Eve and Adam (9 page)

He rolls down the windows. The air is damp and smells of pine.

“Now turn right,” says the voice.

The lake is close by, but you can’t see it from the road. We see it on the GPS map. It’s an isosceles triangle with a circular island in the fat end. The park isn’t busy and there are only a few cars parked here and there. But at the point where the road is closest to the lake, there are three cars, obviously hastily parked.

“That’s Maddox’s stepfather’s brother’s wife’s Ford!” Aislin cries.

The Ford, a dented tan Fusion, is boxed in by the other two cars, a tricked-out Miata and a Civic with spinners and a spoiler.

The Miata’s driver’s-side door is open. No one is inside.

Solo slows down and pulls off onto the shoulder. We are surrounded by way too many trees and way too many bushes. It’s surprisingly jungle-esque for something in the middle of San Francisco.

Our radio plays on after Solo turns off the engine. “Text your boyfriend that we’re here,” he instructs.

“He says he can’t move,” Aislin reports back.

Solo cranks the music higher. “Ask him if he hears the music.”

Maddox hears the music.

“If he hears it so do … Okay, here they come,” Solo says. There’s a look of satisfaction on his face. “Seat belts tight?”

“Why?” I ask.

Two guys, both Asian, thin, smoking cigarettes, emerge from the tangle of bushes, fallen trees, and wet grass. One is well-muscled and wearing a green leather jacket. The other, smaller, is wearing a black T-shirt. They give us a hard look. A tough-guy look. The muscular one reaches into his jacket. It’s a move intended to tell us that he’s got something in there.

Solo presses his foot on the accelerator. The car—our car, the one I’m sitting in—smashes straight into the Miata. Right into its driver’s-side door panel.

The impact jolts me hard against my shoulder belt. But it’s not enough to pop the airbag.

“Hey!” I yell. Because what else is there to yell when someone deliberately crashes a car?

Both guys stare, jaws open. A cigarette falls.

“Whoa! Sorry!” Solo says, and it’s a very convincing apology.

“What the—” Leather Jacket yells and stabs the air with his cigarette.

“Sorry, man, sorry!” Solo yells. He whips out his phone and starts dialing. “I’m all over 911. My bad. Totally my bad. But we need the cops to come so I can report it.”

“No cops,” Leather Jacket says. He shakes a no-no finger at Solo.

“Gotta have cops, bro,” Solo says. I don’t believe Solo is a guy who has ever used the word “bro” before, and I’m pretty sure he never will again. But it does the job of making him seem harmless and not very bright.

Leather Jacket pulls a gun.

I’ve never actually seen a gun in real life. I think it’s a toy. But some part of my brain is screaming something about it being real and getting shot and oh please no and I don’t want to die and no no no, even though on the outside I’m pretty sure I look calm.

“Get the hell out of here,” the thug says.

This is when I learn the useful thing about electric cars: There’s no roar of a gas engine when you stomp on the accelerator. Which is what Solo does, with the car in reverse and the wheel turned sharply.

The car jerks back so hard it’s like we’ve been hit again, and for a second some confused part of my brain half wonders if I’ve been shot. But no: no bang noise.

The front left bumper swings back hard, right into Leather Jacket.

It’s a glancing blow. Nothing like the blow that knocked my leg clean off. But there’s no such thing as a love-tap when a car hits you.

Leather Jacket is down, down hard, on his back in the grass. One leg’s beneath the car and his gun is on the grass behind his head.

He doesn’t reach for either. He tries to sit up. It’s a bad move because Solo thrusts his door open and hits him in the face with it. Down goes Leather Jacket again, and this time he’s not going to get up soon.

It all happens so fast, too fast to parse out the individual actions, a blur of flash images, sudden jerks, jolts, noises, cries, crunches, the leap-back of T-shirt.

We hear shouts. Two guys are running toward us from the direction of the still-unseen lake. T-shirt is yelling, but he doesn’t know what to do. The two new arrivals run, see their friend down on the ground, see us, slow down. If one of them has a gun, I tell myself, he would have pulled it out by now.

“Let your boyfriend know he can come out, it’s safe,” Solo instructs Aislin in an amazingly calm voice.

I turn to see if she’s okay. Her fingers are trembling as she tries to text.

The car is still in reverse. Solo eases it backward until the left front wheel encounters an obstacle. It’s Leather’s leg.

