A Long, Long Sleep

by Anna Sheehan

  He was.

  “You just let atrocious things happen to you and don’t tell a soul. You didn’t complain the first day of school when you were being tortured by your history class, you didn’t tell Barry and Patty about the first assassination attempt, and you haven’t told anyone about Barry and Patty, either.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that those are two of the most mercenary pseudoparents that have ever been put on this planet, and I haven’t heard one word of complaint out of you.”

  “They’re all right,” I said sheepishly.

  “They’re all right in that they leave you alone, I guess,” Bren said. “I’m celling Guillory.”

  “Don’t!”

  He stared at me, his face hard. “Tell me why not.”

  “Don’t tell him where I am! Don’t tell anyone!”

  Bren frowned. “Rose, you can’t handle this alone.”

  “Yes, I can! Don’t! Please, please, don’t cell Guillory!”

  “Why not?” Bren snapped. “Tell me. Whatever you’re keeping secret, tell me!”

  I blinked. Why was I keeping this a secret? Why did I want to protect Guillory?

  I didn’t know. It was almost as if it were habitual. It just seemed to me like the proper course of action, as if I’d kept secrets like this before.

  I was puzzling over this when Bren muttered, “Burn this,” and lifted up his cell again. “ Guill —”

  I put my hand over his cell. “I think Guillory’s the one who set this thing on me,” I said.

  Bren hesitated and then slowly lowered the cell.

  “Why?”

  I swallowed, unwilling to voice my suspicions. Besides, I wasn’t sure if he was asking why I thought that, or why Guillory would want to.

  “I wouldn’t exactly put it past him,” Bren mused, “but it isn’t quite his usual style.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, when he kept you a secret in the hospital; that’s more his style. When he signed up Barry and Patty, who worked for him in Florida, as your guardians; that’s his style. He’s . . . more of a worm, less of a snake. He’ll lie, undermine, and manipulate, maybe even steal to get what he wants, but . . . an assassin?” He blinked. “I don’t know. I’d have thought that’s about where he’d draw the line.”

  “I don’t think he has any lines drawn,” I said. “He wants to kill Otto. Said we should give up on the whole failed experiment.”

  Bren grunted in disgust. “Coiting ass.” Then he looked at me, realization on his face. “Was he drunk?”

  I nodded.

  Bren sighed. “Yeah, Guillory becomes the world’s biggest prick when he’s drunk. Which is most evenings. Guess I should have warned you.”

  “Bren,” I said. “It wasn’t just that. He knew the Plastine was coming, and he didn’t even try to stop it, or cell security, or anything. He just sat there. Then he tried to knock me down so that the Plastine could get me. I’m just like Otto to him —a mistake that should never have happened. If I weren’t around, he wouldn’t have to worry about losing the company.”

  “That is a pretty big motive.” Bren tapped his finger on his knee. “If he’d arranged to program a Plastine, there’d be a record of it on his computers.”

  “Would there?” I asked. “He had a pseudonym on Nirvana.”

  “Those have to be registered, or he’d be arrested for tax evasion,” Bren told me.

  “Building, shipping, and programming a Plastine is a highly expensive proposition. To arrange it in the time he’s had since you’ve been out of stass, he’d have to use company funds to do it. Any pseudonym he used would have to be filtered through the UniCorp system.” He frowned. “My grandfather would know.”

  “You think?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he’s only one rung down from Guillory. Could have had Reggie’s job, actually, but he didn’t want it. He knows everything about that company.”

  I swallowed. “But if Guillory’s trying to kill me” — I didn’t want to say this —

  “might not your grandfather and Guillory have . . . the same agenda?”

  Bren’s head snapped up and he stared at me. “If he did, Mom and I would arrest him ourselves. No, Granddad’s got principles. Besides, I doubt he cares enough about you to hate you. Granddad’s kind of a ‘let the chips fall where the may’ kind of guy.”

