“Okay,” he said. “Sure. You got it.”
She looked away from him toward the television screen, picking up her water and taking a sip. The sailors had settled on a channeclass="underline" this season’s American Hero was playing, one of the interminable “introductions” with Buffalo Gal’s lumpy and hairy face staring laconically at the screen, a cud bulging her left cheek as she chewed contentedly against the western mountains in the background. The sailors watching the episode cheered as the video cut quickly to Auntie Gravity, whose ace was the ability to render objects temporarily weightless. Especially with the low sound, it was difficult to focus on anything about Auntie Gravity beyond her breasts, which appeared to have been cut-and-pasted from a bad pornographic cartoon: a massive chest far too large for her frame and defying the pull of gravity, straining at the cloth of her custom-made T-shirt. One of Michael’s multiple throats closed, a finger tapped his chest, and a mocking cymbal crash rang out in the lounge. The sailors turned, gave Michael a thumbs-up, laughing.
Kate grimaced. She set down the bottle of water and pushed herself up from the couch. Michael thought she was going to say something, but she just looked at him, her head shaking slightly.
“Sorry,” Michael said. “But, hey, they thought it was funny.”
“Yeah, they did.” She sighed and touched Michael’s top shoulder.
“Hey, I gotta go. See you later, okay?”
“Sure,” Michael told her. “Later. I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“Want another?” Rusty handed Michael a can of Old Milwaukee beaded with sweat. Michael took it in his middle left hand and opened it with the top left. Rusty shook his massive head as foam hissed at the opening. “That just looks weird, fella,” he said.
Michael grinned and tilted the can over his open mouth, draining half the beer in one swallow. He could feel it running cool down his wide throat on its way to join the other four he’d already had. He wiped at his mouth with the back of a hand.
The fierce Persian sun had set over an hour ago, and Michael and Rusty were sitting in the area called the Junk Yard, aft of the island, sheltered a bit from the wind by one of the Tilly cranes. They were sitting near Elevator Three, which was down. They could look over the edge to the well-lit and cavernous hangar below the flight deck, where sailors were working on one of the fighters. A female mechanic walked into sight in the floodlights, and Michael’s gaze followed her. “Man, look at the ass on her,” he said. “Even in those overalls, she looks fine.”
Rusty set down his own beer and belched loudly. “Kate,” he said. “Remember?”
“Don’t mean I can’t look.” Michael finished the rest of the can and tossed it toward the paper bag that held the twelve-pack. He wasn’t entirely sure it went in, but he shrugged. “Hey, I learned my lesson after American Hero.” He leaned his head back against the Tilly. His eyes closed, and he started awake. Rusty was still looking at him, so he figured it had only been a moment. “After that, I realized there’s no way . . . Hey, got another one of those?” Rusty reached into the bag and handed him a can, popping another one open for himself. Michael opened his and took a long swallow. “No way,” he said, the “way” coming out loudly enough that the young woman in coveralls glanced up at them, “that I can get involved with any aces or anyone famous ’cuz Kate would hear ’bout it. Some bastard like Hive would go an’ tell her, an’ then she’d just get fucking pissed all over again and go runnin’ off to goddamn Beetle Boy. So I made me a rule: don’t fuck aces, don’t fuck anyone famous, so Kate don’t think I’m just some asshole chasing after pieces of ass. ’Cuz I do love Kate. I do. Man, if I were with her . . .” He was gesturing with all six hands. He heard the can clatter against the deck, and managed to rescue it before all the beer spilled.
“That’s a good rule?” Rusty asked. One steely eyebrow climbed the oxidized metal of his forehead.
“Fuck yeah it is. It takes care of the whole problem.” Michael leaned closer to Rusty, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial bellow. “Now, if something happens after a concert, well, what happens in the dressing room or my hotel room stays there, right?” He nudged Rusty with an elbow and grimaced at the too-solid contact. “Right? As long as she’s not famous or some ace.”
“I hear you saying that, yeah.”
“Y’know, I could see settlin’ down with Kate one day. Though ’cuz of the virus, we couldn’t have kids—I already got myself taken care of, y’know.” He made a snipping motion with two fingers. “I’d love to have kids, too—did’ja know that? I would. Fucking love it. You ’member those joker kids back in Egypt—always around me, trying to play drums on my chest?” Michael laughed and pounded on his torso, sending a wild, unrhythmic cascade of drumbeats echoing from the island. Below, the mechanics glanced up again. “Hell, that was a blast. Kids would be great; maybe we could adopt some . . . .” He paused, blinking. His eyelids felt impossibly heavy. “But hey, what about you, Rusty?” Michael asked. The beer can was on its side again. He looked at the foamy puddle mournfully. “How is it with you and the women? I bet you get your share, right, big guy like you?” Michael touched his chest, and a cymbal crash rang. Rusty said nothing. “Right?” Michael asked again.
“I never—” Rusty began, then grated to a halt like a broken locomotive. He was staring out at the dark Gulf.
“Never what?” Michael asked, then the import of the words hit him and he sucked in salt air in a great gulp. “Shit, you mean . . . ?” He could see the answer on Rusty’s face. “Wow,” he said. “I really don’t know what to say, man. Never?”
Rusty shrugged. “I was seventeen when I turned my card. Before that, I dunno, I was a kinda shy fella, that’s all. And after . . . Now . . .” Another shrug. Even through the haze of alcohol, Michael realized it was the most words he’d ever heard Rusty say about himself at one time.
“Never,” Michael repeated, and belched. “We’re a hell of a pair, ain’t we?” he said. He put all three right arms around Rusty. They sat there a moment, just staring. Then Rusty reached into the bag and pulled out two more beers.
“ ’Nother?” he said.
Michael took his and popped the top. He reached over to clank his can against Rusty’s. “To us,” he said.
They drained the cans as one.
Barbara Baden had called the meeting of the Committee members aboard the ship. Michael knew what it meant; they all knew. He could see it in their faces as they entered the meeting room belowdecks of the Tomlin.
“Hey, Kate,” he said. He took the seat next to her at the table. Rusty sat on his other side. Across the table, Lohengrin nodded to him, and Tinker smiled. Barbara was at the whiteboard near the head of the table. There were notebooks in front of each of them, with the UN logo prominent on the cover. “We’re the last, I guess. Sorry, Babs.”
Baden smiled. “Not a problem, DB. I just finished talking with the secretary-general and John Fortune. So here’s the situation: unless something changes in the next day, we’ll be going in before dawn two days from now; the Tomlin is already heading to a new position just off Kuwait City.”
“Going in where?” Lohengrin grunted. Goinguh in vhere? “To the oil fields?”
Baden shook her head. “We need a better staging area for that—there will be several UN battalions involved, not to mention the ground and engineering support we’ll need when we take control of the actual oil facilities. We plan to take Kuwait International Airport first.”