His corporate face broke into a huge smile.
Then he ran to Hwa’s bedside. Threw his arms around her. He almost knocked her over. It took her a moment to understand why he was trembling. Joel, the boy who never cried, the boy who had witnessed school shootings and serial murders without tears or frustration, was weeping. Loudly. Hotly. Right into her neck.
“Hush, now, don’t cry, b’y,” she muttered, through her own tears. Her lips found his hair. It very much needed a wash; he’d started using some sort of awful product in it. She kept kissing it anyway. Inhaling the scent of his scalp. His living flesh. She had promised to protect every single hair on his head, and he was healthy and safe; he was the best of his line; he was the first of her students to surpass her, in his own way.
“I thought you might never wake up,” he said.
“Makes two of us,” Hwa said.
“I’ve never been that scared, ever.”
“I know, b’y, I know.”
“You can’t get hurt. Not ever again. I won’t allow it.”
Hwa set her chin on his shoulder. She tested her new smile on the boy’s skin. It was rougher than she remembered. Just the faintest traces of beard were coming in. “Aye. We’ll see about that.” She stroked his back. “Iceland, eh?”
Joel pulled back. He was beaming. “You’ll love it. There are barely any trees.”
“And baths everywhere,” Daniel added.
“If you stay with Lynch, that is,” Joel said. “You are staying with us, right? Hwa? With the company?”
Hwa tilted her head. “And if I said no?”
Joel’s mouth worked. She watched him struggle to put a good face on things. “Then I’d still ask you as my friend,” he said. “Because I think you’d like it. And because I don’t want to be—to travel, I mean—alone.”
Hwa smiled. It was not the best of all possible worlds. Not by a long shot. But it was hers. And she could make it better.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book belongs to a lot of people. First, there is David Nickle, who listened as I talked about it at length, and somehow still wanted to marry me when it was finished. Then there is my agent, Monica Pacheco, who believed in the concept. Then there is Charlie Stross, who first introduced this book to my editors, Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Miriam Weinberg. And naturally there are Patrick and Miriam, who worked hard to make this book as special as we knew it could be.
I also want to thank Cory Doctorow and Kathryn Cramer for their timely career advice (and their patience doling it out), and Jessica Langer, the Atlantic Council, Nesta, Data & Society, and Kate Heartfield for giving me work to do while I worked on this book. Thanks are also due to Neil Clarke and Dave Maass, both of whom allowed me to publish stories from this universe in their anthologies.
Also I want to thank Anthony Townsend, Melissa Gira Grant, Terri-Jean Bedford, Morgan M. Page, Mistress Matisse, Tina Horn, Andrew Nikiforuk, and many others whose writing and advocacy helped me to understand the reality (and the future) of urban planning, sex work, and energy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MADELINE ASHBY is a science fiction writer and futurist living in Toronto. Her debut series about killer robots, the Machine Dynasty, included vN and its sequel, iD. She has developed science fiction prototypes for organizations, including Intel Labs, the Institute for the Future, Nesta, Data & Society, the Atlantic Council, and others. Since late 2014, she has been a regular columnist for the Ottawa Citizen. You can find her at madelineashby.com. Or sign up for email updates here.