Inscape by Louise Carey

Author:Louise Carey [Carey, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2021-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Cole wakes up with a crick in his neck. He groans, rolls over and realises that what he actually has is a crick in his everything. He gives up on the idea of stretching it out as pointless and winches himself up into a sitting position. He is getting to the age, now, when aches and pains can no longer be shrugged off upon waking. He creaks his head round and sees Tanta – still asleep, unusually. At rest, her face has none of the eerie calm he has observed in her before. She is frowning, her jaw set and her forehead creased. Then last night’s conversation comes back to him in a rush, and he almost groans aloud. He was right to be nervous about breaking the news of her programming to her – he could not have handled it any worse.

He sees, now, why she betrayed so little emotion when he first told her about the Harlow Programme’s existence. She’s been holding herself together with spit and string, and last night he finally pushed her over the edge. She had gone into a sort of fugue state after Cole explained what InTech had done to her, and nothing he could think to do or say would bring her out of it. Well done, Cole. You saved her life, and now you’ve snapped her mind in half.

He should have led up to it more gently, should have found some way to soften the blow. He definitely shouldn’t have delivered a psychology lecture on rhesus monkeys. That seems obvious in hindsight, but Cole has not had much experience in breaking bad news to people before. Or in talking to people in general, really. He has a sudden surge of self-loathing. He likes Tanta; she’s about the only person he can think of whom he does like. Working the case with her has helped him to feel halfway normal and to ignore the vertiginous gulfs in his own mind, the fear of what might lie at their nadir. And now she’s devastated, and it’s his fault. Cole doesn’t have enough friends that he can afford to alienate them like this.

Not all of his anger is reserved for himself, though. InTech fucked with Tanta’s mind, almost killing her in the process, and they didn’t even tell her about it. The pain she’s feeling right now is on them, too. Cole has always found Tanta’s devotion to InTech strange, and a little off-putting. Now, thinking of her loyalty, and how that loyalty has been repaid, makes his shoulders tighten and his hands clench into fists at his sides.

He rouses himself from his thoughts and realises with a start that Tanta is awake now, and watching him silently. He’s relieved: the light’s come back on behind her eyes. She looks alert and wary. He senses this wariness before he is consciously aware of it; she is waiting to see if he will bring up the events of last night. Cole opts to say nothing. He’s done enough damage already.

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