21)
Another few hours in the car, heading south, brought them to the Atlantic shore of North Carolina, near the city of Wilmington. The time was very early morning, nearly one, when they finally stopped. In his usual task-oriented manner, Zeta was out of the car right away, and Ro followed shortly. While she shut the door and stretched her arms and legs, she could discern the sound of the sea not far away. A humming sound, almost, or like sandpaper over a smooth surface. She lifted her face into the breeze, enjoying the moment, almost feeling her nerves soothed by the sea-fresh wind. Maybe the rest was a good idea after all her complaining and trepidation.
"You do have good taste, Zee," she said. Ro casted him a glance, and he was thoughtful, on the other side of the vehicle. In a way he was sort of Venusian, appreciating pretty things that pleased his two favorite senses: hearing, sight. Though his sense of smell was poor, Ro knew he had at least a slight understanding of how the air of North Carolina was drenched by the taste of the sea.
Dashing from the house that towered behind them, across the parking lot and to Zeta's side was a small and dark man, very humble, as though he'd been born only to serve. He spoke with a Middle East accent, just a delicate one, as though only a mere fraction of his life had been spent outside the States. "Mr. Smith, I presume?"
Zeta nodded. "Mr. Ishmael. We spoke on the phone."
"Yes. Nice to meet you."
Ro watched as the two shook hands. Zeta had taken the option of calling ahead to announce their unusual arrival time. To Mr. Ishmael, the owner of Eden Resort, the time was not within his limits of kindness to his guests. He showed them every courtesy he could, no matter at what odd hour they arrived. It was one of the attributes lost and missed in over-sized chain hotels. Ishmael was a man alone in the hospitality industry; his resort was independently owned and operated, with the help of Gotham City investors who occasionally stayed free of charge. Ro lifted an eyebrow and silently wondered what sort of character Ishmael was. She hoped that, whatever he was, he was honest and genuine.
"And where is the young lady?" Ishmael asked, then peered through the dark, only to spot the girl's bright blonde head. "There she is!" He smiled like he could not help it. Life was too beautiful and had been so good to him. He took Ro's hand gently in his own, which was warm and soft, friendly. "I am Ishmael Ishmael, Miss Smith. I am so glad you've decided to stay with us."
Ro thought maybe she was glad, too. But she was too tired to say anything. The strange world of the North Carolina shore took on a surreal feel to her, and she felt herself lapsing into a dreamy state. She enjoyed walking into the lobby of Eden's lodge. The chandeliers overhead were dimmed to a pleasing mid-range glow, as if to give the house some sleep, and everything was still, empty, satisfyingly lifeless. Their three sets of feet echoed across the pale marble floor as Ishmael Ishmael made his way across to the check-in table. Ro signed the register while Zeta took care of fixing a room. The hotel was hardly busy that time of year, right after school had started, before the fall color, after the warm temperature of the ocean. Ishmael was able to give them his best accommodation, over-looking the water, on the east side of the thirteen-bedroom, thirty-room mansion. Ro was just happy to see the room, to know the place was hers for as long as she wanted it. And it was gorgeous, simply and elegantly gorgeous. Posh, modern, airy, with an atmosphere that reflected such qualities. Ro felt immediately at home.
As soon as Ishmael Ishmael left, after many cordial goodnights, and every word ending in a sort of endearing laugh, Ro tugged off her shoes and socks, and allowed her toes the pleasure of wafting through the plush mauve carpet.
"What a funny little man," she said to Zeta. "Ishmael Ishmael! What sort of name is that?"
"Israeli," replied Zeta, as he looked out the set of double doors, beyond it's long wavy layers of sheer polyester covers. "Hebrew is the accent I detected. There's a nice view."
Ro severed herself from the soft bed to stand beside Zeta. She looked out over the expanse of night, nodding her agreement. It was lovely, at least what could be seen to a human at such an hour. She unlocked the door at the push of a small button, and it swept into the wall automatically, out of the way. Ro stepped on the iron balcony of the second story. "Imagine the sunrises you can see from here." Ro leaned her arms over the railing, and again Zeta couldn't understand the logic of her attempts to play with danger. She always seemed to walk a tight-rope, nearly at the edge of harm, but she always managed to elude it, like a master escape artist. He began to turn away from the door, as he had not stepped on the balcony at all, it didn't interest him, and he felt he should inspect the room. Everywhere they went, he inspected. Just to be on the safe side.
