Evolution (10 page)

Jess joined them in their appreciation of the painting. “What do you see when you look at a painting like this? What does it mean to you?”

“All the memories that went into it,” Ellie said. “Meeting Derrick for the first time. Buying his simple pen-and-ink sketch of a child playing. His reaction to the sale. He thought no one would want it due to its simplicity and subject matter, but I fell in love with it. I could envision myself as that little girl. Then when I commissioned the painting, I thought he was going to lose control of his emotions. He said no one—other than family—had ever wanted him to do something special before. Joshua thought I’d lost my mind. I had to meld my thoughts with his for him to see how important it was to me. He still blushes whenever he comes over and sees it in my living room.”

Sara tilted her head at the painting. “He captured Josh’s eyes. Not all the images, but you can almost make out the reflections of people in the shades of blue.”

“Joshua had to sit for Derrick for two days. About drove Joshua mad. Can you imagine one of us just sitting there for days? He couldn’t even do any mental work as Derrick kept saying it changed the color of his eyes.”

Ellie pulled her attention from the painting as she headed for the kitchen. Her hand traced along the curve of a brass nude. “Each of these pieces holds some treasured memory for me. I try to change up my display, but some are old friends I can’t be apart from for long.”

It took Sam a moment to realize the flowing metal figure was a sculpture of Ellie herself.

She began pulling packages of food out of the cabinet. “I’m going to warn you, I’m all thumbs in the kitchen. If I had mass, I’d have cut through my hand more times than I’d like to admit.”

“Don’t be silly, Ellie. We can just have some replicated food.” Other than in the village, Sam couldn’t remember the last time anyone had cooked for him—certainly not on Earth.

Ellie twirled a knife around in midair. “It’s a skill I’m trying to learn. And as I don’t eat, I have to find people who are willing to let me experiment. I’m not cooking for you; you’re eating for me. I can use all the practice I can get.”

The meal sucked. There was just no other way to describe it. For someone who had digital timing, she managed to burn every slice of toast and undercook every vegetable. By the end of lunch, Sam found the whole experience beyond comical. He had to suppress his thoughts for fear of humiliating their host. To Sara and Emily’s credit, they didn’t make fun of their new friend’s lack of talent.

Jillian, however, wasn’t about to let the lack of education go. “I’ll come by tomorrow to give you some pointers on how to work the equipment, what looks done and what doesn’t. I used to run a little food tent on Chariklo. I’m pretty sure we can find some recipes that will ensure people come back for more.”

Instead of looking embarrassed, Ellie suppressed a snicker. “Well, I can always put my failures down to a lack of taste buds.”

Sara nudged Emily in the side. “We simply have to make sure they learn how to taste after they’ve learned how to touch.”

Sam draped his napkin over the holocaust of tortured foods. “So what’s next?”

“Jersey City,” Ellie said.

Jess shot Sam a concerned look. It wasn’t hard to interpret her fear. “I think we’d better drop Jillian and the twins off at Rendition if we’re going across the river,” Sam said. “Things didn’t work out so well last time.”

The poverty, the rundown tenements owned by Rendition, the animosity of the people toward the wealthy and powerful, and the resulting firefight were all more than Sam wanted to relive. Subjecting the girls to that den of inequity was out of the question.

“Don’t worry,” Ellie said. “We’d never expect you to return to what you saw last time. There are still pockets of desperation, but I think you’ll be surprised at what the foundation’s been able to achieve. We’ll visit Derrick’s artist loft.”

* * *

T
he twins pointed excitedly
at every boat that worked its way along the river, at the people in the windows of the buildings, and at the falcons that had once again made the towering structures their nesting grounds. He knew if there was a problem, he could count on Jillian to help distract the girls. Jess watched the passing city but made no comment.

The Tobes would have had to pull off a miracle for Jersey City to look anything close to inviting. The crumbling buildings and the lack of any protection from the ocean or storms—Sam considered again telling Ellie to return them to Rendition. But this was her tour, and no Tobe would ever dare to put his girls in danger. No one was more distraught over the last misadventure in Jersey City than Ellie.

As the skyscrapers of New York gave way to the Hudson River, Sam cast a skeptical look toward the other riverbank. The structure they’d witnessed crumbling to the waves on their last visit had been replaced by a modern building made of steel and transparent metal—not the most expensive of designs but clean and sturdy. With its view of New York, it might even command good money for the owner.

Older buildings, too, looked better maintained than he remembered. To his relief, the heavy metal reinforcing cages they’d seen last time had been replaced with less noticeable buttresses. He resisted the urge to duck behind the seat as the shuttle turned from the river down one of the road waterways. A single laser blast, and he’d have Ellie’s technological hide.

“Stop fidgeting. I make this trip every week or two,” Ellie said. “No one’s ever fired a shot at our shuttle. I’m telling you, Jersey City isn’t what you remember.”

She was right. Sam put aside the overlay of their last visit, and the murals that covered the old public structures came into view. The shuttle passed between two particularly powerful images: a three-story-tall trumpet player was blasting away on his horn as across the street, some knife-wielding thugs ran, cowering, toward the river.

Jess nudged Sam’s arm and pointed at a series of graffiti images depicting a shuttle crash and firefight. The hole where their shuttle had smashed into the building had been preserved, but the remainder of the structure had been completely refurbished.

Ellie leaned back from the controls. “Thought you might want to see the site of your run-in with the hoodlums. Once the foundation started technical training of the residents—and made sure everyone had safe, clean living spaces—the neighborhood got together and painted that tribute. We’ve offered to pay for the full renovation, but they wanted to preserve the crash site as a reminder of how far they’ve come.”

