More than a lot were left with when the smoking lamp started to burn low-.
Who-
… Gina.. . (So faint she didn't think she'd really heard it.)
There was a man with a different world in his eyes, still real, made of noise and light. More than a lot were left with-
Who do-
… Gina. .. (Yah, heard it this time.) There was a man, real, taking the long way home, walking a strip that had once been by the ocean where she had run across the nasty bridge, but that was all in the fire now, too, along with all those things that might have been.
Who do you-
There was a man in a room, changed for the machines, not real now, and a stranger, real, on a stony shore under a gray sky, turning slowly to her.
Do you still want to?
Running down the long road. Sparks to lightning, white and otherwise.
Who do you love?
You tell me, doll.
He was there on the sand, waiting, and she made a move toward him.
Gina!
Something bumped her, and the memory came up like light.
You win the game as soon as you get them to say it. Then you do whatever you want. And she'd never said it, not once.
"Too fucking easy," she said, backing way, way off, until the Mimosa and the ball of fire she hadn't walked through was as small as something she might see from the wrong end of a telescope. "Where is it, really?"
Old habits, they do die hard, don't they. That's yours, ain't it-looking for Mark. And finding him.
She reached for Markt, but the sense of him was shockingly absent. Nor could she get a sense of Ludovic. She was suddenly and most definitely alone. Ridiculous, someone had just been calling her name-
And now you can find him wherever you look. What you've always wanted. Whether you know it or not. And I want you. I want you.
What the fuck was she supposed to do now?
Whatever s right, Gina.
Whatever's-
Markt looked sympathetic-both of him. He was there so suddenly, she didn't have time to be surprised, or even to demand where the fuck he'd been. "What's your weak spot, Gina? Better get to it before he does."
Weariness was a sudden ache all the way through her. "My weak spot. You got something we can make a list with?"
Markt glowed at her. "Who do you still want to love?"
"-right," she growled. She hadn't taken it through the wire, but she had imagined how it would be; how it was. Like floating through a tangible fog bank, and as each shadow pulsed, there would be a corresponding pressure deep in the head, an invisible finger pressing here, and here, and here, searching for some particularly sensitive spot. Like being molested in some weird, witchy way.
"I want you…"
She was in a place from years before, and Dylan's strangely engaging nasal voice was speaking the truth for both of them. Mark was sitting on the floor, waiting for her reaction.
Laugh that old laugh, break it up and break it down. Hey, jellyroll-
But it wasn't anything to laugh about, was it? Missed chances, they don't have a lot of humor value, do they? So now there's a second chance. You gonna take it this time, or shine it on?
The desire in the room had been electric, was electric now. Not just the sex, but the full, rounded desire for completion. She'd felt that, too, the same way he had. Completion.
"But is there really such a thing as a second chance?"
Ludovic was standing over by the door. Mark turned up the music, and Ludovic melted away. Right, he hadn't figured into it then.
But he did now. He wasn't a missed chance. He was the one she was going to have to do something about.
Mark was still waiting. But this was an easy one, too. She opened her mouth to laugh that old laugh.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" he said seriously. "Looking for me all those years, and now you found me again. Wouldn't you rather save me this time? You could."
In the moment of hesitation, the pictures came to her. Two decades and some-odd of the show that had no end, her life, his life, their life, hit-and-run, kiss-and-tell, a little walk that had turned into a long run. Who do you still want to love?
Oh, lover, I been afraid you'd ask me that.
"Save me," Mark said, the plea in his voice carefully small. "I don't want to be this way. If I did, do you think I'd have made it so fucking easy on you?"
Oh, lover, I been afraid you'd ask me that, too.
They were flattened against the wall in the dark hallway, Marly's strong arm thrown across his chest. Gabe waited for the voice, wondering who it would sound like.
"It's gonna be different this time, hotwire," Marly whispered. "You ready?"
"What?" he said, confused.
"You're gonna have to be. Here it comes." Before he could protest, she grabbed him and swung him around to stand in the doorway all alone.
He was looking across the twentieth-floor terrace at Gina standing on the railing. She had the harness on, but he saw that the cords weren't connected to the railing this time. When she went over, she would be falling for real.
For… 'real'? Could it be 'real' this way, in here?
Oh, yah; it would be different, maybe, but no less real, a virtual fall and a virtual impact, but when she hit bottom, the effect would amount to something real.
Did she know?
He couldn't tell for certain. She seemed to know and not know at the same time, and something suggested she would accept it either way.
Schrodinger s Gina.
Gabe frowned; where had that come from? He took a step toward her.
"Floor's mined," Caritha said offhandedly.
Gina looked over her shoulder at him, her gaze both meeting him and going through him in an odd way. What was she seeing, he wondered. Did she even realize she was on the railing? What was her context?
You got to know your context, because you're only gonna get one shot at getting into it.
Yes, but if she thought it was one thing, and he thought it was another, then what was the real context? He burned with impatience and frustration. How was he supposed to know what to do?
"Whatever's right," Gina said. "How'd you like to get even?"
Even? He could almost have laughed. There was nothing even about Gina.
The loose harness connections on the rail swayed slightly in the breeze.
"Make up your mind," she said. "I gotta go one way or the other, I jump or you push me."
No, that was wrong, he thought wildly, but he had no way to tell her. It wasn't in her context.
"Gettin' late, hotwire," Marly said. Her voice sounded just a bit strange to him now. "Already know you can't argue. What's next?"
He turned in what he thought was her direction, and the images rushed over him.
Go somewhere. Go somewhere.
Floor's mined.
Change for the machines.
MORE DRUGS.
Run Personnel run.
Take a little walk with me.
Why the fuck didn't you watch where you were going?
The desire on the terrace was electric. Gina started to turn away from him. The scene blurred in front of him, briefly became an arc of stony shore around a lake. He was back on the terrace before he could even be startled, and he saw Gina's knees bend as she prepared to jump.
Somewhere, someone was laughing. If you can't fuck it and it doesn't dance-