Black Man / Thirteen

“Great.”

“—but wanting to fuck a guy’s brains out isn’t necessarily the same thing as switching your own brain off. I mean, look—the bonobo thing is similar. They’ve got an amped-up feminine appeal that’ll blast the average guy’s sexual systems like a cocaine hit every time—”

“Yeah, you’d know all about that.”

Jeff stopped and looked at him reproachfully. “Tom, I said I was sorry about the Istanbul crack. Give me a fucking break, will you? What I meant was, you don’t see me leaving Megan and the kids for Nuying, do you. Risking divorce, separation from Jack and Luisa, maybe a lawsuit for professional misconduct, all because I’m crazy for some modified pussy. Those things are important to me, and I manage to balance them against what Nu does for me. And I come out ahead, Tom. In control, the best of both worlds. Sure, I’ve got a drug problem, and the drug is bonobo tendency. But I’m handling it. That’s what you do, you deal with your weaknesses. You take up the strain. If this woman you’re talking about really is professionally focused, serious about her work, knows who she is and what she’s about, then there’s no reason she can’t do the same cost—benefit analysis and play the game accordingly. If anything, the genetic evidence suggests women are better at that shit anyway, so she’s got a wired-in head start right there. I mean, I’m not saying I’d want to have to hand-wash the sheets in whatever Istanbul hotel they’re in right now—”

“Oh Christ, Jeff.”

Jeff spread his hands. “Sorry, little brother. You want me to make you feel better, tell you the field’s clear for you to make your Manhattan urbanite move on this woman? I can’t. But if what you’re concerned about really is her professional grip on things—then I wouldn’t worry.”

They sat quietly for a few moments. To Norton, letting Jeff have the last word felt like a kind of defeat.

“Well, what about this Istanbul clue then? I mean, seriously, it doesn’t come close to any of our current investigation, it’s right out of left field. Some other thirteen the Europeans have interned in Turkey, who might have a co

Jeff stared out of the window.

“Maybe it is,” he said absently. “Thirteens don’t think the same way as us. They have a whole different set of synaptic wiring. Some of that, the more extreme end, we just go ahead and label paranoia or sociopathic tendency. But often it just comes out as a different way of looking at things. That’s why UNGLA employs guys like this Marsalis in the first place. In some ways, that’s why I suggested you dig him out of Florida and hire him. Give you access to those other angles.” A sudden, hard look. “You didn’t tell anyone that was my suggestion, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Yeah? Not even this ex-cop you’ve got under the skin so badly?”

“I made you a promise, Jeff. I keep my promises.”

“Yeah, okay.” His brother pressed thumb and forefinger into tight closed eyes for a moment. “Sorry. I shouldn’t get so harsh with you, just I’m stressed out of my fucking box right now. This job’s a political tightrope act at the best of times, and now isn’t the best of times. Someone gets to hear that the director of the Human Cost Foundation is giving informal advice to a COLIN officer on matters relating to the genetically enhanced, I’m going to be looking for another job. We’ll get the whole Rim-China-Mars superconspiracy bullshit blowing up in our faces all over again, probably lose the bulk of our funding overnight. Bad enough that we’re taking in black lab refugees and giving them Rim citizenship. Arranging for dangerous genetic variants to be released from jail, that’d be the final straw.”

“Yeah, well, like I said. Relax. No one knows.” Norton felt an unaccustomed tightness in his throat as he looked at his brother. “I appreciate all this, Jeff. Maybe it doesn’t come across that way sometimes, but I do.”

“I know.” Jeff gri

Norton shook his head. “You’ve been working this field too long, Jeff. Why not just say you care.”

“I thought I just did. Base reasons for caring about your siblings are genetic. I didn’t have to join Human Cost to know that.”

An image of Megan bloomed brightly in his mind. Long ta

“Yeah, so what about sibling rivalry? Where does that come in?”

His brother shrugged. “Genetic, too. At base, all this stuff is. Xtrasomes aside, everything we are is built on some bedrock genetic tendency or other.”

“And that’s how you justify Nuying.”

Jeff’s expression tightened. “I think we’ve had this conversation, and I didn’t enjoy it much last time. I don’t justify what I did with Nu. But I do understand where it comes from. Those are two very different things.”

Norton let the memory of Megan fade. “Yeah, okay. Forget it. Sorry I started on you again. I’m feeling pretty stressed myself right now. Got my own genetic tendencies to handle, you know?”

“We all do,” his brother said quietly. “Thirteen, or bonobo, or just base fucking human. Sooner or later, we all have to face what’s inside.”

CHAPTER 25

Morning came in laced with the sounds of traffic along Moda Caddesi and children shouting. Bright, angled sunlight along the sidewall of the room he’d chosen to sleep in and the reluctant conclusion that out here at the back of the apartment there was a school playground directly under the window. He pried himself out of bed, shambled about looking for the bathroom, stumbled in on a lightly snoring Ertekin in the process; she slept sprawled on her back with her mouth half open, long-limbed and gloriously inelegant in the faded NYPD T-shirt and tangle of sheets, one crooked arm thrown back over her head. He drank in the sight, then slid quietly out again, found the bathroom, and took a long, much-needed piss. A faint hangover nagged rustily at his temples, not nearly as bad as he’d been expecting. He stuck his head under a tap.

He left Ertekin to sleep, padded to the kitchen, and found a semi-smart grocery manager recessed in next to the heating system panel. He ordered fresh bread and simits both, not knowing Ertekin’s preferences, milk, and a few other bits and pieces. Found an unopened packet of coffee—Earth-grown, untwisted—in a cupboard and a Mediterranean-style espresso pot on the counter. He fired up the stove and set up the pot; by the time it started burbling to itself, the breakfast delivery was buzzing for entry down at the main door. He let them in, found a screen phone, and carried it through to the kitchen table. He unwrapped the simits—gnarled rings of baked and twisted dough, dusted with sesame seeds, still warm—broke one up into segments, poured himself a coffee, and went looking for Stefan Nevant.

It took awhile.

The duty officer at the internment tract HQ in Ankara wasn’t anyone he knew, and he couldn’t pull UNGLA rank because his operating codes were six months out of date. Naming friends didn’t help much. He had to settle for a referral to one of the site offices, where, apparently, Battal Yavuz was putting in some overtime. When he tried the site, Battal was out in a prowler and not answering his radio. The best the woman on site could do was take a message.

“Just tell him he’s a reprobate motherfucker, and a big bad thirteen’s going to fly right out there and steal his woman if he doesn’t call me back.”