“We aren't your enemies you know. We're your servants, your protectors... please keep that in mind.”
Casting a look over his shoulder, the man, not much taller than Katherine's body Gwen noticed, looked baffled for a moment, then turned and walked away.
It took a few minutes to get Mr. Vernor not to follow the man himself and apply a beating, but he finally calmed down enough to go back to the party. For the rest of the evening they all stayed on alert, even Wilbur, though he did it while still trying to make advances toward Beth.
At eleven the party started to break up, everyone knowing that a gathering this large would stress the city's limited supply of hired cabs, so they began to take them as soon as they came back around for passengers. Gwen and Beth stayed until midnight, when Mrs. Vernor assured them that she'd be fine with just Robert and the servants to help them settle the rest of the guests and clean up.
Both of the male detectives saw them to the lobby of their building, and left without so much as offering a hug. Gwen expected that from Daniel, his mind clearly on doing right by his betrothed, no matter what. It surprised her that Wilbur had given up so easily. She'd thought he'd at least go for a kiss and possibly more.
After she'd crawled into bed, Gwen thought she heard a soft knock on the front door and then the door open a moment later. A short bit after that, the door to Bethany's room closed. She didn't hear anything else after that, so she went to sleep. She had a strange dream in which she had gone to the dinner party with Cardell as her date and been seated next to a clown that kept interrupting the meal singing dirty limericks. She'd tried to keep him quiet, but every time he did it he got a standing ovation.
In the morning, when she got up – earlier than she wanted, but knowing that she needed to get breakfast going before they left for the museum – she caught sight of Wilbur trying to sneak out of Beth's room, his shoes in hand, so that he could move silently. Given the hard soles of the shoes here, she could see that as a good plan. He looked over at her, through the kitchen door, so she waved.
“Good morning. Would you like breakfast? I'm making it now, so it's not a problem.” He looked incredibly uneasy, she noticed.
“Uh, this isn't what it looks like, really...” He mumbled weakly, his eyes not able to meet hers.
“Oh? Well, look, Wilbur, I'm no expert on things like this by any means. Heck, going to that party last night with Detective Chuan was the closest thing I'd ever had to a date. Which, you know, yay, I had a date. I know even less about sex, but I've watched a lot of television over the years... That's kind of like your telesar, but with moving pictures and plays on it. And really, much higher quality information in general. Anyway, one thing I've learned from that is that no matter how awkward you think it's going to be facing her this morning, it's going to be a hundred times harder if you have to do it at work on Monday. So, eggs, bacon, cereal... all of that OK? Not allergic to any of it?”
Looking sheepish still, he shook his head no and asked if he could use the washroom. Grinning, she pointed toward the bathroom door.
A few minutes later Bethany came out, her keen detective's eye noticing that there were three eggs on the stove that Gwen stared at, focusing on powering the thing as well as three plates on the table.
“He's here? That's rather impressive. Most men try to sneak out early so that they don't have to talk to you the next day. It always makes the whole thing feel a bit cheap. Ah! Here he comes now.” Tussled hair and sleep puffed eyes aside, her smile made her face look radiant when she looked at the man.
He'd washed his face, but not shaved, lacking the gear for it Gwen realized. His hair had been combed at least, and his tie put on straight, an improvement since he'd gotten it a bit crooked before. He looked up at Beth and smiled, it looked like a real one too, not something plastered on his face in panic.
“Good morning! I wanted to say that before I took off. Gwen's offered breakfast and while I have to run home before going into work, eggs and cereal sounds much better than the stale bread roll I have waiting for me. Sleep well?”
Beth grinned at him, her face relaxed and happier than Gwen could remember seeing it. The whole scene had distracted her from cooking, so the stove had been cooking the eggs on residual heat only, which was fine, but she needed to get the bacon on and that needed a higher temperature, she knew, at least if she wanted it to be crispy. Floppy bacon sucked, so she redoubled her focus on the metal sphere on the top of the unit.
They all ate, the tiny portions and many courses drawing the meal out, Wilbur making eyes at Bethany a few times every minute, which amused Gwen, but she didn't let it show that she'd noticed at all. No need for her to ruin things for them if they were both happy with the situation, right? If anything, she realized, she felt more than a little jealous of her friend, which made sense, all things considered.
She busied herself doing the dishes and cleaning the stove while they said their goodbyes at the door, avoiding kissing, but giving each other a long embrace before Wilbur left for work. Beth didn't help in the kitchen, instead she went directly to the bathroom as soon as he'd left.
About five minutes later, she came back out.
