Our Lady of the Ice

  “We need to honor her,” she said, her voice very far away.

  Marianella nodded. She knew they couldn’t release her to the air—there was no funeral home in the park, no funeral home for robots. But Sofia scooped Inéz up in her arms and carried her toward the Ice Palace, her steps steady and purposeful. Luciano and Araceli were waiting in the foyer. His repairs had completed without issue during the culling, and it was a relief to see him whole again.

  Araceli let out a strangled cry when she saw Inéz.

  “It’s my fault,” Sofia said. Marianella wanted to protest—no, of course it wasn’t Sofia’s fault. It was Andres’s. He’d been the one to slice through Inéz’s belly and cut the wires. But she couldn’t find her voice.

  That evening, after the dome lights faded into darkness, they buried Inéz in the snowflake garden, the way people did on the mainland. There was no ceremony, no priest, no singing of hymns or uttering of prayers. Even Marianella didn’t pray, not then. She only hung back amid the overgrowth, trying not to think of how she’d hidden herself as Inéz had died. Luciano dug the grave. Araceli wept, handkerchief pressed to her cheek. And Sofia laid Inéz into the ground, every piece of her. She told Marianella that it was because she didn’t want to see Inéz used for parts. There was no way to repair Inéz, but she wouldn’t be scavenged, either. Not by the city and not by Sofia, when she went to repair the broken androids. Instead, Inéz would lie in the ground, guarded by flowers.

  Now the memory made Marianella’s anger surge again. Inéz was dead, and if it was Alejo’s fault, she wanted to know. And she wanted to know why.

  Marianella tossed the rosary back onto her vanity and walked out of her room, heading toward the control center. That would be the easiest way to contact a drone for programming. But halfway down the stairs, she stopped, one hand on the banister, her anger pounding inside her head. If she sent a drone, she wouldn’t be able to look at Alejo as she demanded her explanation. He could record his answer as easily as he could record his press conferences.

  He could lie.

  Marianella walked down the rest of the stairs, but she stopped on the first-floor landing and did not continue down to the control center. The hallway was dim and empty. She couldn’t even hear the chatter of the television Luciano liked to watch.

  It was stupid, leaving the park. She could hide herself from Ignacio with a scarf and sunglasses, but that was not foolproof, and she knew it. She slumped against the wall, taking in deep breaths. Her machine parts churned, trying to compensate for her quickened heart rate and the flush in her cheeks. But they didn’t understand emotion. They didn’t understand fury, or betrayal, or grief.

  This was a risk worth taking.

  Marianella took one last deep breath. She gripped hard on the banister. She wouldn’t tell Sofia that she was leaving—Sofia would try to stop her. But she could leave a message with one of the drones, programmed to report to Sofia or Luciano if she didn’t return.

  She knew she couldn’t think about this any longer, because if she thought about it, she wouldn’t do it.

  Marianella walked back up the stairs, back to her room, to pick out clothes with which to disguise herself.

  * * * *

  Alejo’s office had the ambience of most offices that Marianella had been in—fluorescent lights set in the low-hanging ceiling, the smell of paper and toner and men’s aftershave. She sat in the waiting room as his secretary clattered away on the typewriter. Every now and then male voices spilled in from the closed door leading into the hallway. They were laughing.

  Marianella tapped her finger against her thigh, nervous. The secretary kept typing.

  Finally, the door swung open. A trio of men stepped out, Alejo in the middle. When Marianella saw him, she thought of Andres circling around Inéz like a vulture, and her breath caught.

  Alejo glanced out across the lobby, caught Marianella’s eye.

  “And here she is now!” he said, which set the two men to laughing. Marianella didn’t recognize them. They were older, thick-jowled and dressed in business suits. They had a vaguely mainland air about them. “We were just talking about you,” Alejo added.

  “Nothing bad, I hope.” When Marianella stood up, she felt herself shedding the days living in the amusement park. She was Lady Luna again.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to be.

  “Of course not.” Alejo grinned. The two men had finally stopped their chuckling. “These gentlemen are interested in providing some funding for our ag domes. They’ll be at the Midwinter Ball this year.”

  “Wife can’t stop talking about it,” said the one on the right. “She was in a snit for six months when she missed the one last year.”

  “I was telling them how thrilled you are to be attending again yourself this year.” Alejo’s eyes glittered.

  “Of course!” Marianella plastered on her brightest smile. “I had a new gown made at a local dressmaker’s. Rosa’s? Have you heard of it?” It was difficult to fake the frivolity of her old life, but the two benefactors nodded, looking bored.

  “I have not, but I’m sure you’ll look absolutely lovely.” Alejo grinned, but his voice had a sharp edge to it.

  “Let me see you fellows out,” Alejo said, “and then I’ll get a chance to speak to Lady Luna here about making sure you’ve got the best table.”

  More chuckles. Alejo and the two men walked across the room. One of the men asked a question about the city council, and Marianella decided they must be involved in the government somehow. But they stepped out the door before she could hear anything more.

  Alejo’s secretary stopped typing and took a sip of her coffee. Marianella glanced over at her. She looked up, gave a quick smile, went back to work.

