She didn’t check the clock in her lenses. Global time wouldn’t tell her whether it was midnight or five minutes to sunrise in Switzerland, since it was the same time everywhere. Her eyes told her that the sky did look faintly lighter to the east. The highest peaks were dusted with faint haloes, like giant angels.
She pulled an oxygen bottle from her pocket and took a hit. The compressed gas actually felt warmer than the air biting at her cheeks.
“This is such an amazing place,” Zep said.
“I know. We really did get lucky.”
“Everyone’s saying Libby found it, but you should get at least half the credit, I reckon. I bet she didn’t like it at first, and you talked her into it.”
She tilted her head and stared at him through narrowed eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Because you’re Libby’s finisher.”
“Her what?”
“You finish what she starts, clean up her messes, right her wrongs, that kind of thing. You are, right?”
“I don’t do that,” she said, glancing out at the icy vista. “Not always.”
“Yes, always,” he said. “Sheesh. I know you two better than you know yourselves.”
“Ha! You wish.”
“Just try me.”
“All right. What’s my favorite kind of chocolate?”
“Dark.”
“Yes . . . but I already knew that.”
He grinned. “So give me something harder.”
Clair thought for a second. “What’s my least favorite city in the world?”
“Hmmm. Omsk.”
“Is that a real place?”
“Of course it is. You’d never hate somewhere imaginary.”
“But I’ve never been there.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’ll go there one day, and you’ll hate it. Take my word for it.”
“Have you been there?”
“No.”
“So how do you know?”
“I just know you, see? Want to go check it out? We can be there in thirty seconds.”
“No thanks.”
“Frightened I’ll be right?”
She laughed and punched him on the arm. It was as solid as a rock, even through the parkas. He snatched the oxygen bottle from her and took a hit.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were avoiding me.”
“What? No.” Just you-and-Libby, she wanted to say.
“Good.”
“Why?”
He sucked on the canister a second time, then gave it back to her. She resisted the urge to bring it immediately to her lips.
“Maybe it’s the oh-two,” he said, inching closer so they were pressed tightly against each other on the narrow ledge, “maybe it’s this place . . . I don’t know. But I’ve been wanting to get you alone all night. . . .”
Zep raised his right arm and put it around her shoulders while his other hand came across him to tip her hood back slightly. Her head tilted with it.
Every nerve cell in Clair’s body came alive, and at the same time every neuron in her brain froze in shock. This wasn’t happening, surely.
But it was. He leaned into her. She didn’t pull away. His lips were parted. She could see his teeth. When he breathed out, the air misted between them, only there was hardly any between at all now. If he came any closer . . . all she had to do was . . .
“Wait, stop,” she said, raising her left arm and pushing firmly against his chest with fingers splayed. “What are you doing?”
He blinked at her. “What am I what?”
“Libby, remember?”
“This isn’t about Libby.”
“But it has to be about Libby. You can’t fool around with me while you’re seeing her. You can’t. I can’t.” She was talking to herself as much as him, and she didn’t think she was doing a very convincing job. “Besides, she already thinks you’re cheating on her with someone else. That’s a clique I’m not eager to join.”
“There’s no clique,” he said with a frown. “There’s no one else. Is that who you think I am?”
Before Clair could answer, a boom of flesh on metal came from above and behind them, heavy enough to make their perch vibrate. Clair whipped around and saw someone skating down the slippery slope of the dome. It was the boy who had been threatening to jump earlier. He was waving his hands above his head to keep himself upright. His expression was one of shock, as though he couldn’t believe what gravity was doing to him.
He tried to backpedal and fell with his legs in the air. It might have been funny except for his cry of absolute terror. He knew and everyone watching knew that if nothing arrested his fall, he would slide unchecked faster and faster to the edge of the dome. From there, there was nothing but down. To the icy rocks below.
People were shouting. Zep was moving. The ledge complained as he leaped to his feet and stepped over Clair. Two more steps gave him a short running jump off the ledge. Clair didn’t have time even to think as he launched himself into space. Then the rope connecting him to the antenna snapped taut, and she clutched at it with both hands, fearing the carabiner giving way and him being swept off the dome.
Zep hit the dome spread-eagled and belly first, causing another hollow boom, louder than the first. He skidded down the icy slope and reached for the falling guy. They clutched at each other with graceless urgency, scrabbling for a grip on slippery parkas and gloves, and clung tight. The extra weight made the ledge under her groan alarmingly. Clair held on to the rope and leaned back as far as she dared.
The rope wrenched Zep and the guy along an arc, tumbling down over the bulge of the dome and out of sight. When the rope was pointing straight down over the dome, Clair felt some of the weight ease, as the falling guy was helped down from below, she hoped. She braced her feet against the antenna’s base and kept pulling on the rope. Her breath came fast, rasping in her ears.
People were thundering down the ladder. Some of them shouted at her, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. The rope moved under hands again, and she leaned back as Zep rappelled up to the ledge. Her heart thudded extra hard on seeing him, and inside her gloves, her hands felt tremulous and sweaty. The world had narrowed down to just the two of them. She no longer saw the perilous view at all.