"Hey, Zee," Ro called. They watched each other intently for a moment, and Ro gave a shallow sigh. "I want to tell you that I---" she stopped and tried again. "Thanks."
Zeta only nodded, almost subdued by the gratitude. He hadn't done much, but Ro wouldn't understand his modesty. "I think you'll be safe here."
"What about that thing that's trying to kill us? That new thing, the one who keeps following us. What if it shows up?"
"It won't."
"You don't think it's the IU7, do you?"
"No, I don't think it is. This is someone who's human. It isn't a machine. Machines haven't the proper logic to play a ruse like what we witnessed on the EHT."
"You know what they say," Ro said with a snide grin, "never send a machine to do a human's job."
"In this case I'm sure the NSA would agree with you. It's safe here. There's that--savior--to think about now. If anyone had followed us here, this thing would let you--us--know." He disappeared inside, the curtain lifted wildly in his wake, until it stilled only to be caught in the faint draft of the sea wind.
Ro allowed his pronoun slip to go unnoticed, at least verbally, but it was noted and pressed with rue. She examined the view again, the ocean at its loudest during the quiet night, due to the lack of encroaching background noise. Her forehead dropped to her wrist, and she knew that she couldn't permit herself to think anymore about anything for the rest of the night, what few hours of it remained. They were the longest hours, between midnight and sunrise. Such hours had never been Ro's favorite. She'd always preferred mornings, when everything was alive and life was given a second chance, the chance to undo the mistakes of yesterday. She wondered how many mistakes she'd bothered to undo and how many more would come in the future. And how many of those will she fix? Not many.
Her parents' presence in her life, as ghosts and apparitions, even hallucinations of her brother, seemed to disappear, carried away on the movement of air.
But what had its purpose been in the first place, if they were truly gone?
She had found them, in a way, all over again in the last peculiar week. Her parents meant something to her, in their appearance, their words, their unmistakable emotional intensity toward their daughter. They had been able to bring her a sense of something she'd perhaps lacked before, perhaps a sense of an ending. She'd known for some time that they were dead, and how they had died, and who had died around them. But she had never fought with it; she'd never given herself a chance to accept it, despite all the times she'd thought of the wretched possibility. Their death had signified nothing to her, not a close, not an ending, just nothing. The only thing it brought to her was Casey, her brother. And Ro wasn't sure how great and heartwarming a reunion it had been. Perhaps the tension between the siblings would explain why she'd had a vision of him as well. Seeing him as a young boy, not the man in his mid-twenties that he was, reminded Ro that he'd been a young orphan once, like her. Once they had been a family, but only briefly. She never called it family. She couldn't even call the past by a sacred name, like memories.
Everything was gone. Nothing would be the way it had been. She was dealing with that. But why had she expected it in the first place?
"Because," Ro thought to herself, "there's still a little orphan girl inside that dreams of unrealistic things."
Ro meandered, her feet a tired shuffle, into the room, only bothering to fling the frothy curtains away from her as she passed, and tying to move out of the door's way before it shut on her.
Zeta was reading, stretched out on the wide bed, in a separate alcove of the enormous suite. He was scanning carefully the glowing display of the Reader, a device that displayed books from data on a mini-disc, similar to handheld games, and something Zeta tried never to travel without. A useful invention, and one of the most popular in the last twenty years. On a seven-by-five foot screen the text of the book was displayed, and font color, size, and background could be changed simply to suit. Pressing an indented button on either side or at the bottom of the Reader scrolled the text. Different discs could be purchased for a fair amount of money, usually between twelve and twenty credits, and each new disc contained an entire book, unable to be erased or altered, but favorite lines and passages could be stored for easy perusing at a later date. It was also equipped with satellite internet for downloading news articles from specific communications companies around the globe. Zeta loved the Reader, it suited his fast processing mind, but Ro still preferred the feel of a real book in her hands, the shifting of paper no longer made from trees, but from closely woven synthetic and soy fibers that would outlast wooden pulp.
