Love Minus Eighty (37 page)

Can’t you reschedule?
She was surprised. Nathan wanted it to be just the two of them. Definitely not like him.

Can’t do that.

She took the seat across from Lycan, lifted her spoon.

“Acorn Squash and Raspberry Soup,” Lycan offered.

It was terrific, though her attention was primarily on
trying to sort things out rather than on the soup. She’d been the one who pushed Lycan to be bold, to take chances. Well, this was bold. Weird, but bold.

“Have you seen what’s going on with Bridesicle Watch?” Lycan asked. His forehead was sweating, his voice a stress-induced octave higher than normal.

“I haven’t checked the feeds in the past few hours. Anything new?”

“They’ve got ten thousand screens parked outside every entrance to the dating center, heckling anyone who goes inside—customers and employees alike. They’re ID’ing them, spreading their photos and info all over. Only guys wealthy enough to own copters can visit unmolested.”

“Sooner or later they’re going to have to agree to Sunali’s reforms. Skintight. And you deserve a lot of the credit. It took guts, what you did.” Veronika lifted her glass, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Lycan scooped up his as well.

He was a strange mix. He’d actually patronized the bridesicle center, yet he was risking everything to reform it. He’d been reluctant to help Rob visit Winter, yet he’d spent a fortune to impress Veronika with this dinner.

Across the table, Lycan ate his soup. Their spoons clinked in the silence. She should say something chatty and pleasant, but now that she was thinking about the Rob-and-Winter thing, it was niggling at her.

“Can I ask you something?” It was rude, but she had to ask. “When the rest of us kept pitching in to help Rob visit Winter, you never did, until I asked you. Was that because of your bad experience at the dating center or something?”

Lycan looked incredibly uncomfortable, as if the soup was caught in his throat. “No. I just, I don’t know.”

She studied Lycan. His eyes were pleading for something. Forgiveness. Understanding.

She smiled. Decided she should just let it be. “I’m sorry, that was rude. You’ve done more than anyone could possibly expect, and more.”

They ate their soup, talked about Bridesicle Watch, his research, her work. There was no witty repartee, no crackling insights about the relationship between cryogenics and existential terror.

They started on a vegetable soufflé.

Lycan cleared his throat, turned his head from side to side, as if he was trying to loosen it. “I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression with all of this. I just…”—he struggled for words—“wanted to thank you for being such a good friend.”

Damage control. He sensed she was uneasy, and was trying to walk it back. How many times had she done that with Nathan, tossed something flirtatious out there and then laughed it off?

“No, no. I get it. It’s wonderful, it’s an absolutely wonderful gesture.”

Lycan smiled uneasily, nodded.

She didn’t love him. Not the way she loved Nathan. She kept checking herself for a spark, for that feeling she got on the first warm day after a cold winter, but all she felt with Lycan was… comfortable. Safe.

As the drones cleared away the dessert dishes, she hugged Lycan good-bye, squeezing tighter than normal, trying to convey her appreciation, to signal that everything was okay between them. She couldn’t help but see the disappointment in his eyes as the door swirled shut.

Is your invitation still open?
she sent to Nathan as she rode the lift down.
I’ve had dinner, but maybe drinks?

Absolutely
, he replied.

She headed toward her Scamp, the first twist in Rainbow Tower almost directly overhead.

Lycan pinged her. She opened a screen back in his apartment. “What’s up?”

“I want to tell you something, but you have to promise you won’t ever tell Rob, or Nathan.”

“Sure, I promise.”

“I did give money to Rob. I’m not cheap, and I’m not selfish, I just have my own way of doing things.” There was a hitch in his voice. Her thoughtless question at dinner had wounded him deeply.

“I’m so sorry I asked about that. I know you’re not selfish. Not after what you did—” She stopped, considered what he’d just said. “Wait, you
did
give money to Rob?” She stopped walking, glided a few feet on her momentum before sliding to a full stop. “
You
were the anonymous donor?”

“Yes.” He sounded almost defensive.

