Metal hums under her fingers as Ginger circles the room, touching out the lamps. Silence. Blue grows through the windows.
Little Crove’s conked out under the table with a bag of Oreos; she smiles, wipes crumbs from his mouth and gathers him to bed. Even asleep, his face is concerned.
The blue pales, grows harder. Ginger locks the shutters, but pauses at the last one. Steadman’s watching from the control tower. His goggle eyes are blank.
It’s still silent. White fire cracks ringward, outside; the water tanks flower steam. The house begins rising, steady as anything, straight up toward the moon.
Asuka turns seven, and blue.
“It’s perfectly normal,” the doctor soothes at her mom. “She started first grade recently, yes? The bright color tells school predators she’s poisonous.”
“My friend Jeremy has giant scary eyes!” says Asuka.
“No, no,” chuckles the doctor, “eye spots.”
Later, no longer afraid, Asuka kills Jeremy with a rock and eats his viscera. The angry mob shows up at the doctor’s house pretty quickly.
“I only gave her knowledge!” he roars.
“WHAT HATH SCIENCE WROUGHT,” chants the mob.
“Damn you!” cries the doctor, and inflates his bladder, causing him to appear several times his real size.
Honorifics clatter off and away from Colvoy. His stole parts and puddles; his scapular just disappears.
“The names you fouled are stricken from you herewith,” says the new primate sadly. She doesn’t have to be loud. “Francis. Peacemaker. James. Oath-borne. Father. Brother. Petitioner of the Order of Souls Aspirant.”
Colvoy’s still clothed, but feels naked anyway. He’s strangely excited and his pulse is quick as a child’s. He shivers. There is a strange freedom in this: he didn’t know his glories were so heavy.
The primate pauses, turning back a page, and he can just hear the susurration of bells unringing.
Mandy gets the heels off the minute she’s in the door, doesn’t bother leaving the porch light on–Katja won’t be back tonight–and there’s a knock.
Her fingers on the door screen: he’s swaying on the porch, but she knows he’s not really drunk. He’ll have just enough medication to let himself do this. Just enough to forget his girlfriend, tonight.
What’s the ugly phrase dangling between them, she wonders. “Second place?” “Fallback?” “A bit on the side?”
Some things are so obvious there are no words for them. Truths, or consequences.
She opens the door and lets him in.
“I was playing archaeologists!” Wendell complains.
“Only a second,” says Mom.
“Listen, sweetheart, you remember those games you played at the doctor’s?” Dad’s hands are all twisted. “They showed that your context-switching speed is… different than most kids your age.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you!” Mom says quickly.
“But–well, you were playing over there for forty minutes. Without doing anything else!” Dad frowns.
“So we’re going to try this medicine.” Mom’s anxious. “It’ll help you keep up at school, okay?”
“I have to take a pill?” says Wendell.
“Huh?” says Dad. “Oh, God, Wendell, are you still talking about that?”
Ridley’s hand pauses at the top of the check. “Um,” he asks, “does somebody have the date?”
“May 13, 2005,” says Mako, behind him.
Ridley starts to write, then looks back and grins. “You always provide the year?”
“Never know whether you’re talking to a time traveller.”
“Aren’t they supposed to look at newspapers?” Ridley leans on the counter, enjoying himself.
“Sure, and give themselves away that easy?” Mako scoffs. “Besides, being helpful could earn me the… appreciation? Of hot future guys.”
The man behind the counter is still waiting for Ridley’s check. He tries hard not to drum his fingers.
Frisco finally crawls out of the grimy J-tube and finds himself under a little dome. A ring of light paints his shoes.
He finds the valve at the top, jimmies in a tool and twists. A stream hits his arm. He has to cup it in the light to be sure: glittering dust, and the chunks of uncut diamonds. Frisco bites his hand to keep from giggling. He fills his bag, his pockets, his shirt.
In the control room, Adrian yawns and leans to the mic. “We ready?” he says. “Solid carbon fuel test thirty-five point two. Ignition on my mark.”
Cobb snatches his Strat and dodges behind the old Moog, but Lannet’s not so fast: the white noise knocks him into a stack of amps.
“I wanted an amicable split!” Fitzhugh’s shouting. “You’d still get royalties!”
“I want sheet reprint rights!” Cobb yells back.
“Then you’ll get nothing!” Fitzhugh cuts loose a feedback-heavy C5 into the monitor–or would, if Cobb wasn’t matching it exactly. They cancel.
In the weird silence, Lannet’s bloody hand thrusts out of the amps and grabs his Fender Jazz.
“No!” gasp Cobb and Fitzhugh.
He breaks the knob off at eleven, then pops low E.
“Take me out drinking,” Zubrette smiles. “You’ll see it when I wake up.”
“That’s the point! Once we see each others’ ugliest faces we won’t worry about mornings anymore, right?”
“Okay,” says Zubrette. “Okay.”
Belfast turns around and pulls down his lower eyelids, pushes up his nose and hooks back the sides of his mouth. He turns back.
Zubrette’s face is still. A single roach bursts from her left eye, leaving a sucking hole, and skitters over her brow.
Belfast only flinches a little. He lets go of his eyelids. She blinks; it’s gone.
“Got you,” she says dully. “Didn’t I?”