“Is that a quote?” It sounded like a quote.
“Do you get what I mean?”
“I think I do.”
“What I want to say is that, often, restraint is far more remarkable than action. So don’t let it not amaze you because, Miranda, you amaze me. Start wrapping up your work. You’re going to get that job.”
—
While I was waiting to see if that was true, I was lucky to have a new side project. A package had arrived from Maya.
Miranda, the day I texted you about that dress (which I bought, btw) I found something weird. Here is one of them. I don’t even know what to call it exactly, maybe it’s just some plastic costume thing, but I have reason to believe that it’s important. I kept three others here. If there’s anything you can tell me, text me as soon as you know absolutely anything about them, even if it’s just that they’re weird. Anyway, I hope things are going well in California!
Maya
Out of the padded plastic envelope fell a gorgeous hunk of something with a low density and high thermal conductivity. That was strange enough, but there was something different about it that most people would just say was “weird” but that I didn’t have too much trouble putting my finger on: This stuff was hard.
With a few quick tests, I had a range I could place it in. It was less hard than a diamond (which was good, because otherwise I would have had to drop everything and start a lab just to study it) but significantly harder than steel. It was more like high-performance ceramics, except it was definitely not ceramic. After only a half hour of poking and prodding I had plenty of information to text Maya, but I kept poking. Another half hour after that, I realized I was putting texting her off.
I never really got to figure out what that night between me and April meant. It was a onetime thing, but I didn’t know if it was going to stay that way. It was . . . uuggghhh . . . This is all very personal, and I feel weird about talking about it in a story that is about, like, saving human civilization, but it was my first time with a woman. It was a really big deal for me because of that, and also because it was April May. I had never completely gotten over her celebrity. I got the feeling that our night together was not a big deal for April. But I felt like Maya and I should talk it through, maybe? The way she didn’t ever seem open to that made me feel like it was because she had written off any possible real friendship with me.
Anyway, I thought through all our history and then I just swallowed it and texted Maya.
That stuff is weird, too weird. Nothing has been that weird since Carl.
I’m going to keep investigating.
But only because it’s interesting, not because I think I’m going to find out anything that will be helpful to you.
She wrote back a few minutes later.
Thanks. I’m going to try to track down where it came from.
I stared at the text, trying to glean meaning from it. The more time I took, the more it seemed like the kind of text I would write to my worst enemy. After an eternity of staring, I mustered up the courage to text her back.
OK, I’m trying to get a job at Peter Petrawicki’s lab, so if I disappear, it’s probably because I’m in Puerto Rico.
My phone rang immediately—it was Maya. My heart started pounding. This was scarier than interviewing with Altus.
“Hello?” I asked tentatively.
“Explain yourself.”
I did my best to do that. I think I was complete, though I wouldn’t say I was articulate.
“And you think this is the kind of thing that Miranda Beckwith would do?” she demanded. “Or is it the kind of thing April May would do?”
Goddamn, no one had put their finger on that part of it yet.
“I think it’s the kind of thing I’d do?”
“It’s not.”
“But it’s science?” Everything I said was coming out as a question.
“This is about April and that’s fine, but I need you to say that to me.”
“It’s about the science and about April. It’s about figuring out what this fucker is doing and taking him down if I can. And it’s about figuring out who I am and what the world is without her.”
She was quiet for a while and then said, “I think we’re all figuring out who we are without her.”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out.
She replied immediately. “For what?”
Oh god, uh . . . which thing to say first?
“That we couldn’t protect her . . . and also that I slept with her.”
“You hooked up with April?”
My brain was yelling, FUCKING IDIOT! But I replied quietly, “Oh, I thought
