by Susy Gage
As if reading his mind, Lori admonished, “This route is perfectly safe. You know my adventures are dangerous when I invite more than one other person to be sure of having a witness.”
He laughed. It was nice that she treated him just like everyone else, even though it was done with the insouciance of a small child or a psychopath.
They’d learned an incredible amount in the past weeks about astrobiology, about teamwork, and about how to put together a six hundred-million-dollar proposal. But they had learned next to nothing about each other, and Lou still relied for most of his information about Lori on Bubo legends. It was hard to reconcile the image of the daredevil criminal mastermind with this soft-spoken little genius who was so nondescript that she had to shout in shops and restaurants to even be served.
Lori’s career was all over the map, but Lou had come to the conclusion that people who criticized her for that were fools. She just plain knew everything and seemed to have a finger in every pie in the science world, from green fluorescent protein to robotic mice to heavy-ion collisions. There was no doubt that she had deserved her position and that most of the senior people would fight to keep her; but there was a dark side to that that he still didn’t fully understand. Kuzno and Rose appeared to be engaged in a final battle, but whether Lori was the queen, a knight, or a pawn was yet to be determined. He had managed to convince himself that the war was merely a symbolic one, that anyone capable of actually shedding blood was safely six feet under. But somewhere, down deep in a part of himself he didn’t even want to acknowledge, he had to wonder if Dim Bulb had himself been only a minion. The Buboes swore that Kuzno had been on campus dawn to dusk on the day that Dim Bulb had died, and had video to prove it, so it was hard to even imagine who the evil puppeteer might be.
This was the second weekend in a row that they’d been brave enough to do something together off campus. Lori hadn’t known that there were hand controls that just snapped on to the steering wheel of a car; she had especially not known that you could call up a rental-car company and request them. She’d learned this last Sunday when he had called to ask if she wanted to go for a drive, and they had gone up the Angeles Crest all the way to the snow line. It was early for snow even at seven thousand feet, reminding them both that with the approach of the holidays came the approach of their deadline, which sent them scurrying back to work.
Lou, for his part, hadn’t known that handcycling had been invented at STI or that Lori had come five hundred meters from being the 1988 forty-kilometer champion. “The problem was that the fairing that made me fast also made me too hot, and I passed out just before the finish line,” she explained as she got out of the car. “By the time my friends noticed that I wasn’t moving and ran over to reanimate me with a water bottle, three other people had passed me.”
“Sorry to be a theorist, but what’s a fairing?” Lou opened the car’s rear door and slid his bike out from the back seat. It was a weird and awkward shape but light as a feather, and he held it easily in one hand.
“A plastic lid that closed over me to make me aerodynamic,” she explained, going to the trunk to get her own vehicle. “I threw it out long ago, but it’s the same bike. Yours is infinitely cooler.”
“Carbon fiber?”
“Single-piece carbon fiber design made by a guy in STI’s own Human Powered Vehicle club. All the old-timers remember me. Half that stuff hanging on the wall is from when I was an undergrad—the hydrofoil, the pedal boat, the airplane…”
“What should I bring?” Lou asked before leaving the driver’s seat, reaching for his bag. “Camera? Food and water?”
“Definitely food and water. There’s nothing between here and the beach. If you haven’t been here before, you might want your camera. There are some pretty spots.” She sat down and her seat immediately fell to one side, spilling her onto the pavement. “And the tool bag. And my rollerblades, in case both bikes fall apart and I have to run back and get the car.”
“The road goes right along the bike path?”
“I think so,” Lori shrugged, but she clearly had no idea. Well, if she ended up dragging him home, it was her own doing.
Lou was much more impressed with the handcycle than with Lori’s organizational skills. The crank was about shoulder-width, and had a huge assortment of gears and shift levers that you could operate without letting go. He’d never been much of a gadget freak—the only sports he’d ever done were horseback riding and swimming—but as gadgets went, this was pretty awesome. He spun around the parking lot while Lori finished loading all the wrenches and hex keys and tubes and pumps they might need. “I didn’t quite understand at first why the cranks are parallel rather than perpendicular,” he mused. “But it’s faster this way, isn’t it?”
