Love Minus Eighty (8 page)

The chubby, ruddy-cheeked woman who’d worked the night shift nodded to Rob as he took over her spot and got to work. The hazard skin’s built-in system color-coded the various crap, so all he had to do was use the suit’s various extensions to extract the stuff and drop it into the correct color-coded mobile bins. The tough part was that his employers demanded speed. So far he’d been docked at least ten percent of each day’s pay for insufficient pace. Vince said that was common for beginners.

The torn-open thing he was working on was big and round and unidentifiable. Rob’s best guess was that it was a solar cell, but it didn’t matter. Pluck out the components glowing red, drop them in one bin, the green components in another, and so on. The mindlessness of the work allowed him plenty of opportunity to think. Much of the time he rehearsed what he was going to say to Winter. He’d tried out so many possibilities that the words were beginning to lose meaning, to decompose into word salad.

The important thing was, he had saved three thousand
dollars. His father was letting him defer the seven thousand Rob owed for the first visit, and was footing the bill for the interest out of his own earnings. His father was a saint. No grown man nine years out of school could reasonably expect the sort of help his father was giving him. One day, Rob would make it up to him. He would never forget.

At lunchtime Veronika pulled the cook cord on her Thai boxed meal. When it finished heating, she popped over to Bourbon Street in New Orleans and people-watched. She needed to be around people while she ate, otherwise she would wallow in self-pity that she was eating alone, and she would get depressed. Watching others have fun on Bourbon Street didn’t completely insulate her from the tightness in her chest that always came with eating alone, but it helped. After three hours on the bridge, she was seeing the downside: people came and went, but they passed quickly and anonymously, hunched against the cold. Vehicles whizzed by, their drivers paying no attention to Veronika. She was basically all alone.

A climate-controlled full body suit kept her body warm, but her face was icy cold, and the wind was constant and made it difficult to work. Still, the view was lovely. The choppy black water far below; the river, glimpsed here and there winding among old brick-and-steel toward the horizon;
one massive pillar of High Town so close it seemed she could reach out and touch it; the strings of apartments hanging like jewels from the underside of High Town, swaying slightly in the stiff March breeze. Beautiful.

It had been the right decision to come here, despite the isolation. She felt alive, and vigorous. She’d come back tomorrow, and the day after, leaving only to hang out with Nathan for their afternoon coffee.

Her social life revolved so heavily around Nathan. Why did she have so few friends? It was a question she obsessed over, but there on the bridge, with the water lapping far below, she felt an uncommon clarity. It wasn’t because she was abrasive, or because she was an outsider. She used to have friends, other outsiders who hung out at coffee shops until late into the night, trading witty barbs. Without realizing it she’d shed some of those friends when she met Sander, even more when Sander left her for Jilly. The truth was, she hadn’t tried to make friends since Sander left her for her sister. She hung out with Nathan, played with her interactives, worked. She was alone because she’d chosen to be alone.

A pedestrian stopped at the apex of the bridge, enjoyed the view for a moment, then continued across. Veronika was ready, though. Eventually someone would come to jump, and she would be there, a light against the darkness of their despair. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to convince all of them, but if three people jumped per week on average and she could stop one, she’d be saving a life a week.

When the worst of the disorientation cleared, Winter smiled. “I thought I’d totally blown it with you, and here you’re back. You must like your women anxious and needy.”

Rob tried to laugh, but only managed something that sounded more like a dry cough. He was so nervous, the muscles in his face felt tight, and his lip was twitching.

“I wish I was here for a date. I really do.” His voice was a harsh whisper.

Winter studied his face, her smile fading. “What do you mean?”

Rob stared at the floor, trying to muster his courage. He couldn’t blow it this time. He’d worked his fingers to the bone, double shifts for three months, for this opportunity. He had to tell her, right now.

“I’m here to talk to you about your accident. That’s why I came the first time, but time got away from me. I lost my nerve, I guess.”

“I don’t understand. Did you see my accident?”

He forced himself to look at her. It was by far the hardest thing he’d ever done. “Miss West, I’m the one who hit you.”

