"Terrorism, Dr. Mizrahi?" The Subcommittee member leaned forward in his chair, arching a skeptical eyebrow.

"That's what the press has been calling it. Gnosis Terrorism. I didn't invent the term, but I suggest you take a look at the evidence before you dismiss it." Juli indicated the large screen behind her, taking advantage of the diversion to conceal a yawn behind her hand. In the last three days since the attacks began, she had hardly slept at all and had stopped by her apartment only once, for a few hours, to check on MOMO and to give her a list of contacts and some money for groceries. The remaining time she had spent on Subcommittee business, attending emergency meetings, issuing statements to the press, and making conference calls to so many government officials and corporate leaders that they all started to look and sound alike. The hours and days began to blur together, so that if she weren't already in the habit of checking the time constantly, she would have had no idea how much had elapsed. "As you can see, these data, from preliminary investigations conducted within the last seventy-two hours, suggest a concerted pattern of attacks on civilian targets in highly populated areas, in a manner consistent with known methods of conventional terrorism. Whereas further information will be required in order to confirm these findings and to establish an identity and motive for the individuals or groups responsible, I have proposed that a special investigation be undertaken immediately--with the Subcommittee's approval, of course. I trust you've all read the draft of the proposal you received in preparation for this meeting?"

The other six members of the Subcommittee responded that they had. Juli wondered how many of them actually had time to read the entire proposal; she had spent all of last night working on it.

"What about this Uzuki person you've chosen to lead the investigation? The name sounds familiar."

"Jin Uzuki served as an officer in the Federation Army during the Miltia Conflict," said Juli. "You'll find his full biography in the attached files I sent with the proposal. On the basis of his past military experience, I believe that he is well qualified to lead this investigation. But if you'd like to recommend someone else, by all means ...." A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed, punctuated by Juli clearing her throat. "Well then. If there are no revisions, then I suggest we proceed at once. I'll notify Mr. Uzuki as soon as the meeting is over."

She called him from her office after the meeting. "The Subcommittee approved the investigation," she said, as soon as the connection went through.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Mizrahi. Glad to hear it."

"I'm glad too," said Juli, suddenly feeling weak with relief or exhaustion or a combination of both. She backed into her chair and sat down and raked a hand through her hair. "When can you start?"

"I have everything ready, so I can get started right away."

She sighed. "Wonderful. Thank you so much for your help. I'm sorry to trouble you like this--"

"Not at all," said Jin, smiling in that strange way of his that always struck her as being too earnest and a little sad. "It's my pleasure. Besides, I needed the work anyway. Shion keeps bothering me about getting a real job."

Juli forced a smile in return. "I hope she approves of this one. Well, I'll look forward to receiving your reports. Good luck, Jin."

"You too, Dr. Mizrahi." He bowed his head slightly, and the transmission ended.

She stared at the screen until she realized she was staring at a blank screen, blinked, got up, fixed herself a cup of instant tea, and sat down to go through the dozens of new notifications that had appeared in her inbox since the last time she'd checked a few hours ago. After a few minutes of skimming over message headers without comprehending any of them, she gave up; she was too tired to concentrate, and the words on the screen blurred like wet ink.

Turning her chair around to face the window, she held the cup to her mouth and breathed in the steam. Clouds moved past the window like glaciers, monumental and slow, and she stared into the sky and felt calm for the first time in days, as if by sitting still she had finally given the turbulence inside her a chance to settle. She finished her tea and went back to work.

That evening she returned to her apartment at 19:30 after calling to tell MOMO she was leaving the office. The smells of cooking still hung in the air when she walked in, although it was later than the time they usually had dinner and she had expected to find the kitchen empty, the covered plate and note in their accustomed places. Instead MOMO rushed to meet her at the door and led her by the arm into the dining area, where she had set the table for both of them.

"Um, I thought you would like it if I made your favorite," said MOMO shyly, pulling out a chair for Juli to sit in. "At least, my database said it was--"

Too dazed to sit down at first, she stared at the dishes on the table, half-expecting the entire surreal arrangement to vanish as soon as she blinked or looked away. When no such thing happened, she seated herself, grateful to be off her feet; the caffeine in her last cup of tea had worn off, leaving her feeling faint and lightheaded again. "Thank you, MOMO. That was very kind of you."

"Do you like it? I wanted to do something special for you, since you haven't been home in a few days, and .... Mommy, are you okay?"

Juli had pushed her plate to the side and bent over the tabletop, burying her face in her hands. Home. She'd hardly thought of MOMO at all in the last few days; even the frantic pace of her work had seemed a welcome escape, an excuse not to return. But MOMO had waited for her, missed her.

Her stomach turned as she pushed back her chair and stood, bracing herself against the table edge. "MOMO, I ... I'm sorry, but I'm not feeling very well. I think I'm just going to lie down."

"Oh." MOMO sounded disappointed, but Juli couldn't bear to look up to see her expression. "All right ... well, let me know if you need anything."

Juli pushed in her chair and walked across the living room, looking back only when she had reached the hallway on the opposite side. The light in the kitchen fanned out into the living room, and through the doorway she saw MOMO sitting alone at the table, staring down into her lap, while the dinner she had prepared grew cold in front of her. Juli bit her lip and turned and marched the rest of the way down the darkened hall into her bedroom, where she curled around the sharp ache in her stomach and wrung her eyelids shut against the burning in her eyes, and tried not to think of what he would say if he knew what she had done.

