“If she dies, that connection to something real dies with her.”
“Exactly.”
The terrain was getting bleaker, and blanker. It was sort of like traveling into the past; it seemed as if every mile they traveled away from the city, the shops, houses, even the roads, were a few years older. Veronika expected Lycan to say more, but he fell silent. She realized she’d been hoping Lycan would offer to help Rob and Winter as well, but he didn’t. If his company had paid thirty million to revive him, he must make a substantial salary. It bothered her a little, that he didn’t offer to help. Maybe if he got to know Rob better, he would. She really needed to include Lycan once in a while.
“So what got you up on that bridge?” Veronika hadn’t planned to ask, it just came out.
“I wonder where those tubes go,” Lycan said. A cluster of several dozen tubes of varying sizes and colors ran alongside the highway. Veronika couldn’t care less where they went.
“Really. What got you up there?”
Lycan looked around, almost as if he was seeking an escape route. Veronika let the silence stretch, waiting. Lycan was humming again.
“Come on. I told you.”
He was pressed right up against the passenger door, his face almost touching the window.
She was taken by surprise when he finally spoke. “A lot of the time I’m fine. I work, I read. Then I’ll hit a rough patch. The thought of going through another day, and then another.” He shook his head, watched a twenty-story cattle farm pass by. “Sometimes the thought of getting through even an hour is intolerable. Not as much lately. Lately, I’ve felt better.”
“But why? What’s at the root of the rough patches?”
He looked at her, frowning. “The root of it? There’s no root of it. It’s not a rotten tooth.”
“If you could change one thing, what would it be?”
Lycan barked a laugh. “The way my brain functions.”
“No.” Veronika tapped his shoulder with her fist. “No fair. One thing in your life.”
Lycan sighed heavily. He was looking out the window. Maybe it was easier for him to open up if he didn’t have to make eye contact. That was nifty with Veronika; she found eye contact exhausting.
“I’m forty-three years old,” Lycan said.
Veronika waited for him to continue, but that seemed to be it. “So?”
He fell into another long silence. Outside, Veronika’s system showed her nothing but perfectly manicured grass and generic buildings that could be warehouses, stores, homes. She knew they were none of those things—they were whitewashed to camouflage something that couldn’t simply be spruced up. Piles of trash, maybe, or a shantytown constructed of old electronics housings.
“I’m forty three,” Lycan repeated. He pinched his temples. “Do you want to have a family someday?”
“I do. Someday. Is that the core? That you want a wife, a family, and you feel like you’ll never have them?”
Lycan shrugged noncommittally.
“So the core is that you want to meet someone.”
Lycan was clearly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. Of course that discomfort with talking about personal things was part of the reason he couldn’t meet anyone.
They’d have to work on that.
“I’m going to help you,” Veronika said.
Lycan looked at her, frowning.
She held her arm out. “Lycan, this is what I do. I coach people who aren’t good at meeting people.” She hiked herself up higher in her seat, grinning. “I knew there was a reason we met on that bridge. You are going to meet someone, because this is what I do and I’m damned good at it.”
“If you’re so good at it, how come you’re still single?”
Veronika felt her blood pressure surge. She so hated when people asked that. But Lycan had asked without malice. Just an honest question—and a fair one, given the context. “I go out a lot, I just haven’t found the right person. I have high standards.”
Lycan nodded, considering this.
“What, are you suggesting I shouldn’t have high standards?”
“What?” Lycan looked profoundly confused. “No, of course not. I would expect you to.”
She set up the scaffolding for a new profile. “Can you give me access to your nonprivileged data? I’ll also need your complete DNA code.”
Lycan looked pained. “Do we have to start now? I’m not even sure I want to do this.”
Veronika stopped working. “Why not?”
Lycan shrugged his big shoulders. “I don’t like dating sites.”
“It’ll be great. Trust me.”
Lycan didn’t reply, but his head dropped in defeat.
While his head was conveniently within reach, Veronika opened a brain scan program, set Lycan’s head in the bull’s-eye and set it running. “Keep still.”
Lycan looked up, but kept his head still. “What is this for?”
“It’s an MRI.”
“I know it’s an MRI. I’m a neuropsychologist. What’s it for?”
She opened her mouth to say, “To get a sense of how you think about the world,” then reminded herself Lycan had a Ph.D. in neuropsychology. “To examine your habitual cognitive patterns by measuring the relative strength of your various neural networks.”
He seemed surprised. “You actually match people based on something that sophisticated?”
“Sweetie, you have no idea. Do you record? I could use some random clips from your POV for characteristic analysis.”
“No, I don’t record,” he said, sounding disdainful of the very idea. He started to lift his head, but Veronika reached out and moved it back in place.
“That’s okay, I can work from some of mine.” She could work up a full profile for him when she had more time; right now she was eager to see what sort of rough compatibility matches she could find, just to capture his interest.
Twenty minutes later she was ready to run a raw search. She expanded the three best matches so Lycan could see them.
“What do you think?”
Lycan looked up at them without raising his head, then dropped his gaze. “I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?” They were attractive women with intriguing careers. One had oversize eyes indicating an epigenetic misfire, but she was still a cutie. All had high IQs.
“I don’t know if I want to do this.”
Veronika decided not to push it. She would let him get used to the idea, bring it up again later.
There was a particularly large whitewashed area to their right; Veronika took manual control of the car, turned down the next exit ramp.
“Where are we going, exactly?” Lycan asked, peering at the landscape.
“I don’t know. It’s an experiment.”
“I take it we’re not in the control group.”
Veronika rolled her eyes. “Very funny, Captain Science.”
They were rolling along in a vast, empty parking lot. Veronika stopped the car. “Let’s go.”
Lycan looked outside, then back at Veronika. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m totally serious. Come on.” She opened her door, stepped out. After a moment, Lycan followed.
Veronika switched off her system’s sensory filter. The bright, bland building morphed into a semicollapsed Macy’s. They were in the parking lot of what had once been a shopping center.