Monday April 19 2004

MacArthur

"Brit," Eddie said, "this has gotta be the last time."

He was sitting at a small four-seat round table in one of the school's architectural oddities, a shallow little alcove opening off a long hallway connecting two buildings. The blonde sitting across from him had been gazing over his shoulder at the Building Six doorway; now her eyes snapped back to focus on his face. "What?"

"I've been standing up my girlfriend every Monday lunch for a month and not telling her where I've been. Her witchy girlfriends are filling her head with gossip. Sooner or later somebody she knows is going to see us together. She asks me straight out, I'm gonna have to tell her."

Her eyes dropped to the open books on the table. "Can't you just tell her we're doing homework?"

"One, that won't wash. The rumor mill around here is a little more efficient than that, Brit. Before she ever hits me up about it, she'll already know what we're supposed to be doing, and that it's not true. Two … she's one of four women on Earth I can't convince with a lie."

He didn't want to tell her that Rox had already been fishing for answers from him, in a way that told him that the provocative little blonde was already high on the suspect list. Brittany was a girl who generated gossip - the sort who worked hard to make the most of her looks, but succeeded in a way she didn't really intend. She dyed her light brown hair honey blonde in a color-layered style, and managed it carefully in a tousled, just-got-out-of-bed cut. She came to school every day in clothes that put her legs or her flat belly or her B-cup rack on display. And he doubted she ever stepped out of her dorm room without her eyes and nails done up.

Despite all that, Brit wasn't looking to bang every guy who smiled at her – quite the opposite, in fact, which was why Eddie found himself at this table every Monday noon. Providing cover for a girl who was infatuated with a guy she was scared to speak to wasn't really his style. But she hadn't had to work very hard to talk him into it: as he had told his girlfriend, the more a girl reminded him of Rox, the better he liked her.

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to mess things up for you. I should have figured everybody would think I was trying to steal you."

Eddie huffed softly and took a pull from his Rockstar. "Just say 'hi' to him, Brit. This isn't junior high."

"I break out in goosebumps just thinking about it. What's wrong with me?"

"There's nothing wrong with you. But maybe, deep down, you know he's not your type." Jesse Molenz had the look of a class-president type, but nothing could be further from the truth. A bookish loner with a handful of acquaintances but no real friends, he belonged to no groups or extracurriculars, and nobody knew what he did outside of classes. "What if he's gay?"

"No way," she said. "Fate couldn't be that cruel."

Eddie scoffed. "What do you see in him?"

"Where do I start?" She paused. "He's mad cute. I don't usually go for dark Latin types, but he makes it look so good. He's tall, I like that. And I love how serious he is about things. I watch him in class, and his eyes never leave the lecture, even when he's jotting notes. He's super neat. I think he buffs his nails. And God he's smart. The Soshe teacher usually picks a couple essays from the tests and reads them to the class. One of them is always his. I know he doesn't look it, but the boy has the soul of a poet. He-"

Her eyes flicked over Eddie's shoulder, then dropped to her book. That was all the warning he needed to know that Brittany's crush had just stepped into the hallway.

Eddie rose and turned. Behind him, Brittany hissed, "What are you doing?"

"Told you Brit, it's time to bust a move." He intercepted the student a few steps from the doorway – just far enough from the table to be out of earshot. He offered a hand. "Jesse."

Hesitantly, the boy took it. "Sorry, do I know you?"

"Nope. But maybe you noticed we're at that table every Monday? As you're walking by on your way to study hall?"

Jesse's eyes flicked over Eddie's shoulder. "Maybe."

Eddie held on to the boy's hand, hiding his smile. "She's sliding down in the seat like she wants to disappear, isn't she?"

"Uh, yeah."

Without a thought to the leg show she's giving you as her skirt rides up. "She's not my girlfriend or anything. She drags me here every week just so she can watch you walk by. She's into you that bad. But she breaks out into a sweat at the idea of striking up a conversation." He squeezed Jesse's hand. "Help me out, brah. My girlfriend's gonna kill me if I spend another hour with this chick. Come over with me and talk to her." He added, "Or I can leave, if you think that'd be better."

"No." Jesse looked at the table again. Eddie saw his ears redden - maybe a panty flash too? "Better come with. We might need somebody to keep the conversation going. I got a feeling you're good at that."

