bend to the curves of her by sense memory alone. Wondered if he could remember her textures and tastes and scents. The architecture of her laugh. A face framed by sculptures of plastic and metal. The way, as she looked down at him, her tears had skated across her glasses, and how once, in the dark, one of those tears had fallen to his face and broken his heart as he held her tiny, shaking form closer.
He slumped out of the chair and fell to the kitchen floor. His head bounced from linoleum he’d glued down. The cat looked on, mildly amused.
A line of silver snaked lazily from the holes in his face.
“Midsagittal plane breached.”
“It’s spread into—”
“Ready lesioning probe on my—”
“Physiologic confirmation of the target location.”
“Initial pass in three…two…”
Alina ran after him, just barely getting through the door into the construct before it slammed shut.
He spun, made to say something, didn’t know what to say.
“It wasn’t her, Paul.” Alina walked closer, remembered holding a hand and what had seemed something deeper. “Just Maire. Hope’s—”
“Merged. Maire took her.” He slumped into a chair that flashed to existence just before his behind made contact. “And now—If Maire’s merged with Hope, she knows everything that Hope knew.”
Alina stood a distance.
“If Maire has Hope’s code…”
“It’s bad.”
“More than bad. Hope had calculated the A/O line to almost perfect half. Now Maire has the modular calculus. The bleed—It’s going to get a shitload more than bad.”
Alina didn’t know what to say. She thought about the rough plain of his hand.
“And you—Jud, you there?”
“She’s here.”
Paul nodded. Something flickered behind his eyes. “I take it she needed mobility.”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“If it helps.”
He scoffed, tugged at his whiter hair. “I need to get back to the pool. I can find an answer in there, I know it. If Maire has Hope’s code…” He studied his hands on the table’s top. “I need to get back into the silver.”
He stood to walk past her, and she shoved him to the wall. His look was disbelief and confusion. His eyes were a foot above hers, and looking down was like falling. She bridged the gap and kissed him, standing on toes to do so. He bent to make it easier.
Frantic, grasping, they went to the floor, knees and elbows, rolling, combat for position.
He pushed her away and from the distance tried to see behind her eyes. “We can’t. I’ve been in the silver. You’re not—”
“Shut up.” She pulled him back down and cut off the possibility of further uncertainty with her tongue and lips.
They collided.
She felt him smile against her thighs. Enveloping, bounding, penetrating her sex. She shuddered and gasped
“Don’t let go,” hitched out through sobs. Adam held her tighter, the stubs of once fingers smearing against his chest.
“It’s spreading.” Reynald fingertipped the glass, dragged a new plan into place. “Hank, reverse the phase.”
He shifted. Nodded once. “Target locked.”
Reynald’s claw hesitated. Sweat blossomed across his brow. “Probe ready. Pass in three…Two…”
To fail to hit, reach, catch, meet, or otherwise make contact with.
To fail to perceive, understand, or experience.
To fail to accomplish, achieve, or attain (a goal).
To fail to attend or perform.
To leave out.
To omit.
To let go by
To let slip.
To escape or avoid.
To discover the absence or loss of.
To feel the lack or loss of.
To be unsuccessful.
To misfire.
To fail.
A young woman.
Miss.
“Jim?”
“Jimbo?”
“Come on, pardner. You gotta talk to me sometime.”
“You just did.” Hank grinned from his command chamber. ”Anyhow, what’s it look like out there?”
“That white, huh? That must be pretty white. You know, one time I was at a saloon in—”
Crawl, crackle.
“You feel that?”
“Looks like we ain’t alone out here, buddy.”
“Think it’s Hunter and Lily?”
…
“Jim?”
“What in—”
The cowboy was disconcerted by Whistler’s tone, urgent, honest. Afraid. “Show me.”
The command display sparked to life as Whistler fed the exterior view of the Timestream to Hank.
His gasp was audible. “That ain’t…Hunter. Or Lily.”
His knobby hands skittered over the controls on his cardiac shield. He felt the tug of his constituent particles locking back into place on the Judith line. In an instant, he could be downloaded back into the thought ocean made
