“You get up earlier than I do, so I’ve had to adjust.”
Hwa rounded the corner to the Fitzgerald Hub. It swung out wide into the North Atlantic, the easternmost edge of the city, a ring of green on the flat grey sea. Here the view was best. Better even than the view from the top of Tower Five, where Síofra had his office. Here you could forget the oil rig at the city’s core, the plumes of fire and smoke, the rusting honeycomb of containers that made up Tower One where Hwa lived. Here you couldn’t even see the train. It screamed along the track overhead, but she heard only the tail end of its wail as the rain diminished.
“It’s better to get a run in before work. Better for the metabolism.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Síofra probably had a perfect metabolism. It would be a combination of deep brain stimulation that kept him from serotonin crashes, a vagus nerve implant that regulated his insulin production, and whatever gentle genetic optimization he’d had in utero. He was a regular goddamn übermensch.
“Look out your window,” she said.
“Give me your eyes.”
“I’m not wearing the specs.”
“Why not?”
“They’re expensive. I could slip and fall while I’m running.”
“Then we would give you new ones.”
“Wouldn’t that come out of my pay?”
A soft laugh that went down to the base of her spine. “Those were the last owners of this city. Lynch is different.”
She rolled her neck until it popped. All the way across town, her boss hissed in sympathy. “Look out your window,” she reminded him.
“Fine, fine.” An intake of breath. He was getting up. From his desk, or from his bed? “Oh,” he murmured.
Hwa stared into the dawn behind the veil of rain. It was a line of golden fire on a dark sea. “I time it like this, sometimes,” she said. “Part of why I get up early.”
“I see.”
She heard thunder roll out on the waves, and in a curious stereo effect, heard the same sound reverberating through whatever room Síofra was in.
“May I join you, tomorrow?”
Hwa’s mouth worked. She was glad he couldn’t see her. The last person she’d had a regular running appointment with was her brother. Which meant she hadn’t run with anyone in three years. Then again, maybe it would be good for Síofra to learn the city from the ground up. He spent too much time shut up behind the gleaming ceramic louvers of Tower Five. He needed to see how things were on the streets their employer had just purchased.
She grinned. “Think you can keep up with me?”
“Oh, I think I can manage.”
*
Of course, Síofra managed just fine. He showed up outside Tower One at four thirty in the morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Like everything else about him, even his running form was annoyingly perfect. He kept his chin up and his back straight throughout the run. He breathed evenly and smoothly and carried on a conversation without any issues. At no point did he complain of a stitch in his side, or a bone spur in his heel, or tension in his quads. Nor did he suggest that they stretch their calves first, or warm up, or anything like that. He just started running.
A botfly followed them the entire way.
“Do we really need that?” Hwa asked. “We can ping for help, no problem, if something happens.” She gestured at the empty causeway. “Not that anything’s going to happen.”
“What if you have a seizure?” her boss asked.
Hwa almost pulled up short. It took real and sustained effort not to. She kept her eyes on the pavement, instead. They had talked about her condition only once. Most people never brought it up. Maybe that was a Canadian thing. After all, her boss had worked all over the world. They were probably a lot less polite in other places.
“My condition’s in my halo,” she muttered.
“Pardon?”
“My halo has all my medical info,” she said, a little louder this time. She shook her watch. “If my specs detect a change in my eye movement, they broadcast my status on the emergency layer. Everyone can see it. Everyone with the right eyes, anyway.”