...

Keith did his best to disappear quietly from the minds of both Caitlin Fairchild and his three bettors. At his first meeting with his red-haired target in the school library, he had tried to put her at ease by dressing like one of her housemates, a blond boy he had seen her hanging out with on campus; now, he discarded his flannel shirt and jeans and began wearing track suits and a ball cap to school. He stayed out of commons and the library, and avoided the routes he knew she used, even though it sometimes added to his travel time. Mark had approached him to offer an apology for his friend's behavior in the restaurant; Keith had accepted, but with as little grace as possible, so that none of the three was likely to approach him for more action.

But sometimes, he would be traveling down a hallway and see her coming the other way, or glimpse her on the other side of the quad. Even in a crowd or at a distance, she was easy to spot, and now his eyes seemed drawn to her whenever she was in sight. In that, he supposed he was no different from all the other horndogs on campus, but the unreasoning attraction made him uneasy. And somehow, he knew that he wasn't going to avoid her forever.

"So," Joel said. "When's your next date with this Bauman guy?"

On the other side of the cafeteria table, Caitlin gave her lab partner a heavy sigh. "There aren't going to be any dates, Joel. He wanted some help with Quantum Physics. The only help I gave him was suggesting he drop the course before he flunked out. I haven't seen him since." She took a pull on the straw of her soft drink. "I mean, I haven't seen him. Anywhere."

Joel's hand was resting on his laptop bag on the table; he fingered the flap of the small pocket that held the thumb drive he had purchased from Gordie last Friday. "So, you're not getting together again?"

"How many different ways are there to say it?" She said, sounding unusually testy. "Told you, he was all business. And we don't have any more business."

Joel took his hand off the pocket containing Gordie's workup on Keith Bauman. Maybe not. He said cautiously, "Why couldn't you tutor him? Is he a blockhead?"

"Not at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's smarter than he wants people to think." She leafed idly through her lab book. "Joel, have you ever comp-tested out of a class?"

"Couple courses," he said. "Beginner's stuff, when I first came to college."

"Nothing advanced."

He shook his head. "Nah. Comps are just to make up for differences in teaching quality and curricula across high schools. After the first year, accreditation standards are supposed to keep transfers from repeating courses. Surprised-" He stopped.

"Surprised about what?"

Surprised you didn't know that, he had almost said before remembering Kat's wasted freshman year at Rutherford. "Nothing. Why you asking about comp tests?"

"Just trying to imagine what a comp test for physics-oriented mathematics would look like. How many multiple-choice questions do you suppose would be on it?"

He snorted. "Funny, Kat."

"Yeah," she said. "Funny."

Milan, Italy

Tuesday, April 20 2004

John Lynch was a man with responsibilities. People supposed that being rich gave a man freedom, indulgences, and peace of mind, but Lynch was no pleasure seeker. He was a hunted man. His wealth chiefly gave him the means and the tools to stay hidden and accomplish the tasks he had taken on. But even nearly unlimited wealth could buy you only so much time, and it couldn't add hours to the day. And it couldn't put a person in two places at the same time.

At least, that was accepted truth. He was about to take full advantage of that assumption.

He was presently sitting at a sidewalk table in front of a café, the ornate architecture of the entrance to the Vittorio Emanuelle shopping district visible at the end of the street two blocks away. Espresso pushed to one side, he studied the contents of the large manila envelope just presented to him by the business-suited man sitting across the table. It contained a thin stack of dossiers, each just two or three pages in length, including a page of digital photos of the individuals under study.

"As you specified, cosmetic requirements were kept to a minimum," the man said, his English faintly accented with a language not Italian. "Making them fit your roles will take no more than proper wardrobe, a little hair work, and some changes to the way the girls apply their makeup. They're older than specified, of course, but not much, and fortunately, your originals don't look their ages anyway." He tapped a fingertip on the table. "I'm still looking for someone to fill your role and the redhead's, I'm afraid. I at least have a candidate for you, although…"

"The scars."

The man nodded. "Not too difficult, as long as the double wears street clothes and doesn't get close to any cameras. The facial scars will be makeup, but the missing eye is real. He's even agreed to a training program to match your physique. For a price." He lifted an eyebrow in question.

Lynch nodded. "Agreed. Any prospects for the redhead?"