As she saw him deep in his study, Ro wanted to yell at him for the thoughts she knew he was having, for his cunning plans, but she lacked the energy. Instead, she keeled upon the bed beside him. For a brief second, she espied what book he was reading. Psychology of Human Behavior, one of his favorites. He could reread any book or anything at will, just by erasing the memory. But Ro doubted he erased much of what he learned.
Zee paused his perusal, hit the small red button to mark his place, and looked down at Ro, whose eyes were closed. He set a gentle hand on the side of her head, and returned to his book.
"Goodnight, Ro," he whispered. "Sleep well." He may as well have said it for his own sake, for all the good it did for Ro. She was already lost in the beautiful world of natural human unconsciousness.
Ro wasn't surprised that when she awoke late the next morning, all primly tucked into bed, under the soft covers, she was alone. Without rising from the bed she examined the alcove, but could not see beyond the walls into the other room. For a moment she listened, and the only thing she could hear was the sound of the sea and draperies fluttering, since the door to the balcony had been opened. Sun flew in madly, all golden and promising, and Ro could see its warm face as it spread like a wheat field beyond the alcove. Her bedroom was dark, the window shut and leaving out the sunlight by means of a brocade curtain and heavy shade. The dark was nice, in its own macabre way, but Ro was ready for daylight.
Ro tossed from her side to her back, rubbing the sleep and dullness from her tired, unawake eyes. What would the world be like for her today? Judging by the pain deep in her gut, and also the dull bruise from her injury, it wouldn't be a great one, but it was survivable. All her days had been surmountable, or so it seemed, as she was still alive.
Weakly, in a very unanimated fashion, Ro tumbled from the high bed and tipped her head from the alcove to the empty living room. Only the sunlight was there, along with the wind from the open door, the shifting of the curtains to sway gently like undersea creatures. Ro fell against the wall and slid down to the floor. She placed the palms over her ears to keep out the silence of the room and the noise of the ocean, only to hear her heart beat. She wrenched shut her eyes and said to herself the word that tried to contradict the improbable but the likely. "No!"
It wasn't until she was downstairs a bit later that all her fears were finally confirmed. Ishmael Ishmael was behind the clerk counter, shuffling through papers, as cheerful as he'd been last night. He looked up when he saw the lanky blonde saunter tiredly into the lobby.
"Good morning, Miss Ro. How did you sleep?"
"Like a baby without a security blanket," retorted Ro.
Ishmael was momentarily thrown off by such a witty remark, but he found a moment to smile at her, his charming smile to which Ro was not even immune.
Ro set her arms atop the counter, where she had checked-in the night before. It seemed like ages ago. She scanned Ishmael's dark brown eyes, his dark features, and uttered a question void of timidity. "Ishmael, have you seen Mr. Smith this morning?"
Ishmael Ishmael only looked back at her, somehow blankly, void of conscious thought a long second. "Yes, Miss Ro. You didn't see him?"
"No. Why would I be asking you if I had?"
Ishmael hesitated. He furrowed his thick eyebrows. "I just assumed you knew he was--leaving."
Ro's heart flopped over in her chest, a most disturbing movement she hadn't felt in months, maybe years. Her pale hands gripped the edge of the counter, though she was in no danger of losing her balance. She just wanted to feel that the world wasn't falling out from under her, or that the sky wasn't sinking upon her.
Ishmael's face brightened, though he saw well the look of horror on Miss Ro's face. "He did leave a message for you. He almost forgot about it, but turned around asked me to give it to you when I saw you this morning. He didn't want to go back upstairs and disturb you, he said." While he spoke the words quickly, Ishmael fetched the message from the horizontal filing system on the back desk. He slid it across the counter for Miss Ro. Her hand shook when she lifted it, peeled apart the quarter-folded page.
When she read the words, she looked up at Ishmael. "What is this? A riddle?"
Ishmael shrugged. He hadn't read the message. How would he know? "Is Mr. Smith fond of riddles, Miss Ro?"
Ro read over the lines again in consternation, holding true contempt for Zeta and hating him deeper than any other time since they met.
Ishmael was dismayed at Ro's appearance. She looked most unwell. "I understand, then, that you didn't know he was going to leave?"