∞

His second appointment for life extension ended up delayed until the initial widespread panic following the terror attacks had subsided. Once the investigation was under way and the clamor in the SOCE had dropped to a manageable level, Juli took the afternoon off and met him at the lab.

He was still unconscious when she entered the room--a different room from before, but it might as well have been the same; it looked identical to the first--so she sat down to read over his charts while she waited.

Despite what MOMO seemed to believe, Juli was no cybernetics expert. Few people specialized in that field anymore, probably because those who did ended up working in places like this. But she had enough general knowledge that with a little instruction she probably could have operated most of the equipment here, and she could certainly understand a maintenance report. She read over it twice, then sighed through her teeth and switched off the display of her connection gear and tossed it with deliberate carelessness onto the empty chair next to her. Although she had only spent a few hours in the office this morning before coming here, she already felt exhausted, strung out on several weeks' worth of deadlines and petty conflicts and compounded stress. And this--she glowered at the connection gear, wondering if she should go over the report one last time to be sure--this wasn't helping.

She got up and walked over to the bed. Staring down at him now, she noticed that his skin had a grayish cast, darkening around the eyes to the shade of a bruise. Had she never noticed before, or did he just look that way because of the lighting in this room, the dull gray walls and the slight chill in the air that made everything seem hollow and cold? She had the sudden urge to touch him to make sure he was still warm, because she couldn't tell, watching him sleep, whether he was even alive. The steady pulse of the monitors attached to his life support systems should have reassured her, but they didn't.

After he had recovered consciousness, she showed him the report. "Not to alarm you, but I'm a bit concerned with your test results this time."

He leaned forward. "What's the matter?"

"Here, see for yourself." Juli held out the connection gear. "It's hard to tell at this point, but from what I can gather, it looks as though the effects of the previous treatment are wearing off more rapidly than they're supposed to."

His brow furrowed as he stared down at the holographic page. "Yes, I can see that."

"The rate of deterioration is abnormally high," she said, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt, "and that worries me. If it continues, you'll need another operation in just a few years. Assuming it doesn't get worse."

Still frowning, he looked up at her. "You mean, if it accelerates, then ...."

Juli nodded. "In that case, you could be back to where you were before the operation in less than a year."

"I see." He glanced back at the report for a moment, then dropped his hand to the arm rest. "Then there would have been no point in undergoing life extension at all."

"Provided it continues, and I'm not sure it will. But either way, it seems your lifespan may be more limited than we thought." Juli suddenly realized how absurd she sounded, discussing his fate in the same cold technical language she used when giving a presentation at work. She didn't want to be cold and technical, not now, when she really felt like crying--but she didn't want to do that in front of him either.

Months ago, when he had finally agreed to have the procedure done, she had allowed herself to hope that he would still be around for another ten or twenty years, and on that assumption she had taken his presence for granted. The possibility that something might go wrong had never occurred to her. Modern developments in nanosurgery had relegated such failures almost entirely to the annals of medical history. But he was obsolete, practically medical history himself. He already existed on borrowed time, and the grace period was almost over.

She reached for the hand at his side, then hesitated and pulled back her own hand before they touched. He never noticed; he wasn't watching. She bit her lip as the room went blurry against her eyes. "I'm sorry, Jan."

The mention of his former name got his attention, and he looked up. "It's all right." At first his expression seemed unreadable, but she realized that was just because she hadn't expected him to react this way--not with concern or disappointment, but with relief. As if he had been hoping for a way out of this all along.

"Well, doesn't it worry you?" She heard her voice rising and had to fight to keep it down. Her temper had been shorter than usual lately, and his indifference set it off like a fuse. "Don't you realize what this means? Do you want to die?"

"I don't know." He didn't seem so relieved now, and he shook his head slowly, as if it hurt to do so. "I'm not sure it matters either way. If I'm not dead already, I might as well be. ... Damn it, I've been so tired. I'm not asking you to try to understand, but ...." He stopped, aware of having said too much. The calm front had slipped to expose something jagged and broken underneath, something he must not have wanted her to see. He steadied himself, and in the next breath he had reverted to speaking in a monotone. "I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting this to happen. I think I may need some time to think about it. In the meantime, it's probably best if we don't try to prolong my life anymore. It does not appear to be necessary."

"Well, that's wonderful." The sharpness in her voice surprised them both, and he winced, turning his head aside as if she had struck him. "Why don't you tell MOMO what you just told me? Tell her you don't think she's worth living for?"

"I didn't--"

"Oh, no? Well, what am I supposed to think? You could try having a little more gratitude. I don't have to do this for you, you know. I didn't have to do any of this. You act as though I pushed you into this, but I pushed because I thought you wanted to be pushed. If you just wanted to be left alone, you should have said so. I tried to help you because I thought you wanted to live, for MOMO and me, and for yourself." Juli shook her head. "Now I see how very mistaken I was."

"Juli ...." The jagged underside had surfaced in his voice again. But he closed his eyes and said nothing after that.

She swallowed hard and felt rage burning through the knot of pain in her throat, and she knew whatever sympathy she had left for him wouldn't last. How could it last, when he didn't even want to live anymore? How could he ask her to accept this? How could he accept it, knowing he would leave her and MOMO to fend for themselves when he was gone? Didn't he care about them? Didn't he love them? Did he have any feelings at all?

She walked around to the side of the bed and leaned over him, so close that she was sure he could feel her heart racing and her body trembling with rage, and in a voice like the edge of a knife she said, "I love you, Jan Sauer."

He opened his eyes, and it was like staring back into a sky without clouds--distant, clear, empty. Juli grabbed her connection gear and stormed out of the room.