Ellie banked the shuttle even deeper into the city. Instead of increased decay and abandonment, artists were busy painting new murals on every available surface. Tour boats shared the canals with water taxis filled with people making their way to work. Lumbering airborne buses packed with cargo moved about below the shuttle—like monstrous bugs with transparent shells. “We had to have special hovercrafts built for all instruments and works of art. Few travel across the Hudson all on their own. Turned out that was one of the real limiting factors to people living here—not being able to get their products to someplace they could be sold.”

The building on which Ellie landed the shuttle was more colorful than Sam had thought possible for a structure exposed to the elements—especially with the near-weekly great storms. He still half expected Ed to materialize as they left the security of the hovercraft for the building’s roof. But in place of criminals hiding behind walls ready to take a shot at the richest and most powerful family on the planet, an old-fashioned barbecue was taking place. Instead of being handed a gun, he was offered a plate of perfectly roasted vegetables. Without trying to look too eager, he happily accepted the offering. Ellie’s cooking needed a little help at being digested.

Derrick pressed through the crowd with beers for Sam, Jess, and Jillian, and brightly colored drinks for the girls. “Please tell me Eleanor didn’t subject you to her cooking.”

“Hey, I thought we were friends,” Ellie said.

“We are, my sweet benefactor. And that’s why I’ll devour every one of your culinary experiments.” Derrick looked ready to plant a kiss on Ellie’s cheek.

You might be able to do that sooner than you know.
But that wasn’t a secret Sam wanted to disclose. Ellie was sure to have her little fun with the artist when the time came for the grand Touch reveal.

She gave Sam a sly wink at his unspoken understanding then turned to Derrick. “Mind if we pull you away from the party for a bit? I’d really like them to see your new work.”

“A private showing for my favorite collector and her rich friends? Yeah, I think I can manage that. Your girls can stay up here with the party if they want. I can vouch for everyone here. They’ll be completely safe.” Derrick led the way to the roof access.

The hallways didn’t look much different than Ninety-Nine Hudson Street had on their last visit. They were cleaner and had murals in place of gang signs, but the cramped, dimly lit passages still made Sam want to clutch his family tight in his arms.

Derrick’s artist loft, however, was worlds away from the tiny hovel that had been Sam’s expectation based on their previous adventure. Transparent metal walls soared two stories in the main living space. The second floor—with nothing more than a bed and kitchen—took up as little space as necessary. The vast majority of the dwelling was filled with canvases, many finished, many in various stages of completion. A warm, brightly lit, creative space—Sam wondered why Derrick ever set foot out of his studio.

Jess pulled Jillian from one stack of paintings to the next, intent on seeing every one. She lifted a skyline image from the pile. The funnel from a hurricane spun out in the distance, but the Jersey City buildings stood tall and proud, having weathered the storm. “I love this one.”

Sam turned from the canvas to Derrick. “You might want to start a tab. I doubt this’ll be the only one they can’t live without.”

“I’m happy to sell you all you want, but I didn’t expect Eleanor to bring you over on a spending spree.” Derrick cleared off a stack of blank canvases from a well-worn sofa.

Jess set the painting aside. “Force of habit. I can talk and browse at the same time.” She pointed out a pastoral-village watercolor to Jillian. “Something about that one reminds me of Chariklo.”

Sam accepted the empty seat Derrick had offered. Ellie tucked her legs under her as she sat on the beat-up leather recliner that doubled as the rack for Derrick’s painting smocks.

She waved her hand around the loft. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

Sam took another look around the room, pretty sure he’d missed something. “It’s lovely. Beats the hell out of what I saw last time we visited Jersey City.”

Ellie sat up in the chair. “No, not that. Remember this morning? You asked what I did as my regular gig, my job? And I said I needed to show you?”

“But you didn’t create the paintings. I’m confused.” Did she really think she was the artist’s muse? Or maybe she saw being his major patron as a full-time job.

“Sorry, I forget you don’t hear everything we’re saying. This is the payoff for me—the end of the day, why I get up in the morning and do what I do, the big accomplishment. I provide legal advice to all these creative people. The law is not their thing. Having someone come in and help them set up their business—make sure everything is on the up and up, that no government official is going to take all they’ve built because of some stupid piece of paper that wasn’t filled out correctly—that’s what I do. In return, they pay me.”

Derrick pulled his attention away from a painting of a barn he’d been explaining to Jess. “Then Eleanor spends all that money buying our work.”

Ellie shrugged. “I buy what I like, what speaks to me. And in so doing, I learn more about myself. Part of my identity is wrapped up in these works of art. I enjoy contemplating them to discover what part of me is drawn to each image.”

Jillian pulled out a painting of a cow pasture. “What’s your story, Derrick? Images of Jersey City, of children playing, and these rural landscapes… they don’t seem to fit together.”

The artist lovingly caressed the dried paint. “I was raised on a farm upstate. If it hadn’t been for all the automation, I’d still be up there, shoveling shit for a living. Not that the transition was easy. After I lost my job, I thought I’d lost my reason for living. I spent most of my twenties as a bitter young man, angry at the world. Then I got a scholarship to a visual arts school. Nothing fancy, just a local junior college that’d been taken over by creative free-spirit types. It was more commune than education, but I took to paints like a child discovering crayons.”

Jess looked back at the painting. “So that’s why the cows? And the children too, because you identified with that early carefree spirit?”

“The cows, definitely. As for the children, well, I haven’t fully processed that myself. There’s something magical in how a child sees the world and tries to make sense of it. Sometimes I create paintings, and sometimes they create me. Or at least they come from some part of me I don’t fully understand.”