"No," she uttered nearly inaudibly. "No. I didn't know."
Even if she'd had her suspicions, even if she thought it was possible, she was still broken inside when she was met the grim reality. Ro managed to take leave of the lobby and the building, Ishmael saying something to her that she didn't comprehend. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Ishmael Ishmael knew it was for a good reason that he was ignored.
Ro fumbled through the doorway and out to the beautiful morning. A morning consisting of an azure sky and a bright sunlight that Ro hardly noticed. She traipsed with a purpose along the stone and garden-lined path that was a guide to the east side of the manor, heading to the ocean that beckoned. The note Zeta had left her was still in her hand, and, at times when the wind would catch the paper like the angles of a kite, she wanted to let it slip from her fingers and float far away. But she couldn't. She had to read it a dozen or more times before she could understand it, before it would seep through.
When she made it to the edge of the low cliff, the ocean's waves louder as they crashed below, Ro found the steps that lead to the beach and descended. The beach was empty, no guests loitered there, no one's footprints were in the sand. Only the call of some gulls and the echoes of old ghost ships were company. The line of rough pale sand was dotted by the occasional protruding rock and the more frequent globs of green seaweed and kelp. Ro found a dry place to sit, with the sun on her shoulders and the ocean's rhythmic movements before her. She held the note up again and read it. Zeta's penmanship was loopy, significative curves and sweeping corners, almost old-fashioned, like something from a forgotten century. Ro thought it a peculiar way to program a robot, with such antique printing capability, though it was elegant.
There was no written salutation, no greeting. The first words were the title of a poem by Byron. It was the poem that most puzzled her.
"So we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
"For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
"Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon."
At the very last corner of the paper, as though in an afterthought, Zee had written: "Be well, Ro." And the only thing he signed it with in farewell was the letter 'Z', small and beautifully printed.
Ro stared at the letter in a horror she was growing accustomed to. What did the poem mean? She couldn't take it for what it stated, that would be too easy. Maybe it had another meaning. Maybe there was an intention of giving up and turning themselves in, so that they would never rove again.
Ro gulped. "That can't be it."
The words were doubted even as they fell out of her mouth. Zeta wouldn't turn himself in. The idea was repugnant to him--and to her. They were a team, a pair, an inseparable unit of congruity; if they did anything so awful it would be done together.
She refused to think anymore about it, though the suspicion nagged at her terribly.
"Miss Ro! Miss Ro!" a woman shouted from the direction of the staircase from the beach to Eden Resort.
Ro looked up and saw a woman with long black hair, tanned skin and big black eyes run to her. A young woman, no more than twenty-five, with a friendly face and a tender spirit, who looked almost Romany. Ishmael's wife, Ro wondered. The woman's full and long prairie skirt flew about her legs as she stepped swiftly, barefoot, and anklets jingling like bells, across the sand and jumping over the occasional pile of kelp. As soon as she was near enough to Ro, the woman collapsed on the sand, panting, and her eyes brightened by the exertion. The fingers she set over Ro's cool arm were cozy and maternal.
"I'm Shirah Ishmael. Ishmael's wife. He sent me out here to look for you. He said you seemed unwell. Bad news?"
Ro, unable to find much to rebel against, flipped over the note to Shirah Ishmael. She watched the beautiful woman's heavily-lashed eyes dance through the lively words of the brief poem and, finally, to the caption below. Ro took the note when it was returned to her. Shirah was pensive.
"I see," she said.
Ro knew she didn't, really. It would be a common misconception. "We're not like that," she said. "He's just a friend. And God pity me if he wasn't."
Shirah nodded, and again set a hand on Ro in a sympathetic touch. Her warmness was almost therapeutic.
Ro looked out to the waves of the sea, for the first time really noticing it, and able to appreciate its vastness, solitude, mystery. She could drown in the feeling it procured in her. "There comes a point when you've known someone for so long, and they know too much about you, and you know too much about them, that you go past all the boundaries of any earthly relationship." Ro met Shirah's glance. "That's what it is like with him."
"Soul mates, you mean?"
Ro nearly laughed. People were at their most ironic when they were doused in ignorance. "Sure," she said through a crooked grin. "That idea would work."