"Only if you're willing to loosen up on your standards, Jack."

"No can do, Ilya."

The man nodded. "She stands out in a crowd. People who see her will remember details." He sighed. "Two hundred centimeters tall, Ò Pane. Straight copper hair. Green eyes, alabaster complexion, no freckles."

"I could accept a faint tan."

"Oh, thank you, this will be so much easier now. One oh-five, sixty-five, ninety-five, judging by the pictures you gave me. Athletic. The girl must do three hundred situps a day."

"She's a swimmer."

He grunted. "I have two candidates who might be made up to approximate the template. But I don't think either of them would end up really looking like your girl."

"Keep looking." Lynch passed a thin business envelope across the table.

'Ilya' met Lynch's eye. "Are you sure this information is accurate?"

"Guaranteed. Now that you have the details, it will be easy to verify."

He sighed. "My bosses will ask where I got it, of course."

"He frequents a club on Zelena Street in Osava. Tell them someone overheard him talking about it."

"That's not really where you got it."

"No. But you're never going to know where I did. Just like no one will ever know you're helping me with this."

The fingertip tapped the table's surface again. "These people. They're all citizens, not players. Clearly they're decoys. They're not going to get shot at or anything, are they?"

Lynch shook his head. "Absolutely not. They're just going to pop up on somebody's radar long enough to set off an alarm, and then disappear before anyone can approach them. They won't be in the slightest danger."

The man nodded. "Look over here, not over there."

"Precisely."

The man sipped his espresso. "As you know, I have associates who are good at finding things – make a living at it, actually."

"It's one reason I came to you."

"Yes. Just lately, these friends of mine have been approached about finding a large number of young people. The descriptions of five of them match the templates you provided me."

"Who's doing the asking?" Lynch knew from his mobster neighbor Eduardo Ricci that IO was enlisting outside help to find the runaways. Was Ivana risking exposure in order to cast as wide and fine a net as possible? The Shop's aversion to public notice was a pivotal part of his plan for avoiding capture; if IO was desperate enough to risk its cover…

"I don't have a name for them, but I've dealt with them before. An organization that normally likes to keep in the shadows yet always seems to know what's going on. They have a long reach and deep pockets, Jack. Rewards and threats were offered."

"How big a reward?" He asked, wondering if he might have to make a counteroffer.

"Enough to set me for life." The man gazed at his tablemate, amused. "Assuming that I would actually live to spend it."

MacArthur

In commons, Caitlin came upon Deanna, a member of her water polo team, lounging on one of the space's couches with her feet up on a low table. "Hey, Dee."

The girl looked up from her book and smiled. "Hey, Shutout. What are you doing here? I never see you just hanging out in commons."

"I'm looking for somebody. Do you know a guy named Keith Bauman?"

"Tall, blond, cute? Only on sight, never talked to him."

"Seen him lately?"

"He's here right now." The girl made a show of looking around the big open space. "Well, he was, just a minute ago."

"Hm," the big redhead said. "What's he wearing?"

"Oh, the usual. Sweats, tee shirt, blue hoodie, Lakers cap."

"No flannel shirt?"

The smaller girl scoffed. "The lumberjack look went out in the Nineties, sugar." Her gaze drifted past Caitlin to fasten on something behind her; her lashes lowered. "But, you know, I could see it making a comeback soon."

Caitlin smiled. Without turning she said, "Bobby, Deanna."

"Hel-lo," Deanna said.

"Hi." Bobby, now standing beside his housemate, nodded once. "Kat. Talk to you a minute?"

Kim Perlman lowered the thin sheaf of hand-notated sheet music in her hand. She looked up at Bobby. "This isn't… what I was expecting."

Bobby was looking especially handsome right now, Caitlin thought: that was a sure sign that he was more emotionally charged about this meeting than his easy demeanor showed. But then, why else would he ask her to accompany him on this little errand? They said that some girls looked cute when they were mad; she had never noticed that, but there was no denying that, when Bobby Lynch was in inner turmoil or thinking furiously, everything about him just seemed right.

Like father, like son, a little voice muttered, and she felt a touch of heat at her ears.

