Love Minus Eighty (22 page)

“No, I don’t think they are.” Veronika squeezed Rob’s forearm. “I’ll be here.”

Rob nodded, turned toward the row of women behind the long receiving desk. They were always women. Maybe Cryomed figured that made the setup seem less barbaric. He paid his fee, turned, waved to Veronika, who was sitting at a reclining kiosk, working her system, and was ushered through.

As Winter’s crèche slid out of the wall, he played “Free
Spirit,” an old soft postal tune by Running On, and went ahead and sang the lyrics that went with it.

The crèche’s cover whisked off silently; a moment later, Winter opened her eyes. They were blank as a doll’s button eyes, or a shark’s. Slowly, awareness bled into them; they focused on Rob, then, as always, there was that moment of recognition.

He set his lute down, expecting Winter to say something kind about his singing voice, because that would be a Winter thing to do, but she just looked at him.

“We have
fourteen minutes
this time. Rob and Veronika really came through,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” Winter asked.

Startled, Rob tried to laugh it off. “You mean, besides my inability to carry a tune?”

Winter studied his face. “You look like you did the first time I saw you. Your eyes are red and puffy. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

He shrugged. “I’m sick. A cold. I probably should spring for rhino eradicator—”

“We’re way past bullshitting each other, Rob. Aren’t we? I hope we are.” Her unblinking, unwavering gaze was like a spotlight.

Rob put a hand over his mouth. He should have known. All Winter ever saw was his face, so she looked closely, saw what others missed. “It’s not something you want to know. Please, trust me on this.”

“Someone died. Someone I know.” Her lips moved soundlessly. “Is it Nathan? Idris? Tell me who died.”

“No one died.”

She studied his face, his hands, as if the truth was hidden somewhere in view. “Then what?”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He’d planned out the entire fourteen minutes, and this definitely was not part of the plan. “Let’s talk about good things—”

“Tell me.”

Rob closed his eyes. He couldn’t simply refuse, and he couldn’t think of a feasible lie. And if she was this close to the truth, maybe she had the right to know.

He took a deep breath. “They’re taking you out of the program.”

Winter frowned. “What do you mean, out of the program? Where else would I go?”

He couldn’t bring himself to answer. Tears leaked down his cheeks; he clenched his chest, stifling the sob pushing to come out.

Winter’s eyes went wide. “Wait. What does that mean? What does it mean when they take you out of the program?” She knew. He could see it in her eyes.

Another visitor—a tall, spidery man with tiny ears—looked up at Rob from beside a nearby crèche. The man was probably curious why Winter sounded so alarmed. Rob stared back at him until he went back to looking down at his date.

“I’ve tried everything,” he said in a harsh whisper.

Winter’s lip was quivering, her eyes wild with fear. “When?”

“Days.”

“How many?”

“Two.”

Her white tongue poked out of her mouth and tried to lick her lips, but Rob could hear the dry futility of it. “This is it, then. How much time do I have left?”

Rob checked the timer. “Nine minutes.”

“Nine minutes.”

Five seconds of that nine minutes vanished as Winter digested the news.

“I want to use them well, but I don’t know how. What should I do?” She looked at him pleadingly. “What would you do?”

Another three seconds melted away. “I’d spend my last nine minutes thinking about you. Thinking about things you said, remembering you as the wisest, funniest, most grounded person I’ve ever known. And trying to forgive myself.”

“Head shake.
No guilt.
We’re good, you and me. I admit it, I hated your guts the first few times you visited. I resented the hell out of you. But we’re good now. You kept your promise. Now make another: no guilt. Promise you’ll get on with your life now.”

Rob hesitated. “I promise I’ll try.” It occurred to Rob that he’d somehow turned it around so they were spending her precious moments talking about him. That was not acceptable. “I promise. I promise.”

“But all that other stuff, about remembering me as wise and funny and grounded?”

Rob nodded.

“It’s mostly wrong, but remember me that way anyway.” She tried to smile, and Rob tried to laugh, but it was forced.

Six minutes. The timer seemed to be racing toward zero. Rob felt like slamming his fist through it.

“Tell Idris I love her, that I thought about her. I hope her little girl is a wonder.”