Zep looked like he might be feeling the same. His eyes were a bright, shining blue, and he was blinking a lot. Two red spots burned in his cheeks.
When he’d reached the ledge and had a good grip on the antenna, she let go and said, “Next time, just throw the rope, you idiot.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, his breath steaming, “I should’ve thought of that.”
She grabbed his head with both hands and brought their lips together, hard. Not for long; he was breathing heavily, and it still wasn’t right. But if the rope or antenna hadn’t held, he would have fallen and Clair would have missed her one and only chance to do it properly. She had to make up for that now, while she could.
“Jesus,” he said when she pulled away, “is this what I have to do get you to kiss me?”
She lowered her head so her face was buried in his chest. They both laughed, almost hysterical on adrenaline, and she clutched him as though she were the one falling.
4
THE ACCIDENT DIDN’T kill the party, but it did have a decidedly sobering effect. Dawn did the rest. Within half an hour it all was over, and Clair was standing in line for the booth with Zep and Xandra Nantakarn and fifty other people, all shivering and awaiting their turns to go home. There was some disgruntled muttering about the delay. Clair hadn’t considered that downside of the d-mat bottleneck.
“Don’t feel bad,” Xandra told Clair when her chance to leave came. “No one died, and the crashlander legend lives on. See you tomorrow night?”
“Uh . . . maybe.” Clair wasn’t thinking that far ahead. The electric bubble she had occupied earlier had popped. Now she just felt tired.
“Don’t wait too long. One day we really will run out of venues.”
&nbs
p; Xandra winked as the door shut on her, leaving Clair and Zep alone in the restless crowd.
“Now what?” he asked her.
“Now what what?”
“The night doesn’t have to end here. I have some scotch back at my dorm, and we could both use some warming up— Hey!”
She had kicked him. “Don’t do that, Zep.”
“Yeah, sorry.” He retreated into himself a little. “I guess I should talk to her.”
Clair hated pushing him away, but she knew it was the right thing to do.
“We were buzzing on adrenaline and too much beer. That’s all.”
The booth opened in front of them. Neither of them made a move.
“If I say ‘after you,’ will you kick me again?”
“No, because I’m tired and want to get home.”
She stretched up to kiss him on the cheek and quickly slipped away.
The door slid shut. Clair was surrounded by reflections of herself. She looked completely washed out, something the bright, white light coming at her from all corners didn’t help at all. She closed her eyes and wondered what she was feeling underneath that shade’s pallid facade.
Zep liked her. What did that say about him? What did it say about her that she had really kissed him now, even if it was in a moment of weakness, just once? Where did that leave Libby? He clearly wasn’t over her if he only “guessed” he should talk to her. Clair was an idiot for getting involved.
She felt as though her insides were being torn apart by invisible hands, which was a thousand times worse than how she had felt before.
It can’t happen again, she told herself. Clair Larhonda Hill doesn’t do things like this.
It would best for everyone, she decided, if Zep just got over whatever it was he felt for her and made things good with Libby. Clair could live with rejection if it meant keeping her best friend. There would be other boys. There would never be another Libby.
When she woke the next morning, there were over five hundred bumps in her infield. It was like on her birthday, only that was months ago, and there were no important holidays listed that she might have forgotten. She rolled onto her back with a groan, thinking, Who died?
The bumps appeared to float in the darkness above her, names in a soft Helvetica font against a minimalist, blocky background in burned oranges and yellows. The colors of sunrise, automatically selected by her lenses, probably by some algorithm that thought this would ease her into wakefulness rather than dump it on her like a bucket of cold water. If so, it wasn’t working.
The alarm that had woken her came again. It was time to get ready for school. Why was she so tired? The party, right. The crashlanders. The kiss . . .
Her eyes flickered open. She felt faintly sick, and not just from the beers she had drunk. The list of bumps remained in her field of vision, as though demons had scribbled across the ceiling while she slept. The text slid from ceiling to drapes as she sat up with a jerk.
Zep’s name was on the list of bumps—not as a recipient, but as a subject.
People were talking about him in the Air. And she was part of the conversation. Anxiously, she winked on one of the bumps and skimmed through a short vlog covering what had happened the previous night.
At first she was relieved. It was just a brief account of the ball, with emphasis on the incident of the boy who had almost died. There were interviews with people either praising Zep for his bravery or damning the entire clique. Xandra Nantakarn was unflustered in a brief clip doing the rounds. The Lucky Jump wasn’t to blame, said a representative of VIA, the Virtual-transport Infrastructure Authority, whose job it was to make the rules about how d-mat was used. A peacekeeper spokesperson wasn’t so sure.
It was news of a fairly minor sort. Clair supposed that she must have been mentioned somewhere in one of the posts, leading to the general topic’s prominence in her infield. And it was pleasing in a way. Popularity in social media wasn’t something she went out of her way to seek, like Libby did. She had never popped this way before.
Then she saw the phrase, “Zeppelin Barker and his girlfriend, crashlander Clair Hill . . .”
“Oh no,” she said, skipping to the next bump and following its link.
