A Long, Long Sleep (21 page)

He caught my shoulders and forced me to face him. I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want to see my Xavier looking at me through those almond-shaped eyes. I gasped and wept, trying to find myself amid the torment. But I couldn’t find any part of me that seemed to be working. I couldn’t make myself get up again, couldn’t make myself pull away. Too much of me had been stagnant too long.

“Rose, what is it? What is it?” He sounded so concerned, and his warm brown hands smoothed some of the tears from my cheeks. “Talk to me; you look like you’ve seen a ghost! What happened?”

I pulled my head away, furious with myself. Bren frowned a moment and then wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me to him. I wished I wanted to pull away. But I didn’t. I still wanted him — or someone, anyone —and I couldn’t bear it. I let him hold me while I fought the tears. I pulled away as soon as I could force myself into composure. My lungs didn’t seem to want to work, and I coughed a few times to try to clear them. “I’m sorry,” I said when I could. “I’m sorry for all of it. I’m sorry I threw myself at you. I . . . didn’t realize

. . . why.”

“What do you mean?” Bren asked.

Xavier hadn’t explained it to him? No, I supposed he wouldn’t have had time. I looked at Bren. Why hadn’t he told me? Why hadn’t he guessed? He must have pictures of his grandfather as a young man; why hadn’t he connected those to my portraits of Xavier?

As if thinking of my sketches had conjured it, I spotted my sketchbook on the ground by Bren’s knee. He must have brought it with him. Kind of him, really. I guess he’d noticed I never went anywhere without one. I pulled it from the grass and opened it to the telling page, comparing the old man with the young one. “How could you not know?”

Bren stared for a long moment at the sketches, and then, like his grandfather, he leafed through my age progression of Xavier. His mouth opened in astonishment. He turned back to the picture of Xavier at seventeen, smiling fondly. “I didn’t know, because this boy is smiling,” Bren said. “Granddad doesn’t smile.”

“But the name . . .”

“I always thought Granddad’s name was Ronny. I mean, I know, I guess I’ve seen Xavier before, it’s in some records we’ve got, but it’s not a name he uses anymore. I’ve seen it referenced maybe twice in my life.” He turned back to the portrait again and exhaled through pursed lips, almost a whistle, as if trying to figure out what to say.

“I must have . . . seen him in you,” I said quietly. “Made me act a little stupid, I guess.”

“Not stupid,” Bren said. “This is a situation I don’t think human beings are genetically geared to handle. Sometimes I worry technology’s screwing with us.

It has definitely screwed with you.” He reached forward and took my hand. “I’m sorry.”

I pulled my hand away. This was aggravating. I’d been trying to get over how Bren made my guts twist and my heart race; now I felt a weird protectiveness toward him, like I had for Xavier when he was still a child. But he was still just as gorgeous as he had been from the beginning, and the two feelings blended and confused me, and I didn’t know how I felt. It was all too much. I wondered if falling in love with my boyfriend’s grandson of ficially put me above Otto on the weirdness scale.

“Did he send you after me?” I asked.

“No,” Bren said. “I grabbed your sketchbook and on the way out the door asked him, ‘Should I . . . ?’ And he nodded. I don’t think that quite counts as sending me.”

“No,” I said. I felt a little better about that.

He shook his head. “This is just weird. You could have been my grandmother.”

“That was always true,” I pointed out. But he was right. I could have been. Or the grandmother of someone very like him, anyway. But I wasn’t. And I should have been. I should have been. My life had been stolen from me. I hadn’t felt really together since I’d woken up from stass, but it had never seemed so final before.

I could see the lights of my limoskiff slowly inching up the road. It must have had a proximity monitor. I frowned at it, but was distracted. “Holy coit,” said Bren. Something had just occurred to him.

“What?”

“Mom’s name is Roseanna,” Bren said. “Rose. Like you.”

As he said that my heart twisted. I surged to my feet. “If he cared so burning much for me, why the coit did he leave me to rot!” I shouted. I pelted for my limoskiff and closed the door before Bren could collect his wits. His hand thudded on the window, but I’d already told the skiff to go. I left him behind me in the slowly growing light. I frankly didn’t care if the Plastine caught me anymore. But I didn’t know where I was going. I really had nowhere to go.

The skiff circled ComUnity seven times in the pale rosy dawn. I couldn’t think. I tried to sleep but just got hit with dreams: dreams of Bren turning into Xavier, Xavier turning into Guillory. I wanted to go get my dog, but I was afraid to go home. I wasn’t afraid of the Plastine —death sounded like a joyride just then —

I was afraid of all the things that had been part of Xavier. I could see it now.

His taste was all over the walls. The paintings, the landscapes, which looked a little like mine. The re- creation of my bedroom. My studio. The prism. I closed my eyes.

Why had he bought my parents’ condo? Was he really trying to hold on to me?

Why couldn’t he have looked in the subbasement? Why didn’t he spend every moment of his life scouring the world for my tube? And if he wasn’t going to do that, why couldn’t he just forget me? Why did he have to be this half- haunting presence now?

