V glanced at her curiously. “Hiral’s trial is coming up in a few weeks,” he said, his tone deceptively matter-of-fact. “Are you going?”
“I don’t know.” Rylin fought the wave of emotion that rose up at the mention of Hiral. He’d been home on bail for a month now, but she hadn’t seen him—things between them hadn’t exactly ended on great terms, after he found out she’d hooked up with Cord. That was how the leg of their kitchen table had ended up broken. Among other things.
“Guess it depends on whether or not you’re going,” she finished, but her heart wasn’t in it. V didn’t bother challenging her.
The glow-lights above the pool changed color, from a lambent neon green to an eerie yellow. V glanced up, watching them shift, and his eyes caught on the vid-cam still floating cheerfully along after Rylin. “I see you have a new toy,” he remarked—and in a sudden, shocking movement, lurched forward to grab the cam, dunking it all the way underwater.
“What the hell?” Rylin cried out, attracting a few stares in their direction. V laughed at her reaction. He opened his palm and the vid-cam floated back up, as easy as ever.
“These things are waterproof. No one told you that?” he said lazily.
Rylin was done being baited by him. “Have you seen Lux? I’m looking for her.”
“She’s off with Reed Hopkins.” What? Rylin thought, trying to hide the surprise that lit up her face at that statement, but V didn’t miss it; he never missed anything. “Ah,” he said smugly. “You didn’t know about that, did you?”
“Rylin!” As if on cue, Lux splashed over and pulled Rylin into a hug. Her hair was a dark blond again, which was always Rylin’s favorite among Lux’s kaleidoscope of constantly changing shades. It was almost her natural color; which made her seem younger, smoothed out the sharp angles of her nose and her pointed chin. “Isn’t this incredible? V did a great job,” Lux exclaimed, turning to V, but he’d already disappeared.
“You aren’t worried about getting caught?”
“That new school is a bad influence on you,” Lux teased. “When have you, of all people, worried about getting caught?”
“When did you start hooking up with Reed?”
Lux grew quiet, chastened. “I was going to tell you. It’s really new, and I’m just … still figuring it out.”
Rylin smiled, though she felt sad that her best friend was keeping things from her. Then again, she hadn’t exactly been around much since she’d started at Berkeley; or even before that, when she was working for Cord. And she herself had been keeping something from Lux—she’d never told her about her secret relationship with Cord. “If you’re happy, then I’m happy for you,” Rylin said, because she was, and she really missed her friend right now. “Where is Reed, anyway?”
Lux tipped her head toward an enormous chair that someone had set up on the side of the pool, stacked precariously atop a table. Reed was sitting there, looking inordinately pleased with himself as he clinked shot glasses with a group of his friends.
“He’s on lifeguard duty for the hour. Like people used to do in ancient times! We had to turn the safety bots off, you know, to keep the police away.” Lux giggled. “He’s not taking it that seriously, though.”
Rylin had a feeling that human lifeguards were more recent than ancient times. She also had a feeling that Reed was in no shape to keep drunk teenagers from hurting themselves, but she smiled and held her tongue. “Let’s dance,” she said instead.
Lux nodded, and together they began to weave through the hot, crowded press of people. The vid-cam bobbed cheerfully above them, a tiny silver planet lost in a universe of glow lights.
WATT
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, Watt waited for Cynthia at the corner of Madison Square Park in midTower. I still think this is a bad idea, he told Nadia, watching the flow of people on the carbonite sidewalk that lined the hover path. Tourists wandered around in their awful tourist clothes, jeans and fanny packs and those T-shirts that said I ? NY with the iconic image of the Tower emblazoned on the ?. A group of girls across the street bought ice cream from an enormous cone-shaped snack bot, while periodically shooting glances at Watt and giggling.
“Did you have a better idea?” Nadia whispered into his eartennas.
I’m just curious, how many scenarios did you run for this? What likelihood of success did you calculate?
“My calculations are incomplete, given how much I’m lacking on the input variables.”
So, basically null.
“Watt! I can’t believe you agreed to come with me.” Cynthia turned the corner with a smile.
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it,” Watt said quickly.
Cynthia shot him a sidelong glance. “Really. You’re telling me you’re as excited as I am for the Whitney’s new exhibit on postmodern sound-wave art?”
“To be honest, I’m just here because you wanted to go,” Watt admitted, which elicited an even broader smile. Cynthia had been asking Watt and Derrick to come to this art thing with her for weeks—and now that Watt wanted to butter her up and ask a favor, he’d finally agreed.
That part had been Nadia’s idea. Actually, Nadia was the one who’d suggested he ask for Cynthia’s help in the first place.
Ever since Leda came over, Watt had been thinking about Nadia’s idea. If Leda trusted him—if she thought that he was her friend, that he was on her side—maybe, just maybe, she would say the truth aloud. All Watt needed was one mention, one reference to that night, to get out from under her thumb.
He’d kept asking Nadia how to approach Leda, but she’d referred him to Cynthia. There are some human behaviors that are impossible to predict, she’d said frankly. Studies have proven that asking a friend for advice is the most effective way to tackle trust-related issues in interpersonal dynamics.
Sometimes I think you make these so-called studies up, Watt had replied, skeptical. Nadia sent him thousands of pages of research in silent response.
He and Cynthia headed through the museum’s automatic doors into a stark, austere lobby. Watt nodded twice as he passed the payment machine, which scanned his retinas and charged him for the two tickets. “You didn’t need to get mine,” Cynthia said, sounding confused.
Watt cleared his throat. “Actually, I did,” he said slowly. “To tell you the truth, I have an ulterior motive for coming here today.”
“Yeah?” Cynthia asked. Watt wondered why Nadia was uncharacteristically silent, but then, she often shut up when he was talking to Cynthia.
“I need advice,” he said bluntly.