“Anyway,” he says, “I thought they’ve been saying it was the Engineered who died, and the UnAltered who lived? Shouldn’t you have been punching him?”
“Right. And then the Engineered, who everybody knows run NatSec, dropped the FAEs to make sure all the Homo saps died as well.”
He thinks about that for a minute.
“That’s not good,” he says finally.
“No, it’s not.”
“Who’s pushing this line?”
“My understanding is that it’s folks from the UnAltered Movement. Bear in mind, though, that I’m getting most of this from a conversation with a guy who punched me in the head, and the rest from a demonstrated liar.”
He shakes his head.
“I still can’t believe Joey punched you. Are you okay? Or do I need to go down there and give him what for?”
I smile.
“Nah, I’m good. I explained to him afterward that the top of the head is the wrong place to punch a Neanderthal.”
“Broken knuckles?”
“And how.”
We sit in silence for a minute or two.
“So,” I say. “How was your day, honey?”
“Oh, great,” he says. “Nobody punched me, but I did just spend three hours trying to explain fullerene fabrication to a bunch of bored-ass rich kids. Half of them spent the entire lecture watching porn on their oculars, and half the rest tried to follow along but couldn’t, because they have the attention spans of gnats. The rest maybe got a little out of it, but will probably give me a lousy evaluation at the end of the term anyway because I couldn’t find a way to mix references to SpaceLab into my visuals.”
I lean back and cross my arms over my chest.
“Look, Anders, I’d love to engage with your whole ‘kids suck these days’ old-man rant,” I say. “But I’m not going to, because you totally lost me at ‘fullerene fabrication.’ ”
This is his chance to roll his eyes at me.
“Fullerene fabrication. Buckyballs, carbon nanotubes, that kind of thing.”
I give him an exaggerated nod.
“Oh, right. Buckyballs. Gary told me you led a glamorous life, but he never said it was buckyball glamorous.”
His smile widens.
“You have no idea what a buckyball is, do you?”
I shake my head.
“None whatsoever.”
His eyes light up.
“This is actually kind of interesting,” he says, which is almost always what someone says right before starting in on something that is not even a little bit interesting. “A fullerene is a hollow structure made of carbon atoms. A buckyball is just a spherical fullerene. They’re useful enough in isolation, but you can make macro structures out of them with some really amazing mechanical properties—”
At which point I grab him by the back of the neck, pull him over on top of me, and kiss him. His eyes are wide open and his jaw is clamped shut, but when I don’t let go, he slowly relaxes into it. After a while, I come up for air. He pulls back a few inches and raises one eyebrow.
“Sorry,” I say. “You really needed to stop talking.”
“That’s okay,” he says. “I mean, I was just kind of surprised, and I thought—”
I pull him down again. I definitely like him better when he’s quiet. His hand slides under my shirt and up along my ribs. A shiver runs down my spine, and I can feel goose bumps rising on the backs of my arms. His mouth tastes like mint and his hair smells like chamomile and sweat and I can feel the muscles in his neck and back tensing and relaxing under my fingers.
A sweet time passes.
“Do you . . . uh . . .”
I nod.
“Can I . . .”
I nod again.
“You know,” I say finally. “This is a lot more fun with you conscious.”
He laughs into my belly. I run my fingers through his hair, and press him downward.
7. ELISE
“So, where are we going?”
Tariq doesn’t answer. He’s trying to wave a honking car around us. We’re heading north on York, just passing the Loyola campus. My arms are wrapped tight around his waist, my legs snugged up behind his hips. I tried at first to rest my chin on his shoulder, but our helmets bumped, and he made me lean back so that now all I can see is the back of his head. Tariq has hauled me around Hagerstown on this thing before and it’s been okay, but in north-Baltimore traffic on a Monday afternoon, it’s pretty scary.
I have to admit, Gary was absolutely right to make fun of Tariq for calling this an ATV. It really is a three-wheeled golf cart. With the throttle wide open, the speedometer is just tickling 40 miles an hour—barely fast enough to keep us from being crushed by a bus on this road, and not nearly fast enough to not get honked or yelled at by every driver who has to work his way around us. Tariq yells back, sometimes in English, sometimes in another language that I’ve only heard him use in brief snatches when he’s really stressed. I asked him what it was once, after he’d yelled something incomprehensible at a tourist who’d snatched a twenty from his hat in the harbor. He just laughed and told me to run it through a translator app.
As the guy behind us now accelerates past, Tariq holds his left hand up in the air, dangles his pinky and wiggles it back and forth. I’ve seen him do this once or twice before, but I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean. The driver probably doesn’t either, but he gives us the finger out the window as he speeds away, just to be safe.
A few minutes later, a cab slides up beside us in the left lane. It’s a two-passenger self-driven model, barely bigger than Tariq’s cycle, and almost as slow. It’s carrying a fat, balding, middle-aged guy in a rumpled gray suit. He glances out the window at us, then turns half-around to ogle me. I’m about to give him the finger when the cab’s right turn signal comes on, and it slides over into our lane.