I had lost my parents, I’d lost my time, and now I’d even lost my dream of my perished lover. All my grief for his death surged backward through me, undigested. It hurt worse than swallowing it had.

I didn’t want the sun to rise. I didn’t want the world to continue turning. I wanted the whole planet put into stasis until I could catch up.

A familiar beep sounded from near the dashboard of the limoskiff. Ding, ding . .

. ding, ding . . . ding, ding . . .

I shook myself and crawled to the shadowed corner where the sound had come from. It was my notescreen. How had that gotten there? Then I realized I was the one who had left it in the skiff when I’d fled from school the day after I’d made my offer to Bren.

Ding, ding . . . ding, ding . . . I picked it up and opened the screen.

A page was already linked through the net. I pulled it up.

Rose. Rose, burn it, write back, already! Rose, if you’ve gone back into stasis, I’m searching the world over to wake you up again! Answer me!

I quickly pulled up a keypad, even as Otto continued, Come on! Where are you?

Please, don’t let that thing be after you again!

I’m here, I wrote, stepping on his notes. Still here, unfortunately.

Thank every god ever invented. Where are you?

Nowhere, I answered truthfully. I didn’t know where I was, and it didn’t matter.

No, really. Where are you?

I honestly don’t know, I told him. Just skimming around ComUnity.

I was worried about you. You weren’t answering your screen yesterday.

I forgot it.

I saw Bren in the quad just now and asked if he knew what had happened to you. He’s worried about you. Can I tell him where you are?

No. You can tell him I’m okay, if you must.

Good. He went home and checked your tube after you ran off. When you weren’t there, he got scared. His parents made him come to school, but he can’t concentrate.

I’m afraid I don’t care much, I wrote.

Hold on — Mr. Prokiov is on me about linking up during class. I’ll be right back.

There was a long, long time when the screen went still. I curled up onto the skiff’s seats and tried to force sanity back into my head. I couldn’t.

My screen dinged again. There, I’m in the quad. Bren told me what happened this morning.

There was really only one thing I could say to that. Coit. Then I asked, How much?

You can tell a long story really fast in your mind, he wrote.

Coit, I wrote again. Could I ask you to employ your code of ethics and not share this story around? Like, not with Nabiki, not even your family? I actually cared what they thought of me, and this was too weird probably even for them.

I swear on 42’s grave.

I was touched. Thanks.

Nabiki and I broke up, he wrote.

I wasn’t sure why he was telling me this. What? Why?

Well. You remember that fiercely protective thing she had for me?

Yes.

“Well. When you told me someone was trying to assassinate you, I kind of had the same feeling. I’ve spent the last few days hacking through the net, trying to find out anything and everything that might help. Nabiki didn’t like it, said I wasn’t getting enough sleep. She said you had plenty of people looking out for you, and you didn’t need me. I nearly . . . well, it was only a thought, but she was touching me at the time. I wanted to hit her. I’m a bit of a paci fist, and I don’t think that kind of thing very often, not even about guys who beat me up

— and, yes, that has happened. Nabiki said that if I was thinking like that, then maybe I didn’t need her anymore. She was right.

If Otto’s compliments were as intense as he said they were, I hated to think what his anger was like. No. Go back to her, I wrote. Tell her you’re sorry. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s relationships.

You haven’t. One of the convenient things about my form of communication is that I can quickly convey and assimilate everything someone is feeling. What Nabiki loved was being needed. Now I’m the one who . . . Look, let me come to you. I was touched. Not that Otto could do much to protect me from a Plastine.

You need family. Where are you?

I really don’t know.

Tell your skiff to come to the school. We can talk in the dorms.

We’re talking now.

No, we’re not.

It took me a long time to understand what he meant. You don’t want to be in my head right now, I wrote to him.

Maybe, Otto wrote back.

Otto, even I don’t want to be in my head right now.

Maybe not, he wrote. But you can’t be alone. Someone’s trying to assassinate you, Rose!

I sighed. Okay, I wrote back. But I don’t know how far I am.

I’ll be waiting.

The link disconnected, and I told my skiff to head for Uni Prep. It turned, the machinery giving the more satis fied hum it had when there was a de finite destination in its processors.

It took my skiff about an hour to reach the school. The ever- widening circles around ComUnity had taken me pretty far out of the way. The skiff stopped just outside the quad, but I told it to circle around the school to the dorms. I wondered how I was supposed to find him, but Otto was waiting on a bench under a tree, just outside the boys’ dorm. As soon as he spotted the skiff, my notescreen dinged. Right here, he wrote. I said I’d be waiting.

I opened the door to my skiff and climbed out. I was able to construct a smile of greeting, but it was as forced as his own usually were. It fell apart almost instantly.

Otto jumped forward and put his hand on the small of my back, guiding me toward the school without touching my skin. It felt very different having him here, beside me. I’d almost turned the Otto I saw at school and the Otto I spoke to on my screen into two different people. I barely knew this Otto. I didn’t know what to say. We walked in utter silence.

Otto watched me through his yellow eyes. He forced a smile and then held open the door to the dorms for me. I took a deep breath before I went inside. There was a brief hum as the security system registered our presence.

