“Hey, Rob.” Rob turned and spotted Bryony repairing a sorting bin that had lost a wheel. She was squatting, looking at him through the curved spokes of one of the intact wheels. “You interested in doing some bugs after? Me and Kiki are going down to the tunnels.”
“Can’t, have to meet someone. But thanks, another time.”
Bryony nodded as if it didn’t matter to her one way or another. He appreciated the invitation, and he wanted to fit in and make more friends here, but it was hard shifting from the clubs of High Town to sitting in a dirty tunnel sunk into a mountain of hundred-year-old crap, getting high on cheap bugs.
Tonight he couldn’t have gone in any case, because he was going to visit Winter. In just a few hours he would find out if Red had proposed. If he had, Rob would soon get to meet Winter face-to-face, maybe sit and have coffee. He might even get to hug her, to feel her newly warm body against his for a few fleeting seconds. The thought of that sent a thrill through him.
He tried to banish the longing that it be more than a hug. Even if getting revived wouldn’t include Winter being bound by an ironclad marriage contract, there was another reason he should forget about any possibility of their being anything more than friends. He had run her over. Run. Her. Over. As the months and years stretched out, it was becoming easier to overlook that aspect of the story.
Rob spotted Stellan, his replacement, winding between drones. “Your ass is free,” Stellan said, pulling on his hood and fixing the breather in place.
Rob resisted the urge to sprint back to the dressing room. As soon as he was out of his protective suit and heading toward the gate, he entered a reservation to visit Winter.
He stopped walking, carefully reread the message on his handheld.
No longer available.
What did that mean, “no longer available”? Had Red revived her, or had she been pulled from the program and buried? He didn’t know whether to shout for joy or sink to his knees. As second-shift workers brushed past, Rob put in a call to the dating center’s customer service, was connected with an AI operator.
“Yes, I was arranging to visit a woman named Winter West, and it says she’s no longer available.” He was breathing so hard he could barely speak.
“That’s correct,” the unnaturally mellifluous voice on the line said.
“Can you tell me what that means?”
“It means she’s no longer at Cryomed’s cryogenic dating facility.”
“Yes, I understand that.” A hammer-faced woman looked at him as she passed. He was shouting, he realized. He took a breath, lowered his voice. “I understand that. But was she revived, or released from the program?”
“I’m sorry, that information is confidential.”
Rob growled in frustration, nearly flung his handheld over the fence. He hurried toward the exit. There had to be a way to find out what had happened. Peter was a possibility. Maybe he should try to get in touch with Sunali, see if she could put him in touch with Peter. But the thought of waiting hours, even days, for Peter to get back to him was intolerable. He wouldn’t be able to eat or sleep until he knew. She could be out there right now. She could be gone forever.
He ran through the gate, headed across the parking lot toward his house.
But if she was out there, wouldn’t she have contacted him? He slowed, a wave of numbness sweeping over him. She was dead. That’s why the Cryomed AI wouldn’t tell him. If she’d been revived, it would have told him.
She’d had visits, though. Tons of them. Even repeat visits from a rich guy. Peter said that rolled back the clock, that it was all decided automatically. Why would they bury her just as interest in her spiked? That made no sense.
Unless they’d discovered the hacked profile.
Rob paused in the parking lot, put his hands on his knees, tried to catch his breath and clear his vision. Maybe he should contact Nathan or Veronika. He tapped his handheld. They might have an idea about how to find out—
Rob froze.
If Winter was alive, she would have a com account. Maybe she didn’t want to speak to Rob, but she’d want to call others. Friends, her aunt and nephews.
Com search. Winter West. New York area, he subvocalized.
Winter’s image materialized. He dropped onto his ass in the gravel lot, gaping at her smiling face, the flesh tones of life restored to it.
II: IN PERSON
43
Rob
Staring down at his system, Rob willed Winter to ping. She was out there somewhere.
Rising from the edge of his bed, Rob retrieved his lute from the closet, went out back, brushed dried leaves and silt from an old porto-seat, and sat down. He let his fingers glide over the polished wood of the lute, then began playing “Polymnia,” an ancient piece he rarely played unless he was providing dinner music at a swanky restaurant.
She wasn’t going to call. If she were, she would have done so by now.
Two weeks was more than enough time.
He paused midsong. Maybe he should leave one more message? No. What could he say that he hadn’t said the first three times? Leaving a fourth message would only make him seem more pathetic. He carried on with the song.
His chest ached at the thought of Winter alive, laughing, living, with him no part of her life. Where was she, right now? On Red’s estate? In an ultralight copter? Rob looked up at the sliver of sky visible below the roof of Percy Estate, saw a copter flitting its way to somewhere. Winter could be in it.
It was time to move on. No more calls. How sick was it for him to persist, if she didn’t want to speak to him? She owed him less than nothing.
Let her go. That’s what Veronika had said. His dad, too.
“Polymnia” gave way to “Laura Soave,” an aching melody, without Rob’s awareness. Everything was skintight. He would go back to hanging out with his friends.
He played a modern tune by Arctic Ice, plucking the strings with a vigor that bordered on abuse, his thoughts flitting across the conversations they’d had, seeking something, some explanation. On that last visit, when she told him she might be getting out, there had been such a sense of intimacy between them. Maybe not love, but a deep, close connection.
“You ready, Eddie?” Lorne called through the door.
“Yeah.” He’d forgotten they were going to the tubes for dinner. Rob stopped playing and headed up the back stoop.
The benches at the tubes were packed with diners. It was Saturday night, Rob realized. Once upon a time Rob had known exactly what day of the week it was, but when you worked every day, the distinctions became less crucial.
He had no idea why he was still working at the reclamation center. The money was decent, but so what? Maybe it was because he didn’t want to play for other people, and no other options for work had presented themselves.
His dad talked an Asian family into scooting down so they could squeeze onto the end of their table, then he dug right into his burger, making appreciative grunts as he chewed. Rob’s stomach was tight, wasn’t welcoming of food, but he ate anyway. His dad deserved to enjoy himself. Rob forced a smile.
“Where do you think she is right now?” Lorne asked.
“I try not to think about it,” Rob answered.
“All you do is think about it.” When Rob didn’t reply, he asked, “What’s the rich guy’s name again?”
“I’m pretty sure the guy’s name is Redmond.”
Lorne lifted his cup of water, held it there until Rob finally relented and followed suit. “Here’s to Redmond. God bless his filthy rich ass.” They drank. Lorne lifted his cup again. “And to my son, who, against god-awful odds, figured out how to save the damsel in distress.”