“Hey,” he said. “Great view.” He waved her toward the couch.
She crossed the lounge staring at her shoes and curled onto it like a nervous cat. Staring out the round view port, she said, “I know.”
Carver sighed, kicking his feet up on to the couch. Patty felt his eyes on her. “Look,” he said. “Whatever I did to make you mad at me, I'm sorry.”
“Mad?” A startled, incautious glance showed that he looked quite serious. “I'm not—”
He smiled. “Just shy then? Look, I only want to be friends.” He put a hand on her ankle, below the edge of her jeans. His thumb curved around the bone. “Besides, I was hoping you could help with my math homework.”
“Math? What are we talking about?” Her skin tingled where he touched her. She didn't pull her foot away.
“Differential equations.”
“Man,” she said. “Those suck.” She dug in her pocket for her hip, leaning toward him until their shoulders pressed together, and called up the week's homework. “Where did you get stuck?”
He put an arm around her back. “Number seven.”
“That early? Okay, this is going to take some work.” Mom would have cows, she thought. Not one. Five or six. Purple ones.
The full Earth slowly came into view “below” the Montreal as they worked, eclipsing the spinning coin-sun for a little while. Clarke was invisible off the starboard bow. When the sun rose around the curve of the planet, Patty could see the beanstalk picked out in silver like a strand of embroidery wire. She wasn't surprised when Carver leaned closer and softly brushed his lips against the side of her neck.
I should get up and leave, she thought. Mom would tell me there's time for boys after school. After career. He smelled like warm leather and coriander.
She turned her head and kissed him on the mouth.
0215 Hours
Thursday 9 November, 2062
Bloor Street
Toronto, Ontario
It's so late on Wednesday night in Toronto that it's technically Thursday morning, but we can see from the street that the lights in Gabe's living room are on, and neither one of us is sleepy. Space lag, or something. My time sense is fucked.
I imagine Elspeth waiting up for us, Genie curled in her lap, snoring like a puppy. They know we're coming. Gabe must catch my mood, because as he brushes his thumb across the lock on the street-level door he also reaches out absently to squeeze my hand. The metal hand, but he doesn't seem to notice. I'm not looking forward to this.
Which is stupid, because: A, I saw him first and B, Elspeth as much as kicked him into my bed. So why do I have butterflies in my stomach like a teenage girl being introduced to her date's parents for the very first time?
Because, more or less, I am. I never got to play those games. It was kid, then runaway, then soldier. Not a lot of time to date around.
I dig my holistic communications device out of my pocket with my free hand and check the accumulated messages while Gabe leads me up the stairs. It's sort of fun to say holistic. More fun than saying hip, which is what the kids call them. Gee, Jenny, practicing avoidant behaviors? Why, yes, funny you should notice.
I restrain myself from kicking the stairwell wall. Gabe notices and squeezes my hand again, but I'm distracted watching the messages download.
Razorface, Razorface, Razorface.
And the GPS stamps he didn't bother to disable tell me he's in Toronto. Oh, shit.
Marde.
I key a message—call me!—and leave my hip on, something I never do. Something Razorface never does either, because that handy little positioning unit also means that anybody who has access to the system, or can hack it, knows exactly where you are. So I don't know when he'll get the message.
But if he came all the way from Hartford to find me, we must really need to talk. I stick my hip back into my pocket as we reach the landing and turn the corner. Gabe unlocks the door. I pull my left hand out of his right one. “Sois pas effrayée,” he says in a low voice, and gives me the old Gabe grin, squinting under curls flattened on one side from sleeping on the airplane.
“Putain de marde.” I stick my tongue out and he winks and licks his lip, breath tickling my ear as he bends down.
“Qu'est-ce que ta chatte mouille, Genevieve?”
I choke, heat flooding my body along with the memories. Naughty, naughty boy. “Ostie de trou de coul. Now it is!” Je suis heureuse d'avoir l'aide d'Elspeth. He'd kill me if I tried to handle him on my own.
Grinning, he pushes open the door.
