by J. R. Harber
“So, you came here,” Asa said.
“Yes. I’ve been here ever since.”
“And is Saul still in Horizon, or did he go back to Ashland to marry one of those daughters?”
Eve’s face turned to stone. “No,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Asa said quickly. He realized he’d been indelicate somehow.
“It’s fine. Saul isn’t in Horizon anymore. I met Daniel through him.”
Asa looked at Daniel, expecting a response, but Daniel only raised his eyebrows and reached for the bottle to pour himself another. He raised it toward Asa, offering, and Asa shook his head, showing his still half-full glass. He flicked his eyes toward Eve, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Asa,” Daniel said heavily. “I asked you here because I want to apologize. I want to make things right between us.”
“You did apologize,” Asa said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s behind us.”
“That’s not what I mean. How’s your eye, by the way?”
Asa shrugged. “I’ve had worse jumping out of trees. It’ll heal.
How’s the back of your head?” he asked with an edge. That fight wasn’t all one-sided.
Daniel looked at him, puzzled, then put a hand on the back of his head and winced.
“I thought that was just the hangover,” he said. “What did you do to me?”
“I … um, I shoved you into a wall. Your head made a pretty good cracking sound.”
Daniel laughed. “I can’t say I didn’t deserve that.” He grimaced. “Worst headache I’ve had in years. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
Daniel leaned in, crossing his arms on the table. “Listen, forget my head and your face. Those stalkers hauled you in because of me, and I am sorry. That should never have happened.”
“I shouldn’t have hit back, I guess.” Asa sighed. “I never knew I could break my Social Contract without meaning to.”
Eve laughed, a sudden, agitated sound, and they both looked at her.
“Nothing,” she said. “Make nice with each other. It’s warming my heart.”
“You weren’t taken in because of your Social Contract,” Daniel said grimly. “What did they ask you about?”
Asa studied his weather-worn face for a moment. “They asked me about you,” he said finally.
Daniel finished his drink and poured the rest of the bottle out into his glass. So far, he didn’t seem drunk.
Asa took a long sip of his own drink. “They said my record had been updated to reflect the incident,” he said, coming to the thought that had been gnawing at him all day. “What does that mean? Do I have a mark?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Daniel said.
“It seemed worth worrying about.” Asa sounded harsher than he’d intended. Daniel didn’t seem to notice.
“I mean, I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it.”
“What?”
“I’ll take care of it. Have another drink.” Daniel leapt up from the table, almost knocking his chair over, and went to the panel where the food had come from. He knocked on the wall. “Another bottle, darling,” he said.
The panel slid open, revealing another bottle filled with the blue liquor.
“Please return the previous bottle for sterilization and reuse,” the autom said.
Daniel held out a hand, and Asa snatched the empty bottle off the table and gave it to him. Daniel swapped them, cracked the new one open, and poured a measure into Asa’s glass, filling it almost to the top.
“Thanks,” Asa said and took a sip.
“Stop!” Daniel said, and Asa jumped, almost spilling his drink, then set the glass down carefully.
“We have to toast!” Daniel bellowed. “Come here, love, give me your glass. We’ll raise a toast.”
Asa looked at Eve. She shrugged, finished her glass, and let Daniel pour her another.
“What will we toast to now?” Daniel asked, looking around the room. His eyes landed on Eve, and he walked to her, brushing past Asa as if he weren’t there. Daniel cupped Eve’s face with one hand and kissed her lightly on her forehead. “May I toast to you, my love?” he asked softly, his lips brushing against her hair.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes and kissed her temple, and for a moment Asa froze, suddenly aware that he was intruding on something painful: Daniel looked as if he was holding on to Eve for dear life. Then he let her go and turned to Asa with a wide grin. “We’ll toast to our guest! To Asa!”
“To Asa,” Eve echoed. She sipped her drink, then smiled at him. “I really am glad you came,” she said.
“Me too. Daniel—what did you mean, you’ll take care of it?”
“It’s only fair. I got you into trouble, I should get you out! I’ll fix it. Don’t worry.”
