IV.
For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed to feel for it, for all the celebrations it had been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness, and playing the part of dangerous abettor of world-wide ambitions.

The Mirror of the Sea
Joseph Conrad


The dark cherry Citroen rolled to a stop under the glare of a red traffic light, convertible top shimmying back to let in the cooling night air. Its driver leaned back languidly rolling her neck with a diaphragm-deep sigh. Tapping her fingers idly on the dash, Christine's gaze wandered idly around her surroundings, passing over coffee shops and storefronts before falling upon the neon-decorated booth the size of a ticket concession stand.

On the left corner, its headliner proudly boasted SEQUENCING-WHILE-YOU-WAIT, its queue of customers, a constant, unabated flow. Each one pressed their evidence into the steel metal tray under a teller window. Hair, skin, spunk and spit delivered in baggies, vials, anything, provided it was a good, fresh sample - taken and chucked it into a machine, and for a mere eighty-five dollars, you were rewarded with a twelve-foot printout of your prospective whatever.

Her eyes dropped to the object occupying the passenger seat: an innocuous, nine-inch plastic tube.

Unless you knew certain lab rats.

Pacing back and forth across the room of instruments, shuffling the valise from hand to hand, surrounded by needles and hazmat bags, iodine swabs and ammonia.

"Are you sure you want to see this?"

Footsteps stilling. A glance. Details on the screen too small, too far away for her to catch anything more than a grainy black-and-white employee photo at the top.

"Maybe he has a deep, dark secret. Something so awful and lurid, he's forced to hide away from the world."

And that, she thought, was the crux.

A tap of the print key. Rolled up results packed neatly into a small transport tube. A transfer of hands. And Meg's knowing smile.

"Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

The light changed. Christine stepped on the accelerator, managing all of three blocks before being halted by another red. Irritation pricked at her shoulders and neck.

The finest technology to reach the stars and they still couldn't figure out how to properly time a sequence of stoplights.

Yet another sequencing booth, with its never-ending stream of clientele, operated kitty-corner. At one window, a well-dressed woman parted her lips as the teller swabbed a Q-tip over them. Next over, a CSR handed a man back a dossier. A third customer stepped up to the window slot, and dropping a small vial of some milky substance into the tray.

Christine averted her eyes and fixed them back on the road ahead, hands white-knuckled against the steering wheel.

"Thank you for taking the time to come down." Seat after seat of impassive faces. Polite, smarmy condescension. "Unfortunately, you're not quite what we're looking for."

"But I haven't even sung five bars!"

"Oh, I don't think we need to hear any more."

"If you just give me a chance, I'll show you what I can—"

"Perhaps we did not make ourselves clear, Ms. Daae." Five toothy smiles; a perfect gleaming row of white picket fences. "With your pre-existing condition, I guarantee no conservatory will accept you. You have potential, but unfortunately, your liabilities are too severe."

"Liabilities? I don't..."

And there it was, her application innocuously sitting on the edge of the table, a corner peeled up from the envelope, revealing a yellow tinge of glue. They'd already made their decision.

Reluctantly, almost involuntarily, Christine's line of sight crept back to her own Pandora's tube. Like the mystery himself, it teased and mocked her relentlessly, secrets begging to be unsealed.

It occurred to her that perhaps she didn't want to know. Didn't want to put a face, a form, something so prosaic and...human to it all. And what did it matter anyway?

In the course of her circular musings, she could hardly be bothered to notice a black Studebaker Avanti pulling up next to her, until its headlights flickered, catching her attention. As she glanced over at tinted windows, opaque under the street lamps, the lights flickered again, accompanied by an engine rev, an unspoken dare.

Common sense told Christine to ignore the juvenile challenge. Reason also chimed in with grandmotherly-sounding pragmatism. Casually, almost imperceptibly, she toed the clutch, gliding the stick from neutral into first.

When the light flashed green, they both peeled out of the intersection, tearing through the streets in unrestrained fury.

The Avanti was impressive, handling remarkably well down the stretch of road, its engine working into a fevered whine right before it shifted into higher gear. Christine's Chapron, however, was no ordinary fuel spitter. The DS21 (to the discovery and chagrin of one Meg Giry) hit comfortable cruising velocity at eighty or so, and like the good little masochist it was, not only liked to be pushed beyond most reasonable limits, but begged for more afterwards, as witnessed by the second and third gears snapping into play under an expert hand.

