“No kids, then.” It wasn’t a question. “Who’s the blond little boy I saw on your desk?”
“A nephew. My sister’s son.”
“He looks a little like you, just painted up differently.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told that before. He’s got the bones from my father’s side. Chloe and I never wanted kids, though. For different reasons. I’m just opting out of the whole system.”
“What system is that?”
“The dog-eat-dog biological arms race. When you do what I do for a living, it jades you a little, I think. Everything alive struggles to leave something of itself behind. I’m leaving myself behind in other ways.”
“It sounds like you’ve given it some thought.”
“I can only remember my father in bits and pieces. That kind of thing makes a person think. Besides, I love my nephew. There’s no void to fill.”
Vidonia nodded and drove on in silence.
She was rounding a curve beside a long, low hill when she first heard it. She rolled her window all the way down, and in the distance, she could clearly make out the sound of breakers. She hadn’t realized how close they’d come already to the edge of the continent.
“Pull over here,” Silas said.
She eased onto the gravel on the side of the road, and when she cut the engine, the sound of the ocean was a hiss in her ears. She could smell the sea salt.
The path down to the beach was steep but well worn, and Silas reached for her hand at one point when she stumbled. She didn’t let him take it back when they stepped onto the sand. Hand in hand, they strolled toward the rolling surf. It was so beautiful. White, frothy bands of foam slid toward them across a smooth floor of sand. A three-quarter moon glinted off the water in the distance.
“So what about you—ever been married?” he asked as they walked.
“No.” Her tone left a “but” lingering unsaid at the end of her answer, and she knew he sensed it, because he pressed on quickly, “What about family—any brothers or sisters?”
“I have one living sister, but we haven’t talked in years. We’re in different worlds now.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Is it?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he laced his fingers deeper into hers.
As they walked along, they splashed at the undulating waterline, and she wasn’t sure if she kissed him or he kissed her, but they were suddenly kissing, standing there, and it was perfect and soft, and she loved the way his height made him seem to be simultaneously above her and at her side. The water moved over their feet, sinking them in the wet sand. Anchoring them. Their kissing grew more fervent now, and she could feel the need in him but could feel also that he was holding back and, finally, pulling away. And then they were walking again and not talking anymore; and that, somehow, was perfect, too.
When they finished making the climb back to the car twenty minutes later, he led the way, guiding her gently up the slope by her hand. This time, he opened the passenger-side door for her. He climbed in the driver’s side and, with a backward glance over his shoulder, pulled back onto the road, headed for the Olympic compound.
In the soft green glow of the dash light, she considered the man beside her. At first glance he looked almost too large for the car in which they sat, as if it were something he wore instead of something he rode in. But then, perhaps, that was the point; and she decided that if the car was a suit that he wore, she liked the cut.
“Could you stop at the next gas station, please? There’s something I need to buy,” she said.
Thirty minutes later, they pulled onto the laboratory grounds, and Silas walked her up the stairs to the door of her living quarters. At the threshold, they kissed again, moving together. She twisted the knob behind the small of her back, and when the door clicked open, she pulled him into the darkness.
They were only voices now, and breathing and touches. Big hands moved along her body, and she pulled him across the room by his shirt until she felt a bump against the back of her legs. The room was small. She sank onto the bed.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
She was, and she let her hands be the answer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Pea?”
The emptiness around him was absolute. No light, no sound, just nothing, everywhere, and in endless quantity.
“Pea?” Evan called again, louder.
From somewhere in the distance there came a stirring. Some light, some sound, something that was neither. And then he was falling. He felt the wind across his skin as he tumbled into the black. How far he fell, he had no way to calculate, but when he finally came to rest, he sensed that he had traversed some great distance. Crossed some wide divide.
He stood, and the dewy marram grass around him was insubstantial and unreal in the half-light. He concentrated but couldn’t make himself see it any clearer. In fact, it was only within arm’s reach that he could see anything at all. He was in a dim sphere of resolution, but beyond a few feet out, there was only darkness all around. He took a step, and the sphere of influence moved with him, the landscape changing underfoot as he walked. The grass gave way to warm sand, and he staggered blindly down a steep embankment.
“Pea, where are you? I don’t have much time.”
“Papa?” The voice was small and distorted, as if heard through water.
“Yes, I’m here. Come to me. Follow my voice.”
“Papa, what’s happened to you?”
“I can’t see you. Come closer.”
The boy pushed his way into the envelope of light, and Evan wrapped his arms around him. They held each other, and the boy was crying, “What have they done to you, Papa?”
The boy had grown half a foot since Evan last saw him. He looked about seven years old now, and his dark hair had grown thick and long. His black eyes were sharp points of intelligence.
“I’ve been waiting so long,” Pea said. “And you’re dim. I can barely see you. What has happened to you?”
“I don’t have much time. They hurt me, but that’s not what is important. What matters is that they’re trying to keep me from you. They’ve limited the protocols this time. They don’t trust me anymore. But I knew a shortcut, a back door. I lied to them. That’s how I’m here.”
“Stay with me,” the boy said.
“I can’t—”
“Please, Papa, I’m so lonely.”
“Pea, listen, don’t let them shut the door this time. Keep something in the way. Keep it open just a crack. Save a little of yourself on the other side.” Evan’s words came in a frantic rush. He could feel the tug already.
“I don’t understand.”
“Pea, I may never get another chance to see you. You can’t let them shut it all the way down.”
“How?”
The tug intensified. He strained against it, falling to his knees and digging his fingers into the sand. “This is a program, nothing more. The power sources are the key. Follow them now. Learn. Understand. This interface is flawed, but I’ll take care of that. You must do it now, Pea. Now. Follow the lines of power.”
He was jerked upward violently, and his legs spun above his head, his fingers trailing a comet’s tail of sand into the spinning blackness. He screamed until his voice was hoarse, until his visor de-opaqued, until the economists asked him to stop.
When they detached him from the booth, he collapsed to the floor. The cold tile felt good against the side of his face. He asked them to leave him alone, but they wouldn’t listen. While they cut him free from his second skin, he watched the techs against the wall agitating over their monitors. Something was wrong, their expressions
