A Long, Long Sleep

by Anna Sheehan

  Handpicked a selection of truly remarkable people to rule. They’re the true royalty of the worlds, mark my words. And quite a legacy they’ve left behind, too: the company, the colonies, ComUnity, that school of yours.”

  That thought seemed to derail him. He took another sip of his drink. “So tell me. That school. When I put you in Uni Prep, I was hoping you’d only be around the best people. How’s that working for you?”

  The best people? “Um . . . good, I guess.”

  “I’ve been looking over your report cards,” he said, and my eyes widened. My report cards went to him? I hadn’t even seen them yet! Unless he had access to the school’s records. If he had access to the school’s records, did he have access to Dr. Bija’s? Weren’t school grades supposed to be confidential between you and your guardian? Which should mean Barry and Patty, right?

  I didn’t have time to fret over that too much, because he continued: “Not very impressive. I’ve been wondering if there’s any better place for you.” He frowned at me. “Had you ever thought about boarding school?”

  “ I — I thought Uni Prep was a boarding school,” I said in a panic. I’d never been to a boarding school, but the few times I’d asked my parents about them, they’d told me nothing but horror stories: how the children were whipped and starved by the teachers and sexually molested by the other students, how the prestigious children were frequently kidnapped and held hostage. They could take much better care of me than any boarding school. Now they were gone, and Guillory was going to send me away?

  “Well, maybe,” he said, looking down at his drink. It had nothing but ice in it.

  He stood up to go to the bar to pour another. “Too soon to think about changing you now, anyway,” he said. “You’ve only been alive, what, two months?”

  He couldn’t send me away. I’d make my grades look better. I had to study harder. I swallowed as he fell back into his chair.

  “You know, Rosalinda, I remember when I was a kid, my parents always used to ask me about my dreams and aspirations.”

  I frowned. Where was this going?

  “You got any dreams and aspirations?”

  “Um . . .” I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. At the moment, my biggest dream was sleeping through the night without a nightmare. My fondest wish was not to be hunted by a militant animated corpse bent on my termination. I also had an aspiration to get out of this conversation, but I couldn’t quite see how I could do that. “I used to have some,” I said. “But the world has changed a lot.”

  “Yeah!” Guillory said, raising his glass as if to toast. “It sure has.” He looked up at his glass and frowned, suddenly realizing that might not have been the best tack to take. “I’m real sorry about your folks, honey,” he said, lowering his glass. I was about to say thank you when he continued, “But in the end, come on. Aren’t you having more fun now?”

  I stared at him, appalled. My world had died around me, and he thought I was having more fun?

  “I mean, when I was a kid, I would have given my left arm to not be supervised all the time. Able to do what I wanted to do. But, nope, had to have parents on me all the time. Didn’t even have any brothers or sisters to take the pressure off. Did you have brothers or sisters?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Me too. I was an only child, just like my son. Only had the one son. Hank. I always wanted to have a daughter,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure if he was saying he hadn’t wanted his son or not. He took another sip of his drink and tilted his head at me. “Hank’s in college right now. Sure wish you could meet my boy. He’ll be home for the holidays. We’ll have a party so you two could get together.” Here he snickered with a certain lascivious tone. “Never know what might come of that.”

  I couldn’t suppress a shudder.

  He stood up and headed back to the bar. I hadn’t noticed that he’d drained his glass. How many had that been now? The third, at least, and I was pretty sure he’d had more than a little before he’d woken me up. He shoveled some ice into a second glass and filled it. “You want a glass?” he asked, holding it out to me.

  “No.”

  He shrugged and poured my half glass into his own. “You know, speaking of your parents,” he said. We hadn’t been. “You know, at the end there, your dad was real messed up. He just couldn’t cope. Probably just as well he passed on.

