“Ah, Allen?” Frank said. “I suggest you get Peri checked out before you go home. I’ll let Bill know where you are.”
“I’m fine,” Peri protested, but Allen seemed to start, visibly collecting his thoughts.
“Mmmm. He’s right,” he said, thin fingers touching the side of his long nose as he scanned the nearly empty lot. “You hit your head. It won’t take long.”
“It will take all night,” she complained. “I don’t need to go in.” But he was ushering her forward, his hand familiarly on the small of her back. It didn’t feel wrong there, but she didn’t like being pushed. “I haven’t changed my apartment in the last three years, have I?”
“No.”
“Is my mom still alive?” she asked, the cold night making her bruised eye throb.
“Yes. You called her yesterday. Now, will you please get in the car?”
She had talked to her mom? Clearly things had improved. Either that, or gotten much worse. “Sure. Which one is it?”
Allen took the fob right out of her hand and clicked it. Across the way, a sleek black car flashed its lights. “Maybe I should drive,” he said in sudden avarice, and her eyes widened. Holy shit, it’s a Mantis. I own a Mantis?
“This is ridiculous, I’m fine,” Peri complained. “Allen, give me my keys back,” she protested when he held them out of her reach like a playground bully.
“No, I’m driving,” he insisted, and she gave up, hands in her pockets as she stomped beside him.
“This is really bad for my asthma,” she muttered, angry and becoming depressed.
Allen started, turning to her in surprise. “Asthma? I didn’t know you had asthma.”
Peri blinked at him, confused. Why did I say that? “I don’t,” she said as she pulled her coat closer. “Sorry. Bad joke.”
Kind of like her life.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
She’d had to reinstate Allen into the car’s system before he could drive it. That hadn’t bothered her as much as Allen not knowing what she’d had her Mantis in for or why the technicians had accidentally blown him out. A Mantis, she thought in satisfaction, wondering what color palette she’d programmed into it. You couldn’t even get on the purchase list unless you’d lived in Detroit for ten years.
’Cause only those who never gave up on her should be allowed to play with her toys, Peri thought, as the bright neon of one of Detroit’s casinos came and went between the e-boards, green spaces, and community gardens lit like a fairyland for the night.
Uneasy, she glanced at Allen as they slipped into an industrial park. She felt as if she’d left something behind, like her wallet or a sweater. Or maybe a gun, she thought, stealthily feeling the edge of her boot to find her knife. Her angst was growing, but she dismissed it, knowing it was likely the shock of losing so much time. She was fine, damn it!
But the unease only grew worse as they took an easy curve and Opti spread before them, two empty lanes of dim lights and stiff regulations at two in the morning. “I don’t want to be here,” she protested, even as she dug in her purse for her ID. An odd pane of glass caught her eye, and with a shock, she realized it was her phone. Glass? I’ve got glass? Cool.
Allen slipped his ID from a shirt pocket. “I can tell,” he said as the woman on duty stepped forward. “You hit your head. I’m not letting you go to sleep until you get checked out.”
“I’m fine,” she complained as the snow-crisp air slipped in his lowered window, but she dutifully showed the security woman her ID across the expanse for her to scan it. “A good night’s sleep would do me more good than being here.”
“Let me do my job,” Allen said, the bitterness catching the security woman’s attention. “We’re going to the med offices,” he said to her, though he didn’t have to. “She overdrafted, and I want her checked out.”
Overdrafted, as in losing too much memory to function properly, Peri thought. Bullshit. She’d probably lost large chunks of time before. And therein lies the problem….
The woman waved them through, and Allen’s grip on the wheel tightened as he drove toward the small Opti infirmary across campus from the larger office building. His frustration was obvious in the occasional glimmer of a streetlight. “I know you’re tired, but you drafted twice in twenty-four hours. I want you checked out before I go mucking about in your head.”
I drafted twice? Uneasy, she dropped her glass phone into her purse to figure out how to use later. “You think I might MEP?”
He didn’t answer, worrying her even more. MEPs were usually preceded by multiple drafts with no time between to sort things out, but occasionally old damage or a memory knot could trigger it. Peri suddenly felt fragile.