And that may not be a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.
She has Asi, whose return she would call miraculous if she were inclined to believe in miracles. And she has—no, not friends exactly—colleagues and companions who share her purpose. “Morning,” she says to one of them as she steps into the kitchen. The window over the sink frames a square of black sky, and she winces. “Middle of the night. Whatever.”
Dakota turns her attention briefly from the stove to smile at her. “Morning. Breakfast’s almost ready.” She nods at the table, where a cup of coffee already steams on one of the two placemats. “Have a seat.”
Kirsten shovels sugar into her cup, together with a generous dollop of cream. The adrenaline rush of an hour ago is gone, and she can feel reaction beginning to set in, her blood sugar starting to slide. The caffeine and glucose hit her system like a thunderbolt, finishing the job the hot water has begun. From underneath her lashes, she watches the other woman as she prepares their meal, moving around the room with the abrupt, angular grace of one of the great predators—a cheetah, perhaps, or a wolf. She wears the same plaid flannel shirt she had on earlier, but now it is tucked neatly into the waistband of the jeans that do little to conceal the taut elegance of her legs. Her hair, which had flowed over her shoulders like a river at midnight, is now caught back with a rubber band. It still sets off the sharp planes of her cheekbones and forehead, the generous lines of her mouth, the inexplicable blue eyes.
Kirsten feels heat rising in her cheeks that has nothing to do with the coffee or its effects. She feels suddenly disoriented, as if the room had suddenly turned itself upside down to leave her hanging weightless from the ceiling. To cover her confusion, she asks, “What do you think is going on?”
Dakota—Koda—gives the thickening eggs a stir and slaps two rounds of frybread down on the stove’s surface to heat. “The droids have to take us out if they can. There’s too much still functional. We’ve raided them successfully—” With a swift movement of her bare fingers, she turns both pieces of bread. “—and that makes us too big a threat for them to leave alone.”
“So those small groups the Corporal was talking about are likely to join up and attack the base again?”
“If we sit still for them.” Koda dishes up the eggs onto the frybread, rolls them up and drops them onto warmed plates. “My guess is we won’t.”
“At least the number of the military models is limited. That’s some small comfort.”
“Not enough to make up for bombing the factory, though.” Koda sets down the plates and takes a seat. Her eyes meet Kirsten’s across the table. “If not for that—”
“I’d have more than the partial code. It might all be over.” She holds that intense blue gaze, unwilling to be less than honest. “Look, I come from a military family. You don’t have to explain the brass’ fuck-ups to me. It’s par for the course.”
Koda nods. “Tacoma has some stories that would curl your hair. Insufficient ammunition, garbled orders.”
Kirsten reaches for a fork, then stops as Dakota picks up her roll taco-style and bites into it. Following suit, she reaches for a napkin as butter runs down her chin. “Good,” she says. You’re a good cook.”
“Not especially. I grew up helping my mother get meals for a large family. Lots of practice is all.”
From underneath the table, Asi whines, and Kirsten pinches a bit off the end of her roll. Koda does the same, dropping the bite into his bowl. It disappears in less than a nanosecond. Dakota grins. “Spoiled.”
“Rotten,” Kirsten agrees, breaking off a second morsel. It vanishes from her fingers in even less time. “You going to the clinic again today?”
“For the morning, anyway. You?”
“Work on the code till it drives me nuts. Take Asi for a walk till I can think straight again.”
“Anything I can get you that would help? Discs, a printer—?”
Kirsten shakes her head and pushes her chair away from the table. “I had a good supply in my truck.” As she rises, an odd thought strikes her, and she asks, “Animals mean something in your traditions, don’t they? Symbolically, that is.”
The Lakota woman’s withdrawal is both instant and almost imperceptible. There was a time, Kirsten thinks, when I wouldn’t have noticed that. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. Asi found a raccoon yesterday, and I just thought it was odd. Don’t they hibernate?”
“No, not exactly. They sleep a lot, living off their fat. They come out of their dens to feed periodically, though.”
“So it doesn’t necessarily mean the cold is going to let up some?” Shift the context. For some reason it is important to her not to offend this woman. “I’ve never seen so damned much snow in my life.”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
Kirsten shrugs and moves toward the door. “Too bad.”
Koda’s voice stops her where she stands. “It means disguise, Kirsten, and the need to let go of old identities. It means transformation.”
And it is with her again, that long spiraling plunge toward death and the deep baying of the hunter who runs lithe beside her, a glimpse of driving muscles rippling under grey fur that turns in upon itself, moebius-like, to become a small pointed face with eyes burning like molten gold out of a black mask. The narrow muzzle opens, and the creature speaks in a voice to silence thunder, one long-fingered hand raised to bar her passage.
Go back. The time is not yet.
Her heart pounds in her chest like a trip hammer; sweat prickles along her skin. The time is not yet.
“Thank you,” she says, and flees.
Again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE DAY IS gray. Gray clouds, gray snow, gray faces of people walking along shoveled and salted paths. Even Asi’s vibrant coat looks washed out and dull as he plods along behind Kirsten, head bobbing like a tired draft horse on his way to the stables.
An almost pleasant sense of melancholia steels over her and she quickens her step, outpacing her thoughts, content to exist simply for and in this one moment in time. Life passes by, its stories writ large on the faces of the men and women with whom she shares this space.
As she wanders down a ruler-straight path, her steps take her to a scene that stops her, and makes her wish for perhaps the first time in her life that she had been born with the ability to draw. Before her stands a woman of no more than twenty whose life has painted age upon her face and form far beyond her years. Directly in front of her, pressed back to belly, is a girl-child, dirty, bedraggled, and pale as a wraith. The young woman has her arms crossed over the shoulders and chest of the girl in a gesture of desperate possession, as if she is the only thing of worth left in a world gone totally mad. The expression in the woman’s eyes transports Kirsten back in time to when she, herself, was a young girl standing in St. Peter’s in Rome, staring at the Pieta and wondering how simple stone could engender such profound emotions within her.
The child’s soft “hello” brings Kirsten back to the present, and she offers up a smile that is equal parts welcoming and sad.
“Pretty doggie.”
As if agreeing, Asi sits proudly and offers up a soft chuff, causing the young girl to giggle. “What’s his name?”