  Alejo stepped back into the office. Alone this time.

  “Marianella,” he said, singing out her name like a melody. “Why don’t you come on back. Are you here to see me about the Mid­winter Ball?”

  Marianella glanced at the secretary, still preoccupied with her typing.

  “We can certainly talk about that.” She didn’t smile. “I have other questions as well. Shall we?” She gestured to the door, and Alejo nodded and they went into the hallway. It was polite and civilized, but Marianella could see Alejo’s displeasure simmering below the surface.

  When they went into his office, Marianella shut the door.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “We agreed that you’d stay in the park until we could determine a better course of action.” Alejo settled down into the chair behind his desk. Pale dome light slipped through the slats in the window blinds and fell in lines across his scattered paperwork. “You haven’t decided to take me up on my offer of protection, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why? Does Cabrera know you’re still alive?”

  Marianella looked over at the globe Alejo kept in the corner. Right now it was turned so that all she could see was the Pacific Ocean.

  She shook her head.

  “I haven’t heard from him either. I’m assuming he still thinks you’re dead. Not that I’ve seen anything in the papers about you, but you know how the papers are in this town.” He leaned forward over his desk and threaded his fingers together. “We’re going to need to address that, you know. Explain away your miraculous survival.”

  Marianella closed her eyes. Her throat was constricted. Squeezed shut. She could feel Alejo staring at her from across his desk, and for a moment she was back in the park on the day of the culling, listening to Inéz die.

  She opened her eyes and looked at Alejo straight on.

  “I know,” she said. “And I have decided that if I have to send him money, I’ll do it. But that’s not actually why I’m here.”

  “What? Why else would you be here?”

  “I saw Andres in the amusement park yesterday.”

  Silence.
The room buzzed.

  “What does that have to with Ignacio Cabrera?” Alejo finally said.

  Marianella hesitated, but only for a moment. He didn’t sound nearly as confused as he was pretending.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But you don’t seem particularly shocked to hear that Andres was in the park at all.”

  Alejo sighed, and Marianella knew she had him.

  “That had nothing to do with you.”

  “Then what did it have to do with?” She drew herself up with a harsh intake of breath. “You knew I was in the park, you knew I would find out—”

  “Jesus, Marianella. I didn’t think it would matter so much to you. You nag me about my funding, you nag me about this—”

  “Nag you!” Marianella dug her nails into the arms of her chair, deeper and deeper until the strength of her computer parts activated and her fingers dented the wood.

  “What the hell?” Alejo leapt up, and Marianella’s thoughts snapped back into the present. She wrenched her hands away. The indentations stayed.

  “Christ, you can’t come in here and destroy my furniture!” Alejo leaned down to inspect the chair’s arms. “How am I going to explain this?”

  Marianella was dimly aware that he was trying to change the subject, but she felt sick every time she looked at the indentations. She flushed hot with shame. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, but Andres killed someone—”

  Alejo jerked his head up. “What? Who?”

  For a moment he held an expression of dark menace. She’d seen it once or twice before, whenever he drank too much and talked about Independence. She’d seen it the night he’d told her about taking money from the AFF.

  “Inéz,” Marianella said.

  “Who the hell’s Inéz?”

  “An android at the park. They thought it was a culling, but Andres didn’t take any—”

  “An android?” Alejo slumped back down in his seat and rubbed at his forehead. “Oh God, Marianella, I thought you meant a person—”

  “She is a person!” Marianella snapped. Her voice rebounded around the room, and she immediately straightened her spine, trying to recover herself. “Was a person, I mean. Now. Because of Andres.”

  Alejo dropped his head back against the chair.

  “Why would you do that?” Marianella asked.

  “I didn’t.”

  “But you knew about it. You sent Andres out there, didn’t you? Why?” She leaned forward and she heard the pleading whine in her voice. “Why, Alejo? The robots at the amusement park aren’t going to stop the ag domes—” She wasn’t certain about that. But Marianella knew when to lie.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with the ag domes,” Alejo said. “Or the AFF. Or you, for that matter. It’s city business.”

  “City business.”

  “They’ve been culling from the parks for the last three—”

  “It wasn’t a culling. Andres didn’t take anything from her.” Marianella’s throat tried to crush out her voice. “He just killed her and left her to lie out on the cobblestone.”

  Alejo didn’t say anything. They stared at each other, only half a meter apart. Marianella had been much closer to him, and much farther away, but for the first time she felt as if there were something else that divided them. Not her nature and his humanity but something much more intrinsic than that. Something she couldn’t place.

  “It was city business,” Alejo said. “They’d have my head if I talked about it with you. I’m sorry your friend died, but it wasn’t my fault.”

  Marianella sat with her spine straight, her hands folded in her lap. The sad thing was that Inéz hadn’t been her friend, not really. “You aren’t involved with cullings,” she said.

  “Which this wasn’t. But the city had their reasons. I can’t discuss them with you. Not yet.”

  Marianella thought about the man who’d hired Eliana. Juan Gonzalez. He’d said he was a city man.

