The Saffron Malformation (68 page)

             
On the third floor Quey went to find Rachel but when he knocked on her door Rain answered. 

             
“She okay?” Quey asked.

             
“No,” Rain replied with simple honesty.  “But it’s got nothing to do with you.”

             
He nodded.  “Tell her-”

             
“I will,” Rain assured him.  She smiled in that way she had that let you know it was going to be all right and touched him on the shoulder.  There were a dozen things he wanted to say but in the end he simply nodded and walked away.

             
“Come on,” Reggie said, throwing an arm over his shoulder as he emerged from the hallway.  “What do ya say I just crack that bottle of pumpkin shine and pour you a swallow?”

             
Quey seemed distant.  “Maybe later,” he replied and headed for the elevators.

             
Ryla was still at the computer bank when he arrived on the second floor.  “How’s the data coming along?” he asked.  She looked up at him.  His eyes were shimmering in the cold white lights.

             
“It’ll be another hour and twenty three minutes before this simulation completes.  Then I’ll have to run others.  In the mean time I’m sifting through the pylon’s hard disk, and after that I have the one Rain brought with her.”

             
Quey nodded.

             
“Where is Rachel?”

             
“She needs some time.  Can you handle this on your own?”

             
Ryla looked up at him and nodded.  He lingered as she returned to her work, saying nothing, just standing and looking down at her.  When she looked up again she noticed he wasn’t really looking at her, just staring.  “It’s about your friend?” she queried and snapped him from his thoughts with a slight jolt.  He looked at her.  “The one that died.”

             
Quey nodded.

             
“Can I help?” she asked uncertain.  He looked at her queerly and she added, “To diminish your present level of sad?”

             
He smiled with a chuckle, “I reckon times the only force with that particular capability,” Quey told her and she nodded.  “But I do appreciate the offer.”

             
She looked up at him and tried to smile.  On the second attempt it happened.  She was pretty, Quey had noticed from time to time, but when she smiled it was impossible to miss.

             
“Maybe I could help you work a while?  Give me something to do besides think.”

             
“Sure,” she said, a bit of joy in her tone.  “Maybe you could go through the simulations data as it comes through, save us some time setting up the next one.”

             
Quey came around the desk and took a look at the screen where equations scrolled down the lower half while the upper half showed the results, both mathematically and in fluctuating waves and charts.  He was lost.  He looked over at Ryla and said, “Maybe something a tad less… numerical would be better,” he suggested.

             
She laughed a little.  “It’s a computer, all it knows are numbers.”  He looked down and sighed.  “It’s a tedious task,” she added.  “Maybe you could just keep me from growing bored.”

             
“Thanks,” he said, knowing full well she wasn’t going to get bored.  Hell, she’d been alone for… well he didn’t know how many years but it had to be a lot.  She was being nice and he appreciated it.  “I’m sorry,” he told her before he knew he was speaking.  She looked at him, a bit puzzled.  “For ever being mean to you,” he continued with a bit of shame.  “Or treating you like you don’t matter.  You’re a good person and you don’t deserve it.”

             
“You said that already.  Remember?  You said we were friends.”

             
“And I’m glad we are,” he said.  When he reached for her she pulled away, an old instinct.  He let his hand drop and said, “I just haven’t felt like a very good one.”

             
“I read that sometimes it’s helpful to talk about an emotionally traumatic occurrence,” she said.  “Maybe you could tell me a story?”  He looked at her and she finished, “About your friend.”

             
Quey smiled a bit.  He didn’t feel like it at first but once he started talking he didn’t stop until the simulation had ended.  Ryla listened well.  He’d expected her to sit and stare blankly at the screen in front of her but she laughed when something was funny and asked questions when she was curious or didn’t understand.  He enjoyed telling her about things like why people might do this or that or explaining things in his stories that she didn’t grasp.  It gave him a perspective on things he hadn’t considered before.  He wasn’t as good at the explaining as Rain was, but he liked to try, besides, it was the only time he didn’t feel stupid around her.

             
As she was going over the data he said, “Maybe when the next simulation starts you can tell me about your sister.”

             
Ryla looked at him, considering.  “Okay,” she answered in her smallest voice.  “I don’t think it’ll be very funny.”

             
He laughed slightly.  “I’d still like to hear.”

             
Rain burst through the doors, smiling.  She was up to something and mighty proud of whatever it was too.  “Come on you two,” she said as she approached with a not too subtle spring in her step.

             
“Come where?” Quey asked.

             
“We are going downstairs to have dinner.”

             
“My present function is not complete, there are multiple simulations yet to run,” Ryla informed her.

             
“Simulations shminulations,” she replied.  “I’ve already put the order into the computer.  Everyone’s going, no exceptions, no excuses.”  Rain smiled brightly.  “It’s going to be a feast,” she concluded with a big gesture.  Nothing could draw you in like Rain when she was enthusiastic about something.  Quey would have bet money she sold most of her jewelry based on her love of the pieces alone.

             
Ryla looked over at Quey and he shrugged.  “It’s been a good long while since I’ve had a feast.”

             
“I don’t think I’ve ever had one, if I understand the definition properly,” Ryla said.