TARGET IDENTIFIED: RETINAL MATCH CONFIRMED, ROSALINDA SAMANTHA FITZROY. LOCATION KNOWN.

The target had not been at the last known coordinates, in the UniCorp Building, and he had resigned himself to returning to his station. He hadn’t made it there yet when the information filtered to him through the net. He entered the new location into the hover yacht controls. Slowly, it turned toward UniCorp Preparatory School.

Otto led me to a kind of visitors’ lounge. It was bright and impersonal, and it reminded me of my parents’ style of decorating. I still felt awkward. “I really don’t know what to say.”

Otto shook his head, don’t worry. He reached out a hand toward mine.

“No,” I said, pulling away. I touched my forehead to hide my eyes. “Otto, you really don’t want to know.”

There was a long moment of stillness, and then my note-screen dinged. I looked up. Otto had moved across the room and was sitting in a chair facing away from me. I swallowed and looked down at my screen. How are you feeling?

I sat down, relieved. I’m okay, I wrote.

You don’t look okay.

I haven’t slept, I wrote. I ran for the third time from an indestructible assassin, worked my way back from the Unicorn Islands with only a sketchbook to my name, discovered that my parents had intentionally abandoned me for at least twenty- nine years in stasis, and then realized I’d fallen in love with my old boyfriend’s grandson. I put down my screen and looked up at him. “My extremely old boyfriend, I might add,” I said aloud. I sighed and buried my head in my hands.

I heard Otto shift, and then my screen dinged again. I uncovered my eyes. Otto had turned to face me, but he was looking at his screen. That’s what’s really bothering you, isn’t it, he had written. This Xavier of yours.

“Sort of,” I admitted.

That’s what made you run away.

“God, Bren really told you everything, didn’t he.”

He recognized my concern as real.

I shook my head, relieved that for once he could see it. “Why?” I asked. “What do you see in me?”

He looked up from his notescreen, and his eyes searched mine for a moment. I could try to show you, if you’d like, he wrote, turning back to his screen. I’m not used to having to find words for this kind of thing. It isn’t anything so simple that I can encapsulate it in a glib phrase. He paused before he wrote again. Or even in a heartfelt, serious phrase.

I didn’t know what to say to any of that. He was right. Some feelings just didn’t turn into language very easily. I thought I could paint a picture that would have the same impact, but even that wouldn’t have exactly the same meaning.

As I watched him, he started writing again.

Why do you keep talking to me? Maybe the answer is there.

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “You’re interesting and different and anyone would be curious.”

If you were just curious, you would have taken me up on my offer and looked up the medical records, he wrote. He wrote much faster than I ever did, but I supposed he had more practice. That’s what most people do. Much of my life is public record, down in a dozen science mags on the net. Not to mention all the UniCorp files, which I know you could access. You looked to me, not those.

“True,” I whispered. “I feel . . . I meant it when I said I’d be your family. I feel like I already am.”

You don’t have any other family.

“I did once. They loved me.”

Otto looked up from his screen without writing another word. I could read it in his eyes, though. Yellow. Inhuman. His very DNA tattered and stitched together to form an alien monster, without a home, without a family, without a species.

Did they love you? his eyes said. Did they really? Or did they love you the way UniCorp loved me?

“Why did you try for the scholarship?” I asked him, ignoring the unspoken question.

His eyes narrowed, perplexed. I supposed it did seem incongruous. He turned back to his screen. To win my freedom. He hesitated, then asked, Why?

“I won a scholarship once.” The words were painful to say. “To the Hiroko Academy of Art, sixty- two years ago.”

Why didn’t you go?

“I went into stasis instead.”

Is that what you wanted to do?

That was the question I’d been avoiding asking myself ever since I’d gotten out of stass. The answer made me feel ill. “Yes,” I whispered.

Why?

I stood up, dropping my own screen. “Why do you keep asking why?” I demanded.

Otto glared at me, and his hands moved in an intricate pattern I couldn’t read.

“What?”

He made an irritated dolphin like noise and picked up his screen. He thrust it into my hands. Because I care! it read.

I hung my head. “Why?”

He moved his hands again. I didn’t know the language, but it was beautiful. He did the same series of gestures again. He held his palm out to me, then pointed his two index fingers sharply together, patted the back of his left hand, and then held his hand against his heart. And I understood it, without a word. Your pain touches my own.

But our pain was so different. His was forced upon him. Mine I had embraced by choice. “I hurt Xavier,” I whispered. “I broke his heart. I used everything I knew about him, turned his love for me into a weapon, to make him go. That’s why I wanted to go into stass. That’s why I got forgotten. That’s why I didn’t deserve to wake up, ever!”

Otto put his hand over his heart and held out his other hand. I could read the meaning in his eyes. Please. I hesitated, then whispered, “I’m sorry.” His face fell — not as expressionless as I’d thought, now that we were so close. But he’d misunderstood me. I was apologizing for what my mind was about to force upon him. The tangled briar of my own blame.

My hand reached for his.