“She’s going to name her Winter.” It just came out. When had he learned to lie so easily?

“That’s nice.” She whispered unintelligibly, her gaze far away. “Tell Nathan I apologize for demolishing the Baneth
One. I hope he gets there one day, if that’s what he really wants.”

“You apologize for demolishing the Baneth One,” Rob repeated, having no idea what she meant, since the Baneth One Building was doing fine. “I’ll tell him.”

“It’s perfectly natural, what’s happening to me. It’s how things are supposed to be. The wheel turns. The wheel turns.”

“Sooner or later, we’re all going to be right where you are now,” Rob said. “In the scheme of things, I’m just an eyeblink behind you.”

Winter went back to whispering, and Rob couldn’t help stealing a glance at the timer. Five minutes, twenty-three seconds.

Twenty-two.

Twenty-one.

“This is for the best,” Winter said. She sounded breathless, but that didn’t make sense, because her heart wasn’t pounding. “I won’t have to be afraid anymore. This is how it’s supposed to be—an end, a clear line. No more halfway, no more being scared.” She looked at Rob, as if remembering he was there. “You’ve been a good friend. Thank you for being a good friend.” Her forehead creased, her mouth stretched, as if she was starting to cry, but no tears came.

“I’ll never forget you,” Rob said, hating how trite that sounded. “I—I love you.”

She smiled, whispered, “You love me. That’s—” She searched for words. “That’s the last thing I expected you to say. An Easter egg in my basket.”

For some reason Rob wanted to hear her say that she loved him, too. But she had—he glanced at the wall—two minutes, twelve seconds left in her life, and he wasn’t going to waste any of it asking.

“I’m so scared,” Winter said. “I wish you could hold my hand. I wish I could feel my hands.”

Rob reached out and lifted a corner of the silver mesh covering Winter from the neck down, exposing a white breast, a patchwork of rough black sutures that crisscrossed her skin, trailing from just below her breast, out of sight.

“Mr. Mashita, please let go of the sheath and step away from Miss West,” the voice of Cryomed said from somewhere above them.

“Please fuck off,” Rob said.

Winter’s hips were canted at an impossible angle, one hip bone almost centered where her belly button should be. He turned his head, kept his gaze on Winter’s face, slid his hand along her arm until he found her hand, slid his fingers between hers and lifted it. It was freezing cold, small and perfect.

Winter was looking at her hand. “That’s better. You’re a good guy. I wish—”

The final second slipped off the timer, and she was gone. Rob set her hand on top of the mesh and stood, just as a Cryomed representative—a man, for this job—was jogging toward him.

“I apologize. I forgot,” Rob said as the man approached. He was tall, obviously muscular under his white suit, but not quite thuggish.

“Of course, Mr. Mashita. In the future, please remember, you absolutely may not touch the guests.”

“Don’t worry, I have no reason to ever come here again.” With that Rob turned to find Veronika.

He stared at his feet, his expression flat, controlled, as he crossed the wide expanse of the main foyer.

Veronika rose tentatively when he approached her in the waiting room. “You okay?”

“Skintight,” he answered. “Let’s get the fuck out of this place.” He was numb; he knew that what he’d lost hadn’t fully registered yet, and when it did, the pain of that loss would cut him into cubes.

They rode the tube in silence, waited for Veronika’s Scamp to rotate into view, then rode the vehicle elevator up into the sunlight.

Veronika pulled onto Ashburton Avenue. “Do you feel like you got some closure?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it right now.” Rob tried to mask the impatience he felt, but the words came out clipped, almost angry. “I appreciate you coming with me, but I can’t think about this right now. Can we talk about something mundane?”

“Of course.”

“Anything. The weather. The best pizza place in the city. Boloball.”

They passed a man with catatonia standing on the corner of Ashburton and Nepperhan, his hand in the air as if he was waving good-bye to someone, his eyes staring off beyond the horizon.

“If you want something mundane, I could tell you about this client I was just helping.”

“Perfect. Just keep talking.”

“So she’s been in a twenty-two-year PCR—”

“PCR?” Just what he needed—to feel both dejected and stupid.

“Sorry. ‘Platonic-companion relationship,’ with another straight woman.”

“Got it.”

