Winning Mars | Page 9

as a modern woman, she thought The One was anything more
than some subtle and inexplicable shifting of brain chemistry, or that
The One was The One forever, or even for longer than a few years. But
Jere was that shift of brain chemistry. He was the one who ran away,
when everyone else flocked.
Of course, that didn't mean he shouldn't be made to jump through a few
hoops. He wanted dinner, which meant dinner and breakfast,
interrupted by whatever calls were too important to be routed around

his eyepod, or eyeblaster, or whatever it was they called them those
days. Patrice stuck to earbuds and a palmtop with a little laser-projector,
a neat little cultured-wood thing with real synthetic diamonds crusting
the edges, and neat gold trim, like an elegant old cigarette-case from a
movie.
So, no dinner. She made him take her out for a weekend on one of
those new Yamaha speedboats, to the little chain of private floating
islands that had grown up beyond Catalina. More beautiful than
Catalina, and gyro-stabilized, you could imagine yourself stranded on a
perfect desert island. Disney'd done the hills and mountains and
impassible bits of forest well, so you could never get to a point on the
island that you could see any other. Some people called them,
disparagingly, Gilligans, but she thought that was dumb. She'd watched
the show, and you couldn't see the ocean at all. Like they did it on a
sound stage or something. They probably did.
Best, though, was the islands complete lack of connectivity. The
Relaxation of Complete Isolation, they said, and they meant it. Jere'd
tried to use his eyepod, then bitched about them jamming the signal,
running too much spread-spectrum noise or something. He tried to use
his whisperpod, but it was really stupid without its net connection, and
Patrice took the first chance she could to throw it in the water.
On the first night there, on the warm sand, under a primitive tent of
tree-branches and stretched animal skin (what kind of animal, she
wondered), Jere asked her something strange.
"Would you like to work for me again?" he said. His voice was soft,
faraway, as if he was thinking of something really important. But when
she looked over at him, he was watching her intently. He was a
beautiful man, even though he didn't know it, with his big patrician
nose and curly black hair--so black it was almost blue--and his icy blue
eyes, courtesy some genetic trick of fate she didn't pretend to
understand. They didn't come from his mother. Or his father. Maybe he
was engineered, like they said some kids were getting these days. But
she thought he was too old for that.

"You have to ask?" she said.
"You work in interactives."
"So now I'm too good for your little linears?"
Jere nodded. "Something like that."
Patrice laughed, and sat up to look down at him. She liked looking
down at him. "Just don't get me killed," she said.
Something in Jere's eyes flinched, and he was silent for a long time,
just looking at her. Could that be the glimmer of tears, she wondered?
"It might be dangerous."
Patrice pretended to consider. "I'll do it anyway," she said.
"You don't even want to know what it is?"
"No. I trust you."
Jere sighed and sat up. "You aren't even going to ask?"
Was that? Was he uncomfortable? Patrice giggled. She liked that. She'd
gotten under his skin. He didn't know how to take this.
"No," she said.
Jere just shook his head.
"Besides," she said. "You'll be right there with me. Maybe even on
camera."
Another long, strange look. Then: "Let's go look at the stars," he said,
almost a whisper.
Patrice got up and went with him, happy. The sand squished happily
through her toes, tickling. The water, chill, splashed her feet and calves.

For a while, she could forget she was on an artificial island on the west
side of Catalina, and this was their life, and it would be like this,
forever, uninterrupted.

Orbit
After hearing Evan's colorful stories about Russia in winter, Jere was
almost disappointed. It could have been Texas. Or Oklahoma. Miles
and miles of nothing but gray-brown weeds and low hills, or at least
that's what it looked like as the run rose behind them on the flight in
from Singapore.
Man oh man do they have this flyover country thing down, Jere thought,
after what seemed like hours. Ain't got nothing but.
Deep inside, he breathed a sigh of relief. Evan talked a game like he
knew everyone in Russia. And Singapore. And Hong Kong. Rattling on
about hotels he burned rooms down in, women he fucked in cabs, deals
he made with nothing more than a