My namesake Genie hits him in the chest, a flurry of blond locks and bunny pajamas. Leah's a half-step behind, midair when she grabs me, monkey-jump and barbarian yell and trusting Aunt Jenny not to let her fall. Aunt Jenny hasn't yet. Okay, there may be a few things in this life I haven't fucked up.
She squeezes me tight, silent, all runner's muscle and adolescent puppy softness. Genie's babbling about the telescope, about seeing the Montreal. Yep. Secret's out now, and we were on the evening news. I wonder if Alberta and Fred bothered to fill the prime minister in first, or let her find out on CBC. I drag my gaze off the tops of the girls' heads, across the room. Elspeth comes out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her shirt. She catches Gabe's eye. I bite my cheek at the silent communication between them. And then she looks at me, raises one eyebrow, and nods.
And comes toward not Gabriel, but me—and squeezes me into a long hug with Leah in the middle, because Leah won't let go so I can't really stiffen up and pull away. Elspeth's warm and I have to lean into the hug because she's that much shorter.
“The coffee's fresh,” she says, and the smell of it follows her as she steps back. She grins into my eyes.
Elspeth Dunsany. Psychiatrist. Manipulative bitch. Are those synonyms?
Thank the Lord she only uses her powers for good.
Leah finally unwinds and goes to hug her dad, too. By the time Elspeth and I are out of the kitchen with coffee for everybody—Genie still gets mostly the au lait part—and powdered sugar beignets, Gabe and his daughters are ensconced on the sofa in a tangled pile. Genie's already asleep, and I take her cup back into the kitchen while Gabe carries her off to bed.
I come back and settle myself on the floor beside the chair Elspeth claims. Leah's quiet, legs curled under her like a sleeping filly's, holding her mug in both hands and breathing the steam. She reaches out a sock-foot toe and pokes Gabe's thigh. Elspeth passes me a beignet and a paper napkin and we sit in silence, breathing in the smell of coffee and carpet dust and steam heat, of sugar and butter and milk and the cold November night outside.
Leah's not going to last, and we're outwaiting her, making small talk: the age-old conspiracy of grown-ups that children sense but don't quite understand. Don't understand that it's a gentle thing and not something meant to keep them powerless. Gabe talks about free fall and seeing the stars under his feet. Elspeth mouths Richard? and Gabriel nods, takes the drooping coffee cup out of Leah's hand, and totes her off to bed as well. When he comes back, he's carrying his jacket. “Come on,” he says. “Let's go for a walk.”
And then he bends down and kisses me hard while Elspeth is getting her shoes.
Genie heard her sister's bedroom door click shut and her father's distinctive step in the hallway: light but solid, a big calm animal moving on its toes. She slipped from under the covers and pulled a robe on over her pajamas because it was darker. She made sure her night-light was switched off, squirming a little in the darkness, then thought about her slippers but didn't want to feel around under the bed for them.
She cracked the door open and peeked around the edge, covering her mouth with her hand in case she coughed. She was breathing better since they came to Toronto and she started the new treatments, and she thought she could make it down the dark hall without giving herself away.
Adult voices in the living room lured her; she crept forward, careful not to let her bare feet scuff the carpet. The coat tree stood at the corner of the hallway, casting a
long shadow from the living room lights. Genie stepped behind it, making herself small, just in time to jerk back against the wall as Papa bent down to kiss Aunt Jenny lingeringly on the mouth.
A cough burned the back of Genie's throat. She stuffed both fists into her mouth and bit down, watching the way her papa's hand pressed to the arch of Jenny's back, the way Jenny's steel arm caught the light as she raised it, twining her fingers in Papa's hair. Genie tasted bile bitter as chewed twigs, her stomach churning. She thought about spicy sharp jambalaya and telescopes and warm arms when she hadn't been able to sleep, thinking about her papa gone farther away, even, than it seemed Maman had gone.
Genie barely remembered Maman, although Jenny and Papa told stories about her. And she loved Aunt Jenny. But if Papa was kissing her like that, it might mean Elspeth wasn't staying.
Genie almost yelped when Elspeth came back from the kitchen, white sneakers dangling from her hand by the laces, but then she made herself watch. And frowned in concentration when Aunt Jenny jumped back guiltily and Elspeth just smiled and sat down on the arm of the sofa to stuff her feet into her shoes.