This was clearly the tipping point: Daniel had gone from apparently sober to extremely drunk in less than a minute. He was red-faced and merry and making less sense than before.
Asa pressed the point. “I don’t understand how you’re going to take care of it.”
“Never you mind,” Daniel said. “You shall be expunged! I mean your record. It will be clear. No marks.” He held up his hand and connected his thumb and fingers in a ring to make a zero.
“He can do it,” Eve said. “I don’t know exactly how, but he can.”
“If you don’t know how, how do you know?” Eve gave him a strange look, and Asa shook his head. “How do you know he can do it?” he asked more coherently.
“Like all magic, it must be seen to be believed. She has seen!” Daniel exclaimed.
Asa looked at Eve, who sighed. “He saved my brother’s life.”
“I did,” Daniel agreed. “I did, my love. I did that for you.”
“I hope you did it for Saul,” Eve said sharply, and Daniel’s face fell.
He nodded somberly. “I did. I did it for Saul. I loved Saul like a brother. Brother-in-law.”
“Don’t,” Eve said.
Daniel shook his head. “I won’t,” he whispered. “I won’t.”
“Saul was part of Daniel’s organization,” Eve said.
“Organization?”
“Yes. He was going to be sent to … Work, and then we found out he was slated for termination. Daniel saved his life.” She said it all at once without inflection, as though she had practiced in the mirror until she could speak the words without breaking.
“I’m sorry,” Asa said, slightly perplexed. “That sounds awful. But Daniel did save his life?”
Eve smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “For a little while. Saul couldn’t stay here. He’d have been caught again and terminated immediately. Daniel rescued him, but he had to go into the Waste. That was five years ago.”
“Oh,” Asa said. Eve looked utterly heartbroken, and he was at a loss. “I mean, there’s all sorts of stories of wasters … of people surviving out there,” he tried. “He could still be alive.”
Eve looked at him. The glow of her eyes had become a void. “He isn’t,” she said.
“Enough of this,” Daniel broke in. “Enough of the past. There’s been so much of it. Tomorrow is my birthday.”
“Happy birthday,” Asa offered, still a little rattled.
“It’s not his birthday,” Eve said.
“It is!” Daniel argued.
“It’s next month,” Eve said. It sounded as if they’d had this conversation before.
“Next day, next week, next month—time goes so fast as you get older, love. It speeds up until it makes you sick and dying. I’m dying, and she doesn’t even take me seriously,” he told Asa, who drew back, wide-eyed.
Eve sighed. “He means we all die, and he is getting older. Just as we all are,” she said pointedly, but Daniel didn’t seem to hear her. “She is the moon and the sun and all the stars,” he said, addressing the room at large. “But she will not shine on me.”
“I should probably go …” Asa began, but Daniel grabbed his ar
m, pinning him in place.
“My father died when he was forty,” he said. “He was forty, and he dropped dead like a stone. Next month or tomorrow, I’ll be dead.”
“Just because your father died at forty doesn’t mean you will,” Asa said, trying to remove his arm. Daniel’s grip was iron.
“You think I’ll die sooner?” he said, his eyes locked on Asa’s. There was a black fleck in one of them, and for a second Asa had the disorienting feeling he was being stared at through a third pupil.
“No!” he answered quickly.
Daniel released his arm and roared with laughter, his face red. “Don’t worry, my friend. Don’t worry about your record, and don’t worry about my dying.”
“Okay.” Asa got to his feet. “I should go.”
“No, stay!” Daniel waved his arms in protest. His speech had begun to slur. “Stay. Eve likes you. I can tell. Come on, let’s go look down at the city beneath our feet.”
He stood, not waiting for an answer, and went to the couch, taking the half-empty bottle with him.
Asa glanced at Eve. “Okay. Do you mind?”
“I don’t,” she said. “Come on.”
Asa followed her to the couch and sat at one end, facing Daniel; it was curved in a half circle, so they could all see one another. Eve didn’t join them. Instead, she went to the glass and gazed out. Daniel watched her as if he was waiting for something.
