Rob told her about his breakup with Lorelei, how she had been airmailing his past out her window. He tried not to sound like he was trying to shift the blame, but the temptation was strong. He wanted Winter’s last thoughts of him, if he couldn’t manage one last trip after this, to be good ones.
Winter was making a choking sound that Rob now recognized as laughter. “What?” he asked, smiling. “What’s funny?”
“Both of us had just gone through breakups, and we were all set to pull out the sad songs and marinate our broken hearts in alcohol. As it turned out, neither of us had the opportunity to do much pining.”
Rob grimaced. “The guaranteed cure for heartbreak: find pain that’s much, much worse.” He glanced at the timer, knowing he wasn’t going to like what he saw. Six seconds. five, four, three…
He reached out and brushed her cheek. “Good-bye.”
Outside, Rob looked up the Zen parable about the rowboat on his handheld.
A monk is rowing on a lake. Another boater, listening to loud music and not watching where he’s going, is heading straight for the monk’s boat. The monk shouts and curses, finally has to lean over the side and deflect the other boat to avoid a collision.
Later, the monk notices an empty boat trailing a broken mooring line, pushed along by a stiff wind. The empty boat is heading straight for the monk’s boat. Serene and smiling, the monk leans over and gently deflects the empty boat.
Rob wondered if the monk would have been so serene if the empty boat had been a loose cargo ship that cut his rowboat in half and drowned him. It impressed him that Winter could, during her best moments.
“Rob. Wait up.”
Rob turned, and immediately recognized Peter, head down, hurrying to catch up.
“Let’s walk a little,” Peter said, pressing Rob’s shoulder.
“How did you know I’d be here?” Rob asked as they walked along Ashburton Avenue.
“I didn’t. I set up a facial-recognition protocol, and it alerted me.”
That would be expensive. Rob wondered what was so important. Peter just went on walking, saying nothing.
“So are you coming from work?” Rob asked.
“Yes. But I don’t work at the dating center, I work in the main facility.” Peter looked up at the towering, shining wall of the dating facility as Rob waited for him to say whatever he’d come to say. “My late wife is in there.”
That explained a lot. Rob tried to imagine knowing your wife was in there, going on “dates” with rich men. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Rob said. “It must be incredibly painful.”
Peter nodded. “My twelve-year-old daughter, Emma, was nine when her mom died. But her mom is gone and not gone; it’s possible she’ll be back, maybe sharing joint custody of Emma, and Emma’s aware of that.” At the corner they turned left, toward the river. “I visited her once, but I couldn’t stand to see her go through that awful fear, paralyzed, desperate.” He shook his head, as if trying to banish the memory. “I tried to convince her to leave the program, go back to the main facility, but she wouldn’t. It’s hard to give up that chance for a second life, when the alternative is oblivion. It’s cruel, reviving someone and forcing them to make that choice.”
Rob didn’t know what to say. “Sorry to hear it. That’s why you’re helping Bridesicle Watch.”
“I want to see the program shut down. I want Marlene, and all the rest of them, to rest in peace. Maybe it’s wrong, since it’s not what Marlene wants.” He took out a pack of gum, offered a piece to Rob, who refused, then popped a piece into his mouth. “All this to say, it may seem like I’m bringing you bad news, but maybe it’s really not.”
Rob stopped short, looked at Peter, waiting, his heart pounding slow and hard. He thought he knew, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.
“I had someone check your friend’s account. She’s being removed Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?” He didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation, but it did. “Tuesday?”
“I thought you might want to say good-bye.”
Rob turned away from Peter, trying to digest this. He’d known Winter didn’t have much time, but not knowing the exact date had allowed him to assume she still had two or three weeks, enough time for a miracle.
“You said she had three weeks, and that was less than two weeks ago.”
Peter put a hand on Rob’s shoulder. “I’m pretty sure I said two or three.”
Four days. He had four days. Rob turned to face Peter. “There has to be something I can do.”
Peter closed his eyes. “Raise twenty or thirty thou, get a few high-net-worth individuals to visit her, you might push the date back a month.” He squeezed Rob’s shoulder, almost hard enough that it hurt. “You did everything you could. Let her go.” Not waiting for an answer, he walked off.
31
Veronika
Lycan was smiling, actually smiling when Veronika waved her door open.
“So where are we headed?” Veronika asked, reaching for her jacket.
“That’s top secret.” Lycan canted his head. “Almost literally.”
Veronika’s system signaled an incoming voice-only call, which meant a call from Rob, since she didn’t know anyone else who owned a prehistoric handheld. She answered as they headed toward the door, but as soon as she heard Rob’s voice, she stopped. Something was very wrong. She opened a screen on the street corner in Yonkers, where Rob was leaning against a building, then pinged Nathan, and Nathan opened one as well.
“My source at Cryomed contacted me,” Rob said. “She has four days. They’re going to bury her in four days.” He seemed barely able to stand; his breath was coming in thin whoops, his whole face shaking. Veronika couldn’t imagine how hard this must be on him. She wished there was something she could do. In a screen, she couldn’t even hug him.
“This is too serious to handle by screen in public,” Nathan said. “Rob, I’ll swing by and pick you up. We’ll meet over at Vee’s place.”
Twenty minutes later they were at Veronika’s door, Nathan’s hand on Rob’s slumped shoulder. Nathan nodded grimly to Veronika, greeted Lycan with a handshake as Rob sat down hard on a capsule seat, as if his legs were finally giving out.
Nathan sat beside him. “Our boy here says we can delay the inevitable by a week or so if Winter has some visitors,” Nathan said. “I’m sending out appeals to friends and family, along with kicking in everything I can afford.”
Veronika noticed that Lycan had moved near the kitchen, was hovering at the periphery of the room, as if he didn’t want to intrude. “Lycan, you’re welcome to join us.”
Lycan nodded, took a seat beside Veronika.
“I can come up with three thousand,” Veronika said. She looked at Lycan. “Can you help at all?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll give three.”
“Peter said she’d have more time if the men had higher income profiles, instead of just me,” Rob said, clearly trying to control the tremor in his voice.
“Well,” Veronika said, looking at Lycan, “we have a man here with a decent income profile. How about it, Lycan?”
Lycan looked mortified. “I’m happy to contribute, but I’m not going into that place. I’m sorry.”
Surprised, Veronika said, “But you’d be helping Rob and Winter.”
“I know. I just can’t go in there. It’s complicated.” Lycan wouldn’t look at her, wouldn’t look at any of them.