Still a full length ahead, the Studebaker flashed its left signal.

Lips curled up and the pink tip of tongue darted out to lick the right edge of her mouth as Christine ratcheted the shifter up another gear. The tube, having long lost its seat, bounced happily around on the passenger floor, forgotten.

Fourth.

They spun around the next corner, a precise snap turn pressing the Cabriolet's low profile body a half length forward, he brief burning smell of rubber and asphalt tickling her nose. Adrenaline burned hot and fast, pure liquid octane sizzling down Christine's nerves, until it bled out into the steering wheel. Wind bit at her face, rippling through her hair; one hand idly flicked back a stray blonde lock that had flown apart from the rapidly loosening knot of her hair; the other pushed the stick up just one more notch.

Fifth.

Street lamps faded into the distance as both cars blew away from the over lit downtown district. Abandoning the race altogether, both cars cruised down the strip at easier (though still highly illegal) speeds.

The Studebaker moved like a finely tuned shadow over the darkened highway, wheels humming over the cool night road, the barest kiss of light slicking over its form. Next to it, the Citroen fairly glowed fire and burgundy, the knot of Christine's hair, having come completely undone, flew wildly behind her, a pale shock of sunlight under the occasional pulse of a halogen.

As the stretch of highway eventually coalesced into familiar landmarks of houses and outlines of other beachfront property, and as her home loomed into view Christine reluctantly decelerated.

Time for all good little girls to put the toys away and go to bed.

The car beside her also slowed, puzzled. She shook her head at the tinted window, and it hesitated for a moment longer, seemingly undecided, before accelerating off into the night.

Her gaze lingered on the road long after the other car's taillights had faded from sight, then, reluctantly, she turned down the paved driveway and into the underground garage.

Soft white lights brightening to half-luminance greeted her as she stepped into the apartment, dropping her valise onto the kitchen counter. They had been the first things she'd insisted changing upon moving in, protesting the bleakness of his overhead fluorescents. Raoul had merely shrugged, smiled and let her rule carte blanche.

Just don't put up curtains, had been his only request, as he stood before the ceiling-to-floor windows, admiring the breathtaking view of the ocean as it extended to the horizon and beyond.

Printout in hand, Christine padded to the window, past the sleek lines of the king-sized bed, to where he had stood only a year ago, contemplating the expanse of water bucking and rolling below.

No, Christine could —would— never deny him that. Every morning, until the day he'd left, she'd observed him through the window, carving his way through the waves, as he fearlessly swam out to sea. She'd bite her thumbnail, quiet and breathless, haunted by an inexplicable, nagging fear that one day he'd drift too far out and never return. He always did, though, never faltering, always paddling back to her with sure, even strokes.

As always, she would meet him on the beach, carefully behind the creeping water line, watching him emerge, shoulders, waist, hips and legs rising out of the waves, salt water sluicing off his form. And, as always, he would turn back, just once more towards the big blue, an abstract, restless gaze, as if he'd left something back there, hidden in the ocean's depths.

"What are you looking for?" She'd queried one morning, as he dragged himself in from the surf.

His head shook slowly, scattering water droplets into the air. "What?"

"You seem to always be looking for something."

"Oh," he hesitated. "I don't know. A memory, I guess."

Then, as if to forestall any more questions, he pulled her protesting form against his damp skin, lifting her so her feet hovered above the water, and pressed a dozen salty kisses to her mouth.

Even now, seventeen years after the summer, she still found herself afraid of the ocean, of its unpredictability and violence. Something about the illusion of being suspended above all that open water terrified her, as if any moment the floor would give away beneath her and she would disappear in the currents below.

She shuddered, slightly, at the sound of foot-high waves crashing to shore. In another week they would grow another six inches, perhaps a foot; the water margin would creep another yards or so inland. The ocean would reclaim the shore and Raoul would return.

One man's mistress, the big blue, the other...

Lifting the printout, she unrolled and scanned its preliminary contents.

Engineer, Class VI
Guidance, Navigation and Control Systems.

...rocket ships and engines.

She studied the photo a bit longer. Dark haired. Light eyed. Pleasant but (confirmed by another lingering look) unremarkable features.

And then there was the name.

"Erik Jonathan Reyer." Its intonation tumbled strangely around her mouth, even as she attached all those letters, that face, to the voice and violin.