“Unless you’re going up a very steep hill. There is only one hill on this ride, when we climb over the reservoir.”
“Anything else I should know?”
She scratched her head, thinking. “When we descend the other side, there’s a sharp left turn at the bottom. The turning radius on these things sucks, and remember you’re on homemade carbon fiber, so try not to crash.”
There wasn’t much to see in the first five miles, apart from the little desert park with its interpretive signs, stunted sycamores and elderberry trees that they left very quickly in order to climb the massive edifice of stone that was the dam over the reservoir. The late-November day was clear and hot, and they were exposed to a merciless blue sky and an infinite expanse of concrete until they came over the crest and saw laid out before them Los Angeles in all its glory. The areas closest to the dam were industrial, but farther on they could see wooden houses and horse trails, still farther the lush green expanses of a golf course, and running through it all a fifty-foot deep chasm of pavement that was the San Gabriel River. Spindly palm trees emerged from the cement, towering to absurd and crooked heights, casting twisted shadows in the oblique winter sunlight.
“Caution, gnarly downhill,” Lori warned, about to start descending. But Lou called for her to wait and pulled out his new camera and the telephoto lens he had never even had a chance to try. From their vantage point he could look east into the foothills, all the way to the telescopes of Mt. Hansen, or west along the river to the Pacific. He rarely saw such an incongruous panorama of wild neglected nature and slabs of black pavement.
“If only I had known you were into photography from the beginning,” Lori mused.
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a wildlife photographer,” said Lou.
“What we do in the BSL-3 is kind of like that.”
“It is, isn’t it,” he agreed, laughing. “Stare and scroll around and stain and hope you catch the bacteria doing something good.” He started re-packing the instruments carefully into their black leather bag, glancing at his phone when it started to ring.
“Oh god!” Lori grumbled. “I hate cell phones.”
“I have to have one, because I don’t trust you.” He glanced at the number. “And because of my students. Hello, Sam, what’s up?”
“The paper just came back with revisions,” Sam requested in a plaintive tone. “Can you look at them?”
“No, I’m not in right now.” Lou said something he’d been waiting to say for a long time. “I’m on a bike ride with Barrow.”
“Uh huh,” said Sam, blasé. “I suppose you visited her miracle stem-cell lab first?”
“You got it. It’s right by the BSL-3. I’ll be in by five or six, I think, right?” Lori shrugged, then nodded reluctantly. “She says yes. I think. You could show it to Bert first.”
“Who? Dr. van Gnubbern? You call him Bert? I thought his first name was…”
“Right, Dr. van Gnubbern. Do not call him Wigbert, or I guarantee he won’t help you. I’ll be in this evening for sure. Bye. Excuse me,” he apologized. “Sam’s paper. Ready for the gnarly downhill?”
Lori gaped as if Lou had said something inexplicable or offensive, and refused to go downhill.
; “Lori?” he prodded gently. “What’s wrong?”
Her mouth still hung half open. “Van Gnubbern… His name is Wigbert?”
Lou burst out laughing. “Wigbert Alyosius van Gnubbern—all these years and you didn’t know? Watch out, Lori, if we fail in our Plan you will not only be doomed to haunt the campus in your skinsuit and rollerblades, but you will have to change your name to Wigbert.”
They started on the short, steep hill, traveling faster than they should. Lou had to lean hard coming into the turn and he heard Lori swear, but neither crashed. They pulled up to what was promised to be the only road crossing of the entire trip with a squeak of brakes and a shout of laughter.
“I can’t believe how easy and intuitive this is,” Lou exclaimed, taking the lead across the street onto the smooth bike trail that would take them twenty-five miles west to the ocean.
