Gravity is Heartless

by Sarah Lahey

  This is no small affair.

  An older woman comes forth to greet Planck. She bows to zir then lowers her voice and asks, “Are they getting married? Is it an engagement? Because no one told us, and we didn’t bring a present, but we can contribute, if there’s a fund.”

  Quinn glares at Planck again. Her chest tightens and she struggles to breathe.

  “No, no, no,” Planck says immediately. “Honestly, it’s just a drinks party.”

  But the rumor is spreading before Quinn’s very eyes; the woman leans over to her companion and says, not quietly, “It’s a surprise engagement party.”

  Transportable air systems work overtime, sucking every proton of light from the sun, so Quinn knows it’s cool. She can even feel that there’s a breeze. But she’s hot and sweaty.

  She’s never hot and sweaty.

  Outside in the main courtyard, dozens of pastel-colored birds— Quinn can only assume they’ve been specially dyed for the occasion—are released. Dignitaries wearing ceremonial robes and feathered capes enter the veranda and mingle with the guests. Quinn spots Flax among them. She gazes around at the crowd of elegantly dressed guests and dignitaries, and notices that several of them are carrying beautifully wrapped boxes. Presents? Surely not.

  She transitions from light perspiration into a heavy sweat. The world begins to close in on her. It’s so fucking hot. I’m suffocating. She looks around wildly. This is never going to work.

  When Planck and Geller aren’t looking, she makes a break for it.

  ***

  Quinn retreats to her room, throws herself on the bed, buries her face in a pillow, and doesn’t move.

  The door opens, and Tig enters. Quinn rolls over and sits up, and he gives her a small, concerned smile.

  “Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

  “Overwhelmed. Completely overwhelmed.” She’s practically hyperventilating.

  “Yeah,” he says softly. “I get it. Let’s stay here.”

  Slowly, with measured movements, he glides toward her. He’s wearing loose, navy-colored trousers with the cuffs rolled up and a navy shirt with an embroidered collar. His feet are bare. She considers his baggy clothes and bangles and his muscular physique under the shirt, and she thinks he looks part bohemian guru and part new age adventurer. Nothing like a king with a small “k.” Nothing like a surprise fiancé. Her heart shudders again and she firmly presses her chest, hoping it will stay put.

  “I don’t think I want to ever get married,” she says. “To anyone.”

  “Really?”

  She shakes her head. “Never.”

  “Okay.” He shuffles onto the bed beside her and leans back against the headboard. “I’m so tired. Haven’t slept in five days. Come here. Come closer.” He closes his eyes.

  She doesn’t move. This is never going to work.

  He opens his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “We need to talk. I need a plan, a plan for the future. I don’t understand how this is going to work. You and me and a baby? Where will we live? On Nanshe? Can you have a baby on a boat? Is it safe? What would I do? I have to work.”

  He scratches his head. “Well, I—”

  “What I’m really trying to say is, I don’t fit in here. In Unus. On Nanshe. With you.”

  “You will,” he says quickly. “I’ll fix it. I’ll fix everything. I promise.” He pulls a SelfMed from his pocket and hands it to her. “I can’t do this myself. I need you to do it for me.”

  She doesn’t take it.

  He takes her left hand, places the SelfMed firmly in her palm, and holds out his arm. An open invitation. “Trust me. Please? Do it.”

  She points the SelfMed and pulls the trigger.

  It misses. She injected the bed. She’s confused. She used her left hand; it never misses. He moved his arm, pulled it away. Why would he do that? She hands the SelfMed back to him. He shakes his head. He wants her to try again.

  “You don’t understand,” he says. “It’s reflex, happens sometimes, and I haven’t slept. Look, I’m trying to fix this.”

  “Yes, you said that.” She sighs. “I’m going to get my meerkat, and then I’m going home.”

  “To Nanshe?”

  “To Hobart. To my home.”

  “Why?” His eyes turn dark.

  Because I don’t have a plan. Because I need to jump off something really high and I need to do it very soon. “Because I don’t belong here,” she says. “And you confuse me. I just . . . can’t do this. Not here.”

