Peri hated the airport chairs in the Detroit terminals. They were not made for the comfort of passengers, despite what they claimed: the worst of them had a severe slope that was supposed to be relaxing but wasn’t. She had to believe the open back was there so security wouldn’t have to worry about what people were leaving behind.
Knees crossed, she sat out of the late-morning sun glinting through the windows, fingers swift as she knitted, purled, knitted, purled the edge pattern of a scarf she didn’t remember buying the yarn for. It was easier than she remembered, and she didn’t even have to watch what she was doing. Clearly she’d been knitting a lot the last three years—which wasn’t very cheering since it was an Opti-encouraged activity to relieve obsessive-compulsive stress.
Across from her, two Opti security agents bitched about the Big Ten being renamed to include an expanded twenty teams. A projected, muted TV hung over them, the code to listen in on an intuitive phone flashing for attention. Peri sourly glanced at her glass phone, wondering if it was intuitive or just smart, and how long it would take to find the right app to change the station. Good Lord, when did Twitter get its own TV channel?
A third female guard had accompanied Allen in search of coffee. It was the second trio of security they’d had since leaving the hospital. That the detail had camped out in Allen’s hallway was probably why she hadn’t slept well, but at least she knew why she and Allen weren’t cohabiting. He’d been her anchor only a day, and she wished Bill had let her return to her apartment to at least pack a bag. What Allen had come back with looked great but lacked functionality.
The sleek white cashmere sweater she had on fitted tightly in all the right places and the wide collar fell off her shoulder to show her neck, but it would be problematic in a fight. She remembered buying the fitted jacket, lined with silk to be light and free-moving as well as warm. A matching black cap sat atop her carry-on, the red embellishment accenting her earrings, necklace, and nails. Black traveling pants finished it off, the traveling designation meaning they had pockets deep enough for her to stuff her ID, ticket, and phone for easy access. The boots from last night were still on her feet, but no knife in the sheath. She looked good—good enough to feel good—but the only thing on her mind was worry.
Fingers fumbling, she looked down at the soft red as she worked. I killed my own anchor? No wonder I lost three years.
“What was I trying to do?” she muttered, unwinding the red yarn from her fingers and spreading the scarf flat on her leg. It was nearly done, which was why she’d brought it with her. The completed end had a dagaz made of raised purls against a flat background of knits, but the end she was working on had a weird band of odd stitches she couldn’t figure out. There was no pattern apart from three flat rows between nine individual rows of knit-and-purl nonsense.
Head tilted, she angled the nine odd lines to see if she’d been hiding an image in the knits and purls, but that would’ve needed a pattern, and there hadn’t been one in the knitting bag Bill had brought from her apartment in his attempt to give her psyche something familiar to build on.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she mumbled, sliding the stitches off the needle to unravel it. She’d just repeat the dagaz pattern and bind it off.
Her focus went distant as she pulled the stitches out, her faint grimace deepening as she looked at the black, cheap fabric bags on tiny plastic rollers that she’d bought this morning, Allen patiently walking her through how to do it with her phone. Apparently no one used cards anymore since the system-wide hack in ’28. She was sure she had better luggage at her apartment, something with thick leather and big wheels that turned when she did. She’d tripped on her new stuff twice going from the car to security. Their escorts weren’t happy about having to check their weapons, but her knitting needles went through with no problem—the smug satisfaction of which helped rub out her embarrassment at not knowing how to pay for things.
They were on their way somewhere warm that required a passport, and she kept shoving her vague unease down. Bill had blamed the alliance as the reason to avoid her apartment, but Peri suspected that Bill knew that she, like most drafters, kept a private diary. They wouldn’t let her in until they found it and ascertained if she was dirty, or if it was just Jack. Sighing, she wrote off finding her past that way. She wasn’t on vacation, she was on paid leave while they investigated her.
The only thing that had come from her apartment besides her knitting had been a cat named Carnac whom she didn’t remember. He remembered her, though. Bill was watching him while they were gone, though it was likely his secretary who was checking the cat’s food and cleaning the litter pan.
Her head hurt, and she felt the bumps and hesitations of the knits and purls of one of those odd rows pulling out all the way to the backs of her eyes. Who names their cat Carnac?