Further perusal into the endlessly detailed streams of ATGC nucleotides revealed something Christine had rarely witnessed: a band layout so even and measured, it seemed almost unreal.

With a laugh, she tossed the length of paper over her shoulder, before turning back towards the window. The printout arched in the air, fluttering like a streamer, as it wound itself into a lazy pile on the floor.

"Erik," she repeated.

Curiously, as if moving from some half-blotted bit of muscle memory, her hand found itself pressed to the glass.


She nearly missed it, thoughts occupied elsewhere, as her fingers mindlessly keyed in updates to the endless stacks of flight rosters into the console. It was only because of a mild falter, a misspelling, that Christine had come upon his name yet again, this time third on the manifest list of an upcoming mission.

As her right hand backspaced over the "c," replacing it with a "k," the other flipped the dossier back to its front page.

Europa Ice Clipper Expedition, the cover read, its scheduled launch date still several months off. Above it, in the upper right hand corner, the Flight Director's double-underlined scrawl printed out the flight's mark of death in bold red print.

Recommend cancellation.

Behind her, a thin, middle-aged man with a perpetually pinched expression carved into his face, scribbled another mark on the cover of a flight folder before tossing it atop the ever increasing stack on the corner of his desk. Christine tried not to wince.

One more budget cut. One more grounded flight.

She thumbed through the pages of Europa documentation, biting back a sigh. It might not have been the most sought after expedition on the boards, but the sudden decision reeked of much more than a simple budgeting decision. All the research, four billion dollars in designs, impactor hardware and propulsion systems, to be summarily written off, seemed a little too arbitrary, somehow.

"That," Christine glanced up to the creased features of the Mission Director, as he gestured to the folder in her hands, "is exactly what I was looking for."

Plucking the documents from her slack grip, Poligny ignored the marking on the front, deliberately fingering through the pages. He paused when he reached the roster of names on the flight manifest, lowering the brief, as he favored the Flight Director's assistant with a thoughtful look.

"My assistant, unfortunately, is out today, and as I have several people to see..." His gaze dropped meaningfully back to the contents of the folder. "Perhaps you could accompany me, Ms. Daae?" She started, slightly, surprised he even knew her name. "That is, if your boss doesn't mind."

Half arched out of her chair, Christine threw a pleading look back at Gabriel, who merely grunted. Before his fingers had even finished their disinterested wave of dismissal, she had already followed Poligny out the door.

Polite nods and greetings from the ever-moving stream of impeccable dark suits passed by as they made their way through the main tube. The Flight Director chatted, with casual animation, about the flights he'd witnessed in his tenure at Gattaca, gesticulating enthusiastically as he described the first Cassini mission, how everyone had remained fixed to their screens as the first transmitted photos trickled in through the satellites.

"It took nearly seven years to reach Saturn, the first time. Now, it's a month there, another back." The dossier dangled lightly from his fingers. "The Titan expedition is supposed to return soon, isn't it?"

"In six days, sir."

He nodded, and they continued down the hall.

"How long have you been with us, Christine?"

"Nearly three years."

"Have you ever thought of transferring to another department?" Her eyebrows raised as she turned to him. Poligny merely returned an enigmatic smile before elaborating, "My assistant will be leaving in three weeks. Getting married, you see. For some unknown reason, they plan to move to Europe. This means, not only will Gattaca will be losing its finest navigator, I will also be short an employee."

"Ah, so this is, in actuality, a pre-emptive poach."

A snap of fingers. "Precisely. In any case, I can't imagine you voluntarily staying where you are."

She hesitated, murmuring, "Director Gabriel...he can be...difficult sometimes."

"He's a humorless, lemon-faced, budget-slashing prick, that's what he is."

She almost smiled. "Yes, sir."

Before she realized it, they had entered Engineering, and the familiar, symmetrical lines of the complex began taking on a distinctly deconstructivist nature; strangely sloped ceilings, occasional arches and partly carved tunnels running rampant. A series of pillars here. A rhomboid deck there. A collective of abstract forms, all interconnected with no seeming logic.

Christine had the odd impression of strolling through a high-tech funhouse. Fortunately, Poligny seemed to know where he was heading, expertly guiding them through the increasingly confusing corridors, holes and switchbacks, until at last, they reached their destination.