  If he’d continued, he’d have left the place in a hell of a mess. And at least he didn’t go alone! They both went together; left the company in good hands.” He was waving the glass around as he stood there, and I felt completely trapped. I was trying to figure out how to excuse myself when he said, “Dark Times and all. What happened was probably the best thing for everybody, all in all.”

  My body seemed to melt, in pure shock. The blood left my face. All I could do was stare at him. How could he possibly say that? How could he say that the death of more than half the people on the planet was the best thing for everybody?

  “I always felt that way,” he continued as if he could hear my horror and was defending his stance. He took a big swallow from his glass before heading back to his chair. He nearly tripped when his feet got to the carpet, but he righted himself and plunked down heavily into his golden crushed- velvet chair. “It was amazing what your dad tried to do, though. Hold the company together like he did. You know, with so many folks gone. So many of UniCorp’s employees died during the Dark Times that we didn’t have to lay too many off. Not like some places. Not that we haven’t had our own little Dark Times, too, you know. Hell, the company had its ups and downs, like I told you. Lost a lot of money, now and then. Ten years ago, when the stocks were down, we had to let so many go.

  Lost a lot of good people. Hell, I was working so many hours, I nearly lost my own wife, too.”

  I did not want to hear this. I did not want to hear this.

  “I found a little friend in the of fice that helped me a lot,” he continued doggedly. “She’s the hardest worker, you know?

  She makes me feel young again.”

  I flushed. This was a piece of information I did not need, did not want, and wanted to forget — now. What was I supposed to do with this knowledge? It wasn’t any of my business!

  “Feel almost as young as you,” he went on, and I turned rose red again. “You know, we’re just going to have to set you up with someone. What’s going on with you and that Sabah fellow? What’s his name?”

  I didn’t want to open my mouth, but I was afraid if I didn’t supply him with the name, the rest of the conversation would just get worse. “Bren,” I whispered.

  “That’s it! Bren! Good boy, Bren. I beat him at tennis a few times.”

  I suspected that was a lie, unless he’d played him when Bren was only eight.

  “His mom and dad are good employees. I like Sabah; he’s got class. But opposites kind of attract, you know. I know that’s why Sabah married Annie.”

  What was so opposite about Annie and Mr. Sabah? “Opposites attract no matter if you want them to or not. You can’t be too careful who you hang out with. I never did approve of Bren hanging out with that Europa kid.”

  No. No, please, don’t bring Otto into this!

  “I just don’t get it,” he said, his voice slurred over. “Everyone tells me that kid’s so smart, all those scholarships and tests and things, but I just don’t see it.

  They’re just trying to improve their diversity or some such. He looks good on their records, but he’s just a dead- faced zombie. Can’t even talk!”

  I wasn’t surprised that Otto had never, ever touched Guillory, even if he’d had the chance. Touching that mind would make you need a mental shower. I wondered if that was why Otto saw Dr. Bija —not for his own problems, but for everyone else’s.

  “They should just accept it. The kid’s just gorked, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” He shook his head and took another slug of his drink. “I think we should just
give up on that whole failed experiment.”

  Was he saying what I thought he was saying? The blood left my face again, back to the white rose. Give up? That meant, what? Kill him? My hands clenched in either horror or rage, I wasn’t sure which. I rather wished I had accepted that drink he’d offered, so I could throw it in his face. I could feel my skin trying to crawl off me, trying, I supposed, to get away from this odious gilded creature before me.

  He stared at me, his eyes unfocused. “You know, you’re a really cute kid,” he said. “A really cute kid.” Oh, God! He wasn’t about to . . . grab me or something, was he? I tried to remember where I’d left my cell. Damn it, it was still in the shower! He was shaking his head. “It’s a real shame what’s gonna happen to you.”

  I tilted my head. “What . . .” My words came out in a raw whisper of horror.

  “What do you mean?”

  And at that moment I found out.

  The door fell open, startling Guillory not a millimeter. “You are Rosalinda Samantha Fitzroy. Please remain still for retinal identification.”

