“Oh. Okay,” Cynthia breathed as they turned into the start of the exhibit, and fell silent.
It was a vast, dimly lit space filled entirely with metal pipes—the kind that still carried water and sewage throughout the Tower, like the ones that Watt’s dad worked with as a mechanic. But the artist had painted them in a spectrum of discordantly cheerful colors, yellow and candy-apple green and watermelon pink. As they progressed through the space, lines of music whispered into Watt’s ear before quickly changing to a new song, a new refrain. Watt realized the pipes were just for show. Miniature speakers were projecting the sound waves toward him in rapid iteration.
“What kind of advice?”
Cynthia’s words echoed strangely over the sounds in the exhibit, as if coming from very far away. Watt shook his head, disoriented, and grabbed her wrist to pull her back into the hallway. Lost-sounding snatches of music drifted through the open door toward him, echoing strangely in his mind, or maybe the thought of Leda was literally driving him insane.
“I’m completely stuck. This girl—” He shook his head, immediately regretting the choice of wording; that made it sound like he liked Leda. Although maybe it wasn’t the worst thing, he realized, if Cynthia thought he needed romantic advice. It was better than letting her guess the truth.
Cynthia stared at him in that piercing way of hers. For some reason Watt held his breath, trying not to even blink.
“Who is this girl?” she asked at last.
“Her name is Leda Cole.” Watt tried not to let his irritation creep through, but he could hear it in his own voice.
“And your typical … techniques aren’t working with her?”
Don’t lie, Nadia urged him. “She’s not a typical girl.” That definitely wasn’t a lie.
Cynthia turned back toward the stairs. “Come on,” she said, sounding resigned.
“Wait, but your exhibit—don’t you want to go through it first?”
“I’ll come back another time, without you. Your life sounds like a mess,” Cynthia proclaimed. Watt didn’t argue, because she was right.
A few minutes later they were seated on one of the rotating hexagonal benches in the sculpture garden outside. “Okay. Tell me about Leda. What’s she like?” Cynthia commanded.
“She lives upTower, goes to a highlier school. She has one brother. She plays field hockey, I think, and—”
“Watt. I don’t want her résumé. What is she like? Introverted? Optimistic? Judgmental? Does she watch cartoons on Saturday mornings? Does she get along with her brother?”
“She’s cute,” he began carefully, “and smart.” Dangerously so. Nadia was feeding him more, but Watt couldn’t keep up this charade. The words began to pour from him like venom. “She’s also shallow and petty, and insecure. Self-centered and manipulative.”
Nice going.
You’re the one who told me to tell the truth!
Cynthia shifted on the bench to face him. “I don’t understand. I thought you liked her?”
Watt let his gaze drift to the trees nearby, genetically engineered to grow dozens of fruits on the same branch. An oversized lemon hung next to bunches of cherries, alongside a row of pinecones. “Actually, I don’t like Leda at all,” Watt confessed. “And she doesn’t like me. She might even hate me. Normally I wouldn’t care that I’m at the top of her shit list, except that she has something on me.”
“What do you mean, she ‘has something on you’?” Cynthia narrowed her eyes. “This is about your hacking jobs, isn’t it?”
Watt looked up sharply. “How do you know about those?”
“I’m not stupid, Watt. The amount of money you’ve got is more than you could make as an ‘IT consultant.’” She lifted her hands to make air quotes around the phrase. “Besides, you always seem to know just a little too much about people.”
Watt could feel Nadia’s uneasiness like a hand on his wrist. We can trust her, he thought silently.
If you say so, Nadia conceded.
“You’re not wrong about the hacking,” he told Cynthia, and part of him was relieved to finally admit at least this much of the truth to his friend.
“So what’s happened that you’re now asking me advice about Leda?”
“Like I said, Leda isn’t my biggest fan. And with what she knows …” He shifted uncomfortably, and swallowed. “I really need her to not tell anyone. If she trusted me—or at least, if she stopped despising me—maybe she wouldn’t tell.”
Cynthia waited, but he didn’t continue. “What would happen, if she told what she knows?” she prodded.
“It would be very, very bad.”
Cynthia let out a deep breath. “For the record, I don’t like this at all.”
“The record has been duly noted,” Watt assured her, smiling in relief. “So you’ll help?”
“I’ll try my best. I can’t make any promises,” Cynthia warned. Watt nodded, but the weight pressing down on his chest already felt lighter, just from the knowledge that Cynthia was here, and willing to try.
“First things first,” she declared. “When are you going to see her again?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should probably ask her to hang out, so that you can take charge of the situation, reset the dynamic,” Cynthia suggested.
The thought of voluntarily hanging out with Leda was so strange to Watt that he visibly flinched. Cynthia caught the expression and rolled her eyes. “Watt, this girl won’t stop hating you if she doesn’t ever spend time with you. Now, what are you going to say when you see her?”
“Hi, Leda,” he tried.
“Wow,” Cynthia deadpanned. “You overwhelm me with your incredible wit and conversational skills.”
“What am I supposed to say?” he burst out, exasperated. “All I want is not to go to jail!”
Cynthia went very quiet and still. Watt realized with a sinking feeling that he’d said too much.
“Jail, Watt?” she asked. He nodded miserably.
Cynthia closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they shone with a new resolve. “You’re going to have to be convincing as hell.” She stood up and walked a few steps toward the museum, then turned around. “Pretend I’m Leda and I just arrived. Say something nice to me. Not just ‘Hi, Leda.’”
Compliment her, Nadia offered. “Leda,” Watt began, suppressing a smile in spite of everything at the silliness of the role-play. “It’s great to see you.”
“That’s a start. This time, try it without sounding like you’re getting a full-body exam from a med-bot.”
Watt blinked at her in surprise.
“Come on,” Cynthia urged. “You’re going to have to be a better liar to make this highlier girl believe you. Think of someone else when you say the words, if it helps, but say it like you mean it.”