“Where do you want to go?” Elspeth asked mildly. From her vantage behind the coat tree, Genie saw the red blush run up Jenny's cheek. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and Elspeth held up a hand. “Hush.”
“Raised Catholic,” Aunt Jenny answered, the dry tone that Genie was sure concealed depths she might understand someday.
“So who wasn't?” Elspeth stood, took the coat Papa handed her, and patted Jenny on the upper arm. “Come on,” she said. “We can fight over him after we save the world. In the meantime, I want junk food.” She herded them out the door.
Genie waited until the lock clicked behind them, leaving the apartment dark and empty, before she snuck into her sister's bed and bounced her awake. “Leah. Leah! Wake up!”
0245 Hours
Thursday 9 November, 2062
Roupen's Bistro
Bloor Street
Toronto, Ontario
Gabe's kiss still colors my lips as I follow him down the creaking rubber-tread stairs and into cheek-burning chill. “Junk food?” he says as Elspeth catches up with us.
“Grease,” she says, and he grins.
“I know just the place.”
And I know where we're going. Down the block and around the corner to Roupen's. It's half bistro and half greasy spoon and open all night. Gabe drapes one arm around Elspeth and one around me, awkward because she's so much shorter, and the three of us stroll down the street arm in arm, exactly like giggling kids. “Everything go okay up there?” Elspeth asks, with the weight of a hundred other questions pressing the words down.
“The AI is tucked in and happy,” Gabe answers, which has two meanings and of course Elspeth nods to them both. He looks at me. We pause under the sizzling neon sign—real old-fashioned neon—by the chrome steel entryway of Roupen's. Gabe disentangles himself to hold the door for Elspeth and me. She smacks him on the ass as she goes by, and I have to grin at the look he gives her. Half kitten in the cream, half cat that realizes it has tried to eat something much, much bigger than its head. The pair of antique pinball machines just out of the draft inside the door catch my eye and I make them a promise for later. I used to be pretty good at pinball. I bet with the new hand, I can play it again.
“Test flight went okay,” I say. We slide onto the green-and-purple plaid bench of the booth in the corner. Elspeth and I sit on one side. Gabe gets the other. You don't want to sit next to him in a cramped space; you'll be ducking elbows all night.
“Grease,” Elspeth says happily, flipping through the menu. Gabe reaches out unconsciously to rub a thumb possessively over the back of her fine-boned hand, then glances up to check my face, looking for traces of—jealousy? Elspeth just watches his hand move, smiling.
We order, poutine and calamari and fried mozzarella and stuffed mushrooms and pots of coffee and heated milk. There are reasons to love the French. Gabe excuses himself to go to the men's room, which is a patent setup. After the coffee gets there but while the food is still sizzling behind the swinging rubber door, Elspeth pokes me in the arm. “Are we cool?”
I look down at her, pull the spoon out of my coffee, and stick it in my mouth to buy a couple of seconds. The coffee's bitter and rich and good. They use real whole milk here, and fuck the government cholesterol guidelines. The doc's eyes are hazel, green ringed in golden ringed in gray, catching the dim recessed light on little flecks like sunshine. The smoothed edges of hair that normally frizzes into coils blend into the dark red curtains behind her. Behind the window, a pair of headlights slides by; the cold steel table leg presses my knee.
I remember when Valens sent her to jail. I got sensitive to hearing his name on the news, those not-rare-enough occasions when it showed up. I remember how she'd looked on the holo, in an orange jumpsuit just like the one the man I sent away for a lifetime wore. The news feeds characterized her as an evil genius: a brilliant woman gone down the wrong path. Speculated on her links to terrorism. Her trial records were sealed.
I'd pitied her then. And envied her later. And now I find myself looking into the eyes of this woman, the smartest person I'd ever met other than Richard and maybe my sociopathic and blessedly dead sister Barb. And seeing the face of someone who just wanted to know she wasn't absolutely going to get hurt, and maybe she wasn't going to absolutely have to die alone.
“Fuck, Doc.” I look down, smile at my reflection in the back of the spoon, and lie to her like I mean it. “How could we not be cool?”