  “What about the baby? What about us?”

  She toys with the bedcover. “Us can be anywhere.”

  “Anywhere but here or on Nanshe?”

  She nods. “For now. But I didn’t say you couldn’t come with me. Hobart is lovely. It’s the rainbow capital of the world. The perfect place to raise a baby. And . . . it’s a good place to think, and I need to figure out where Lise is.”

  He rests his head in his hands and sighs.

  “Maybe, once things settle down, we could go on a date. Get to know each other . . . better. We could start at the beginning, if you know what I mean. It’s not that I don’t want you—I do, I definitely do—but let me be very clear: there’s to be no more ‘I chose you’ shit, okay? And no more surprises or family secrets. Everything has to be out in the open.”

  “Fuck. I’m so confused.” Tig shakes his head. Then he gets up and leaves.

  ***

  Quinn is in her sleep zone, packing her belongings, when Planck enters.

  “I need to go home,” she says. “And I need you to help me.”

  Ze sits her down, takes her hand in zirs, and makes a long, emotional speech about why she should stay with zir and Tig and spend the rest of her life with them on Nanshe. Ze understands that she needs something to do; ze’ll allocate more tasks for her. They can set up a lab and she can continue her research and she’ll move into Tig’s cabin, which is roomier, with a private deck. When Nanshe drifts north, ze tells her, the morning light is just glorious. Ze has also given some thought to her penchant for jumping off things; perhaps they could rig something from the mast. Or a drone might work.

  “I’ve seen the way you look at him,” ze says. “I don’t think you’re being honest about your feelings. Trust me, you belong here, with Tig, and that’s the truth.”

  “I don’t think he’s been honest about a lot of things either,” Quinn says. “Trust me, I need to go home. That’s the truth.”

  Planck starts to protest. Quinn puts a hand on zirs arm. “You’ll help me won’t you? You’ll help me get home.”

  A long, contemplative silence follows, and then suddenly Planck gets up and strides out of the room.

  A few minutes later, ze returns. “Maim is fond of you, very fond, and she appreciates what you did on the boat, keeping them safe. So she’s lending you a transporter and a pilot to get you home. A ‘No Flight Zone’ will be enforced starting tomorrow; you leave today, or your escape window disappears.”

  ***

  Quinn collects her meerkat-in-a-bag. She’ll open it when she gets back to Hobart. She’s surprised to realize she’s genuinely looking forward to seeing him. She knows she should feel nothing for him; he’s a piece of Tech. But he reminds her, just a little bit, of Jin.

  She calls her father and tells him she’s on her way. He tells her not to go home, not to her apartment in Styx, not yet. He urges her to come and stay with him. Do nothing for a bit, watch the sun rise and watch it set. She agrees; emptiness and isolation sound good, she can listen to her father sing to the trees and talk about birds.

  Geller frowns at the news. She says Hobart sounds dull, and she can watch the sun rise and set right here in Unus, “’Tis te same sun, you know,” she quips.

  Jove Kip is now head of the military, and Geller’s been offered a position in his new army. She’ll insist on a promotion. “Go ’ome, find yourself,” she says. “But you’re runnin’ away from life. ’Tis an external solution ta an internal problem. But go,
you’ll soon realize ’tis not te answer, you’ll be back in a couple av weeks.” She hugs Quinn. “If ignorant av your enemy an’ yourself, you’re certain ta be in peril. Take these.” She hands Quinn a pack filled with weapons and combat devices. “You’re not safe. Tese people wit teir kaleidoscope eyes an’ excess earwax want you, or tey want what you know. Tey’re just warmin’ up.”

  Again, reading too many war novels. But she takes the bag.

  Fifty

  Oh, I get it. We’re playing matchmakers. I’m, in, totally in.

  THE STRUGGLES OF WARFARE—BOMBING, combat, and fire—have devastated the Palace of Tigers. The colonnaded courtyard is now more rubble than temple; it resembles thousand-year-old ruins. Extinct animals sculptures lay strewn across the ground, the fountains are dry, and what’s left of the multilobed arches is precariously unstable.

