t do.” She presented the bottle. “You know how embarrassing something like this is for us.”
“I haven’t lost all capacity for rational thought, if that’s what you’re suggesting, Prime,” I said, my smile thin.
She glared at me. Alpha, sweating bullets, shrank back into the shadow of his monitors. He wasn’t even seeing us there anymore. His eyes were looking off into the distance somewhere, probably at the wreckage of his career.
“At least you seem to be aware of your own wrongdoing. However, you clearly do not comprehend where we are and what we’re doing here.”
I had to laugh at that. It was precisely because I knew so thoroughly what kind of place the Sahara was that I had specifically requested a transfer here. There was silence again until my boss spoke.
“The Nigerian armistice monitoring group is in an extremely delicate situation at present. The report that we Helix agents submit will determine which of the two parties, the Nigerians or the Tuareg, had the right of this conflict.”
I shrugged. I was pretty sure that if it became known we were partaking of smokes and booze, the Tuareg would probably consider us their allies, what with their predilection for living a life of moderation. This was apparently not the scenario my boss had in mind, however. She began to walk around me in a tight circle.
“The monitoring we do on behalf of admedistrative society must not be allowed to itself incite more conflict. If word got out that we, who by all rights should be the upholders of lifeism and champions of long life and health, were indulging in such harmful substances as alcohol and tobacco, it would be a disaster.”
A disaster for whom, I wondered. It certainly wouldn’t bother me any. I wasn’t harming anyone with my secondhand smoke. And shouldn’t I be allowed to harm myself as much as I pleased? No, I immediately corrected myself. Even thinking that was verboten in this age of public correctness.
“What I want to know is how you kept your own WatchMe silent all this time. Any amount of alcohol consumption should trigger the medicules in your system, which would immediately inform the health supervision server—”
“Well, being out here in the sticks and all, the server does go off-line pretty frequently,” I said, as though my boss really needed an explanation of conditions here at the armistice monitoring camp. “And besides, we girls know a little magic. That is, those of us who still remember that we’re girls.”
“That’s very funny,” she said without a trace of humor in her voice. “I don’t know what underhanded means you used to get this contraband, but I will have you know what damage your actions have caused to our operations.”
“I already know: none.”
I clapped a hand on her shoulder as lightly as I could. In her crimson coat, Os Cara Stauffenberg quaked with rage. I ran my finger gently over the embossed snakes curling around the staff of knowledge on the WHO badge she wore. “I wouldn’t worry about your badge getting tarnished, Os Cara. Because you’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you.”
Os Cara clucked her tongue. It occurred to me that this was probably the most dramatic expression of disdain she, a dyed-in-the-wool member of admedistrative society, could muster.