Ishmael Ishmael came wading through the sand, hollering to his wife and Ro. He landed beside them, dry grains lifted by his feet as he stopped. "Shirah! Miss Ro! I was worried about you! Are you all right?"
Shirah knew how to handle her husband. She smiled at him, the same warm smile she'd given Ro, as though full of equal love for everyone. "She'll be okay. But I think she would probably like some breakfast. Maybe a brunch."
Ro got to her feet, feeling steady and like herself again. She hated to be shocked. She dusted herself off while replying to Shirah's kindness. "That's okay. I think it'd be better if I checked out instead."
Ishmael was eager to quell Ro's apprehension and dispel any thought of leaving when she so clearly needed to stay. "No, no, Miss Ro. You don't have to leave just yet. I think this place is very good for what you're suffering from."
Ro blinked, dumbfounded. Suffering? He had no idea.
"Our house is a good place for young ladies to heal their broken hearts."
Ro let that one go without a contradiction. In a way, it wasn't far from the truth, though her heartbreak derived from a dissimilar existence than what Ishmael believed. But, really, not by much.
Shirah took Ro by the elbow, already feeling kindred with the girl. A wounded heart and a kind soul were like adjoining stars in the heavens. A magnetism across a great distance to find and console, to be found and to be consoled.
"Come up to the house and you can have breakfast. There won't be much left, but you can come to our kitchen, and I will prepare whatever you want."
"And anything you need," Ishmael said, his accent making him seem like an innocuous accidental hero, "you just ask."
"Anything?" Ro repeated just to be sure.
Shirah and Ishmael nodded.
Ro said her favor in no hesitation. "I'd like a ride into Wilmington as soon as possible. There's someone I need to talk to."
After a brief brunch in Shirah and Ishmael's private kitchen, Ro's simple request was granted, carried out by Shirah. Since Ishmael was busy running the hotel and transacting business, it left Shirah able to do the chores in town. Ro immediately discovered that the Ishmael's had two small children. Manoah Ishmael, who was five, spent the mid-afternoon hours in a local pre-school program. And Mishael Ishmael was barely two; a lovely little boy with curly dark locks, soft and smooth, who followed his mother everywhere. Mishy, as he was called, soon took a liking to Ro, which was something she didn't anticipate. Once again it proved her point that kids found her fascinating and people generally liked her, though she still couldn't understand why. "It must be the vibes I give off," she thought to herself. Mishy reached out from Shirah's hold, wanting to be held by no one else but the new stranger he'd set his keen brown eyes upon. Ro reluctantly lifted him from Shirah, and the boy was immediately contended. Shirah joked and said that Ro had made a new friend as she softly touched the baby's rounded cheek. The boy embarrassedly smiled and dipped his head from view of his mother, pressing his face against Ro's shoulder. Ro had to admit that she liked the little guy. She would look beyond the edge of her front seat in the car, on their way to Wilmington, and whenever she did Mishy would smile and utter childish greetings to her.
Once in Wilmington, Ro decided Shirah should let her off at the nearest Ground Wire. Shirah consented, and they devised that as soon as she was done with her chores, she would stop by again later and pick up Ro. In agreement, Ro left the car, waved goodbye to Mishy, and headed into the Ground Wire.
It wasn't like the one in Richmond. That had been independently owned, decorated how the manager wanted. The Wilmington Ground Wire was more like the ones she was used to. Modern, high-ceiled, its cool pastel blue floor, seats, counter, chairs mixed with the pale golden yellow wall color and accent touches here and there. Ro wandered to the bar and sat on the stool. She shooed away the robotic waiter, who insisted on taking her order.
"Welcome to Ground Wire. May I take your order, please? Welcome to Ground Wire. May I take your order, please?" it barked.
"Get away from me, stupid thing!" Ro yelled at the machine, trying to be as quiet as possible. The attention brought out one of the humans from the back, a female assistant manager. Before the woman could protest, Ro spoke. "I'd like to use your phone."