"Not your usual style, you mean," he said. "I write you a song, it's gonna take you out of your comfort zone, Kim. That's a given." They were in a practice room in the Performing Arts building, one which was dominated by a glossy black Steinway. He gestured toward the piano. "I plinked it out on a guitar, but I was thinking of you on a keyboard while I was doing it. The tune's simple – just ten chords, pretty much. Nobody's going to be impressed by your expertise when you do it. It's the lyrics that matter."

The slinky blonde sat and arranged the notes on the rest. She struck the first chord, and hesitantly began to perform the piece.

I don't need love

Never want love

Not like other girls

All those foolish girls

Don't they see it?

Won't believe it

Plunging into it

All those broken hearts

The song moved on, telling the story of a girl who has turned her back on love but not let go of it. Kim's voice trembled; so did her hand when she changed the sheets. Halfway through, she stopped and stared at them, then lifted her face to Bobby, eyes glistening. "You bastard. You took my, you took what I said…"

Robert Lynch's face was a stone mask. "You want to move audiences with your music, you have to be moved by it first. Right now, your typical audience is people impressed by your technical skill, and who also want in your pants. That's all you need to be famous and make a ton of money, if that's what you want, but if you want a real career in music, one where doing the music is part of the payback, you've got to give the audiences something of yourself, something from the heart. Else you'll be playing the same twenty songs at every performance forever, and doing catchy cat food jingles by the time you're fifty." He pointed briefly at the sheet music. "You remember the terms. I don't like what you do with it, I take it back. Or you could just hand it to me now, your choice."

Kim reached for the sheets. "I have a concert at Stillman's next week Thursday." She stuffed the music into her messenger bag. "I'll send you tickets." She passed by without looking at them and left the room.

Caitlin said to Bobby, "Why was I here, exactly?"

"I thought she might need a hug," he said. "But not from me."

La Jolla

"You've been acting weird all day," Roxanne said to Sarah. "What's up with you?"

The two girls, still in their school clothes, occupied side-by-side lounge chairs on the deck beside the pool. The chairs were turned to face the sea, and Sarah stared out over the waves, feeling the heavy roll of the sea with her Gen as the tide turned. "Nothing."

"See?" Roxanne said. "Not even a smart remark about minding other people's business."

"You're impossible."

"Aren't we all."

They sat together in silence for a minute more, then Sarah said, "My grandmother turned sixty-four today. It's the first time I've missed her birthday, ever."

Roxanne had never met any of her grandparents: her mother's family had disowned her when she got pregnant and refused to divulge the name of the father. And Roxanne knew nothing of Kat's side of the family. Kat barely remembered her mom, and their dad not at all; the only family she had ever talked about were her aunt and uncle and cousin Karen, so Roxanne assumed Alex Fairchild's parents were dead.

But private person though she was, Sarah couldn't help talking about her family from time to time, and Roxanne knew that she loved them all – parents, grandmother, deceased grandfather, four sisters.

"Dorcas turned eleven last July, right after I arrived at Darwin," she went on, still staring at the horizon. "My big sister Rachel turned eighteen in December. Liddy, thirteen. And Libby turned sixteen just ten days before my birthday. Mother and Father's are coming up soon. How many more am I going to miss? What changes are they going through without me while I'm away? She's sixty-four. My grandfather was four years younger when he died. Am I ever going to see her again, or hear her voice?"

Roxy got up out of her chair and lay down beside her friend, the two of them pressed tightly together on the lounger even though her rear end hung off a little. She ran her fingers through Sara's hair, just lying quiet until the Apache girl's breathing eased. Roxanne supposed they looked as lez as they could possibly be to anybody who saw them, especially if they knew which way Sarah's gate swung, but all her housemates knew them better than that, and anyone passing by on the beach didn't matter. And right now, she didn't care anyway.

"All I ever had was my mom," she said into Sarah's ear. "Her fam disowned her when she got pregnant. I never knew my father. I didn't even know I had a sister till I met Kat. But I have a family now. I know it's not the same. All I'm saying is, you don't have to feel all alone."

Sarah huffed and patted her hand. Together they watched the sun sink toward the horizon. Unseen behind the closed slider in the kitchen, Anna watched with them.

Wednesday April 21 2004

MacArthur

Even at the very start of the game, the school's pool was noisy as a subway station, the crowd's chatter echoing off the water and the hard walls. When the two teams emerged from the locker rooms to take their places on the bench and in the water, the cheering and applause were deafening. Two rows from the top seat of the tall bleachers, Keith Bauman slouched and tipped down the visor of his cap and brought his hands together like the others around him.