This one came with a snapshot of her pulling on the rope, taken through the lenses of someone at the top of the dome. This time, they got the name of Zep’s girlfriend right, but they had attached it to the wrong face. The caption on the picture of Clair read, “Liberty Zeist, discoverer of the latest crashlander ball that almost cost her boyfriend’s life . . .”
“No, no, no!”
The mixed-up name wasn’t going to save her. Clair’s face was still there, recognized by the Air and sent to her as it would be to anyone interested in Clair Hill, crashlanders, or Zeppelin Barker. Among a multitude of correctly labeled pictures of Libby were enough of Clair to be certain that Libby would see them and ask the question: What had Clair done last night to make people think she was Zep’s girlfriend?
Maybe Libby had already seen them.
Clair scrolled through the long list of bumps, looking for Libby’s name. It wasn’t there, but Tash and Ronnie’s were.
“Thought you went home with Libby,” Tash had sent earlier that morning. “Didn’t know you were still there, being a hero!”
Ronnie’s was more guarded. “Anything to this, or is it just another Airhead false positive?”
Clair didn’t know how to respond. She hugged her knees and wished she could erase the bumps not just from her infield but from the Air itself. But the vast web of wireless connectivity covering the Earth tangled everyone in information. There was no escaping it or the myriad algorithms that guided data to its destination. It didn’t matter if two or two hundred thousand people were following the story, Libby was absolutely, positively certain to notice.
How much worse would it look if Clair didn’t say something to her right away?
When Clair checked Libby’s public profile, she found a caption of an old woman on a swing with a shotgun on her lap and the words Disturb at own risk. Not encouraging.
Clair got out of bed, threw her clothes in the fabber for recycling, and dialed a set for school. While she was in the shower, she sent a message to Libby.
It’s not what it seems. Really truly honestly. Can we talk?
She deleted everything from her infield so there’d be no mistaking a reply when it came.
Libby hadn’t said anything by the time Clair got out of the shower and dressed in her freshly made clothes. The apartment was empty and tomb quiet around her. Clair’s mother regularly started work in the middle of the night. Her stepfather lived in Munich most weekdays. Clair was an only child and heartily glad of it.
For breakfast she had perfectly scrambled eggs with freshly toasted bread, low-salt butter at room temperature, and the best black coffee a fabber could find. The coffee was the only thing she truly tasted.
“Libby,” she sent, and was unable to stop once she had started this time, “did you get my message? Are you up yet? Are you feeling all right? Please call me back as soon as you can.”
She desperately wished she could stay home with her head under the covers, but skipping school wouldn’t solve anything. Being smart had gotten her parents’ parents through the Water Wars, Allison Hill, Clair’s mother, liked to say. That and never giving up. Allison claimed that Clair had inherited her maternal grandmother’s stubbornness, and that even when they argued, it was something to be grateful for.
5
“WOODWARD AND MAIN, Manteca,” she told the booth, avoiding the accusing stare of the reflection directly in front of her.
My nose is too big, she thought for the thousandth time.
A sneaky new voice internally riposted, You could fix that.
She scowled. That wasn’t cool. Improvement couldn’t be real, no matter what Libby thought, and even if it was, beauty was only skin-deep.
sssssss-pop
The door opened onto bright morning sunlight sh
ining through dappled leaves, fresh sea air, and the sound of people arguing. Her booth was one of twenty in a line under the familiar d-mat sign of two overlapping circles
in a chunky Venn diagram. There was a man in a green suit directly in front of her. She stepped out, and he stepped inside without acknowledging her. Woodward and Main was one of several hub stations servicing not just the Manteca New Campus High School but downtown tourism as well. Sacramento Bay was busy with amateur sailors day-tripping north to Yuba City or east to Rio Vista and the Joice Islands. The fishing was good, and so were the mangroves.
Clair hugged the strap of her backpack and pressed through the crowd. The station was even more congested than usual. Two UFO-like eye-in-the-sky (EITS) drones buzzed softly over the discontented crowd.
D-mat jumps took about two minutes, give or take thirty seconds, and this one had taken her just over two. Something other than unreasonable lag time was responsible for the disturbance, then. A blue peacekeeper’s helmet stood out above a small knot of people three booths along. Clair rubbernecked to see what was going on but couldn’t make out anything untoward, and couldn’t justify standing where she was for long. People were pressing forward into the booths, anxious to be on their way, as she was.
School was crowded. A multilingual sea of kids navigated channels that curved organically between buildings four, five, and six stories high. Juniors, like Clair and Libby, were on the other side of the campus, near the gym. Clair leaned toward the practical arts—writing, music composition, and editing—with a smattering of history and soft sciences that most of her friends found boring. She didn’t know what she would do with the combination, but she figured she had time to decide. It wasn’t like money was an issue as it had been in her grandfather’s day, when fabbers hadn’t existed to make anything anyone wanted, and people had had to have jobs just to eat.
“You kids are getting smarter, younger every year,” he liked to complain, “but you never actually do anything with those smarts of yours.”
“That’s not true,” Clair’s mother had responded the last time. “What about that kid who solved the Riemann hypothesis a month ago?”
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