“Like riding a bike,” said Lori, passing in front of a Mexican rodeo and pointing out a cell phone tower disguised (quite well) as a palm tree. He had to stop to get a picture of that one, with the timer on and both of them sitting in front of the plastic palm complete with false dates and trunk scales. It was the first picture he’d taken of himself since he’d been hurt, and was having so much fun he didn’t even realize that until three miles later.
“Do you have any hobbies other than strange non-motorized vehicles?” he asked as they left the smooth black pavement and started along a rutted ledge along the river.
“No,” she responded automatically, but then reconsidered. “Unless you count learning to be Quebecois. I did a bachelor’s degree in literature at a French university there. Tell me, how does a spoiled Westside brat like you end up with a Parisian accent?”
“Because my parents are from Paris, and I’m such a spoiled Westside brat that they sent me to the lycée français for six years. After the baby-Einstein kindergarten.” So much for getting to know each other—the last thing he wanted was to start talking about his parents. “As you can imagine, they’re difficult to deal with. My God, what is this?”
An oasis of green had appeared inside the paved river, cattails and duckweed and water lilies sprouting in what was no more than a puddle of water. Ducks with bright blue bills swam in a tight circle, and a single pelican perched dinosaur-like on the metal railing, four webbed toes per foot gripping tight.
She didn’t have to answer, because there was a wooden sign describing the mini-nature preserve and its creation almost by accident after the mandate to pave all of LA’s rivers had been carried out. Lou photographed the sign and then crawled off the embankment in pursuit of the pelican, which flew away every time he pointed the camera in its direction.
“Are you almost done down there?” Lori called. “We won’t get home before dark at this rate.”
Lou was determined. It was quite a bird. “Could you pass down the wide-angle lens? But shhh! I think he’s landing.”
There wasn’t a whole lot to see after that, which let them cover the distance as fast as they could go with only a couple more photo shoots. Many miles of cement-lined river, with a rivulet of water running down the center, hosted a few ducks and the occasional egret probing the unpromising trickle for food. There wasn’t a single other soul on the bike path; the only other people on this hidden slice of Los Angeles were golfers on the course off to their left and a couple of kids on BMX bikes in the river. On the opposite side of the river were long stretches of plant nurseries displaying potted palms, climbing vines, and pallets of snapdragons. Occasionally they passed through a narrow, dark, scary tunnel, and in one of them a desiccated rat lay splayed on its back, bicycle tire tracks creasing its belly.
The last stretch to the beach was bumpy with a headwind. Lou’s arms were killing him, but he would never admit it, instead focusing up ahead on the roofs of the mini-mall where they could stop for lunch.
Naturally peeing had to complicate everything, as usual. He hadn’t thought to pull off the trail in a deserted spot, and somehow it had entirely escaped him that this enormous vehicle wouldn’t fit into any public bathroom. So he had to park outside the gas station bathroom and scoot inside with an empty Gatorade bottle, and then was mortified to discover he’d forgotten his catheter kit and had to ask Lori to reach it from his bag.
With all of her usual tact, she demanded, “If you’re shy in front of me, how will you ever find a girlfriend?”
“Goddammit, I just want to piss,” he replied irritably. First his parents, then his bladder! Could it possibly get any worse? “Get out of here.”
By the time he came out, she’d already gone to the grocery store for sandwiches, power bars, and lemonade. She showed him the spot on the grass where she said she always had her lunch, right by the pier next to a lineup of sailboats. They weren’t quite at the beach here, but they could see the dunes and the waves, and after a few minutes Lou recovered enough from his snit to be able to take a picture.
“How do you know I don’t have a girlfriend?” he asked, curious as to how she would answer.
“Isn’t it obvious?” She dumped the contents of the shopping bag out in the grass. “You spend your weekends with me. Have a sandwich.”
He took turkey and left her with the veggie burger. “I don’t know, you’re kind of cool. You’re like the living embodiment of Pasteur House.”
Lori remained silent. They ate ravenously, almost not chewing, and leaned against the grassy hill, which was chilly even though the sun beat on their heads from behind.