Solo says, “We’re here to pick up our friend. If you let him through, no problem. If you don’t, then I’m going to back right over your friend’s leg.”

Maddox appears. He’s soaking wet, muddy from his sneakers to his chest. Dead leaves and sticks cling to him like a halfhearted attempt at camouflage.

He’s a good-looking guy, Maddox is, in a hulky, fullback kind of way. Although right now, terrified and soggy, he just looks pathetic.

“Get in!” Aislin yells.

Solo waits until he’s buckled up. “Pull your boy out from under and call an ambulance,” he instructs the three glaring thugs.

“Everyone ready?”

Oh, we’re ready.

We pull away and Solo says, “It’s so much easier when you don’t have to worry about surveillance cameras.”

Maddox hugs Aislin like a drowning man grabbing the last life preserver. She tolerates it for a few seconds, then punches him in the chest and pushes him away.

“Hey!”

“Dumbass!” she screams.

I’m ignoring them because I can’t stop staring at Solo, who is driving away with quiet competence, merging into traffic and turning into the Sunset District.

“How did you…,” I begin, but I don’t really know how to finish the question.

He emits a short bark of a laugh. “The rat who runs the maze every day develops some moves. And I am the boss rat.”

It’s not a joke. He tries to pretend it is, but there’s something there, seething beneath the surface.

We drive in silence. At least the front seat is silent. Aislin and Maddox are alternately yelling and making out.

“I have to get the car back,” Solo says. “There’s a short window of time.”

I twist around in my seat. “Aislin, you need to come with me.”

“She’s going with me,” Maddox says. He’s sullen, not his usual charming self. Really, he is charming. But not when he’s scared and muddy and shaky with the aftereffects of adrenaline, I guess.

I know, because I’m shaky myself. I didn’t actually have time to be scared. The whole mess lasted maybe a minute or two.

No more. Now I’m scared. Scared and pissed.

“Damn you, Maddox!” I rage. “You could have gotten us all killed.”

“No way,” he protests, but it’s weak. “They would have just beaten the hell out of me.”

“Yeah, because nothing like that ever gets out of control,” I shout. “Solo saved your butt, you loser.” I’m on a roll now. “Get out of Aislin’s life and stop dragging her down with you.”

Aislin looks out the window at the lights streaking past. Not at me, not at Maddox.

“I can’t sneak them back into Spiker,” Solo says. “There are limits to my maze rat powers.”

“I can get Aislin in. Right through the front door,” I reply.

Solo shakes his head slightly. “Not without some explanation for how she got there. We need to drop her first. After we’re back, then we can get her in.”

“Aislin, we’ll drop you off at your house,” I say. “Or wherever you want. But you have to get a cab and come to Spiker. Stay with me for a while. At least until your parents get back from Barbados.”

“Belize.”

Aislin’s parents travel a lot. They are perpetually tan.

“Hey, I still have a few days of school and—”

“Dammit, Aislin!” I yell, cutting her off. “We can get you to school.”

“Sweetheart,” she says, reaching over to put her hand on my arm. She gives me the look I secretly think of as her “doomed” look. It’s the weary, knowing, sad look that says,
I’m a bad seed, I’m unlucky in life, this is my fate, and you can’t really help me.

That’s all she says. Just “sweetheart.”

I turn away, angry. I tell Solo to drop Aislin and Maddox at her parents’ place.

What is it that gets inside a person and convinces them to self-destruct? Is it their home life? Sometimes. But Aislin’s home life isn’t terrible. Her parents fight, but so do lots of people’s parents. They’re not rich, but they have enough money, enough, anyway, to get her into our snooty private school. Enough to keep their tans fresh.

Her mother is kind of a weak, ditzy, and inconsequential woman—the polar opposite of my mother. Absolutely no one has ever described Terra Spiker as weak. But it’s not like Aislin is being abused. I would know. We have no secrets. Her father is just like Aislin, a funny, charming, and, um, shall we say, adventurous person. But he loves Aislin and she knows it.

They’re distracted parents, not always around, not perfect. Join the club.

So what’s the deal?

Is it all just DNA? Is that twisted double helix the all-controlling code we can never outwit? Is there some chromosome deep down in Aislin’s cells that dooms her to a life of unhappiness with losers like Maddox?