It didn’t seem to register. A few precious seconds ticked by. Then confusion spread across Winter’s face. The lines of confusion melted away, and she stared at Rob with a startled lucidity that made her look almost alive.

“You’re the one who killed me?”

He’d looked away again, was staring at his hands. He forced his gaze back to her face. “Yes. I came to tell you how sorry I am.” The words sounded absurd leaving his lips, like so many puffs of air sent out to heal a broken spine, a burst aorta, a mile of crushed intestine.

Winter sounded like she was choking, then Rob realized it was a laugh. “You’re sorry.”

“I know it’s worthless, but it’s all I have to offer you.”

“Were you drunk?”

He looked at the timer. Three minutes left. Three more minutes of this to endure, then he could go back to bed and die there. “I’d been drinking, but I wasn’t drunk. I was under the legal limit.”

“So you were only slightly impaired. I guess that should make me feel better?”

“No. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not trying to make excuses. Yes, I’d been drinking, and I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, and I fucking hate myself.”

She stared at him, her eyes bright and wet. He didn’t think the dead could actually cry. “I don’t know what to say to you. You have
no idea
what a nightmare this is. You get to leave. I have to stay. Maybe no one will ever wake me again, and I’ll stay in this box, in this wall, dead…” She made a sound in her throat that made Rob want to clap his hands over his ears.

“I’m so sorry. If there was anything I could do, I would. I would gladly change places with you.” He glanced at the timer. “Oh, God, I only have one minute.”

Her eyes opened wide, like a wild animal caught in a trap. “Please. I don’t want to go back in there. Let me stay alive for a few more minutes. Just a few.”

The dread in her voice, the pleading tone, bored a hole right through him. He sobbed, put his hands over his face. “I can’t. I don’t have any more money.”

Winter made that terrible sound again. “Please. Please don’t—” Her eyes widened farther, and all at once she went silent. For a moment Rob thought the refreezing process had started, but there were nineteen seconds left.

She looked at him. “You said you’d do anything. Did you mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Then promise me you’ll come back. Promise you’ll visit me from time to time, so I know I won’t spend forever dead in this drawer.”

“I will,” he said immediately. Her words were like a lifeline. He could do this, at least. “I promise. I swear.” The relief he felt was like a vise loosened from around his soul. “I will.”

The timer reached 5:00; the light drained from Winter’s eyes as if they were connected to a power source. Her pupils dilated as the glass cover slid silently over the top of her crèche. Rob turned away. Behind him, he heard her crèche retracting into the wall.

He’d noticed very little on his last visit, cocooned in his own fear and depression, but now he walked a little easier. Not easy, but easier, his boots clicking on the heavy marble floor as he passed row upon row of bridesicles in the long room, their crèches nothing but rectangles set into the walls
in floor-to-ceiling grids. He passed what looked like a family sitting around a crèche. The cloak was drawn up so tightly around the woman inside that she seemed nothing but a disembodied head.

There was a smell in the air, something vaguely familiar that would have been pleasant if he’d felt more relaxed. Just a hint of it on a slight artificial breeze. Toasted coconut, maybe? It reminded Rob of some of the swankier restaurants Lorelei had taken him to, where scents were piped in like an olfactory concert.

His dad had been right: look Winter in the eye, own up to what he’d done, do what he could to make it right. He’d do whatever it took to keep his promise. Keep working long hours, spend nothing.

Down an open lift, he reached the vast main room of the facility, the only room that wasn’t long and narrow. There was a supplement bar and dine-in restaurant tucked into one corner, and in the center a breathtaking multilevel fountain resembling a vertical maze.

He passed a screen hovering over an open crèche—a virtual date, no doubt—and caught a snippet of conversation as he passed.

“I’ve done a lot of good for this community—”

He’d have to abandon his dream of making it as a musician. Performing in Low Town bars didn’t pay enough to make it worthwhile. The thought of giving up his music hurt almost as much as the idea of giving up his system. Not having his system the past few months had been like not having his right hand. No, worse; he’d rather lose his right hand than his system. Maybe he could allow himself that one indulgence.