“Holy shit. I thought it was Sunali. Why didn’t you say something?” Veronika felt as if she had something caught in her throat. Lycan’s stinginess toward Rob had always seemed unlike him. Now everything slid neatly into place.

“Then it wouldn’t be anonymous, would it?”

“Why did it have to be anonymous?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like to draw attention to myself. The old guy with the money. I wanted to fit in with you and your friends.”

Only half aware of what she was doing, she turned, headed back toward Lycan’s building. “You gave Rob, like, fifty thousand dollars.”

“It’s just money.”

The front door to Lycan’s building let her in. In the lobby, she stepped into one of the capsules and headed up.

“You’re a good person. Do you know that?”

Maybe she should give him a chance. She didn’t love him the way she loved Nathan, but maybe that wasn’t the only way to love someone. Maybe what she’d always thought of as “settling” was just a different sort of love. Maybe she undervalued feeling safe and comfortable. Maybe she undervalued kindness, and overvalued wit and poise.

She knocked on Lycan’s door, the old-fashioned way.

The door swirled open.

“
Hi.
” Lycan sounded overjoyed to see her.

Veronika collapsed her screen. “Hi. I came back because I wanted to say this IP.” Suddenly she felt nervous. She actually had no idea what she’d come back to say.

Lycan waited, his eyebrows raised.

“You’re a good guy, and I like you.” Veronika cringed inside. What a line. Pathetic. “And—and I’d like to reciprocate. I’d like to invite you to dinner at my place. I can guarantee you it won’t be nearly as elaborate as the meal you planned—”

“No,” Lycan interrupted, stepping on her last few words, “that doesn’t matter. I’d love to come. Thank you.” He wriggled his nose, one of his other nervous habits.

“Great.”

“Great.”

Once again, Veronika headed into the street, wondering if she could ever be happy with someone like Lycan. She laughed out loud at the thought. When had she ever been happy, anyway?

Lycan pinged her. Laughing at the absurd circularity of this evening, she opened a screen in Lycan’s living room again.

“Do you remember when we met in that pizza place, and I was having a panic attack?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“You asked why I was having it, and I said I didn’t know.” He cleared his throat. “I did know—I was just embarrassed to say. It was because I was going to see you.”

A warmth washed over Veronika, like she was standing on a beach, soaking in the sun.

For the first time, Mira found no one looking down at her when she woke. There was nothing to see but the ceiling far above, and part of the wall. She waited, expecting a face to appear. Had Sunali waked her, then been called away, or left to use the bathroom? Surely it was Sunali.

“Hello?” Mira called.

Nothing but the faint echo of her own horrible graveyard voice. Maybe there had been some technical error in her crèche that accidentally woke her? That would be wonderful; she’d have time to herself until someone noticed.

“Mira Bach,” a woman’s voice said.

Mira waited for a face to appear, then realized the voice had come from farther above, where the warning had come from when Sunali let her speak to Jeannette.

“Yes?”

“Do you recall saying the following during your last meeting with Sunali Van Kampen?”

A brief pause, then she recognized her own terrible dead voice, on the verge of hysteria: “Please help me. Please, I’m afraid—”

She was in trouble. Although, she wondered, what else could they possibly do to her. Put her in prison? Beat her with a stick? “Yes, I remember.” How could she forget? It wasn’t as if she got the opportunity to speak very often.

“What were your intentions in saying it?”

Did they record everything that went on in here? It was probably safe to assume they did, that they’d already reviewed Sunali’s visits. “I was speaking to Sunali; I was upset. I didn’t know she was going to use my words the way she did.” Mira was trying to recall what she’d said to Sunali leading up to her outburst. Did she come across as complicit?

“Congruent with Cryomed policy,” the voice said, “we have revived you to inform you of a change in your status. You’re to be relocated to the main storage facility, where you’ll be preserved for the remaining five hundred forty-four years stipulated in your insurance policy.”

“
Wait.
I didn’t do anything wrong.” She wouldn’t have the slightest chance of speaking to Jeannette again, or of being revived.

“The decision is not contestable,” the voice said.

“But I didn’t—”

She wasn’t given a chance to argue.