  “You!” I screeched at Guillory. He lifted his head to look at me, but I couldn’t read his drunken eyes. It all made perfect sense. Of all the people in the world who might want to kill me, Guillory was at the top of the list. And how else could the Plastine know where I was?

  I backed up, my hands gripping my sketchbook like a lifeline. I couldn’t run.

  My body still hadn’t recovered from yesterday’s attack. It would do no good to scream. Guillory wasn’t going to help, and the hotel room was soundproof. I ran through my parents’ teachings. Run, scream, fight. I was down to option three.

  The Plastine no longer had a stumble stick, but he still carried the control collar in his left hand. He reached for me with his right. I grabbed him by the wrist and twisted. I ducked backward under his arm and elbowed him in the side, to incapacitate him and give me a chance to get away. Or that was the plan. Instead I elbowed him in the ribs and nearly broke my arm. Pain shot up to my shoulder before the whole arm went agonizingly numb. I feared I’d permanently damaged something, and I cried out at the pain.

  Meanwhile my head was whirring. The damn thing was built like steel. But I remembered what had happened in my studio. I switched from defense to evasion tactics, though I knew I couldn’t keep those up for long.

  I danced behind the Plastine and ducked and dodged, trying to be as slippery as an eel. I was already losing my breath. I was so intent on avoiding the Plastine, I didn’t remember Guillory was behind me. He stumbled into me, nearly knocking me to the ground. I was surprised he didn’t shout, “Come and get her!” Instead he glared, wild- eyed. Maybe he hadn’t intended to actually be present at my death. Blasted coward.

  The Plastine swung at me, catching me in a backhand meant to knock me out.

  I went with the blow instead of fighting it and cracked my head against Guillory’s. His hand tightened on my arm. He tried to pull me, but I wasn’t having that. I stomped as hard as could on his casually sandaled foot. He groaned, releasing me, and with a mule kick, I raised my heel into his groin. He dropped like a deer, moaning in pain.

  I’d neutralized Guillory in the time it took the Plastine to compensate for his backhand blow. He stood before me again, control collar at the ready. I twisted, spun behind him, and kicked the Plastine in the buttocks. It was like kicking a statue, but like a statue, he could also fall. The Plastine tilted, fell, and landed full on Guillory.

  There was my chance. I pelted for the door.

  One of the lifts was just opening its doors. I jumped inside and stabbed the ground floor button. “Down, down!” I told the thing, in case it had a voice control, too. By this time I was pretty sure the Plastine worked alone, but I was still relieved when the lift opened its doors on the lobby, and there was no one there but the porters and the desk clerk —unless Guillory had paid them off, and they were working for him, too. But no one tried to stop me as I ran through the exquisite lobby and out into the tropical night. Coit. Now what? I had no idea where to go from here. I had no money, and my credit tick was cached inside my cell, which didn’t help me, because my cell was still in the bathroom upstairs, with the assassin and the man who had commissioned him. What did I have? Nothing! I was, thank heavens, in my school uniform and not my pajamas, but that was it. My assets were my ill- equipped body and the clothes on my back. I looked down at my hands and suddenly smiled.

  I still had my sketchbook.

  – chapter 19—

  “Bren?” I asked.

  I’d used my last coin to buy this time in the holobooth. The holobooth was dingy, with unpleasant substances dribbling down a few of the walls, and I wished I still had my cell.

  It took seven chimes before Bren fumbled his cell from his bedside table. His face, half awake, appeared sideways in the holobooth, still on his pillow. He looked sleepy and vulnerable, like a little boy. “Rose?” he muttered, still half asleep. “Rose, it’s after midnight, and I’ve school. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Just five minutes, then you can go back to sleep.”

  Bren blinked once or twice and then sat up. The cell adjusted and righted his holoimage. “What?”

  “I need you to send my limoskiff to come and get me. Can you do that? Then you can go back to bed.”

  “What?”

  “I need you to send me my limoskiff. It’s down in the garage.