Asa raised his glass and cleared his throat. “To you, Daniel. I don’t know how you’re going to clear my record, but I appreciate it. Really.”
“Least I can do,” Daniel said, one word sliding into the next. “I like you. Eve likes you. You like him, Eve? I’ve brought you something that you like, at last?”
Eve sighed. “Daniel …”
She went to the couch and put her arms around him; he rested his head against her stomach, just below her breasts. Asa looked away hastily, but he could still see them in the glass. Daniel hugged her, gripping the fabric of her dress with both hands, and Eve stroked his head, whispering something Asa could not hear. Asa sipped his drink and stared out over the city, trying not to eavesdrop.
“But you don’t,” Daniel said loudly, and Eve hushed him.
“I do, Daniel. I do. I’m here.” She sat down beside him. “Come on, get some sleep, okay?”
Daniel mumbled something incoherent but pulled his legs up on the couch, laying his head in her lap. Eve leaned down and kissed his cheek, then stayed where she was, unmoving for a few long minutes. Finally, Daniel began to snore.
“Asa,” Eve hissed, and he turned. She gestured to Daniel on her lap. “Help me,” she whispered.
Asa realized she was pinned in place. He helped her lift Daniel gently so she could slip out. His snoring kept an even pace as they laid him back on the couch. Eve pointed to the door, and they went slowly, careful not to bump the table and rattle the dishes. In the living room, Eve closed the door behind them and leaned against it, pressing her forehead to the opaque glass.
“Are you okay?” Asa asked softly.
She nodded, then wiped her eyes and turned around. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “He really will fix your record. He’s a genius, even if he acts like an idiot.”
“I never met a genius,” Asa said. “As far as I know, he’s a perfect specimen.”
Eve laughed, but the sound was brittle.
“Will he be all right?” Asa asked, and she nodded.
“He always is. He’s just a maudlin drunk. I guess I am too. He just always gets there first.” Eve went to the couch facing the city view and sat down heavily. “He’s right, though. I do like you. I don’t like many people.”
Asa tried to keep his face neutral, but his heart picked up its pace. “I do like most people, actually. I like you more than most, though,” Asa said as he sat down beside her, leaving some distance between them.
She shook her head. “Aren’t you charming,” she said wryly.
“My mother always says so.”
She smiled, but it faded quickly. Asa looked out over the city, then back at her.
“Hey, I’m sorry to push it, but it’s my life. Do you know how he can fix this stuff? I already got in trouble. I don’t need to make it worse.”
Eve narrowed her eyes at him and tilted her head, and Asa shivered, feeling as if she was reading his thoughts. Don’t picture her naked, he thought.
At last she looked away. When she looked back again, her face was unguarded. “He can do it. How? You might not want to know that.”
“I do. I swear.”
“Do you know anything about Intech?”
Asa shook his head.
“Intech—short for innovative technology.”
“What does that mean?” Asa asked. “Isn’t all technology innovative?”
“Yeah, when it’s new. That phone you’ve got is ancient tech—it’s old-world scrap-heap material. A hundred years ago or so, a ten-year-old kid wouldn’t use it. State tech is incredible, but they hand us that junk.”
Asa’s phone was in his pocket, and he touched it self-consciously. “It works okay,” he said, defensive.
Eve shrugged. “It does what it’s supposed to. I’m just rambling. The point is that Daniel can fix your record because he has access to the Network—the system—that’s all.”
“Okay …” Asa frowned, suddenly grasping her meaning. “Wait. The system. Do you mean the State system of records? Social Contracts and things?”
“Social Contracts, births, deaths, arrests, transportations, terminations, farm yields, weather records and predictions, demographic statistics, road maps, blueprints for every building and rail station—and every personal record for everyone who’s ever lived.”
“How?” Asa stared at her, shocked. “Is he … what is he?”
There was only one person with that kind of access.
“He’s not the Chancellor in disguise,” Eve said dryly, echoing his thoughts. “Daniel’s grandfather was one of the Founders. He built the framework for the system, and Daniel has access.”
