—
To his expressed delight but obvious consternation, Jesse proved over the ensuing weeks of boot camp to be just as unimpressive to the rest of the Outer Limits Excursions travelers as he had been, at first, to Edie. Most of them, aged well beyond the perimeter of Jesse’s fan base, didn’t recognize him, even when Jesse would pretend to just absentmindedly hum “Right Night for You,” which had been picked up in a Burger Blitz marketing campaign. Those who did know who he was, or who figured it out, were, at best, amused by him, “pop star” being the most novel of novelties, a relic from another era almost, like those people who specialized in rebuilding electrical HVAC systems or the boutique gardeners who claimed they could trace their seeds’ lineages back to the preindustrial age. “That’s the young man who’s a judge on that show,” one of the men—a lawyer named Mickey Worthington—told his traveling partner, Lee Flannigan. “That singing contest.”
“Oh, yeah!” Lee said. “What a hoot. I’ll have to tell my daughter. She’ll really think her old pop’s cool now.”
“A hoot,” Jesse had grumbled that night in bed. “Better a hoot than a suit.” Then he’d grabbed his tablet from the bedside table and scribbled some notes. “That’s not bad, actually,” he murmured.
Edie, of course, was practically invisible among these people who saw their financial bounty as proof of their superior intellects and talents. What do you do? they would ask her. Or: Are you Jesse’s wife? Because her answer to the first question was essentially “nothing,” and her answer to the second question was “no,” she had been relegated to the status of accessory: Jesse’s hanger-on, his groupie, his flavor of the month. She could see it in their eyes: Poor girl. She’ll go through this for him, come back with a shaved head and scars on those pretty arms, maybe even on that pretty face, and he’ll drop her as soon as he gets bored.
But they didn’t know all of the story.
Boot camp passed in a blur—marathons of rigorous exercise; primer classes on topics such as “Three Foolproof Methods for Building a Fire” and “Edible Plants and Fungi of the Eastern Appalachians”; fabulous, plentiful meals served with good wine and beer (but never liquor) in the Canteen. Goals that had at first seemed unattainable were suddenly achieved, and Andy brightened with delight and pride. It was the army on a cruise ship. Hard work, obliteration of the self, fidelity to a group, but also the pleasures and the exclusivity that such wealthy men and women had come to see as their due. Edie’s Stamp wound—she’d opted for the meaty upper buttock, where she’d once been administered her childhood vaccines—crusted into a scab, and then the scab fell off in the shower, leaving behind a wet-looking red maw.
She had learned, over meals or during water breaks, that the majority of the travelers in the group were venture capitalists of some kind, or lawyers who were cagey about the kind of law they practiced and the names of the clients they served. The young man who’d thrown up on the first day—a nice guy, quirky, with a fast smile and a self-deprecating sense of humor—turned out to be the creator and CEO of Pocketz, the social web cooperative for safe credit storage, savings, and transfers. “This guy is bigger than big,” Edie tried to convince a dubious Jesse. “He basically changed the global economy.”
Jesse, unimpressed, shrugged. “Fuck that. Pocketz is old-school. Everyone’s going to switch to Bank On It in a couple years’ time. I guarantee it.”
One day about halfway into the training, as weightlifting ended and the travelers headed to their rooms to shower before dinner, Andy stopped her at the doorway. “Edie,” he said. “Got a sec?”
Jesse, whose hero-worship of Andy had only compounded since that first day in the gymnasium, smiled eagerly. “She’s doing great, isn’t she?” he asked. “She’s lifting eight more kilos than she was last week.”
“Yeah,” Andy said. “Super. You’ve really helped her. Hey, my man, would you try catching up with Tia and seeing if she needs a hand with the tent demo? I forgot to drag all of that stuff out of supply before the last sesh started.”
“Uh, sure,” Jesse said, his smile faltering a little. “See you back at the room, Edie?”
“Yeah,” Edie said. She couldn’t read the look on Andy’s face, and a tremor of fear passed through her: He knows. Something flagged during the medical exam. Don’t be paranoid, Jesse had told her. Even if they could tell, and they can’t, they have a lot of my money right now. No way they’d risk that.
But they weren’t Andy. And maybe Andy wanted his cut.
Jesse lingered in the hallway outside the weight room, and Andy smiled big, waving him off in an affable way. “We won’t be a minute, dude. Go help Tia.”
Edie watched him go. When she turned her gaze back to Andy, he was leaned against the door frame, smiling in a knowing way. He held out his Smokeless in offering.
She accepted it, feeling she had no choice, though she didn’t smoke much. She was so drained of energy that the NicoClean went straight to her head.
“Your accent,” Andy said. “It sounds very familiar.”
Edie shrugged vaguely.
“My mom’s from the Gulf Zone,” Andy continued. “She got a vestment here forty years ago because she tested in the ninety-ninth percentile on the math AEs.” He smiled crookedly. “You some kind of genius?”
Edie laughed sharply. “Hardly,” she said.
“But you’re from the Gulf.”
She nodded.
“And now you’re here,” he mused. “I know you’re a citizen. You couldn’t get the papers for this excursion if you weren’t.”
She nodded again, thrown by this line of inquiry.
“I can tell you’re not like them,” he said, making a sharp gesture with his chin toward the living quarters. “You didn’t buy your way to Atlantic Zone, nuh-uh. So tell me, Edie. What’s your deal?”
Sweat was running down her face, and she blotted it with a towel. “No secret,” she said casually. “My dad was an outer-zone contractor for a timber company. He caught a case of Shreve’s and died when I was eight. There were accidental death benefits.”
Andy sighed. “And now you’re following Mr. Guitar out into the woods. My shrink would call that self-destructive behavior.” His face grew serious. “Do you mind if I give you some advice?”
Edie checked the hallway for Jesse, wondering if he had gone on to Tia, as instructed, or if he lingered just around the corner and out of sight. “I have a feeling I’m going to hear it.”
“Leave,” he said. She looked back at Andy, startled, and he was nodding, hard. “It’s his money, right? They’ll refund him seventy-five percent of it. Drop in the bucket to him. You take off and let that dipshit have his little adventure, and maybe you’ll even still be together on the other side of this. If you go, I guarantee you won’t be.”