  I know you have the key. I haven’t locked the codes —all you need to do is tell it where to go and it’ll go there.”

  “Where do you need to go?”

  “I’m down at the hover- bus depot. I need it to come and get me.”

  “What are you doing at the hover depot?”

  Trying to explain my predicament to a boy who was half- asleep was more difficult than I’d imagined. “I bought myself a ticket home,” I said. The words came out triumphant. Though it had taken ingenuity and twenty- four hours, I had made my way back all by myself.

  The busker I had seen on the way to Nirvana had given me an idea. With a story of a funny uncle I wanted to avoid, I’d coaxed my way onto a ferry from Nirvana to one of the more commercial Unicorn Islands, this one called Shangri- la. Tourists and travelers were everywhere, even after midnight. I’d situated myself outside the hover- bus depot, drew up a sign, and started sketching publicly. After an hour of advertising my portraits, I’d gotten my first customer. She paid me for a sketch of her boyfriend. People will pay a lot for a decent sketch as a souvenir, particularly at a tourist’s paradise like the Unicorn Islands. Three more sketched portraits had earned me the price of a bus ticket back to ComUnity and a greasy meal I actually managed to keep down.

  I was inordinately proud of myself. Mom and Daddy always told me that I wasn’t able to take care of myself, that if left to my own devices I’d be completely helpless. Maybe that had been true then, but I didn’t feel helpless now. With no assets at all, I was able to quite literally make my way through the world.

  I finally got Bren to understand what I wanted, and he told me my limoskiff would be down to get me within half an hour. I thanked him and then resumed my nervous pacing in the shadows.

  I was ambivalent about those shadows. They made it harder for anyone to see me, surely, but that also meant that if the assassin did attack, no one would see him, either. Not that that would stop the plastic corpse. Secrecy wasn’t exactly in his programming. I was surprised he had managed to elude the police. But of course, now I knew whose help he had been getting.

  The Plastine wasn’t the only thing eating at me. Earning my way onto the bus had been exhilarating, but halfway home it had started to depress me. None of the UniCorp of ficials ever entered ComUnity by hover bus. The only people who had shared the seats beside me were the families of the working class, the servants, the waiters, the kinds of people who catered to my kind of people. It wasn’t that I didn’t like these people. In fact, they seemed considerabl
y more genuine than any of the upper echelons. They were like Åsa. But as I sat there in my Uni Prep uniform, I realized what I must seem like to them. A leech. I probably seemed as odious to them as Guillory had seemed to me, even before last night.

  Finally I spotted the shiny black outline of my limoskiff gliding to the curb. I stepped over the red- striped pedestrian warning strip to open the door. I’d planned to just tell the skiff to circle round and round ComUnity until I figured out what to do. My plan was thwarted.

  “Are you going to tell me exactly what’s going on, now?” Bren asked as I stuck my head inside.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You think I’m going to let you go off alone in the middle of the night? My mom would murder me.” He took my sketchbook from my hands in a kind of proprietary gesture and set it on the seat beside him.

  “Won’t she murder you for sneaking out?” I asked.

  “Probably. So it had better be worth my time. What’s going on? What happened to the Guillory- sanctioned witness protection?”

  I took a deep breath. “Guillory took me down to Xanadu. Or . . . Nirvana, whatever it’s called. Did UniCorp really waste so much money on that folly?”

  Bren twitched his head in contemptuous acknowledgment.

  “And while we were there, the Plastine came.”

  “What?” Bren stared at me. “Again? But you were incognito!”

  I sighed. “I think someone told it where to find me.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “Distracted it. Tried to fight it. Nearly broke my elbow. Ran. Then I worked my way back here with my sketchbook, keeping out of sight of anyone from UniCorp.”

  Bren was horrified. “That’s it.” He pulled his cell out from under his shirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Celling Guillory and then the police.”

  “What are you doing that for?”

  “Because I assume you didn’t. Am I right?”