Apprehension spiked as the Mission Director's hands fell on the lever to the main programming unit, pushing open the double doors leading to the auditorium-sized room. With a sharp intake of breath, Christine took in the sights of the three-story wonder with something akin to stunned fascination. Particle collectors and analyzers lay scattered about the room, dust flux monitors, engines and wheels and assorted telescopic devices she didn't recognize, hummed and whirred and rolled asynchronously under the glare of a half dozen flashing cinema screens, playing the demented symphony of a billion dollar toy store.

Another laborious task of forcing herself to remember to breathe, she reluctantly, almost fearfully swung her eyes from the sight before her to the far wall where Poligny stood at the missing Mr. Reyer's desk.

How...anticlimactic.

Nothing like the sickening buildup of nervous tension to discover, upon entering the playground of the man in question, he wasn't even there.

The desk was immaculate. No photos, no coffee cups or any other personal paraphernalia lying about. The only evidence that this particular terminal was even in use was an AutoCad rendered simulation of impactor plume dynamics chugging away on the flatscreen.

Captured by the movie sim, she stumbled and nearly tripped over a violin case at the foot of the desk. Poligny quickly caught her arm before she could fall. As she stammered out an apology, he merely shook his head, leading her away by the elbow.

"I think I know where he might be. Shall we?"


Hangar Seventeen bustled with frantic activity, bodies gingerly moving amidst a cacophony of saws, cabling and portable TIG welders. A tweak here. An adjustment there. Running feet and bodies pressing roughly by them with a mumbled apology, before quickly dashing off into the corridor.

The Flight Director didn't pay much attention to the activities surrounding the newly designed shuttle, focusing instead on the expanse of platforms and ladders, searching, and when he stopped, looking up, Christine did as well. Ah.

He stood, sixty feet above ground, profile partly hidden by a lateral beam, perched at the edge of the scaffolding, arms crossed, a silent and unobtrusive watcher. The strange and utter stillness to his form cut a sharp contrast to the stained and greasy chaos of the engine crew.

Then, as if suddenly aware of the scrutiny, he stiffened and slowly turned, eyes first flickering over Poligny, before moving to the woman at beside him. Christine remained planted as his gaze swept over her, the barest glimmer of surprise hovering over his features (but only for a moment. So brief, perhaps, she thought, she might have only imagined it), before shifting to something more neutral. But those eyes never left hers, even as he made his way down five stories of scaffolding, ever-so casually descending the connecting ladders. Eight feet above, one black gloved hand gripped the side of the rail and he gracefully dropped to the ground in front of them.

He said nothing, merely returned the same speculative look she'd been giving him.

Realizing she was staring, and rather blatantly at that, Christine licked her lips, clearing her throat, and managed to get out, "You're a difficult man to locate, Mr. Reyer."

The look of mild amusement slowly settling on his face made her suddenly want to retreat back to the safety of her shared office with the humorless, old lemon-face.

"Not so much," he said, finally breaking his silence And there was that voice again, the accent and dark pitch tickling her eardrums. At that moment, all the odd fragments of song locked into place.

"If it isn't the Vitruvian man himself." They both looked away, startled, having completely forgotten the presence of Poligny. "How goes the work on the Ice Clipper?"

"The usual chaos. Several last minute adjustments still need to be made, but everything is still ahead of schedule. As always." Attention shifted momentarily to Christine and then back. "I've heard there might be cutbacks."

A derisive snort. "That's not of any concern to you. The only thing you need to worry about is that chunk of hardware over there getting all of you where you need to go."

They talked a bit more, of flight patterns, jet propulsion and ejecta velocity, with the kind of animation only like-minded rocket scientists could appreciate. In the midst of their discussion, Christine took the time to surreptitiously study the features of the man before her.

He was a head taller than either of them. Much like the printout, his features were striking but not to the point of prettiness. Dark hair combed neatly back over his skull. And strangely pale green eyes. Closer inspection revealed thin, barely visible pinstripes running the length of his charcoal three piece suit. His white shirt, buttoned at the neck, was bound by a deep maroon necktie, which, she noticed with an internal smirk, was just a bit askew.

There was a laugh. Christine blinked, eyes flying from the tie back to Poligny.

"Yes, yes, of course," the Mission Director barked, clapping a friendly palm on the other man's shoulder. Erik, curiously enough, appeared distinctly uncomfortable with the display, tightly wound tension in his frame receding only when Poligny finally removed his hand. "I only wish there more people like you, Erik. It's men of your caliber who'll lead us into the future."