"We have a pay phone---"
"No, no, it won't work. They'll be calling here. I'll just need to call and leave a brief message for someone. It's really important." Ro must've said something right, or just in the right way, because the manager consented. Ro was given the phone and allowed to use it for only five minutes. Ro gave her gratitude, and the manager returned to the back out of sight. Ro dialed the number adroitly, the phone relying purely on digital connection, without the more modern amenity of video capture. As Tiff's computer messaging service prompted, Ro punched in the number of the local Ground Wire by finding it printed on a nearby stack of business cards. She hung up when through, then tediously waited, tapping her long fingers on her arms as she had them crossed on the sill of the counter. She stared at the phone, waiting. It finally rang to life, and a few patrons were startled by the unexpected noise. Ro lifted the receiver eagerly to her ear.
"Tiff," she said, "it's me."
Tiff, back home in Hillsburg, cradled the phone to her shoulder as she wandered the length of her bedroom. "I figured. I didn't recognize the number. Where are you now, girl?"
Ro wasn't ready to answer. "Is the---" she looked around and remembered she was in a public place. "Is your line secure?"
"Yes," Tiff said. "I bought some time before I called. If the NSA finds out, tough luck. I'm not going to tell them the truth. You can talk. It's all right."
Ro was grateful for Tiff's recognizance for the safety of both of them, and acting upon it before it was too late. "All right. Well, I'm North Carolina at a Ground Wire near the coast. I'm in a kind of convalescence right now. Zee's idea."
"Oh, that sounds nice. I think you need it. I was really worried about you."
"But, Tiffy, listen. Zee took off this morning. I don't know if he's coming back. You haven't heard anything this morning, have you? Any news? Did he turn himself in?"
Tiff ran a hand over her combed-back hair, damp from having just been washed. She sighed into the mouth piece. "No, nothing. I think he would've told me."
"He?" Ro asked. "He who? Who he?"
"I mean Agent West."
Ro rolled her eyes and huffed. She remembered what Zeta had told her yesterday about Tiffany and West's premiere meeting, and it boiled Ro's mind to anger. "Tiff!"
"Well, he would've," was Tiff's bold retort, though behind the words held a softness. "He was here last night, asking me questions about you."
"What else was he going to do? Of course he's going to ask you questions about me."
"No, not the usual questions. He wanted to know about you. I mean really know you. He asked me what you were like when you were younger."
Ro chuckled, trying to imagine the look on Orrin West's face when Tiff told him the Holy Terror of Maryland that had been Rosalie Rowen.
Tiff changed the subject, no longer interested in thinking of West's visit when Ro seemed to be in trouble. "Why'd Zee leave?"
"I don't know."
"He'll probably come back."
"He'd better."
"He wouldn't wish to get on your bad side. H'mm. Does he even know you have a bad side?"
"Sure he does. He knows I'm not perfect." The idea of Zeta having ignored all of Ro's dislike for a few million people in the world made her snicker. "But I am worried. He's been weird lately."
"You've been weird lately, too." Tiff was quiet while trying to find the right words to console her sister. All the words seem like failures. "He cares about you. He'll be back."
"He took your car, Tiff. And he left me without a way to pay the hotel bill."
"I don't care about the car. But the fact that he left you without being able to pay your bill just goes to show you that he'll be back. I doubt he'd leave you stranded. That's not Zee. You know it isn't."
Ro knew, but there she was, facing the possibility. "If you hear anything, put an ad in the personals. Think of something clever. I'll know it's you. Okay? I don't want to give you the number to the place I'm staying."
Tiff understood. "I'm sure nothing will happen. But I'll keep an eye out. Maybe he'll come back up here for some reason. How did you two manage to get away?"
"Well," Ro scooted past a couple of empty stools, to the end of the bar, where she was farthest from the ears of the locals, "it was bizarre. Someone saved us. Bennett was there. He had me by the throat, a knife at my side."
"Rosalie!" Tiff interrupted, unable to contain her fright.
"I'm fine," Ro said dismissively. "A little puncture, but I'm fine. I don't think Bennett really has a violent bone in his body. Anyway, Jimbo was knocked out by a tranquilizer that Zee says was shot by some child from across the street."
"A child? That's strange. On purpose?"
"Yes, on purpose. We got lucky, because Bennett was the only one there."
"I'm glad you got away. West was here when he got the call that you were in Spring City."
"How did they know?"
