Rob felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.
“We treat our stray dogs better than that,” Veronika said.
On the website, Sunali’s picture grew ghostly pale, her lips tinged blue, her hair and eyelashes frosted over. Her eyes welled with tears.
How long was it before they pulled the plug on an unprofitable salvage case? Decades? Years? Months? Rob was paying to visit her, so she was bringing in some income, but was it enough? Was anyone else visiting her?
Rob felt a hand on his shoulder, turned to find Nathan at his side. “Holy, holy, shit. I’m sorry, Cousin.”
“I have to find out how long she has,” Rob said.
Veronika worked her system, after a moment shook her head. “I can’t find any numbers.”
Rob could barely feel his feet. Despite the dizzying view and wide-open sky, he felt as if walls were closing in around him. She was going into the ground. If no one wanted her, she was going into the ground.
It was not solely guilt that caused that image to shake him to the bones. He knew her now.
“I have to go,” he said. “I’m sorry. I have to find out.” Before they could answer, he turned and jogged toward the elevator.
Sunali might know, or be able to find out. As he ran along the crosswalk, he tried to contact Sunali on his handheld. She had a complete block in place—no visitors, no messages, no info on her current location.
He tried the public address for Bridesicle Watch, and was told Sunali was out of the office for a few days, on personal business. He left a message for her.
“Shit.” He wanted to punch something, or scream at someone. How could they simply bury someone? It wasn’t murder, because Winter was already dead, but surely it was something.
Lorelei would be able to get in touch with Sunali, but God, he didn’t want to contact Lorelei, especially about this. Maybe there was some other way to get the information. In the meantime, he’d keep trying Sunali.
24
Veronika
“Hey Rob, this is Veronika.” Veronika paused the recording, looked at the ceiling. She wasn’t sure of her own motivation here. Was she doing this because (a) Rob was a thoughtful, genuine, remarkably principled guy she’d like to cultivate a friendship with, and (okay, unlikely) possibly more? Or because (b) if Nathan saw her hanging out with Rob, he might think there was something percolating between them and get jealous, even if he had caught Veronika kissing a virtual hunk from an interactive?
Option (b) reflected the thinking of a disturbed individual who should seek psychiatric attention. Of course Veronika was already receiving psychiatric attention on a weekly basis, so she was covered there. She closed her eyes, tried to listen for that tiny voice of truth anchored within the swirling mass of chattering and anxiety that passed for her mind.
The truth was, it was both, but it was sixty percent (a) and forty percent (b). Veronika decided she could live with that.
She checked the time and jumped off her sofa. She was supposed to meet Lycan at the Broadway High micro-T stop in three minutes. The message, checking on Winter’s status and simultaneously inviting Rob to coffee with her alone, would have to wait.
Veronika threw on her boots and bolted for the elevator. She really should invite Lycan on some outing with Nathan and Rob, rather than having it always be just the two of them. Lycan clearly saw their get-togethers as platonic, but what if he did develop a crush on her? She certainly wasn’t sending him signals that she wasn’t interested.
Taking the walk-up steps two at a time, she hit the sidewalk and glided off, threading past slower walkers.
Was she interested? No, not seriously. She needed a man she could spar with, a man with a sharp sense of humor. Maybe that was why she was reluctant to bring Lycan along on a jaunt with Nathan. Lycan wouldn’t fit in—he was too earnest, too serious.
Weaving slightly like a tall tree in a breeze, his hands dangling awkwardly at his sides, Lycan was waiting at what appeared to be the exact center of the station. He spotted her and smiled, raised his hand to wave, then inexplicably aborted the wave and let his hand drop.
“I thought you’d changed your mind.”
“Just got caught up in other things. Sorry.”
“So where are we going?” Lycan sounded excited.
Veronika paused for effect. “Into the wild.” On their last two outings they’d seen a concert, and visited the vertical gardens on Roosevelt Island—both beautiful things. It was time to revisit the other end of the spectrum.
Lycan frowned. “You mean, literally?”
“As far out as we can get.”
“Why?” Lycan sputtered. He seemed flabbergasted that anyone would voluntarily leave the city.
“Just for the adventure.” She grabbed Lycan’s elbow, tugged him toward a waiting micro-T.
Three nubile twenty-something women got the last three spots, but another was already in sight, so Veronika couldn’t hate them too much, though she hated them slightly for being nubile and having a combined twenty screens tagging along behind them. Veronika looked into the empty air surrounding her and Lycan. No screens; not one between them. Not even her mother was interested in seeing where she was going.
They got off in Westchester and rented a vehicle, a big road-eating Geely that Veronika struggled to keep between the lines when it wasn’t on autopilot. Lycan sat with his hands awkwardly in his lap, saying nothing, but looking at Veronika once in a while.
She hoped Rob was all right. It was inconvenient that she couldn’t get in touch with him when he was at work.
“Remember my friend Rob?” she asked Lycan, mostly to break the silence.
“Sure. His story’s hard to forget.”
“Well, now it turns out Winter, the woman he hit, could be thawed and buried if she doesn’t have enough dates.” Veronika sighed in exasperation. “Dates. It makes her sound like a prostitute, but that’s what Cryomed insists on calling them.”
“My God,” Lycan said. “That’s terrible. They can do that?”
“I’m so worried for him, and for Winter.” And for herself, if she was honest. If Winter was buried, a small, warm something inside her would be snuffed out. It was childish to hang anything on the small role she played in Rob’s promise to Winter, but that small part she played kept her going in a way.
“I’ll tell you something.”
Her serious tone caused Lycan to turn and look at her. “You want to know the real reason I was up on the bridge that day? It was because I wanted to do something that mattered. I was starting to feel like I was invisible, you know?”
Lycan nodded. He was listening to her, really listening. Feeling a silly swell of gratitude, she continued.
“My clients never see me. I had one friend at the time, and most of the time when we were together IP, most of his attention was on his system. I wanted to do something real. I wanted to grab a real arm, pull someone down from a real bridge.”
“What you’re describing sounds a lot like technomie. Do you think you spend too much of your time inside screens, playing interactive?”
“Of course I do. If I didn’t, I’d spend too much time alone, staring at the walls of my apartment.”
Lycan laughed harshly. She got the sense he knew just what she was talking about.
“But anyway,” she said, “instead of harassing people on Lemieux Bridge…”—another bark of laughter from Lycan—“I help Rob now. I give him money so he can visit more often. And it feels good to help him… maybe like some people feel when they give money to their church, I don’t know.” She balled her hand into a fist, thumped her forehead. “I know that’s so not the point of why you help someone, and it is so self-centered for me to think of Winter’s awful plight in this light, but if she dies…” She couldn’t finish the thought. She shouldn’t even have started it, she realized.