  He hadn’t struck me as such from what little I’d seen of that scowling, angry old man, but I guessed Bren knew him better. “Okay,” I said. “So, what do we do?”

  Bren checked the time. It was one AM. “Granddad’s probably in his of fice; I’ll cell him,” he said.

  “Don’t say my name,” I said. “If the Plastine is being run through UniCorp, then the UniCorp switchboard might have a voice scan on cell calls, which would be triggered if my name was used.”

  “Good point,” Bren said. “You’re clever.”

  “Not really. Daddy used to do that when I was a kid,” I said. “Kept an ear on gossip about all kinds of things, dozens of keywords.”

  Bren pulled his cell back out. “Granddad,” he said.

  The cell hummed for a moment and then the white- haired scowling image appeared in Bren’s lap. “What’s wrong, Bren? It’s late.”

  It might have been late, but the head in the hologram did not appear asleep. I could see the suit collar around his neck. Bren was right; he was still up. A workaholic. Just like Daddy.

  “I’ve got a serious problem here, Granddad. Can we come see you?”

  “We?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got an old friend here,” he said, with just enough emphasis on the

  ‘friend’ to indicate that it probably wasn’t just Anastasia or Nabiki. “She’s in a bit of trouble.”

  The hologram turned still for long enough that I suspected a glitch in the connection. “I’ll be at my of fice,” he said finally, and the hologram turned off.

  Bren nodded. “All right. Let’s turn this thing around.” He leaned forward and tapped on the dashboard of the limoskiff, activating the location control. “Uni Building, please.”

  My skiff slowed, turned in a slow arc, and headed back toward the center of ComUnity. “We should be there in twenty minutes,” Bren said.

  I had gotten distracted when Bren leaned forward to tap the dash. He was wearing a soft tennis shirt — he’d probably been sleeping in it, as it looked a little rumpled. The sleeves were short, and the muscles in his arms rippled like water. Holy coit, as they said now. How could he be so damned gorgeous after just waking up? He sat back, and silence descended upon us. The silence grew heavier and heavier, until even breathing seemed awkward.

  Burn it. I’d ruined it. Me and my wretched infatuation had broken the easy camaraderie we’d shared since I started school. He’d always been the one to talk —tennis, his friends, school —but my infatuation had killed a certain branch of his enthusiasm, and it was the branch that he used to share with me.

  “You must hate me,” I said.

  Bren looked at me, more bemused than anything else. “Why do you say that?”

  “All I do is cause you trouble,” I told him. “The moment you meet me I faint at your feet. I drag all these reporters into your life. I hang on you at school like an albatross, and then I go and fall in love with you. You know, just to hammer the nail in the coffin.”

  Bren laughed. “I actually like you, Rose.”

  I realized what I’d said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t fishing for a compliment. I was just trying to say sorry.”

  “I know,” Bren said. “You don’t ask for compliments. Or attention. Or sympathy. Or even for a glass of water, I suspect.” He sighed. “You know, when Granddad told me to look out for you, I was petrified. I thought I’d have to deal with some princess used to getting her own way every day of her life. I thought you really would hang around me like an albatross. I thought you’d be arrogant and . .
. haughty. And you weren’t. Aren’t. It surprised me that I actually kind of liked you.”

  I was confused. “You do?”

  “Yeah. You’re a lot nicer than I would ever have expected someone in your position to be. I mean, look at how you treat Otto. I’ve never seen anyone warm up to him so quick. You’re sympathetic and kind and understanding and beautiful and you’re . . . pleasant to be around.”

  An annoying thrill passed through me when he said that I was beautiful. Where was this coming from?

  “You aren’t very fun, really, but that’s hardly a requirement. Instead, you’re easy. You’re . . . a very relaxing person, just easy to spend time with.” He shrugged. “It surprised me.”

  I should have left it alone. I should have held my tongue, but I couldn’t help it.

  The perverse imp of my infatuation just had to twist the knife. “Then, why . . .