Lou was astounded at how great he felt. He’d been so sick for so long, and struggled so hard through so much physical therapy, that he’d forgotten what it was like to exercise as hard as you could just for fun. Now his lungs felt clear and the food tasted better than anything had in years. Even just lying in the grass was a forgotten joy—he could feel the ground with his back and with the hand not holding the sandwich, reveling in the sensation, tempted to roll around like a dog to let every part he could feel touch the earth.
He wanted to thank her for bringing him out here, but he didn’t really know how, settling for giving her his sweatshirt when he saw she was shivering. There was no one around but a seagull begging for crumbs, and the intimacy made it tempting to ask personal questions—why had she left Canada, why did she flinch at any mention of suicide, what were her hopes and dreams. But he figured she’d just say something glib and that would be the end of it.
One thing he knew: Radhika had told him on the phone that Lori was a total prude in English, and a complete libertine in French. “I know why you don’t have a girlfriend,” he taunted in his best Quebecois accent. “Your breakup with Radhika is a nice bit of legend—they say she slapped you at the March Meeting when you said you were taking a faculty job in a place with snow.”
“It’s been five years,” Lori replied without elaboration, but at least she managed to speak French without crying.
“So, you’ll never find another woman as smart and beautiful as Radhika.” He tore open a power bar with his teeth and grinned at her.
“It doesn’t have to be a woman,” Lori informed him, throwing a crust of bread to the seagull. “All I ask for is someone who doesn’t believe in God, thinks marriage is evil, and knows enough science not to annoy me. I’m also turned on by correct use of the accusative.”
“Well, Lori!” He seemed taken aback by her candor and chewed in silence for a moment, offering her half of his power bar, which had a horrid icing. “Just between you and me, I’m not sure what the intersection of those sets is, but it’s a small fraction of the population to be sure. Am I disqualified for having been Brian’s best man?” He thought she’d been kidding, or just playing with his head, and was taken aback when she announced that anyone who would take part in a wedding was an ostie de vendu—presumably a sellout. “Awww, come on, it was cute! The poor guy is such a nerd that the only person he could find was his thesis advisor.”
“I don’t understand how allegedly smart people can live such conventional, conserva
tive lives,” she griped, pulling out handfuls of grass. “Swallowing all the gender stereotypes and doing what their parents tell them, buying and trading each other like chattel, it makes me sick.”
“I’m just starting to realize how conservative physics is,” Lou admitted. “My friends here were all movie people, and during grad school in Chicago I hung out with the art crowd. They sometimes annoyed me by not knowing much about science, but hey—once I got to calculate a parabolic motion problem for a Hollywood blockbuster, how funny is that? They were all surprised when the equation worked.”
“Hmph. Are you saying I should ask you to introduce me to your spoiled rich Westside friends?”
“They’re not my friends anymore. At least not that I know of.” He lay back in the grass, gazing at the sky and eating from a bag of trail mix open on the ground between them. “All I have now is this job. My bargain with the gods is that they can take everything else—my freedom, my health, my sexuality, the love of my friends and my parents, everything—but I will keep this job if it kills me.”
It was an unexpected confession, but what came out of Lori’s mouth was even more surprising. “You know how the guards who almost Rodney-Kinged us kept talking about an anonymous tip and a white SUV? Who would associate that SUV with any of us? Did you drive it a lot?”
“That beastly thing? Are you kidding? Twice in my life, and only on the Westside.”
“So who would know it was yours, except maybe your parents—and the person who saw you drive it last.”
Lou choked on a peanut and had to sit up and reach for a bottle of lemonade. “It’s not Dim Bulb you’re talking about, is it?”
“It could be,” Lori acknowledged, picking at the grass. “He was at the LEPERLab that day, or should have been, at least. But I’m starting to understand how the LEPERLab works, and I doubt anyone would have listened to him. He’s just a flunky, a new-hire, a leper.”
“So you think what?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Dim Bulb was a henchman for a LEPER?”