  Planck waits on an unsteady stone bench, bookended by decapitated elephants, while Maim roams the courtyard ruins. She collects a wedge-shaped keystone, once the foundation of a masonry arch. “This building used to be a tourist attraction, a World Heritage site, one of the largest prayer halls ever built; it held over ten thousand. The English came here during the Crusades, saw all this—spanning arches, ribbed vaults, their Byzantine and Gothic architecture. So influential.”

  “It’s mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.”

  “Yes, yes it is. A shame to see it like this, I fucking hate war.” The keystone tumbles from her hand; when it lands in the rubble, it raises a small cloud of dust. “Now, what’s this about a transporter, I just gave you one. Now you want another?”

  “Now I need a rotor. It’s faster.”

  “Not following.”

  “Quinn departs on the transporter. It’s an old hybrid type; takes her most of the day to get home. He gets the rotor, so he gets there before her.”

  “Oh, I get it. We’re playing matchmakers. I’m in, totally in. We’ve got these new hypersonic ships, dual coaxial rotors with rear-ducted circulators. The shell is clad in a tungsten alloy, they travel five times the speed of sound, and they’re the most beautiful silver-white color, stunning. He’ll be there in no time. But he needs to go slow with her, once he gets there. And whose idea was the surprise engagement party? I heard there were three thousand people there. Fucking disaster. I’m not surprised she left.”

  “It wasn’t an engagement party.” Planck sighs. “But yes, it could have gone smoother.”

  “How’re his Meds? He taking them?”

  “We’re working on it. It’s complicated. He has issues about using the SelfMed. He struggles to pull the trigger, so it’s easier if someone else does it. He wants her to be the one.”

  “The one to shoots him with the SelfMed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh good lordt, humans are so complicated. Okay, tell him to take something with him, a gift for the family. It’ll endear him. And, he needs to give her time with her father, let her settle in. You know I sent her the stone, the Disc. How much does she know?”

  “Enough.”

  “Okay. My only chance of getting Lise back is the Disc. I hope Quinn’s up to the task.”

  Fifty-One

  A birthday present.

  THE TRANSPORTER IS AN old, slow vessel, so she’s not going home in style. The journey will take most of the day. She’s the only passenger. She scans the cabin; where to sit on an empty transporter? Too many choices. She selects a seat by the window on the left, then realizes the harbor is on the right, so she changes position.

  Long-haul flights are a novelty. She likes these seats, with their compartments and their compact, travel-size hydration fluids and protein snacks. She’s feeling peckish; she breaks the seal on a packet of insect sprinkles.

  A holo flight attendant materializes in the aisle, startling her. She drops the packet and spills the sprinkles all over her lap.

  The virtual inflight spiel begins: “Please make sure your carry-on luggage is stowed and your window shade is fully open. Fasten your seat belt low and tight. The T465 has six emergency exits; in the case of an emergency, lights will illuminate the way. The transporter is fitted with double drone pods and passenger drones, enough for everyone. Secure yourself first, before children.” Adults before children. Is that what you do in life, put yourself before your children? Because that’s exactly what she’s done—she’s put herself first, and she’s happy with her decision.

  The transporter lifts. No turning back now; she’s on her way home.

  Peering out the window, she sees the remnants of pathways, playgrounds, and signs, now covered by the rising ocean. Farther out, beyond the boats and pontoons, the monolithic form of Prismatic emerges. Then another monolith rises to the east and a third to the west, lurking like giant black insects, ready to take on the dead. How many died? She turns away.

  It’s time to take stock of her life. Stowed under the seat in front of her is an assisted living companion in the form of a meerkat and a backpack full of futuristic weapons. The year is 2050, and she’s thirty, pregnant, unmarried, and without a job, but she has some Coin saved, somewhere to live, a window seat, and a mission: figure out what happened to her mother.

  And then there’s Tig. She has moments of intense attraction to and overwhelming love for him, followed by moments of complete confusion. It’s because we’re so different—we’re worlds apart. Distraction. She casts the thought of him aside and settles into her seat.