And because Gabe's in the john, of course the food comes just then. So, thank God, she gets out of answering by grabbing the stuffed mushrooms and hoarding the plate on her side of the table. Gabe shoots us a look when he gets back; I imagine he's surprised to find us giggling and fencing with our forks instead of heads bent in hushed intensity. The food on the Montreal was decent, but it's nice to eat something dead and unhealthy.
We stuff ourselves on greasy tidbits and wash it down with gallons of coffee, making the kind of cheerful small talk I've almost forgotten, and after we're sated—Gabe listlessly poking the last few morsels—I keep my date with the pinball machines.
They're the good kind, older than I am, every widget and pulley mechanical rather than computerized—although these have been refitted to run on cash cards rather than coins. I rest my left hand on the button experimentally. I had to give up pinball after I accidentally dented a couple of machines. But the new hand is sensitive enough. I can feel the hard edge of the metal ridging the hollow between my thumb and forefinger, the pressure of the flipper control against middle and ring fingers. The clarion jangle and peal of the machine's sound effects, and the faint shiver of its body when I test the flipper.
Elspeth lays a hand on my right elbow as I pull the plunger back. “Will it take two players?”
Gabe snorts. “Oh, you don't wanna do that, Ellie.” And Elspeth just smiles. I smile back. And proceed to mop the floor with her four times running, which she had to know was going to happen.
I'm just that fast.
4:00 AM
Thursday 9 November, 2062
Allen-Shipman Research Facility
St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario
Valens steepled long, blunt fingers over the crystal of his interface plate and stared between the interleaved knuckles. His eyes felt sprayed with powdered glass. “Alberta,” he said, resisting the urge to rub them, “trust me.”
The crisp Unitek VP paced his office, her fists balled in the pockets of her tailored suit. “We need to step up the process,” she spat. She rocked her shoulders as if they hurt. “Riel knows about Le Québec. I need to have pilots ready for the second ship by early next year. You're confident the system we have in place on the Montreal will be adequate?”
Valens stood from his desk and came around it. “As confident as I can be. The AI is well contained. I have good control of Casey and Koske, and I'm informed tha
t the precautionary programming in their implants is seamless. It's highly unlikely that there will be any problems.”
“How soon can your young pilots be ready?”
He stretched unobtrusively. “Four weeks. If we start the reflex enhancement process immediately. You know my granddaughter is in the program.”
“How could I miss her?” Holmes tossed expensively styled hair. “I've no quarrel with it. We're not going to get to go ourselves, Fred.”
“No.” His office was paneled, but laid out for efficiency over intimidation; he hadn't been in it long enough to attract clutter, and years of traveling had kept his threshold of personal belongings low. “I know. I'll die here or on Mars. But we'll give as many a fresh start as we can. And beat the Chinese to brave new worlds as well.”
“We can catch the generation ships easily. It's the Huang Di that worries me.”
“She's a smaller ship than the Montreal. Or the Calgary will be.” Valens paused. “How fast are we building these?”
“As fast as we can. I'm still under pressure from the board, and I mean to spend the money before I lose it. Which is a very real issue—”
“Do they understand how critical the ecological situation is?”
“The popular and scientific press are so divided. And people generally want to believe things will turn out for the best. It's how houses get built on sea cliffs and dictators come to power. Half of them think I'm Chicken Lit-tle, Fred.”
“You're paid very well to be Chicken Little.”
Holmes shrugged, untangling a stray feather of silver hair from the pearl stud she wore and tucking it behind her ear. “Fortunately, your girl Casey impressed the hell out of my CEO on that test flight—that bought us a few more months. The Vancouver swung into production last week. We're getting assistance from our PanMalaysian trade partners, who are running shit-scared of the PanChinese Alliance, and the raw materials from the asteroid mining program are just barely enough to meet the schedule. The rest of the commonwealth and Australia are on board, and Charlie's breeding up those neurosurgical nanites of his at record speeds.” Holmes, for just a moment, let him see the tired behind her eyes. “We'll salvage something. As much as we can.” She tipped her head to one side, and that strand of hair got away from her again. “We'll be dead before it gets bad, in any case, and money carries a certain—insulative—value.”
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