  “And yes, I knew you were in the park, but I thought you’d have the good sense to go hide. I warned Andres not to give you away. That’s why I sent him, actually, to have a man on the inside.” Alejo smiled in a way that made Marianella feel cold.

  “I thought you were different,” Marianella said.

  “I am. That incident at the park is nothing I would have asked for myself. It’s the city. Mainland men, you know. Too much instability across the strait. Governments moving in, governments moving out. It turns them paranoid. Makes them monsters.”

  Marianella wrapped her arms around herself. The radiator hissed in the background, a low and ominous noise. Alejo smiled at her, a warm smile this time. A comforting smile.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “about the way I reacted. Acting as if the android’s death shouldn’t mean anything—my old prejudices. You try to shake them, but sometimes they come back.”

  Marianella sighed. “Yes,” she said, and she thought about Inéz running along the park’s path yesterday, leading Andres away from Luciano. The other man had been a stranger—a city man after all? It made sense for Alejo to protect her from the city’s incursions into the park.

  “That’s why you came, isn’t it?” Alejo said gently. “Why you risked coming out in the open? You thought I was trying to hurt you?”

  Marianella didn’t answer right away, only stared at the blinds cutting dark lines across his office window. The dome light hazed at the edge of her vision.

  “I was angry,” she said. “It made me stupid.”

  “No,” Alejo said. “Not stupid. Kind. A better human than me.”

  The word “human” buzzed in her ears.

  “The ag dome,” she said. “Is it safe? Has Ignacio found out about it?”

  “No. We haven’t had any problems.” Alejo pressed away from his desk and laid his ankle across the top of his knee. “I activated the higher security protocols for the drones, and I have some associates watching the feeds for signs of trouble.”

  Associates. Marianella knew he meant AFF members, although he wouldn’t dare say that aloud in his office.

  “I’m about ninety-five percent sure he doesn’t know we’ve built it yet.” Alejo nodded to himself, looking satisfied. “But still, it could be worth it to look into insurance on the matter.”

  “Insurance?” Marianella frowned.

  “We get him involved.”

  “With the domes?”

  “Sure. Just for the time being. Offer to let him ship in the tropical foods so he can keep running his smuggling operation. We can find some way to get rid of him later on. Kick him back to the mainland, maybe.”

  Marianella glared at Alejo. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

  “Five minutes ago you said you were willing to pay him—”

  “To stop him from getting me deported. I don’t want him involved with the domes. At all. That project needs to be honest. You have to see that—”

  “Fine.” Alejo threw up his hands in defeat. “We’ll go ahead with the increased security protocols. But if Cabrera starts sniffing around too much, I’m willing to open my coffers. You’ve got to under­stand that.”

  Marianella pressed her hand to her forehead. She hated the idea of paying off Ignacio for any reason, including protecting her nature—it reminded her of Hector, how those ties were never ­severed, how they kept haunting her even after his death.

  “So how exactly do you plan on dealing with Cabrera?” Alejo asked. “Because you’ve got until the Midwinter Ball.”

  “I know.” Marianella sighed.

  “Hey, don’t get mad at me about it. You bring in the big donors! Without you there, they’re not going to want to hand anything over to me.”

  Alejo grinned at her, and Marianella smiled back at him, despite everything. “It’s a delicate balance,” she said. “He hates me. Because of the domes,
because I didn’t give him money after Hector died. I’m not even sure what he knows at this point. It’s just the threat of it. So I have no idea how much to offer, and I don’t feel safe meeting with him, and anyway I don’t want to tell him what I am if he doesn’t already know.”

  “Well, of course you don’t.” Alejo tilted his head and gave her a sympathetic look across the table. “I’ll tell you what. Stay in the park for now. I’ll start up some rumors about you not quite being over Hector’s death and how you tried to slip out to the ice and a drone picked you up before you froze to death. And I’ll tell people you’re staying with me for the time being, and not accepting visitors.”

  Marianella opened her mouth to protest, that it was a ridiculous story, but Alejo held up one hand.

  “I know how these people work, Marianella. The idea is to get the story out there and see how Cabrera reacts. I’ll get some of my associates to put their ears to the ground. You know what I mean? Maybe he’ll buy it, and then you won’t have to worry. But if he doesn’t, then I can help arrange a meeting to tackle the financial angle. And he’s not going to go straight to the city with this. He’s fucking Ignacio Cabrera. He’d probably see if he could program you do to his bidding first.”

  “Oh, that’s reassuring,” Marianella said.

  Alejo shrugged. “My point is that it buys us time. We’re controlling the situation. That’s the whole idea.”

  Marianella leaned back in her chair and considered what Alejo had told her. Controlling the situation. It didn’t feel like control. It felt as though she were flailing in open water, trying not to drown.

  But it was more of a plan than she’d had before.

  * * * *

  Marianella came back to the park in the late afternoon, just as the city was starting to rouse itself out of the workday. She let herself in through the front gates, and when they latched behind her, she leaned up against the cold, twisting metal and sighed with relief. It had been a risk to go to Alejo, but she’d made it back safely. One small thing to be grateful for, at a time when she didn’t think she had anything to feel grateful for.