  ?” I took a deep breath and swallowed. “I’m not trying to change your mind or anything, but if that’s all true, then . . . why not?” I finished lamely. I knew I was bright red by the end of that little speech, but I needed to know.

  “Why not go out with you?” Bren asked.

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Well, first you just surprised me. Since then, I’ve been thinking about it.” He sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Just . . . no spark, or . . . ?”

  “That’s not it.” He shook his head. “You don’t wanna hear this.”

  “I think I do,” I whispered.

  He hesitated, then said, “Okay. Okay. The thing is . . . The thing is, I know that I have it in me to give everything of myself to someone I might come to love.

  And you are very easy to spend time with. But that’s part of the problem.” He looked at me then, and I swallowed as he searched my face. “I look at you . . .

  and I get a sense of what Otto sees when he touches you. Gaps. Or worse. This unfathomable abyss inside your soul.”

  The words were painful, but I’d never realized before that Bren had the heart of a poet.

  “At least that’s the way he put it.”

  Oh. It was Otto who had the heart of a poet. Well, okay, I could see that.

  “And I know that I could. I could like you, let myself really care for you. But if I did, I just know that I’d throw more and more of myself down into that abyss, and it wouldn’t begin to fill it. Rose, you just need more than I have to offer.

  There’s so much pain there that I could never heal. And I’d want to. I’d shrivel up and wither long before anything started to get better for you. It would just be worse for both of us, in the end.”

  I sighed. He was right. What I felt for him wasn’t really love, but it was more than mere desire. It was a need. And it wasn’t even a need for him, it was just a need for something. Anything. Everything.

  Everything I lost.

  “I’m sorry I put you in that position,” I said.

  “Stop apologizing for living,” Bren said. “It’s like you think you shouldn’t have been born.” He shook his head. “You’re allowed to get a crush on anyone you want. You haven’t done one thing wrong since I’ve known you. None of this is your fault, Rose.”

  But it was. It was my fault for existing in the first place.

  We arrived at the Uni Building a little after that.

  The Uni Building was a massive sky- piercing monolith based on the premillennium Art- Deco skyscraper the Chrysler Building. Almost everyone who lived in ComUnity had a family member who worked in that building, if only in custodial services. It stood all by itself in the center of a grassy park, standing so tall over the rest of the area that I’d always thought it looked a little silly. However, space had been at a premium before the Dark Times, and it was easier to get permits for a skyscraper than for a sprawling decentralized megacomplex, which had been the alternative for UniCorp’s expanding business. It was also a prestige thing.

  Bren knocked at the rocket- proof NeoGlass gate. Across the vast marble foyer, a bored- looking security guard looked up from a dimly lit alcove filled with security screens. He smiled when he saw Bren. “Here to see your granddad?”

  he asked as he opened the door.

  “Yeah, he’s expecting us.”

  “Check in at the ret scan on your way up,” he said. As if we could avoid it. The ret scanner automatically recorded everyone who entered or exited the building.

  TARGET IDENTIFIED: RETINAL MATCH CONFIRMED, ROSA LINDA SAMANTHA FITZROY

  He perked up. He’d suspected he’d lost his target forever.

  LOCATION KNOWN: UNICORP BUILDING.

  He went through his little programming dance of searching the net for the principal, and eventually reinstating the secondary directive when the principal couldn’t be found. The skimmer he had commandeered to get to the island had probably been taken by the police, but his plasticized mind had grown more flexible with use. He knew that he now had access to a new hover yacht. Before he stood up for pursuit, he set his nanobots to cleaning up his body again.

  Blood stains tended to frighten the surrounding humans and delay his search for the primary target.

  – chapter 20—

  It was strange being back in the halls of the Uni Building. While everything around me had changed, UniCorp was a constant. The building had not altered in any significant measure. Bren and I stepped into the lift, and Bren pushed the button for the top floor. I ran my fingers gently over the polished granite sides of the lift. There were a few flaws in the stone, nicks and dings from decades of movers redecorating of fices, but otherwise there was no difference between then and now. I could almost imagine the lift doors opening to reveal my father, waiting to welcome me with a brusque smile and a secretary to keep an eye on me.

