Chapter Two
The next morning, Otto and Rosie began searching for a house outside the district he had lately stained with his presence. They bought a large apartment overlooking Central Park. Technically, Rosie bought the apartment, since hers was the only name on the paperwork. Otto had gotten a better handle on his actuators, with Rosie being the voice of reason against their passionate ravings. He hadn't thought it was possible, but he found himself settling back into civilized life: back into regular meals, back to reading, back to dry clothes, a loving wife, and a warm bed. However, the police would not believe his transformation, Otto was sure, and he and Rosie agreed that to have any semblance of a normal life, Otto would have to drop off the map. No one could know where he was.
The sun came out after breakfast. A month since house-seeking began and two weeks after they had moved in, they were just about finished unpacking. Rosie had been feeling ill lately, so Otto sent her to the medical clinic with flowing assurances of "better safe than sorry" and "you know I'm a worrier; please do this for me," despite her protests that it was only a stomach flu and would pass. She had gone directly after breakfast.
Otto stood before a broad, chestnut bookshelf, lining scientific journals and romance novels side-by-side on the shallow shelves with the rapid help of his actuators. He smiled as he remembered when he and Rosie had chosen the bookshelf. Otto had offered a tall, practical bookshelf with artless lines: no lines at all, actually, except vertical and horizontal. But Rosie had quickly corrected him. "It must be dark wood," she had told him. "No oak or rosewood. It has to be distinguished and dramatic." He was still trying to learn what constituted "distinguished and dramatic."
Otto had been pondering what to do for work. He could not use his fame – if ever he had any, especially not now – to provide for himself and his wife. Rosie wouldn't make him work: he knew she wouldn't. And if he asked her, she would remind him to lie low, much more concerned with keeping him than the strain it would put on her. He would need to find something in science, since he knew little else, and something where correspondence was pretty confidential. Well, entirely confidential, but what employer would hire him with no knowledge at all?
Maybe he could write books on his theories, using a penname. Hm, that was a thought. And Rosie could help him with the publishing, or perhaps even publish it under her own name: after all, she had lived with him during his entire research and experimentation period. No one would question her when she seemed to know the subject so well.
"Then you could help," Otto told his actuators.
Yes. A very good idea, they replied gleefully.
Very, very good!
Let's start right now!
We must repair the fusion reactor.
We must try again.
Rebuild.
Rebuild.
Rebuild.
Otto stopped stacking and pressed the palms of his hands into his ears, cringing. He couldn't rebuild. He couldn't. Not yet, at least. After he worked out the kinks, maybe. Writing down his theories and doing more research would be useful. However, he needed to be careful. With Rosie around, sometimes he forgot the tentacles' obsession with fusion. But it had obviously not dampened in the least. He couldn't afford to let his guard down even for an instant.
The front door opened and closed.
"I'm back, Otto," Rosie called, setting her purse on the table.
Otto walked around the corner and into the dining room-entryway complex, his tension melting away.
"Hi Rosie," he greeted with a smile. "What did the doctor say?"
Rosie made a strange face, her eyebrows lifting and she slowly removed her coat. "Well, I'm not sick. Not really."
Otto made a face. "What? You've lost your appetite and have been vomiting for days. How can that doctor possibly not find something? I'd suggest getting another opinion, Rosie, I really do. If a medical doctor can't recognize a pathogen when he sees one, then—"
Rosie stopped Otto's rant by gripping her husband's arms with the strangest smile he had ever seen contort her face: it was the purest, brightest joy mixed with absurd disbelief.
"Otto," she breathed, shaking her head with the same smile. "I'm pregnant."
