The Paradox Initiative (10 page)

Kestrel stood with her hands on her hips, assessing the contents of her luggage. She had spread everything out on her bed, and had just finished counting
it all. She had sufficient shirts, pants, socks and undergarments to last a week, and enough toiletries to last a month, if she was careful. She made a face. All her clothes were either black or gray, except for the one blue shirt she’d worn aboard. Sighing and massaging her temples, Kestrel stepped over to the silver bureau and tapped the top drawer. It opened. She stacked her clean clothes inside the drawers, shut them, then put her toiletry bag on the counter in the shiny bathroom. She returned, then picked up her dirty clothes and headed to the door.

Before the doors had even opened
all the way, she heard coughing. She stopped on the threshold. Wolfe stood at the kitchenette sink, one hand braced on the counter. He’d taken off his jacket, so Kestrel could see his back shuddering. He coughed hard, gulped, then coughed again as he pushed the cabinet door open. He snatched a plastic glass and shoved it under the water dispenser in the sink. Water splashed over the edges and only half-filled the glass before he pulled it to his lips and took several careful swallows.

He put the glass down and gasped a long breath, wiping his mouth and then his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Are you…sick?” Kestrel wondered, stepping down and crossing closer to him. His head tilted toward her, but he didn’t look.

“
Chest cold,” he muttered. “Can’t seem to shake it.” He took another drink. Carefully, Kestrel walked behind him to the other side of the kitchenette.

“I’m going to drywash some of my clothes,” she mentioned, opening the machine’s large door with a snap. “Do you have anything to wash?”

He shook his head, resting both hands on the counter now.

“What about your jacket?” Kestrel pressed.

“What about it?”

“It might get the…The smoke smell off,” she ventured. He glanced at her over his shoulder and frowned.

“Why would I care about that?”

“Smoking is illegal
this side of the Vice Line,” Kestrel said, holding her clothes in front of her but looking at him steadily. “If anybody smells it on you, you could get into trouble.”

He
sniffed, cleared his throat, then turned back toward his bed and snatched up the jacket.

“Do I have to do anything to it
—turn it inside out or something?” he asked. “It won’t fall apart, will it?”

“Fall apart?” Kestrel lifted an eyebrow. “No,
the machine can handle any sort of fabric. You don’t want to have anything in your pockets, though.”

“Oh,” he mu
rmured, stopped and dug into an inside pocket. He pulled out the folded leather square and tossed it onto the bed, then tugged out two jingling bits with short ribbons trailing from them. He stuffed those in his jeans pocket, then handed her the coat.

Kestrel
set her clothes down on the floor, then laid the jacket out on the first tray of the cleaner. She put her own clothes on the lower trays, shut the door, and punched the button for
Medium/Gentle
clean.

“How long will that take?”
Wolfe asked, picking up the leather piece and sitting down on his bed.

“
Mine will probably take fifteen minutes,” Kestrel answered. “It might want to work on your coat a little longer.”

He just grunted, leaned back against the wall and opened the
folded leather, flipping through the thin pieces inside. Kestrel paused.

“What is that?”

“What’s what?” he asked.

“That,” she pointed at it. A shadow of a smirk crossed the edges of his mouth.

“A book.”

“A book?” she breathed. “Does it have…
paper
inside?”

“Yes,” he said, turning one more leaf.

“I’ve never seen one except in a museum,” Kestrel realized, holding out her hand. “May I look at it?”

“No,” he answered.
Kestrel stood there for a moment, then dropped her hand. She turned and started toward her room. Halfway there, she halted. Her fists closed. She spun on her heel and marched toward the door.

“I’m going out,” she announced, and before he could say anything, the door had opened to let her through, and shut behind her.

Loud, upbeat music swam around her head as she walked, hands in her pockets, down a long, wide, gradually-curving white hallway. Dozens of other passengers strolled back and forth all around her, diddling on their hand-held devices, talking into their communicators, stopping to marvel at the wall-adverts, or darting into the fantastically-lit shops and restaurants on either side.

Kestrel flinched as yet another ad for the shooting arcade bounced up in front of her. She charged through it and it blipped off. She looked up, found another elevator and boarded it along with five other people.

After making several stops, the doors opened to the main deck—the stained-glass sun overhead blazed down on the noisy swimming pool and slide. Kestrel maneuvered around a crowd of passengers standing at the reception desk—they probably were having problems with their cabin doors—and found the desk labeled
Ad-Links.

“Hi,” Kestrel smiled at the young, blonde woman behind the counter.

“Good morning, ma’am,” the woman answered brightly. “What level of Ad-Link are you interested in renting today?”