He stopped walking.

No. He wasn’t going to start making compromises on this
promise. Full effort. No bullshit. He wanted his father to be able to look him in the eye and feel proud, or at least not feel ashamed. If he lived at home and gave up his system, he could visit maybe three times a year. And he would; he would keep his promise, no matter what.

Rob sent a message to his manager at the reclamation center to see if he could pick up some extra shifts.

Veronika turned her face toward the sun, enjoying the heat on her cheeks, trying not to think of the wrinkles her older self would have to endure. Ultralight copters flitted less than a hundred feet above, looking so much like giant, brightly colored dragonflies. It was worth the substantial toll she and Nathan were paying to lounge on such a high, isolated platform. It was rejuvenating, to be so far from the dense crowds of the city. Almost like a spiritual retreat.

“You know what’s missing from this?” Nathan gestured at the view.

“Nothing?”

“Masseuses.”

“Oh.” She dropped her head. “I was perfectly content two seconds ago, now you’ve pointed out a shortcoming in my paradise.”

Nathan shrugged. “I’ll just have to plug the hole in your paradise.”

Nathan’s fingers flew across his system as Veronika wondered. Massages? That was an awfully intimate suggestion. Downright romantic, almost.

“So I paid Winter a visit,” Nathan said.

Veronika jolted. “Oh my god. You’re kidding. What happened?” It had never occurred to Veronika that visiting Winter was even possible, but she was in the minus eighty, so of course it was.

Nathan rolled onto his stomach so he could face Veronika. “I felt like I owed it to her, to pay my respects. After the timing of her death and all.” He reached up to work his system. Veronika was pretty sure he was working with a client. “Anyway, it was a mistake.”

“How so?”

He half whispered his answer, like he was saying something obscene. “She wanted me to visit regularly, like I was a part of her family or something.”

Veronika remembered lying in bed when she was twelve, trying to imagine what it would be like to be a bridesicle. She’d just learned about the program that afternoon, from her friend Marcy Tayback, and imagining herself in one of those crèches had filled her with such awful dread. “I know you can’t afford to do that, but I can understand her being desperate enough to ask.” She couldn’t imagine visiting someone there; the idea made her skin prickle. “It would be rancid hell to be a bridesicle. Not that I have anything to worry about.” Veronika didn’t expect Nathan to argue, since getting selected for the program was based on physical beauty.

“At least she has a fighting chance at getting revived,” Nathan said. “One day she could be walking around down there again.” He gestured toward High Town, far below. On a teacher’s salary, Winter hadn’t lived in High Town, but if
she was revived, she’d be married to someone who lived in High Town, or on an island estate.

The tube at the far end of the platform hummed, then the door rolled open and the masseuse drones rolled out.

As soon as the drones flashed a green
all clear
to indicate they’d set up a camouflage field, Nathan pulled his shirt over his head, then wriggled out of his pants. Veronika’s view was masked, of course; to her it appeared Nathan was wearing a white cylinder from waist to thighs. Still, he was really in his underwear, and a moment later so was she, and they both knew it.

Veronika moaned with pleasure as the drone worked on the knots in her back with soft grips while simultaneously running curved rollers down her arms and legs.

“See?” Nathan said, almost purring. “It wasn’t really paradise yet.”

“It is now, though.” She pointed an accusing finger at Nathan. “Don’t you dare come up with something else that’s missing.”

Through the mesh floor, Veronika watched throngs of people gliding here and there through the Market District, creating fluid patterns, their silent movement leaving Veronika feeling peaceful, her mind temporarily silenced. The next time Veronika was down there in that crowd herself, she needed to remember what it looked like from up here.

Nathan grunted, dismayed. “This guy insists I include a clip of him with his shirt off. How do you tell someone their shirtless torso is definitely not going to draw women.”

“Let me see.”

Nathan uncloaked the feed he was viewing, revealing a meter-high hologram of a ferret-faced guy tossing a bolo. He was so scrawny you could play his ribs like a xylophone.