You said you were done with this, he chided himself. You've been dodging her at school for days, and here you are sitting on a stand challenging her to spot you. There was scarcely any monetary incentive to attend the girls' water polo matches anymore: as he had expected, the word had spread, and he had managed to make only a single bet with a mark from the visiting school. He had at least taken the precaution of sitting in the visiting team's stands, where Kat would be unlikely to be looking for someone she knew.

Next to him, a boy said, "There she is."

"Who?" Keith said.

"The MacArthur goalie," he said, nodding toward Kat, who was tucking a stray strand of copper hair under her cap before dropping over the edge of the pool. "The real tall one with the rack. Man." He grinned down at her. "Those legs could go around you twice."

Keith scoffed. There must not be ten guys in the building who knew what color her eyes were, he thought. Maybe he should start making book on that.

He knew what color her eyes were: about six shades of fresh living green, from an almost luminous spring-leaf color to the hue of spruce in a shadowy forest, accented with tiny flecks the color of her hair, like a dusting of clean copper. He had gazed into them from two feet away over a dining table, and felt himself being drawn into their depths. And even now, watching her from over a hundred feet away, and her not even looking in his direction, he could scarcely pull his eyes away from them.

What the hell's the matter with you? Why are you acting like some lovesick teenager? She's pretty. Beautiful even, if you like the type, and a lot of men do. But you're not a relationship kind of guy, and even if you were, you've poisoned the waters with her already.

The first period began. The MacArthur team was looking much better this year, even discounting their impenetrable goalie; offense was noticeably improved, and rather more aggressive than last year, even though most of the players had been on the team since freshman year. Their winning streak must be giving them some confidence.

The visiting players were no slouches either though, and they seemed determined to break that streak. Time and time again they drove past the MacArthur defense, only to be stopped cold by an interception from the big redhead at the goal. At the end of the period, both teams were still scoreless.

Scattered applause echoed through the building as the girls climbed out to sit at the rim of the pool. Given the mostly-male makeup of the audience, Keith imagined the show of approval was more for the girls than their performance. Kat stayed in the water, as usual, only reaching back to place her elbows on the rim and stand on them. As soon as her bosom lifted out of the water, some moronic horndog on the MacArthur side hooted, and she slipped back in, bending her knees until the water touched her chin.

Keith decided that he'd pushed his luck long enough. He stood and joined the trickle of spectators headed for the restrooms and concessions during the break, planning his descent so that when he reached the floor he would be as far from the MacArthur goal as possible. He turned for the exit, but something forced him to take a quick glance over his shoulder for a last look.

She was looking right at him. Her hand came out of the water in a little wave.

Pretend you don't notice. Get the hell out of here.

He waved back.

She made a beckoning gesture. He turned, feeling as if he was pulling his feet out of ankle-deep mud, and walked over to her.

She looked up at him unsmiling, bobbing slightly in the water. "I haven't seen you around."

"I've been busy." He swallowed. "Took your advice and dropped the class. Gives me more time to practice my swing."

"Hm." Something about the way she uttered the simple syllable raised the hair on his forearms. "I would have called, but I still don't have your number."

He managed a grin. "I'll load it in right now. Got your phone on you?"

"Oh, ha. Think you'll keep your scholarship?"

"I managed to talk my way into a fluff class. Comparative Philosophy. Doubt I'll learn anything there, but it'll fill my credit requirement as long as I pass. All I have to do is make up the work."

She nodded. "That's good. But just because the tests and homework are all essays doesn't mean the course is fluff." She met his eyes. "Then again, talking comes easy to you."

The buzzer sounded. Kat said, "Gotta go. Nice seeing you, Keith."

He swallowed. "You too." He turned to go, and found himself eying the stands. I'm busted already. Why not watch the rest of the game? He imagined her smiling up at him during play. He imagined offering her a ride home after the game. Then he imagined talking with her for fifteen minutes without telling her a lie. He shook his head, as if trying to jar himself awake, and headed for the exit.

La Jolla

"Ta-tum tum ta-tum," Eddie said, smiling. "Ta-tum tum ta-tum."