“But how?”
“Look, all I know is what he blurts out when he’s drunk. It doesn’t add up to much, and what I do know I shouldn’t tell you,” Eve said brusquely.
“So, what, you’re mad at me for listening?” Asa eased away from her.
She drew her legs up onto the couch and reached for a small pillow, which she wrapped her arms around as if it were a stuffed toy.
“Look,” he went on, “I really hope you and Daniel are telling the truth. I really hope that he can fix my record. But that was the most uncomfortable dinner of my life. You know that, right?”
Eve laughed; it was a peculiar laugh, short and distressed. She’d done it before, and Asa wasn’t certain what it meant—if it was at his expense, at her own, or at the world’s.
“How long have you been with him?” Asa asked more gently.
Eve buried her face in the pillow. She stayed like that until Asa began to think she might smother herself, and he touched her shoulder. She turned her head, resting her cheek on the pillow, and looked at him for a long moment.
“Have you ever lost something—someone—who was your whole world?” she asked.
“My grandmother went to Sanctuary,” Asa said slowly, and her eyes seemed to dim a little; it was the wrong answer. “I almost died once, though,” he offered. “I thought I was dying. Everyone else did too. For almost a month, I stayed in my bedroom and looked out the window at the world, thinking I’d never be a part of it again, that I was just … waiting to disappear.”
Eve’s eyes softened, and she sat up straighter, putting the pillow aside. “What happened?”
“I didn’t die.”
“I mean, how did you almost die?”
“I fell off a bridge into twenty feet of water.”
It sounded strange to say it aloud—back home, everyone just knew. Eve’s eyes widened, and she leaned almost imperceptibly away from him.
“How?” sh
e asked, almost in a whisper.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was a kid. I got lucky. You hear rumors of people who survive—I’m one of those rumors.”
Eve shook her head. “You went all the way under? Your head too?”
“Yeah.” Asa shifted uncomfortably, suddenly uncertain why he had brought it up. “You were telling me something,” he said. “About you and Daniel.”
“Right. Me and Daniel.” Eve sighed. “He’s a genius.”
“You said that.”
“He’s a good man.” She took the pillow onto her lap again. “He saved Saul’s life, he really did, and it wasn’t easy—he did it at great risk to himself. He did it for both of us, Saul and me. Saul had been with his organization for three years by then, and Daniel—he had always had a kind of thing for me, although he was careful about it. I was underage. Saul was an innovator, he was brilliant.” When Asa nodded along, she gripped the pillow with both hands. “Anyway, when Saul was due to be transported to Work—really, to be terminated, as we found out—I had just turned twenty. I had no creds, no income, no phone—you know, before you reach maturity, you might as well not exist. I couldn’t buy myself a sandwich without Saul. I would have been assigned to a Ward for that last year, but Daniel took over as my guardian.”
“How?” Asa asked, then caught himself. “Right. He has access.”
Eve nodded. “He put it into the system, and there I was. Taken care of.”
“So then …” Asa broke off, not wanting to ask the question.
“He didn’t touch me before I was twenty-one,” Eve said hastily. “That’s a crude way to put it, but it’s the truth. He loved me, and I knew it, but he kept his distance until I was of age.”
“And after?” Asa asked carefully.
Her eyes looked enormous; in the brighter light of the apartment, her smooth skin glowed. Sitting less than a foot away, he was dying to hold her, to kiss her, to feel her body pressed against his. It seemed wrong, somehow, to ask her questions about Daniel while it was all he could do not to touch her.
Eve looked out the window, leaning forward so he could only see her in profile. “I went to him on my twenty-first birthday. It seemed only fair.” She gave Asa a sideways glance, as if she might be worried what he thought of her, and he nodded, trying to look encouraging, and trying not to reach out and stroke her hair. “It was more than that,” she went on, staring back out at the city below them. “I was utterly bereft. Saul was everything to me, and without him I felt like I was just … waiting to disappear.” She gave Asa a smile. “Daniel kept me from vanishing. I think he still does. He loves me into existence.”