Through the window of the train, Rob watched a micro-T descend from High Town, dropping almost vertically, and wondered if Winter might be on it. It was headed to Grand Central, so it was possible. But it was too far away, and moving too fast, for him to make out individual faces.

Six o’clock, you said?
Veronika sent, and Rob replied by sending a thumbs-up.

He wiped his palms on his pants. They were slick with sweat, not from nervousness, but just because he was flat-out excited. He had no doubt his dad and Winter would hit it off. Winter would be able to relax out in the suburbs, where there was little chance of a camera catching them together. It would be nice to be able to hold Winter’s hand in public, or put his arm around her waist. In the city, that was only possible in his room.

The train stopped at Grand Central. Rob hopped out, located the wall with the giant clock in it, and found Winter
already waiting, one foot propped against the wall. As they’d planned, Rob kept walking, knowing Winter would follow. He boarded a train to the suburbs, spotted Winter boarding two cars down.

When the train pulled out, he crossed through the car separating them, took the seat behind her.

“Hey, you,” Winter said, turning sideways in her seat.

Rob grinned. “Hi. Hope you like Superfood.”

“Veronika’s bringing something as well. But even if she didn’t, I grew up eating Superfood.”

“Your whole childhood?”

“It depended on who Mom was married to. At times we were pretty well off, then she’d get bored with whoever she was married to and leave him, and we’d be in the streets. I got whiplash from all the change. Mom thrived on it.”

Rob nodded, thinking how different her upbringing had been from his. He’d been poor, but always just somewhat, and everyone else in the neighborhood was poor too, so it felt normal.

“So, were the times you were homeless the worst part of your life? Besides being dead, of course.”

A man a few rows away glanced at them, then looked away.

Winter laughed. “Being dead isn’t part of life, so it doesn’t count.” She thought for a moment. “I’d have to say the low point was Ty.”

“Ty?”

“My boyfriend in college. He broke up with me, but neither of us could afford to move out, so we went on living together as roommates. Pretty soon he was going out with someone new, one of those women who dress like clowns? Bright red hair, colored face paint?”

“Oh, I know them.” There had been a clique of clowns in his school. Liz Faircloth, who lived down the road from him, had become one, showing up for the walk to school one day wearing bright, primary colors, with blue corkscrew hair.

“Soon she was pretty much living with us, and I was sleeping in a corner of the living room while they had loud sex in the bedroom, with her laughing her crazy fake-clown laugh—” Winter broke into laughter herself. “When did people start doing that, where their whole identity is tied to some look?”

“No idea.”

Two boys, maybe twelve years old, burst into their car, giggling like mad. Rob watched as they ran past, hit the door on the far end, and disappeared into the next car.

“Life with my mom wasn’t all bad. I don’t want to give you that impression,” Winter said, when it was quiet again. “Once mom opened a day-care business in our apartment. She just kept packing kids into the place.”

“Hold on. These were the good times?” Rob laughed.

“It was chaos, but it was like having twenty brothers and sisters. Mom was utterly incompetent as a caregiver, so we were free to do whatever we wanted, as long as we stayed in the house.”

“How long did the day-care business last.”

Winter shook her head sadly. “Maybe three months. Mom met husband number three, and we moved into his house.”

They talked nonstop to the burbs. Rob wished the ride would go on for hours, but soon they were at the end of the line, on the walk to Dad’s house, in the shadow of Percy Estate.

“That’s where I worked, while you were in the minus eighty,” Rob said, pointing to the reclamation center.

Winter squinted, trying to make out details of the facility. “Looks depressing.”

Rob shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad.” Memories of those grueling, soul-wrenching days flashed through his mind. Back then this landscape had looked so different, so much filthier and smellier, without a system filtering his senses.

Rob disabled his system, surveyed the suburbs in the raw. They were passing an old, partially collapsed motel his system had edited out entirely, including the mother bathing her children with water dabbed from a rusty frying pan.

“What are you doing?” Winter asked, watching him.

“I disabled the sensory filters on my system. I spent so long seeing this place in the raw that I’m kind of used to seeing it that way. I think I prefer it.”