Page 132 of The Mars House

It didn’t feel like being spoken to. It felt like being attacked.

To start with, Aubrey didn’t even process the words properly—it was just an assault, and when they did ram it through their flurrying brain, they couldn’t pull a sentence together. The part of their mind that did spoken words had—been buried somewhere, under the months and months of silence.

It shook them so badly they had to get the next train back to Songshu. They sat under the willow trees in the entrance hall hugging Kasha.

It was bad enough to find that they weren’t functional any more, but what was mortifying was not having realized that that would happen. That was that kind of mistake River would make: assume people were machines you could leave in a cupboard for months and then brush off when you needed them.

Only, said an increasingly loud voice in their head, it wasn’t the kind of mistake River made. You’ve spent so many years thinking of River as some socially inept, spectrum-straddling oddity that you keep assuming things about them that aren’t true. You assumed that they would hate the Senate, you assumed they were such a cloistered introvert that it would be hell for them. You assumed they were such a machine that they would never make anyone like them. But that isn’t River, is it? River—I mean, look at the polling results—is flying. That’s you.

Horribly, Aubrey found themselves crying into Kasha’s fur. By all objective measures, River should be the head of House Gale. Maybe even Consul. Sometimes people just took everything from you and there was no point in revenge. You just had to find a way to escape, and make a different life somewhere else. They should never have started any of this.

Maybe it was time to stop.

But there was nowhere else to go.

Aubrey went to the consular debate on automatic. They expected to see River wipe the floor with Guang Song, like they had been doing in all the news interviews until now, and when it didn’t happen—when the Consul won—something in that despairing glacier started to shift.

Aubrey didn’t really decide to do it. They just did. Deciding and doing happened at the same time, they put a portcullis down in their mind so they couldn’t think about what would happen if it went wrong, and after the debate, they stole into the back of the Consul’s car. They sat quiet for a while, watching Song read some worrying-looking documents that said big swathes of Earth were looking at terrible wildfires in a matter of weeks, and then, very quietly, said:

“Please don’t be afraid. I need to talk to you.”

The Consul looked up sharply.

“I think—you must have been wondering why Aubrey Gale has suddenly become so capable and so ambitious when they never were before. It’s because that wasn’t Aubrey Gale up there on the podium. Hasn’t been for a year. That’s River. I’m Aubrey.”

“How are you doing that?” the Consul murmured, far too quiet for the praetorians in the front to hear.

Aubrey swallowed hard. “I’m wearing a military-grade filter which Max gave me. I’m—going to take it off. Can you make sure the praetorians don’t shoot me?”

The Consul paused. “Folks,” they said louder. “Don’t panic. I’ve got a military agent in the back with me, wearing a filter. They’re about to take it off. It’s okay.”

The praetorian in the front seat still swung round with one hand on their gun.

Aubrey turned the filter off and had to stare into the footwell. With three people watching them—the Consul, the praetorian, and the driver in the mirror—it felt like being crushed in one of those machines that destroyed suspicious packages at airports.

“Hey,” the Consul said softly. They couldn’t have seemed less flustered. “Can you explain what’s going on?”

Aubrey poured it all out. The switch, this whole year, a lot of it incoherent to the point that the Consul had to ask them to double back and explain around things. About halfway, the Consul told the driver to do a big loop of the orbital road that led all the way around New Kowloon so there would be more time before they had to get out at Jade Hill.

“I’ll take a halo,” Aubrey finished at last, feeling utterly wrung out. “I know it sounds insane, but it’s true, I swear, and the halo will . . . will prove it.” It was an immense struggle to form longer sentences. Their voice kept shaking. It was appalling.

“So let me get this straight. River took everything from you because you killed Max to escape the influence of my House; but now you’re coming to me, Max’s own head of House, to escape River?” It would have been an accusation from anyone else, but the Consul looked merry.

Aubrey couldn’t even choke out an explanation. If they could have, it would have gone something like:

I cared about being controlled by House Song a lot, before.

But it’s amazing how your pride gets ground down after your twin has stolen everything from you, used your name—and God, every time Aubrey heard their own name given to River, it jammed another nail into them—and you’ve been literally invisible for almost a year.

The whole idea of being angry with someone for buying their vote seemed like a laughable privilege now. Imagine having a vote. Imagine existing. Imagine someone caring enough that you exist to bother blackmailing you. Luxury.

I’m just so tired now. Not tired like I’ve run a long way. That’s nice tired. This is—filthy tired. It’s in my bones. I just want it to stop, but there’s nowhere to go. I can’t take the fake name River gave me and make a new life as a schoolteacher or something—maybe I could have to start with, but now I can barely speak. I need someone to help me; but I have no one.

So what they said was:

“Yes.”

“You’re not worried I’ll, you know, chuck you out of this car which is going at eighty kilometres an hour?”