  Instead it would be Bren’s scowling grandfather. “I don’t like this,” I said.

  “Disturbing an old man in the middle of the night.”

  “We aren’t disturbing him. I told you — he’s in his office. Practically lives there.

  Actually, he’s got a suite just across from it. He used to live in our building, but he spent almost no time there. When Guillory asked him for the apartment, he just let him have it.”

  My ears pricked. “When Guillory asked?”

  “Yeah, so you could have your old condo back.”

  I swallowed. “You mean I stole this guy’s house?”

  “Not really. You took an expensive empty white elephant off his hands, which he almost never set foot in. It didn’t help when Gramma died. He didn’t have much reason to come home after that. Man’s a complete workaholic, except when he’s on vacation.”

  “Is he different when he’s not working?”

  “Yeah, he’s much nicer with family than he ever is working.”

  “Good,” I said. “ ’Cause he kind of scares me.”

  “Used to scare me, too,” Bren confessed. “Until he saved me from a bad fall while we were skiing when I was ten. Man broke his leg keeping me from falling off a cliff. I didn’t know it was there. The signs warning about it had been snowed over. Never seen anyone move so fast. He’s” —Bren shrugged, trying to think of the right words — “abrasive and dour and taciturn, but he’s always there when you need him.”

  “I hope so,” I said, “ ’cause I de finitely need someone.”

  The lift came to a rest, and the door opened onto the familiar atrium on the top floor of the Uni Building. My mother had designed the atrium based on a traditional Roman garden, complete with columns and mosaic. A bright fountain splashed in the center, a mock waterfall surrounded by imported tropical plants. The plants had changed, and I saw that several of them were now fake, a degeneration that my mother would never have stood for had she been alive.

  Daddy’s office had been on the upper floor of the atrium, so I expected Bren to lead me up one of the spiral staircases, but instead he led me behind the fountain to what had once been the enclave of
assistants and personal secretaries.

  This had changed dramatically. These offices had been opened up and made into a second atrium, with a different collection of plants. At the far end, a glass- fronted waiting room looked over the foliage, with a welcoming receptionist’s desk, now empty. Behind this, through a copper- plated door, was what must be Bren’s grandfather’s office. Without much preamble, Bren opened this imposing door and ushered me inside.

  The CEO’s office was earth- toned, with landscapes on the walls, and I recognized the same hand that had decorated my condo. The desk was wood, large, but with only one screen. I found it in stark contrast with my father’s old desk, more of a command console, really, with its half a dozen screens linked through to the net, keeping him updated on a thousand different projects and accounts. This desk spoke of a tidy mind, a man who didn’t need to keep everything at his fingertips, because he always knew where to find it.

  A leather chair turned away from the screen and revealed Bren’s grandfather, waiting for us. I realized now that I had never really looked at the man when I wasn’t half- blind from stass fatigue or drugged and in shock from the stumble stick. He’d frightened me both times with his irate rantings and unpleasant scowl. Now that I looked at him, the scowl seemed less angry than sad. This looked like a man who had seen all the horrors the world had to offer, and they weighed too heavily on his heart for him to lighten his bearing. My fear melted a bit.

  He regarded us as he sat back in his chair.

  Bren did not look the least chagrined about interrupting his grandfather in the middle of the night. “Hey, Granddad. You’ve met Rose.”

  “Yes, I have,” he said with a bit of a formal nod. “Nice to meet you again, young lady.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sabah.”

  “He’s not a Sabah. He’s Mom’s dad,” Bren corrected me.

  “That’s all right,” he said easily, cutting Bren off. “Just call me Ron. Please, sit down.” He gestured me to a moss- green sofa against the wall and turned to his grandson. “What seems to be the trouble?”

  “The assassin tracked her down to Nirvana, and Rose thinks Guillory set it on her,” Bren said without preamble.