"I didn't ask him that. You know I couldn't. He didn't tell me that's where you were, but I knew. He left in a hurry."
"What about the other one?"
"Agent Rush, you mean. She was here, but left before West did. That's when he asked me about you. He said he wanted to get inside your head a little more."
"Good luck to him," Ro said slyly. "If he does, he should tell me where my mind is. I'd like to know." She looked around the café to see if the manager was leering, about ready to hang up the phone if she didn't do it first. Luckily, Ro saw no one gawking at her abrasively, and even the robot servant was disinterested. She was pleased with the moment of invisibility, knowing, for a brief interlude, what it was like to live in anonymity.
"He doesn't know what he's fighting for. You elude him. It pisses him off. And I'm so glad." Tiff gave another expiration into the phone.
"You like him!" Ro said, in a cruel, joking whisper. "You like Orrin West!"
"I do not! Rosa!" Tiff retaliated, and, even though Ro was far away, Tiff could feel her cheeks turn hot. "How could you think such a thing? It's positively mortifying."
Ro didn't bother to burn Tiff further. It was a little scary, as though fate was drawing back the last protective and secure layer of casing it'd thrown over Ro. She would not lose Tiffany Morgan as an ally. "Stay away from him, Tiff. Please," she spoke in a dimmed, serious voice. "You can't trust them. You can't trust him."
"Yes, I know, Ro. I don't trust him. I hate the NSA. You know how much I hate the NSA. West is no different. He isn't."
Ro believed her, at least moderately. "I've got a lot of hope for you, Tiff. You can't leave me now."
"Oh, honey," Tiff said, and drew in a long, slow breath. She flopped on the edge of her bed and tried to swallow back the tears rushing to her eyes. "I won't abandon you now, sweetie."
Ro smiled briefly, a mist of water filling her eyes as well. Any other day such a phrase wouldn't have phased her. Her sensitivity, usually in the subhuman range, was abnormally sky-high. "We'll find a way, Tiff. There's got to be a way."
"I know, Ro. Soon, too. I wish I was there to bring you some comfort. You sound like you need it. Do you want me to come down?"
"No," Ro said, though the offer was tempting. "That would only make them suspicious. You stay there. I'd better get off the line now."
"All right, I'll let you go. If you need something, you call again. And I'll find a way to get a message to you if I hear anything about Zee. I'm sure he's fine. And I know he'll come back. Just wait there. He'll return. He wouldn't leave you now. I won't either. We're your devoted angels. We'd go to the grim underworld and Heaven just for you, like you have done for us."
Ro loved the thought, even appreciated it. But she couldn't help her cynicism. "Why don't you tell that to West?"
"I might, someday, when he's ready to believe me."
"Don't hold your breath. I gotta go," Ro said, just as the manager began to make an angry appearance. "Bye, Tiff."
"Wait, Ro!"
"What? Make it snappy."
"I just wanted to say that--um--" Tiff covered her shut eyes with the back of her limp wrist. "I love you, Ro."
It was shocking to the very core of her soul. She lost her wind for a moment, half-laughing, half-crying. "Thank you, Tiff. I don't think anyone's ever told me that before, that I can remember."
"People should say it more. I'll say it more."
Ro wiped off her smile as the manager spied on her from the end of the bar. Ro felt uncomfortable, but managed to say one last thing to Tiff. "I love you too, Tiffy. Speak to you soon. Bye."
The call ended. The line went dead and the phone shut off automatically. It was silent and still in her hand, a lifeless artifact. She stared at it, still stunned at the words she'd heard through the device. The woman came over, and Ro handed her the phone. The manager looked a little started when she saw that the girl's eyes were red, touched with a film of tears. The woman was thanked again, then presently vanished from view.
Ro collapsed her head in her hands, worn out, exhausted, sad. She hated that feeling, the crack of a broken heart and the loneliness it exuded. But the pain was too strong, radiating everywhere it could ooze, and her feeble hate had lost its battle long before drawing a sword.
The recovery from the war wounds seemed impossible. Amputation never heals. There were new scars forming.
--
Notes
The poem Zeta gives to Ro
Lord Byron, So We'll Go No More A Roving. (Not one of his better poems.)