With a brisk nod of approval, Poligny pivoted and headed back towards the hangar entrance.

"You two seem to know each other," he remarked offhand, as his assistant of the day lingered close behind.

Christine glanced back, briefly, before resuming her place beside the Mission Director.

"Hardly, sir."


"Well? Did you read it?"

Affecting nonchalance, Christine dipped her spoon into a bowl of Minestrone soup, stirring the contents in a maddeningly slow pace. "Mmhmm."

"And?"

"And..."

Obviously, she wasn't going to make it easy. Meg impatiently twirled a clump of noodles around her fork, dripping Alfredo sauce to the plate. "How goes the saga of the mystery musician?"

"He's not what I expected."

"Not what you..." Lunch all but forgotten, the younger Giry eagerly leaned forward. "Don't tell me you've already found him."

More stirring. "The Mission Director requested my assistance this morning."

"Flight candidate?"

"Mhm."

Sauce spotted the tabletop. "And Christine's life get more and more interesting all the time. Enlighten me then, what exactly does a nine-point-five look like?"

"Linguine."

"What?"

She pointed with her spoon. "You've got linguine in your hair."

With a squawk of disgust, Meg threw herself back into her chair, hastily wiping Alfredo sauce from her locks. "Don't think you're getting out of this." Tossing the crumpled napkin aside, she steepled her fingers together. "Now, spill."

Taking a careful sip of her soup, Christine considered. "He looks...like any other man."

"Any other man with god-like genes." Picking up her fork again, Meg gathered up more pasta. "My, my. Trading up departments and men in one day. I need to start hanging around you more."

The other woman bristled. "Just because you use the lab as your personal dating service doesn't mean—"

The fork of caloric violence hovered threateningly in the air. "Hey, hey! You're the one loudly protesting your engagement." Noodles and white sauce disappeared into her mouth, and Christine was thankful for something to keep that trap shut, if only temporarily. "I suppose you've got a week to figure it out," came the full-mouthed mumble, as Meg thoughtfully masticated. "In the meantime, who knows what can happen? You might even think about introducing him to...a good friend."

The spoon fell out of her hand as Christine stared at Meg, appalled.


The remainder of lunch turned out to be an enlightening, if rather unpleasant experience for Christine. Meg's unending quest for laboratory love had not settled well with her at all, the result of which left a faint but distinct queasiness lingering in her digestive system.

The single-child nature of her upbringing remained fiercely averse to the idea of sharing. Especially when it came to the music. The voice. The place. The one thing she had all to herself, that no one else could touch. The mere idea of it no longer being exclusively hers left her irritated and mildly disagreeable, tension only compounding as the afternoon drew lazily on.

Or it might have just been the Minestrone.

Still, when seventeen hundred and change rolled around, she found the uneasiness quickly quashed by a certain anticipation, as she once again headed to the roof the hothouse complex. She skidded to a surprised halt, however, when she spotted he of the voice and violin and grand shuttle plans, leaning ever-so casually in the shadows of an alcove.

Sunglasses shielded his eyes from the setting afternoon rays. The very top button of his collar was undone, the vee of his tie hanging loosely below, its end thrown casually over one shoulder. Across the other, lay the body of a violin, with black gloved fingers casually wrapped around the delicate neck and bow.

At her unvoiced question, Erik tilted his head. "Seems rather pointless to hide now."

"I don't see why you even felt the need to do it in the first place," she snitted somewhat crossly.

Lips curled up sardonically. "Because I'm shy, mademoiselle. Had I known you were interested in more than just my music, I might have introduced myself sooner."

She prudently decided to change the subject.

"I've been meaning to ask. I've never seen you come or go. How do you even get up here?"

He lifted the violin from his shoulder, studying its body. "The design of this place lends itself to many hidden secrets. This," twirled the neck in his hands, "is one of them."

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised after seeing what goes on in Engineering."

An unclassified disdainful noise rumbled deep in his throat. "It's ugly as sin and a fancy waste of space."

"You speak with such authority, Mr. Reyer," she teased. "Are you an architect as well?"

"I might have been."

As she prepared another battalion of questions, most involving some form of how or why, he silenced her with a finger pressed to his mouth. A moment later, the familiar whine of rocket engines flared to life.

Christine found it difficult to fully concentrate on the launch, throwing occasional surreptitious glances at the man who, in contrast, seemed entirely focused on the sky.

