Rob nodded, though he wasn’t sure it was that simple.
“Is there anything I can update you on that you’d enjoy? The news, your favorite interactives? Your profile said you’re a Cubs fan—do you want to hear how they’re doing?”
“No,” Winter said. If she were capable of shouting, Rob thought she would have shouted it. “I can’t put the ‘why’ into words, but, no.” She thought about it. “I don’t want to be reminded that the world is moving on, that time is passing.”
There was something unsettling about her face, and Rob finally realized what it was. She didn’t blink.
“How much time has passed?” she asked.
“Four months.” He felt guilty admitting it had taken him that long.
“Though someone woke me a month after your last visit, so three months.”
Rob raised his eyebrows. “Oh?” He knew the odds of any one bridesicle being chosen for repair and revival were long, so he hadn’t dared hope.
“My ex-boyfriend.” Her eyes moved stiffly up, then down. She may have been trying to roll her eyes. “He broke up with me the day of my accident. Evidently he feels guilty now that I’m dead.”
“He feels guilty?” Rob looked toward the ceiling, shook his head.
“I asked him to visit once in a while as well. Nathan promised he would.”
Rob nodded. If someone else visited, maybe it would be all right for Rob to visit less often. He wondered if the guy really would, and if Winter knew how much it cost to visit. He glanced at the timer: almost two minutes gone.
“Do you want to pass along a message to anyone? I can make sure it reaches them.”
“No, thanks. My parents are dead, and I don’t want to upset my friends.”
“You don’t have brothers or sisters?”
“I have a brother, but you wouldn’t be able to find him. He’s a raw-lifer, way out in the wild.”
Rob nodded understanding. One of his favorite interactives was a raw-life show. You had to figure out how to make new shoes when your old ones wore out while also trying to learn how to avoid dead spots and people who weren’t living way out in the ruins by choice.
There was a date going on nearby, maybe one level down. Rob couldn’t quite hear their words, but the murmuring was distracting.
“I wish I could see the sky. Trees.”
“There’s a window down there.” Rob looked over his shoulder at the picture window down the hall. It looked out on the tops of gorgeous hybrid cypress yaupons.
“I can’t see it.” She couldn’t turn her head at all. He wasn’t allowed to touch her to turn her head, and surveillance cameras were monitoring them. He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to touch her even if he’d been allowed.
“It feels like my head is a block of stone,” she said. “All I can feel is my face.”
Rob nodded, not sure how to respond.
“Tell me something happy,” Winter said. “Something warm. I don’t want to think about my life.” When she saw Rob struggling, she added, “What do you love to do?”
“Play the lute.”
“The lute? That’s right, you’re a musician. I didn’t know anyone played the lute.”
“No one else does,” he laughed. “When I was ten, I heard an old man playing one in a park near my house, and I…”—he cast about for words—“it just called to me. I can’t explain it.”
“You’re an old soul, then. You must have played one many lives ago.”
He smiled, not sure if she was speaking figuratively, or if she really believed in reincarnation. “When I’m playing, everything else fades away. It’s the purest joy I know.” He spoke quickly. He felt like every word should be meaningful. Winter was speaking quickly too; as quickly as she could, given the stiffness in her jaw and mouth.
Eighty seconds left. Five minutes was an astonishingly brief period of time.
“Will you bring your lute next time, and play for me?” The hope in her eyes told him it was not an idle request.
“Absolutely.”
“Maybe you could play while I’m waking? I’m so disoriented then. Music would give me something to focus on.”
“Do you have a favorite song?”
“No, nothing I know. Something ancient, from the time when lutes were popular.”
He nodded. “I can do that.”
Thirty seconds now. He wondered if he should tell her. “Is it easier if you don’t know when the time is up?”
“Oh, God. The time is almost up?” The panic in her voice was unnerving, somehow made worse by the distortion. “How much do I have?”
Rob glanced at the timer. “Only thirteen seconds.”
She whimpered. “I want to go home.” She looked at Rob. “Promise you’ll come back soon?”
“I will. Don’t worry. It’ll seem like an instant.”
That didn’t seem to comfort Winter. “It won’t. It’s not like sleeping—”
The fear drained from her eyes, leaving emptiness.
As soon as Rob got outside, he took out his handheld. She’d said her ex-boyfriend’s name was Nathan. Maybe Nathan would be willing to coordinate visits with Rob, if Rob could locate him. There was only one possible way to locate him with nothing but a first name. He scrolled to the text message he’d received from Winter’s friend Idris the day after she confronted him at the entrance to the dating center.
I miss her so much. You have no idea who you took from us.
He had never replied to the message. Now he did. Can you please tell me the last name of Winter’s ex-boyfriend Nathan? I need to contact him, for Winter’s sake.
Idris appeared via screen before he made it to the end of the block. “What do you mean, for Winter’s sake?”
Rob explained what he was doing, and how Nathan might help.
17
Veronika
Two teenage girls passed Veronika, one wearing a falsie—a skin that looked like a system but didn’t actually do anything. She was speaking in inflected speech, her subvocalization nothing but nonsense syllables. Her friend, who didn’t even have a falsie, seemed impressed.
As the girls passed out of her view, Veronika returned to watching the Hudson creep by between the chrome slats of the bridge while helping Dora McQueen swap text with a guy who was completely wrong for her. FaceQ had Dora rated a four point four. She was a squat, stubby-legged woman with a big head and thin hair. The guy she was flirting with was a solid six point two, and Veronika knew the type—he was looking for someone who would not only happily do it doggy-style on their first face-to-face, but agree to wear a collar and a leash and let fifty of his friends watch. Most of her clients eagerly took her advice about how to meet someone, but so few listened when she offered expert advice on whom to meet.
Across the bridge and down a ways, a pedestrian caught her eye. Like countless others who’d stopped over the past six months, he was taking in the view, but there was something about his posture—a tightness, an unease.
He put a hand on the rail, and lingered.
He looked around and, spotting Veronika sitting on her portable chair on the other side of the bridge, quickly looked away. Even from this distance Veronika could see he was a big man, six-five or taller.
As Veronika pretended to work, he kept glancing over; soon Veronika was reminded of kids attempting to cheat on tests, back in the days of her brief, disastrous stint as a high school teacher. A glance to see if she was looking, then a quick look away when he saw she was.