My first thought is that the passenger has taken control of the cab somehow. Auto-cabs don’t forget to check their blind spots. My second thought is that I can’t believe I’m going to die under the wheels of a cab on York Road after surviving a doomsday plague, a firebombing, and a psychotic killbot. Tariq curses and jumps his brakes. The cab leaps ahead as the back wheels of the cycle lift off the ground and the visor of my helmet smacks into the back of Tariq’s. A horn blares close behind us and Tariq leans back into me, and for one long moment we balance there, front tire screeching across pavement, back wheels wavering in the air, until finally gravity reasserts itself and we’re back on the road, swerving crazily once, twice, before Tariq releases the brakes and somehow regains control.
“Tariq!” I shout. “What the fuck just happened?”
He glances quickly over his shoulder.
“It could not see us,” he says.
“What? The auto-cab? They don’t have eyes, Tariq! They have sensors, and they don’t make mistakes like that!”
“They do have eyes,” he says, “but they are blind to us today. I must remember to be more careful.”
We pull into the driveway of a little house in the north end of Towson, set back from the road, just short of the beltway. The traffic on 695 is a constant rumble in the background. Tariq parks in front of the one-car garage, takes off his helmet, and hangs it from the handlebar by the chin strap. I hang mine next to it, stand, and stretch. My arms are sore from clutching at him the entire ride, and there’s a crick in my neck that pinches when I turn my head to the left. The yard in front of the house is small and well kept, with neatly trimmed hedges along the sidewalk and a huge, gnarled Japanese maple dominating the center.
“You may find the interior of this house unusual,” Tariq says as we step up onto the porch. “Please try not to offend.”
He bumps the door with his phone. After a moment it swings open, and we step through. The air inside is cool and d
ry, especially compared to the soup we’ve been breathing for the last hour. The blinds are drawn, and the lighting is dim and blue-tinged. A narrow staircase runs up to our left. An entranceway to the right leads into a completely darkened room.
A woman sweeps down the hallway in front of us, and into Tariq’s arms. She’s shorter than he is, with long dark hair, and skin that’s almost black in this light. The sleeves of her gown hang to her fingertips, and her hemline sweeps the floor. She wraps her arms around Tariq’s chest, presses her face against his neck and says something in what sounds like the same language Tariq reserves for the targets of his road rage. He whispers into her ear, then presses her back to arm’s length. He looks over his shoulder to me and says, “Aaliyah, this is Elise. This is the one I have told you about. Elise, this is Aaliyah. My sister.”
I nod, but she’s already stepping in for an embrace—not a lean-in, Nordic hug, which is what my family gets from me, but a full-body wrap, with her arms tight around my rib cage and her face pressed between my shoulder and my left breast. I wrap my arms around her, catch Tariq’s eye, and grimace. He winks and turns away, trying not to laugh.
Aaliyah breaks the hug after what seems like a very long time. She steps back, and looks me up and down.
“Tariq,” she says. “You have lied to me. You said she was beautiful, but in truth she is a valkyrie.” She touches my chin, turns my face one way and then the other. “And unmodified, I see. A wonder, indeed.”
Tariq gives me a warning look and a tiny shake of his head. I force a smile.
“It’s so good to finally meet you, Aaliyah. Tariq has told me so much about you.”
She beams.
“All lies. Tariq is a terrible liar.”
This is true. Of course, so am I. Tariq has told me more than once that he has no siblings.
“Ah,” she says, “but the truth will out. Come and sit. You must tell me everything about the wedding.”
She leads us into the darkened sitting room. The lights come up as we enter, but they’re the same as in the hallway and I’d almost rather they stayed dark. There are cushions scattered around the floor, and a low table in the center. There is no wallscreen, or anything else electronic that I can see. I look over at Tariq. He gives me another tiny head shake, and gestures for me to sit.
“Thank you for taking us in, Aaliyah,” says Tariq. “I’m sure you know that our homes have been destroyed. NatSec did a terrible thing yesterday, and I do not think that we will be safe until this all has been settled.”
Aaliyah drops onto a cushion, and leans back against the wall. “It is nothing,” she says. “We will not talk of sad things now. Tell me about the wedding.”
Tariq looks at me expectantly.
“Well,” I say. “I don’t really . . . I mean, our plans are kind of up in the air at this point. We were thinking about maybe having an outdoor ceremony in Cunningham Falls Park, but after yesterday . . .”
“Will you be married in the faith?”
I didn’t know Tariq had a faith.
“Elise is not of the faith,” says Tariq. “Our wedding will be a civil one.”
To me, she says, “Will you convert?”
I look at Tariq. He doesn’t meet my eyes.
“We . . . haven’t discussed it,” I say finally.
“I did not ask if you had discussed it,” Aaliyah says slowly and clearly. “I asked if you would convert.”
“Aaliyah,” says Tariq. “This is not the time for such a question. Elise was in Hagerstown yesterday. She is not able to think about questions of the spirit now.”
Aaliyah looks from Tariq to me, then back to Tariq.
“If she was in Hagerstown,” she says, “then why is she still alive?”
“She is alive,” says Tariq, “because I saved her.”
“Tariq,” I say. “We need to talk.”