“What are my options?” Kestrel asked
, folding her arms. The woman pressed a button, and the surface of the side counter slid back to reveal three bracelets on a white surface: one red, one yellow, one green.

“The red one here is our B
asic Link,” the woman pointed. “Completely water-proof. Deactivates fifty percent of the pop-up wall ads. The yellow one is the Enhanced Link, also waterproof, which deactivates seventy-five percent. And then of course we have our Maximum Link, which eliminates them all for you. Of course, prices vary according to deactivation percentage.”

“I’ll take the Enhanced
link,” Kestrel decided, remembering how expensive the Maximum always was.

“Just one?” the woman a
ctivated the purchase screen her desk.

“No, um…” Kestrel closed her hands, then lifted her chin. “Two of them, please.”

Kestrel sat on a high bar stool, a neon-blue soda on the counter between her fingers, watching the activity of the main hallway through the glass wall in front of her. Her eyes unfocused. She barely heard the noises of the other customers in the restaurant, or the pulse of the music.

The Ad-Link bracelet worked. With
it firmly clasped around her right wrist, she’d marched across several sensors all across the level and only three walls had popped up.

And now she had nothing to do.

After two laps of the whole commerce section, she’d meandered into a café she’d passed four times before, ordered a drink and sat down…

Only to feel her skin
steadily go icy.

Listlessly, she stirred her drink, watching the bubbles rise to the surface. A pain had started behind her breastbone as she sat—she fought it back, and any thoughts that tried to intrude with it.

Movement caught her eye. Rather,
lack
of movement.

Someone had stopped outside, right in the middle of the busy corridor. Kestrel blinked,
and lifted her head.

He wore a long, camel
-colored dress coat, his hands casually resting in its pockets. He was fairly tall and slender, had curly golden hair and a handsome, flawless, cultured face.

And he was looking at her.

His dark brows drew together as their eyes met. He had very blue eyes. Penetrating, yet soft.

He smiled. A mysterious, quiet expression. He inclined his head to her…

And then promptly walked away.

Kestrel started breathing again. She pressed her hand to her chest. Why had she stopped?

She took a bracing drink and swallowed the cold, fizzy liquid, but couldn’t make herself move from that spot for a long time.

Kestrel sat at the end of her bed, thoughtlessly rubbing her fingers back and forth, back and forth, across her yellow Ad-Link bracelet. No sound cam
e from anyplace in her room—the sound system had a glitch. Once, she’d managed to get it to play some fast, metallic music, but that was no good to sleep to. And she wasn’t in the mood to bug the management about it.

The crisp
flick
of a page turning issued from the other room. She didn’t lift her head to look, though the door was open. It was just Wolfe, leafing through his book again.

Three days. Three days had gone by, and they’
d barely spoken ten words to each other. Each morning, they ventured out to get breakfast, but Wolfe was never inclined to engage in any sort of conversation. He ate as if it were his job, he walked as if he were going somewhere important, and never said anything to her except to get expedient information. The rest of the morning he would read or write in his book as he sat on his bed or in one of the chairs. These past days he had foregone lunch, letting her go alone, and when she came back she always found him asleep. Or feigning sleep. Then, later in the evening he would get up, clean up, and they would head out to eat dinner. Never anything different—always the food court on the Sun Deck. Then they would return, and he would read some more, and go to bed.

So during the days,
Kestrel wandered. Not far—but she couldn’t stand to just sit in the room. Once, she’d made a move to turn on the entertainment console in the sitting area, but Wolfe had given her such a severe look she’d backed away instantly. So, she had meandered through the deck, half-heartedly exploring each one of the shops and restaurants.

Now, s
omething blinked. She glanced over at the clock.

6:30

She got up and walked out into the sitting room. Wolfe sat on his bed beneath the light of the lamp, leaning against the wall and frowning down at his book. Kestrel took a breath.

“Dinner?”

“No,” he said absently. “Go ahead.”

Her brow furrowed.

“You’re not hungry?”

He didn’t answer.

Kestrel swallowed hard, looked down at her feet, then hopped down the step and swept out the door.

She couldn’t see straight for
several paces, but her feet worked on autopilot, taking her straight down the hallway and toward the noise and light of the level’s main commerce section. She emerged into the big, white, busy hallway, taking a breath of the scent of all the cooking food. She walked with long strides, fighting to leave her thoughts behind her, scanning the options for her evening meal.

She’d made two laps before she realized that she’d seen everything already.
There were only three dining places on this level. Everything else was either desserts, coffees and teas, or novelty shops.

Kestrel stopped in the middle of the floor. Other passengers wove around her, talking happily as if she wasn’t there.
She hung her head, then shuffled toward the closest restaurant and asked for a table for one.