He sat at the dining table, facing the kitchen and its mistress. He had come in for a snack, and to possibly talk Anna into cooking one of his favorites for dinner the next day. He had been finishing off the last of the cupcakes, and watching the little gynoid stirring batter for the next batch, when she had abruptly set the bowl on the counter and then seemed to disappear, she moved so fast, and snatched something up from the toe space at the base of the sink. She stood now, regarding an object in her cupped hands. She changed their position slightly, opening her hands a little, and between her fingers Eddie could see a squirming little handful of gray-brown fur trying frantically to escape.

"One more 'ta-tum' out of you, young man," said Anna, "and you'll be eating Brussels sprouts for a week." The little cyborg housekeeper regarded the tiny creature trapped in her hands, clawing and biting at her fingers to no effect.

"Brussels sprouts. I have never felt so threatened by an AI in my life."

"I'm the only AI you know. And I've never threatened you before, that I remember."

"A guy can feel pretty threatened when he walks into his room and finds a girl thumbing through his porn."

"I didn't know it was porn, I just thought it was interesting. I bought you some of those magazines, you may recall." The rodent had given up trying to fight its way free, and was now pushing at the gaps between Anna's fingers, with no more luck. "Its heart is beating so fast," she said softly. "Do you think it might die of fright?"

"I'm pretty sure their regular heartbeat is, like, five hundred per minute," he said, peeling the paper off the last cupcake. "And I'm sure it's used to being afraid. Mice are near the bottom of the food chain, they must be scared of one thing or another for half their lives."

"Hm." She studied the little animal, which had given up trying to escape for the moment – worn out, probably – and was lying quiet in her hands except for its twitching whiskers. "What does it eat?"

"It's a mouse, it eats about anything. You're not gonna keep it, are you?" He imagined one of the girls discovering the furry little pest in her room, with scenarios ranging from hilarious to gruesome.

"No," she said. "I just don't want it to die on me before I figure out what to do with it. I can't just walk out into the yard and turn it loose, it'd come right back in."

"You could drop it off in the neighbor's yard," he suggested.

"Mrs. Sylvestri's? Vicious and Rotten would kill it. Even the rabbits avoid her yard."

"Well, what about the guy across the street? The one who always comes out to perv on you when you're gardening in the front yard."

"Mister Rafiq?" She smiled. "Tempting, but the man eats out so often there may not be enough on his shelves to keep a mouse alive." She took the mouse into her left hand, and it immediately began thrashing again. With her free hand, she opened a cabinet and retrieved a tall plastic canister with a snap-on lid. She dropped the creature in and quickly closed it up, then brought it to the table.

"Might want to put some air holes in the top," he suggested.

"Mm, right." Instead of getting a knife from the drawer, Anna touched the tip of her fingernail to the lid, and with a quick sewing-machine movement plungedit into the thick plastic, leaving behind a small crescent-shaped slit. She turned the canister and repeated the move on the other side.

"Whoa. Your fingernails are knives?"

"Not really. They're not very sharp - more like chisels than knife blades. But they're useful sometimes." Leaving the container on the table, she washed her hands in the sink and resumed stirring cake batter. "Do you think a pet shop would take it?"

"No way." The canister began swaying and squirming across the table's surface. He pinched a tiny crumb from his cupcake and dropped it into one of the air holes. The canister stilled. He dropped in another. "I'm headed for the park. How about I take it with, and leave it there?"

"That would be great, thank you." She poured the batter into the paper-lined cupcake pans as she regarded the captive on the table. "Do you suppose he has family? Someone who'll miss him when he disappears?"

"Anna," he said, "it's got a brain the size of a coffee bean. All it thinks about are food and reproduction. It's a machine. It doesn't-" His brain caught up with his mouth, and he stopped.

But Anna gave him an indulgent smile, and then handed him the bowl and spoon. "Caitlin said something similar once, about computers, back when she still thought I was human. And you know, somehow I doubt she ever looked back on that conversation later. I still can't believe how hard it was to convince you all that I was a cyborg."

He glanced at the canister on the table. "Well, you don't fit the mold, you know? AIs are supposed to be all about killing off all the humans and taking over the world."

"Hmph," she scoffed, as she slid the pans into the warm oven. "And what would I do, in a world without people?"