             
“Well no time like the present,” Rain said and grabbed them both by the hands pulling them to their feet.  Quey noticed how Ryla didn’t flinch or move away from Rain when she grabbed her hand and felt a twinge of jealousy as Rain herded them toward the elevators and the first floor.  Of course along the way he realized it was his own fault.  Rain had earned that trust and he hadn’t.

              Rain had had Arnie help her with one of the large round tables in the restaurant on the first floor.  They’d found a cloth that she threw over the table—she wasn’t sure if the cloth was supposed to be a table cloth or not but it worked so she didn’t care.  Then she’d had him help her set the places, finding plates and bowls and flatware and glasses for everyone.  After that she’d prodded the people on the third floor into the elevator and down to the first before setting off to find Ryla and Quey.  Now they were all standing together looking at the set table.

             
“Sit,” Rain said, gently pushing Quey and Ryla into adjacent chairs.  She settled in next to Ryla and Arnie took his place beside her as the others joined.  Rain smiled when she saw Leone sit between Quey and Amber with Natalie beside her daughter and then Rachel and Reggie.  “Good,” she said as Botler helped Barbot fill glasses with wine, save Rachel who declined when one of the bots held the bottle out to pour.  Rain waited for the bots to finish before she began, “I know I was a little pushy getting you all here,” and they laughed, even her.  “But there’s a lot of tension about and a lot of bad on our minds and I just thought it was important for us, as a group to come together and remember that no matter what happens, we are all on each other’s side.”  She lifted her wine glass.  “We are a family of friends,” she said.

             
Quey snatched up his glass and raised it.  “We’re a crew,” he added and Rain let him.  “That’s what we called it on the streets and in the camps.  The people you ran with, those that had your back, the ones you could pull cons and thefts with because you knew if they got pinched they’d sit in jail and never rat you out, they were your crew.  That’s what we have.”  Everyone watched him, his eyes reflecting the intensity in his words.  “That’s what we have they don’t, not Blue Moon not the Brood and sure as shit not the fucking Once Men.  That’s what we have and that’s what makes us mighty.”

             
Reggie lifted his glass and said, “Fuck yeah.”

             
Quey looked to Ryla and nodded for her to take up her glass.  “Every one of us,” he said to her more than anybody.  Then he turned to the rest and said, “No exceptions.  We stick together and there’s nothing that’ll stop us all.”

             
They toasted an oath then, all their glasses touching over the center of the table declaring past indiscretions and mistrusts set aside.  From here on out they weren’t nine people, they were one crew.

             
Rain wasn’t lying when she’d said she ordered a feast.  The group watched as Botler and Barbot relayed back and forth from the kitchen to the table carrying platters.  There was a turkey and a smoked ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables in cream sauce, cranberry bread, and bread brushed with a garlic and herb butter that had been toasted lightly, baked beans and coleslaw.  The table buzzed with excitement as each dish emerged and was set on the table.  They passed each one as the next was on its way and then finally there were no more and they tried what Ryla’s robots (cookbot mostly) had prepared.

             
“Oh wow,” Rachel said through a full mouth, her eyes flaring.

             
“Our compliments good sir,” Rain said, raising her glass to the robot standing behind the bar with an apron painted down his body.  Quey watched the robot use a spatula to salute the compliment, then he noticed Ryla smile at Rain.  He thought he was starting to understand why Ryla liked Rain so much.  She treated the robots like anyone else and she did it without effort.  It was the natural playfulness she possessed that not only animated her expressions but also allowed her the ability to so easily bestow intimate objects with personalities and feelings.

             
Empathy, he realized, was what she had in greater abundance than anyone he’d ever known.  As he watched her and Ryla exchange a brief word and then Ryla laughed he sat back and watched.  She was laughing harder than he’d ever seen and it was because Rain had made an effort to speak in her language, one that saw the world in terms of numbers and programming.  He watched Rain and understood why it was impossible not to want her all to yourself.  And he understood why she’d been allowed to touch Ryla so easily.

             
Her compliments to the chef had been followed by a mutter of agreement around the table and then by silence save the sounds of forks and knives working eagerly as the group ate greedily for a spell.

             
After a bit Reggie glanced around the table and said, “You know this is what we used to call shut the fuck up good.”  Slight laughter was muffled by the food in the mouths it came from.

             
“Yeah,” Leone added after a moment, as he looked at Rain, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard my sister quiet this long before.”

             
This laugh was a bit less slight.

             
“Oh, what’s this,” she joked, as she cocked to one side against the back of her chair, fork loosely pointed toward the boy.  “What?  We’re funny now, is that what’s happening?  We’ve got jokes now?  Two sips of wine and we get jokes.”

             
Leone shook his head, smiling as he finished chewing and swallowed.  “Not at all.  We do not have jokes.  I have jokes.  I’ve heard Quey tell jokes.”

             
“Arnie had a joke once,” Amber chimed in with a smirk.

             
“That’s right,” Leone said as if he’d just remembered, “Thank you for reminding me, Arnie did have a joke, just last week.”  Rain was peering at him as he grinned, her face was scrunched and waiting for him to finish so she could find a way to get him.

             
“I’m funny,” Reggie declared through a mouth of food and everyone laughed.

             
“That you are,” Quey said, lifting his glass to him before taking a sip.

             
“Hell I believe just this morning our lovely hostess herself told a joke,” Leone continued, acknowledging Ryla.  “But you,” he shook his head, “No jokes.”