As the last trails of engine flare winked into the distance, she finally spoke.

"At least you'll be up there soon enough."

"Perhaps."

"Why Europa?"

Gaze still lingering somewhere in the stratosphere, he said softly, "It's a freakish looking thing, isn't it? So streaked and scarred, it looks like it's been bleeding forever. It's dark, unpleasant and cold." He glanced at her, then way. "And yet, under that ice, deep down, there's an entire ocean, hidden beneath the surface."

"You really believe that? An actual warm body of water underneath the ice?"

"You'd be surprised at the number of things that contain hidden undercurrents. It's the beauty of the unknown."

Raoul had showed her an ancient exploration map once, its drawings crude and aproportionate. And at the edges of the world, where so much undiscovered, unknown, resided, "hic sunt dracones" had been scripted.

"I suppose that's what you're good at. Hidden undercurrents." Turning to regard him, she spotted that tie again, as crooked as ever. She resisted the urge to reach over and straighten it. "Musician, engineer and architect. Makes me wonder what other surprises might you be concealing."

He caught her gaze and they held that impasse, his eyes unreadable behind his shield of sunglasses. The physical wall had disappeared, and yet, standing a mere arm's length away, Christine still felt its presence, impenetrable, aloof and soundless.

Hic sunt dracones. Here be dragons.

She counted the silence, feeling time downshift, the world gradually slow until it stopped altogether, motionless except for the tick of her pulse working in a temporal flux.

Breaking away, he stepped out towards the roof's edge. She found herself fascinated by the sharp, angular lines of his form. He had a swimmer's shoulders and back, a certain width that tapered into a much leaner, almost gaunt form below.

"I believe," he said, as time moved forward again, "some undercurrents are best left undiscovered."

"Except for Europa."

A brief chuckle. "Except for Europa."

With that, he carefully removed his gloves, tucking them into his coat, and lifted the violin to his chin.

She watched, mesmerized, as his fingers danced over the strings, stroking the neck with a lover's delicate touch, coaxing something too sublime to be simply called music from the instrument. The notes cascaded over her, warm and thrilling. As the tempo increased, her pulse followed in time, drawn into the synchrony of the song. And when his middle finger fluttered over a string, the subsequent trilling notes shot straight to the pleasure center of her brain.

Oh, she'd experienced his music before, felt it sink into her, but there was a significant difference between osmosis and assault at ground zero. Over and over, it spiked through her, frisson radiating from the base of her spinal cord out through her nerves, even as his hands moved relentlessly over the violin. It was all too much, too fast, too many sensations driving mercilessly into her all at once and Christine forced her eyes shut, slapping her hands over her ears, even as her knees buckled under the pressure.

There was a scream, a high-pitched wail reverberating through her head, sirens and cacophony and overloaded pleasure transforming into precise shards of pain. And she realized it was her, her throat, hear head making the senseless shrieking noise.

Then, thankfully, as quickly as they had entered her nervous system, the sounds were gone, though the impression of having been rather unpleasantly manhandled still lingered under her skin. Carefully opening her eyes, she found Erik kneeling beside her. All traces of that implacable, sardonic arrogance was gone, replaced a mute horror.

"I didn't expect you to react... " He lifted a hand, as if to touch her forehead, then quickly drew it back. "I'm sorry."

Gathering the few remaining cells left in her pounding head, Christine shot the man a bewildered look. "I don't...I don't understand. What just...?"

"There are certain...sounds...frequencies, even...that affect the brain. Makes it do strange things." He looked away, contrite, then stood. "You shouldn't have had to hear that."

She only stared uneasily as he walked over to where a violin case lay propped against a pillar. Flipping the lid open, Erik bent and pulled out a stack of music from inside, gently replacing it with the instrument.

He straightened. Paused. Almost shyly, he approached her again.

"Perhaps it's best stick to something safer," he murmured, holding out the score to her. An offer of apology. "Such as opera."

"Faust?" Christine frowned, staring up at the cover page.

As the papers passed from hand to hand, her fingers brushed against his, ever so slightly.

"Fate links thee to me," was all he said.


A/N: Yikes. Last Year at Marienbad moment there. I've taken a few, ah, liberties with the Gattaca world, mostly tweaking to add a bit more realism, as the film's science tends towards the more pseudo variety. Thanks to Spikesbint for correcting my predilection for run-on sentences and unnecessary hyphenation.