“I’m a big boy now. And, now that you got me treatment, I’m not a weakling anymore… Um, I’ve even been taking karate myself. Just so I’d be able to protect yours truly rather than relying on you.” There was silence on the other end of the phone. After it’d stretched a bit, he put on an accent and plaintively said, “I’se all growed up now, Momma.”
The silence stretched a little longer, then, still suspiciously, she growled, “You’ve been taking karate.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where?”
“Your dojo.”
“Who’s your sensei?”
“Kate Warren.”
“What’d you use on that guy’s wrist?”
“Um… Knifehand strike. You’re sounding bossy again.”
“I thought he fell?”
“He did that too.”
A sigh. “Oh, Kaem.” Those two words sounded heartbroken. “Everyone here at Staze depends on you. You shouldn’t be taking chances like that.”
“Aw shucks. You guys’d do fine without me. I know I shouldn’t have gone after that guy. It all just happened so fast my common sense didn’t have time to catch up to my stupidity.”
“So,” she said sounding more normal. More like Arya his friend, not like Arya his helicopter parent. “What were you working on last night?”
“I stazed myself.”
“Oh. My. God! What were you…?!” She sighed, “Never mind. You’re all growed up now, right? So, I’m not supposed to worry, right? I’ve still gotta ask, are you okay?”
“Yeah… though I don’t seem to be as smart as I was. It’s like it dropped my IQ thirty or forty points.”
“What?! Are you sure? How would you even know?!”
“Well, If I still had half the sense God gave a mule, I wouldn’t let you badger me like you’ve been…” He broke off when he heard her laughing.
“You are such a jerk,” she said when she got control of herself. “Did it hurt or anything?”
“No. Embarrassingly, I thought I’d failed to staze myself because I couldn’t tell anything happened.” He lowered his voice, “I’ll tell you about it later. My class is starting. Don’t forget you laughed at my joke.” He hung up, still thinking, She laughed at my joke!
~~~
When Arya turned around, everyone was staring at her.
Looking terribly worried, Lee asked, “Is he okay?”
Arya snorted and shook her head. “He’s fine. Too dumb to get hurt, I suppose.”
“Did he say what he was doing here at night?”
Arya closed her eyes a moment, wondering whether to tell them. “Stazing himself,” she said.
“Oh!”
Norm said, “He’s okay, right?”
“He’s not okay!” Arya said a little angrily. “Stazing himself was stupid… But he’s not noticeably dumber than he was before he stazed himself.” She sighed, “I guess I’ll call Sylvia Contreras and tell her we’ve stazed a human.”
Gunnar said, “Make that two humans.”
“What?” Arya narrowed her eyes. “Did you staze yourself too?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly staze myself. I had to bring in one of my beer-drinking buddies and have him push the enter key for me. I’ll bet Kaem just programed the laptop to give him enough time to get in.”
He grinned, “But I am the first human stazee.” He held up an imaginary beer. “I want that in the history books.”
Arya rolled her eyes. “I’m workin’ with a bunch of knuckleheads.”
Her computer started clinking like coins dropping in a metal cup. And clinking and clinking. Goosebumps formed on her neck as she turned and ran to look.
“What is it?” Lee asked, alarmed.
She turned with a huge smile on her face. “Our deposit for Space-Gen’s rocket.” She punched the air. “We’re in the black! Way into the black! We can start hiring!”
Gunnar said, “We need a better building too. One that lowlife idiots can’t break into.”
“About that,” Norm said. “Shouldn’t we just put Stade gratings over the windows?”
Everyone turned to stare at Norm. “Freakin’ A,” Gunnar breathed. “I’ll get right on that.”
Arya said, “Let’s all go out to dinner tonight and celebrate. Don’t tell Kaem about the money. We’ll let him think we’re celebrating the first human stasis… We’ll wait till then to tell him Gunnar’s the one we’re celebrating.”
***
They were at the Cavalier Buffalo. Arya’d been dismayed but Gunnar’d insisted. “Tradition,” he’d said, “That’s where we celebrated our first money from Space-Gen, that’s where we negotiated our first big contract. It’s where we should celebrate our first big payday.”
The payday Kaem didn’t know about yet.
Morales and Contreras were there representing the legal team but didn’t know what the celebration was about either.
As soon as everyone had a drink, Arya stood and lifted her glass. “To Staze,” she said.
Once everyone had taken a sip, she lifted her glass again. Focusing her eyes on Kaem, she said, “To the first human to go into stasis and return…” Her eyes shifted to Gunnar, “Gunnar Schmidt.”
Kaem’s eyes flashed to Gunnar, “You beat me to it?!”
Gunnar nodded. He held up his beer with his pinky extended and intoned in a pompously deep voice, “Let it be so recorded.”
Everyone laughed, then Kaem asked him, “Could you tell it’d happened?”
Gunnar snorted and shook his head, “Thought it’d failed. I guess you did too?”
Kaem nodded, “I thought I’d miswritten my time delay program.” He polished his nails on his shirt, then glanced up at them, “Shoulda known better than that.”
“Don’t try to pull that crap on us,” Arya laughed. “We’ve seen you make some monumental screw-ups.”
“Come on now.” Kaem protested. “Screw-ups I’ll admit to. But monumental? That’s too much, isn’t it?”
A wadded napkin bounced off the side of his head. He turned to Lee, “Et to Brute?”
“Et to me, Kaem,” she said with a laugh.
The waiter came over and wanted to take orders, so Arya paused the festivities for that. Once he’d gone back to the kitchen, she lifted her glass again.