On the other hand, Aislin, at least, has a relationship.

Oh, that was a cruel shot from my own brain. I’m actually arguing with myself as we motor through the streets, looking for Aislin’s house.

Yes, she has a relationship. A bad relationship.

Is a bad relationship supposed to be better than none at all?

How would you know?

There’s no hurry. I’m not a pint of half-and-half about to expire. I can wait until I meet the right person.

You mean the perfect person. The flawless person. That person doesn’t exist.

We drop Aislin. I beckon her to my window, and in a loud whisper that Maddox, to his credit, pretends not to hear, I tell her to come straight to Spiker and stay with me. I beg and plead and know I’m wasting my time.

I watch Aislin and Maddox head inside. She waves wanly before closing the door.

I slam The Leg against the dashboard. “Oh, she drives me crazy sometimes.”

“Your leg doesn’t seem to be bothering you at all,” Solo notes.

“What?” He’s right. I’d forgotten all about it. “Yeah, well, that’s not my main worry right now.”

He holds my gaze as if waiting for something. I have the sudden, bizarre thought that he might be thinking about kissing me.

“Not even,” I say. “I didn’t suddenly turn vulnerable to your charm.”

His eyebrows rise. “Oh, you thought I was going to make a move on you?”

“I didn’t—” I start to say, retreating.

“Stop projecting your feelings on me,” Solo says.

It’s a breathtakingly effective put-down.

I can’t think of a single thing to say in response, although I’m pretty sure I’ll have something in about three hours, when it’s too late to matter.

“No, I thought maybe things were starting to connect for you, that was all,” Solo says as he pulls the car out. “Of course, if you insist on throwing yourself at me, I guess I could play along.”

“There will be no throwing.”

“Well, it’s going to have to come from you,” he says. “You’re the boss’s daughter. You’ll have to make the first move.”

“Then consider yourself safe,” I say.

I turn on the radio.

Loud.

– 17 –

Sneaking back in is easier than I imagined. Still, the whole thing’s left me feeling agitated, tired, confused.

Solo rolls me to the clinic, where they’ve apparently been a bit frantic, what with having misplaced the boss’s daughter. Fortunately, my mother’s been at the spa all day. She is unreachable when she’s being detoxified, rejuvenated, or antiaged.

“I was just touring the place,” I assure Dr. Anderson.

“You should be in bed,” he chides. “You are in no condition to be touring.”

Or chasing down gangbangers,
I add silently.

Once the staff is properly reassured, Solo wheels me to the workstation where Project 88715 is set up. I’ve begun to think of it as “my” workstation. My project.

The overhead lights are dimmed, but the twinkle lights on the giant ficus are lit. No one’s around.

I clear my throat. “Thanks,” I say. “For helping with Aislin.”

“No problem.” Solo shoves his hands in his pockets. “Hey, you hungry? I can run down to the cafeteria, see what’s lying around.”

“No, I’m good. Too wired.”

“You think Aislin will show up?”

“No,” I say. “I can’t compete with Maddox’s allure.”

Solo laughs, stares at his shoes. “You’re all right. But you’re no Maddox.”

The tension in the car seems to have passed. Good. We can pretend it never happened.

I sign in, tap a few keys, and suddenly, a giant pair of blue eyes—Solo’s eyes—float before us. “Adam awaits,” I say.

“Adam, huh?”

“That’s what Aislin named him. Could be Steve, though. Work in progress.”

Solo locks my wheelchair into place. “Okay, then,” he says. “Night.”

“Night. And thanks again.”

I feel strangely alone when he’s gone. Various machines hum softly, but otherwise, it’s utterly quiet.

The eyes throb gently, casting a blue moon glow over my desk.

I should probably work on the rest of Adam’s face. Those eyes need a home, after all.

I consult the screen, scanning my options. The software gives me a little flexibility. After a few minutes of hesitation, I click “hands.”

I don’t know why. I tell myself it’s because opposable thumbs are so important to Homo sapiens. Tool use and all that.

It sounds profound in my head.

The face? That’s just cosmetics, really. Hands, though, well, hands
do
things. Hands create.

I’m getting pretty good with the software now. When it flashes a warning to me about blood supply, I remember how to hook the virtual hands to the temporary virtual blood supply. The software shifts view subtly, just as it did with the eyes, and the hands assume an eerie reality.