She smiled. “You’ll see.”
I looked around, dazed by this sudden second chance. Passersby looked at us curiously, as did the police loitering and smoking cigarettes on the steps that led up to the station.
“LoTek and Danielle?” I asked.
“Gone. For now.” She hesitated. “But not before making it clear that they wanted me to share the master control signal with the world. Lest we face inevitable totalitarian dystopia and all that.”
“Are you going to?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I decided maybe I’m not qualified to decide.”
I stared at her. I had never heard Sophie utter a more un-Sophie-like statement.
“Remember when we talked about that two-thirds majority?” she asked. “And if you and Lisa agreed on what we should do, we should do it? I’ve decided that’s fair. That’s why I asked you to stay,” she said to Lisa. “I wanted to hear from you in person before we left.”
I realized by we she meant herself and me.
“So?” she asked. “Should I unleash the drones, give LoTek and everyone else the master control signal, let them find ways to disable it? If you both think I should, I will.”
Lisa and I stared at each other for a second, stunned. My mind was still reeling from this sudden change of circumstances, this unlooked-for second chance at life. Sophie’s pop quiz to determine the future of the planet was too much to process.
“Sure,” Lisa managed, “just drop the fate of the world in our laps like that.”
“It’s a moral decision, not a practical one. You shouldn’t have to ponder it. Just tell me what you think. Should I give up the leash?”
Lisa chewed her lip. I considered.
Then we both said at the same time, unexpectedly, “No.”
I started, and said to Lisa, “I thought you’d say yes. You were in Grassfire.”
“Yeah. And look how bad we almost fucked everything up. What’s your excuse?”
“Better a government you have to watch closely than anarchy beyond any control. Peace, order, and good government, right?” I said, quoting Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “I’ll take that over life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness any day.”
Sophie nodded, satisfied, triumphant. “It’s obvious, really.”
“You think everything’s obvious,” I muttered.
“Not everything. That would be boring beyond belief. Now come on, let’s go home. We’ve got a private jet waiting, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get back to Pasadena. They want us to hurry. There’s been some kind of coup in Moscow. Things are still pretty tense.”
She handed me a passport – a brand-new Canadian passport, in my own name – and nodded to the limousine. Its front windows were open, revealing two sleek, hard-faced white men in suits.
I hesitated. Looked at Lisa.
I hadn’t even thought about what I would do with a second chance. Now that it had arrived, a lightning bolt from the blue, I didn’t know what I wanted I would have to think about that.
But I knew already, in my gut, in my heart, what I didn’t want.
“Not today,” I said.
Sophie twitched. “What?”
“You go ahead. I’m going to stay out here for awhile, I think. Maybe I’ll come back next week.” I licked my lips. My whole mouth felt dry in the parched desert air. “Maybe not. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”
“A lot of thinking,” Sophie echoed flatly, disbelievingly.
I looked her straight in the eye, nodded.
For a moment I saw her stunned, aching hurt; then her mask slammed shut over it, and she nodded briskly, all cool business. “I see. Well. All right. Good luck finding yourself, or whatever. What are you going to do for money? I didn’t bring you a credit card or anything. Being as how I thought you were coming back to our home with me.”
“I don’t know.” I considered. “I guess I’ll call -” I nearly said
“I can cover you,” Lisa said, “they gave me my bank card back.”
Sophie looked at her, then at me, incredulously. “Right. Well. You two have a ball. I have work to do. A whole world to change. Stuff like that.”
I nodded.
She took a deep breath, forced a hard smile from her quavering lower lip. “Call me when you can, OK?”
I nodded again, and returned her hug. Then Sophie was in the limousine, and it was pulling away, and I felt another overwhelming sense of relief.
Chapter 90
Lisa and I eyed each other tentatively as the limousine disappeared down the street.
“What do you think?” I asked, not even sure what I meant.
Lisa considered.
“You know what,” she said eventually, “I think I’m sick of chasing bad guys. Sad to say but true. I think I want to go home and buy a house and a dog and a cat and one point five kids.”
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking the ordinary is starting to sound pretty great myself.”
“But most of all, I think I need a freaking vacation.”
I chuckled. “Join the club.”
We exchanged another wordless look.
Then her lips quirked into a smile, and she said, “You want to go get a beer?”
“A beer? It’s seven in the morning. In an Islamic country. And I think Ramadan just began.”
“C’mon, Kowalski,” Lisa said, “where’s your sense of adventure?”
She arched an eyebrow, grinned, and led the way, into the rising sun. I smiled and followed.
Jon Evans