He opens his eyes. We’re in a sagging double bed in Aaliyah’s guest room. The blinds are drawn here as well, but I’ve determined that it doesn’t matter, because behind the blinds is a sheet of very fine metal mesh that lets in almost no light at all. The overhead fixture in this room holds the same dim, blue, fluorescent bulbs as the ones in the sitting room and the foyer.
“So talk,” he says. “I will listen.”
“Well,” I say, “First of all, what’s with the lighting in here? And why is every window covered?”
He scowls.
“I told you my sister’s house would seem odd to you. She is being very gracious in letting us stay here. She does not accept visitors often.”
I scowl right back at him.
“That’s not an answer, Tariq.”
“It is an answer,” he says. “The lighting and windows are as they are because my sister wishes them to be so. Who are you to judge?”
I glare at him, but he’s actually got a point.
“Fine,” I say finally. “So what about yesterday? Your sister asked the right question, Tariq. Why am I still alive?”
He rolls over to face me, and looks into my eyes for what seems like a very long time.
“I answered her question,” he says. “You are alive because I saved you.”
“That’s true,” I say. “I know that’s true. But Tariq . . . how? I remember what happened yesterday. I remember talking to the killbot. That wasn’t a delusion, and it wasn’t a dream. I remember talking to it, and I remember seeing the drone. And then . . .”
“You are wrong,” says Tariq. His voice is soft, almost sorrowful. “You did not speak with the sentinel. You did not see the bomber. I found you by the side of the road, and I carried you to safety.”
“On your ATV.”
“Yes, on my ATV.”
“The same ATV that could barely go fast enough to keep us from getting crushed by a city bus on York Road.”
That hangs between us for a while. Tariq closes his eyes, and I think for a moment that he’s fallen asleep. When he opens them again, he says, “You are alive because I love you, Elise. You are alive because I could not live if you did not. That should be enough for you.”
I slide closer, put my hand on his shoulder and kiss his forehead.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll let it go for now.”
He kisses my nose, and presses his forehead to mine.
“Thank you,” he says. “I would tell you more if there were more to tell.”
“Remember,” I say. “I said for now. You’re not off the hook permanently.”
He rolls onto his back and closes his eyes again. I watch as his breathing slows, then let my own eyes fall closed. I’m just drifting off when he says, “It is a Faraday cage.”
“What?” I open my eyes. He hasn’t moved, and I wonder if I was dreaming.
“The house,” he says. It almost sounds like sighing. “It is a Faraday cage. That is why the windows look as they do.”
I’d like to ask what a Faraday cage is, but his eyelids flutter and his face goes slack, and I’m pretty sure he really is asleep now. I watch him breathe for a minute more, and then carefully roll away from him and sit up on the edge of the bed. I pull out my phone and hold it close to my mouth.
“Question,” I say. “What is a Faraday cage?”
The phone beeps. The only other time I’ve ever heard my phone beep is when I was wandering around Hagerstown yesterday afternoon. I look at the screen. It reads, “No network connection.”
I think back. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that message on a phone screen before. We have connectivity everywhere. I wonder if maybe the phone was broken during my accident, or maybe when Tariq tackled me. Tariq’s phone is sitting on the nightstand on the other side of the bed. I lean across him and pick it up. No network connection.
“House,” I say quietly. “Are you there?”
Nothing.
And with t
hat, for maybe the first time in my life, I’m completely cut off from the world.
It’s later, and we’re lounging on cushions around the table in the sitting room. How much later, I have no idea, because time doesn’t seem to mean much in this house. I would have assumed that my phone has an internal clock, but apparently it doesn’t, because the only thing it can tell me is that it has no network connection. There are no clocks in this room, the bedroom, or the upstairs bathroom, which are the only rooms I have been allowed to see. It’s been made very clear that I’m not going to find out what’s at the other end of that darkened hallway.
“Tea?” asks Tariq. I nod, and he fills my cup from a heavy ceramic pot. I sip. It’s hot and bitter, with an aftertaste that I first think is sweetness, but that resolves into something unnameable. I take a wedge of flatbread from the platter in the center of the table, and use it to scoop up something thick and yellow from the last of the five bowls Aaliyah has set out for us. I’ve been able to identify a couple of the other dishes—one I’m pretty sure holds baba ghanoush, and another is a variant on hummus—but this one has me completely stumped. It’s spicy and sweet, with a gritty texture. Maybe something with cornmeal? Aaliyah watches me expectantly. I smile and nod.
“I hope everything is acceptable,” she says. “I am such a poor cook, and it has been so long since I have been blessed with visitors.”
“Everything is wonderful,” I say. “I can’t remember when I’ve had such a variety of tastes and textures in one meal.”
“My sister is too modest,” says Tariq. “She learned our mother’s lessons well. I paid no attention, and now I live on berries and nuts.”
Aaliyah laughs.
“I see now why you rush to marry,” she says. “You need her to save you from starvation, not loneliness.”
Tariq smiles.
“Elise has many gifts, sister, but cooking is not among them.”
That’s not entirely true. I used to be able to put together a pretty impressive steak au poivre before I met Tariq. The last eight months really have been mostly berries and nuts, though.
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