“I had to go the whole time, but I didn't want to leave, less he take the opportunity to run away. I hope he calls on me again. I mean, I know I could never be his wife or anything, but until he needs to settle down, it would be nice to spend some time with him, I think. He's a pleasant fellow.”
This got a chuckle from Gwen, even though it made her feel a little sorry for her friend at the same time.
“Are you... not allowed to get married? Being a Westmorland and all? I know you mentioned not being able to have children, but that shouldn't stop you from adopting or something. Not that I'm saying you should be thinking of marriage yet, but...” Copying the gesture she'd seen almost everyone else perform here instead of shrugging, she deliberately turned both palms up, leaving her shoulders in place.
“It's not that, it's mainly people like Martin Cardell and his followers. They'd have at anyone I married until they destroyed the person, I think. Now that I've come into his personal view, I doubt that I could be with anyone for long before they'd go after us. It's hard enough to have a relationship when you know you can't have children, but those kinds of people make the whole thing almost impossible. Still, it doesn't mean that we can't have sex until they find out, right?” The gleam in her eye told Gwen that the other woman thought she was being wicked or something. Perhaps shocking, talking about sex so blithely?
“Cardell is an imbecile. Still, I get the idea. People used to feel that way about interracial relationships back home. You people here don't seem to care about race too much though, do you? I mean, no one batted and eye at that last night – at least that I noticed.” A lot of the people hadn't been white at all and no one treated anyone any differently because of it really.
Bethany thought about it for a second before saying anything.
“Race? Not a big issue here. I mean, some people are different than others, but I can't imagine why that would be an issue at all. People are more concerned about high magic individuals having relationships with low magic types, to tell the truth. That's part of where the hatred against the Westmorlands comes from, we aren't just high responders, to get into the program you have to be in the top three percent of the top group. So the top one percent of the population. People like Cardell that don't have any real natural talent feel threatened by anyone that can do anything at all. Not that I blame them totally, it's a lot harder to get by in the world if you don't have any ability of note. You can't operate a lot of machines and can't power anything for yourself, most of the good jobs require you to have more than physical skills, so if you're in the bottom third of the pool, your prospects are pretty limited.”
Gwen thought about this for a minute. In a world where the technology was all powered by the mind or magic, being unable to do that well would be an extreme handicap. Kind of like having only one arm or something back home, maybe worse than that, she figured. So those people were increasingly stuck, sinking lower and lower toward the bottom of the social scale, as technology advanced, creating more things that they couldn't use or understand.
At least she'd lucked out, having enough power to run the stove here and having people that felt they owed her money and upkeep. What if she'd been like she was before, and didn't have any power at all? She probably wouldn't have been allowed to survive long.
She felt a little bad for Katherine, if she'd gotten her body in exchange, like most people thought. She'd have no one looking out for her and probably wouldn't be able to even figure out how to run the microwave on her own. The food in the house should hold for a while longer, since Gwen had always tried to keep about six months of food on hand, just in case she ever got into a situation where she couldn't go out for a while. Injury or harassment, natural disaster or massive depression mainly.
There should be enough money in her account to keep the lights on for a while, and she owned the house, so no payments would be needed there. After the food started running out, she just didn't know how the pampered woman would manage to survive.
She put this on the back burner, so that she could get ready for their trip to the Museum of Industry, whatever that would turn out to be. No matter how boring, she'd memorize everything she could. If she didn't get a handle on this place soon, she'd end up being caught out, or even getting killed, just because she didn't understand something that everyone else took for granted.
Gwen could see it now, people reading the paper and shaking their heads... What? She looked left when everyone knows you have to look right? What a silly way to die.
No matter how bad things got for Katherine in her world, Gwen wouldn't help the woman by getting herself killed here.
Chapter twenty
Bethany reminded Gwen to slip James a few dollars, mets, so that he wouldn't end up covering them for any expenses during the day, since they both knew that the man would never mention it if he did and no matter what the Vernor's paid him, it probably wasn't enough to afford throwing away money on people that could easily afford to pay for themselves.
Gwen figured it would be best to be clever here, because the men around this place all seemed to have some strange ego issues when it came to women, so she took him aside before they went to the carriage from the lobby.
“James. My Father's covering the expenses today, so, if you'd carry this for us?” She handed him a ten met bill, the money had a strange iridescent purple hue and reminded her a little of monopoly money, the script only being printed on one side, the other side glittered a bit but didn't hold a picture.
“Oh? Kind of him! Well, Ella and the kids are waiting, I hope that's alright? I know you said but...” The words just hung in the air.
“Wonderful. I look forward to seeing them, shall we?”