  Serenaded by the gentle hum of the transporter, her eyelids droop, and soon sleep takes her. In her dreams she sees thousands of M’s floating through the universe—M for M-Theory, the multiverse and time travel. They floating M’s invert, split in two, and turn into V’s, the symbol for neutrinos. These are the tiniest particles; it’s difficult to imagine how small and massless they are. Electrically neutral— unaffected by electromagnetic force—they pass through matter undetected. They travel across the universe unimpeded. In her dreams the V’s are flying, passing through everything and everyone; they’re cosmic messengers, time travelers, born in black holes or during the violent death of a star. They hold the secret to dark matter, and are one of the fundamental building blocks of life. She dreams that the information inside the neutrino is the most important thing in the universe.

  Quinn opens her eyes and recalls her dream. Her left hand draws the symbol for a neutrino and an antineutrino in the air and the image lingers in her mind—a sketchy mark like a W with a line across the top. The symbol for a neutrino is a V. The mark on the back of Tig’s neck. The message in Ada’s purse. She knows what they are now: a pair of neutrinos, one neutrino, shown as a V, next to an antineutrino, a V with a line across the top. Matter and antimatter, combined in one particle. The two inverted V’s make an M.

  The marks on the back of his neck are particle symbols. Combine them and they do something . . . like open a time travel portal.

  ***

  When Quinn disembarks at the aerodrome in Hobart, the early-afternoon air is pleasantly warm and familiar and everything around her feels like home. She belongs here. Air travel could get her to Matt’s in thirty minutes, but the transporters and hovers are inactive as part of an extended No-Fly Zone, and the pilots are in Unus anyway, called to help Maim’s forces take back the city. Hobart’s population is too small to support a Hyperloop, and AVs can’t navigate outside the city center. They’re not safe in unpredictable terrain; there are too many variables for them to function reliably. So she’ll travel overland. She hires a self-drive auto and heads west.

  Four hours later, early evening, she parks the auto at the end of Matt’s driveway. She slings the pack of weapons over her shoulder, grabs her meerkat-in-a-bag, and begins the four-kilometer trek to her father’s house.

  It’s an easy walk; the path is relatively smooth, and the setting sun is warm on her back. The trees on the southern side of the path are plantation timber, processions of silver-grey columns with dusty green crowns. On the northern side is an old-growth forest that’s home to thous
and-year-old eucalyptus. Matt’s house is nestled in a clearing between the old and the new. He calls it a tree house, but the tree is inside the house; he built a circular glass prism, seven levels high and fifteen meters wide, around a three-thousand-year-old southern blue gum—Eucalyptus globulus, native to Hobart. Upper zones in the house are for sleeping, lower levels for living, and in the food prep is an automated hatch leading to an underground survival bunker— just in case Hexad fails and the world self-implodes. Underneath her father’s modest “I’m just a simple man” façade is a skeptic who’s lost faith in humanity.

  Quinn hears her father before she sees him. His guitar and melodic voice cut through the quiet afternoon. He’s considered a great singer, but his vocals are not pitch-perfect; it’s the depth of emotion, the raw, soulful harmonies, that his fans love.

  She plods around to the front and finds him on the open veranda, sitting back on a chair, no guitar in sight; the music is streamed. In his lap is a fat, ginger, white-pawed puppy. It looks up and yaps, signaling her arrival. Matt scoops it off his lap and bounds over to her.

  “Hey, took your time.” He gives her a bear hug and a kiss on the cheek. Then he pulls back and checks out her waistline. “Full of surprises,” he says nervously.

  He looks the same: the same shoulder length hair, fine and lanky; not wearing a shirt, still fit, tight to the point of gaunt, and unshaven. Still charismatic in his “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want” way.

  Quinn sets her things down and takes in her father’s countenance. He’s uneasy. The way he moves, the way he looks her over, the deliberate smile. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “Nothing. Been worried. Glad you’re here.”

  Probably the grandfather thing. Understandable. Give him time.

  The pup scurries over, and she collects it, smiling, “He’s—”

  “She’s,” Matt corrects.

  “Sorry, she’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Yours?”

  “Yeah, new, doesn’t have a name yet.”