“So they break up, because my client has realized she
wants to find true romantic love. She has no clue how modern dating works, so she hires me. She pays me four thousand dollars to set up her profile… and a week later wants me to help her get her PCR back.”

Rob laughed in what he hoped was an appreciative manner, though he was so distracted by flashbacks from his fourteen minutes with Winter that he was having trouble following Veronika’s story. “People pay you four thousand dollars to create their profiles?” That much he’d heard, because he couldn’t believe Veronika made four thousand dollars for a couple of hours’ work.

“Oh yeah. Minimum. The profile’s the key, the absolute key to modern dating. If you can get quality people to look at your profile, it becomes a numbers game. The more views, the more hits. The more hits, the more the odds climb that you’ll meet a compatible mate. Go on fifty face-to-faces, if you can stand it, and odds are ninety-two percent that one of them will result in a relationship of at least five years. Assuming you don’t get sidetracked going out a second and third time with people who clearly are not compatible—”

Veronika went on, talking rapid-fire about PCRs, compatibility scores, intangibles, but Rob’s mind was stuck on what she’d said about dating.
If you can get enough people interested in you, it becomes a numbers game.
Winter was going to be buried. He would never see her again, ever, because not enough rich guys had been interested in her. It had been a numbers game, much like the game Veronika was talking about, only the stakes were higher.

The profile is the key
, Veronika had said. The absolute key. The thought spun around and around…

“Are you saying if Winter had a better profile, it would improve her chances of getting men to visit?”

Veronika draped her free arm over her head, scratched at her scalp. “I wasn’t really thinking of Winter, because bridesicle profiles are pretty blah and uniform, but, sure.”

“Couldn’t you improve her profile? I’d pay the four thousand.” Rob’s heart was pounding. There were still two days…

Veronika was shaking her head. “The money isn’t the issue. God, you know I’d do it for nothing in a heartbeat. Cryomed doesn’t farm out any profile work. It’s all in-house. You can’t just go in and edit one of their profiles.”

“What if I got Winter’s permission?”

Veronika looked pained. “Rob, sweetie, it’s just not possible. Cryomed’s a very insular operation. They don’t let outsiders edit their profiles. Period.”

“Their profiles suck.”

“That’s because they have hacks knocking them out four an hour. They suck, but they suck uniformly.”

As Veronika pitched the last shovelful of dirt on the hope that had begun smoldering in Rob’s heart, his mood crashed. He stared out the window. They were climbing the ramp from Low Town to High, the old rusted George Washington Bridge out his window.

Cryomed was an insular operation. That was an understatement; you had to have secret meetings just to know when someone close to you was being—

Peter. He’d forgotten about Peter.

“
Holy shit.
” He tapped Veronika’s thigh. “Can you get Lorelei in here?
Holy shit.
” Lorelei could get access to her stepmother much faster than Rob could directly.

“What? What is it?” Veronika swung the car over to the service lane.

“You’d put together a profile for Winter if I could get it posted? Like, immediately?”

Veronika turned her palms up. “If you can figure out how to post it, I’ll write the best fucking profile you’ve ever seen.”

“Men will start visiting her? Immediately?”

Veronika gave him a “Do not doubt me” look.

Rob gestured at the backseat. “Get Lorelei in here.”

Veronika looked pained and a little disgusted, like Rob had asked her to bring him a steaming turd.

“Can you keep a secret?” Rob asked. “She’s not my favorite person, either. But I need her help.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Veronika subvocalized to her system, contacting Lorelei. “Someone’s life is on the line, blah, blah.”

“Tell her to come alone. Complete block.” The last thing he needed was one of Lorelei’s fans tipping off Cryomed.

“She’s not going to like that,” Veronika said under her breath. While she engaged in an energetic, subvocalized exchange, she added, “She’s not happy about the block.”

“I don’t care. Tell her to get her ass in here right now.
Now.
”

Lorelei popped into the backseat via screen. “
Kamusta!
” Despite lacking a system, Rob knew that meant “Hello” in Tagalog. His memorizing during the dark days had paid off. Her screen rotated to face him. “Okay, Bobby, this better be hairy awesome. I lose credibility with my people when I shut them out.”

“I need to get in touch with your stepmother. Right now. I have an idea that might save Winter.”