Exo: A Novel (Jumper) (47 page)

I hadn’t told them about the cabin but my anger about that bled over easily. “He would have a hard time bothering you from
Perth
,” I said. “Say the word.”

Jade smiled, but Tara said savagely, “Why should
he
get to go to Australia!”

“True,” I said. “Um, how would you guys like to spend a week there?”

Jade’s eyes lit up. I could tell
she
liked the idea.

“How’s
your
Mom?” I asked.

She held out her hand and rocked it. “She’s trying, but that’s almost worse. She and Dad are seeing a therapist and it’s bringing up … stuff. I’m really glad they’re doing it, and I
think
it will be really good when they’re further along, but just now … it’s a bit painful. Especially when they drag me along for ‘family’ sessions.”

Tara put her arm across Jade’s shoulders. “Fun times, eh?”

I bit my lip. “You have no idea.”

They looked at me. Tara said, “A breakthrough with Joe? A break up?
Something
?”

I almost smiled. “No. Joe’s the next call, though, because they—” I blurted it out. “They tried to kill us last night. They
did
blow up the cabin.” I leaned forward and told them the whole thing.

“Wow,” Jade finally said after the silence that followed my story. “That makes
my
troubles seem petty.”

“These might
be
your troubles,” I said. “They could still come after you. I was serious when I said you could spend a week in Australia. Or France. Or how about St. Martin in the Caribbean? They speak French there.”

Tara said, “Is this on the company? I kinda blew my savings on France.”

“Yes. A cottage with a kitchen, say?”

“What?” said Jade. “No room service?”

Tara elbowed her in the ribs and said, “A cottage would be lovely. What’s the weather there?”

My phone connected to the coffee shop’s WiFi. “This week, high of eighty-two, low of seventy-five. And unless you’re going to hang out at Club Orient, you’ll only need swimsuit bottoms.”

Tara’s eyes got big. “What?”

“French—all the beaches are topless.” She looked like she was rethinking her answer and I said, “Topless isn’t
required
. Just allowed.”

I jumped them to each of their bedrooms, but waited with Jade.

Since the secret of how Joe had managed frequent travel back and forth to Stanford was out, he was spending the last two days of vacation in New Prospect with his family. Well, with his family and some trailing press.

I was worried about the press. It was a good way for
them
to get close.

Them.

I was starting to sound like Dad.

On the other hand, unless
they
replaced all the reporters with operatives, the pack of journalists were also witnesses.

I used Jade’s phone and texted him.

Me: ¢ here. WRU@?

Joe: Luncheon Junction w/fam 4 post-fb feast.

Luncheon Junction was the restaurant in the old converted train station where we’d had our first date. They had really good pie.

Me: Watch out.

Joe: WTF?

Me: Old Friends.

Joe: ?

Me: Like Jason

Jason ran the local drug ring and had been used by
them
to try and catch us. He’d snatched Jade and Tara to pull me in and he tortured one of his own gang members when she wanted to quit.

Dad broke his arm and jaw.

He’d deserved it. He was serving twenty years for aggravated assault in the first degree.

Joe: FFS

Me: (.)(.)

Joe: Tits?

Me: Try again.

Joe: Eyes open?

Me: Yes. Or I can extract you. J&T taking that option.

There was a pause. Was he distracted? Was he wondering if I was inviting him for something more?
Was
I inviting him for something more?

Joe: No. Mom pissed about bn gone last 2 wks. Making up4it.

I thought about telling him he was putting his family in danger
by
hanging around them, but I didn’t know.
I
was probably the one putting them in danger.
They
could be monitoring his phone or Jade’s phone.

Me: OK. B4N

Tara called her Mom and told her she was going out of town. Jade left a note.

The one-bedroom cottages on Rue de Grande Caye normally ran fourteen hundred dollars a week but that was with an advanced reservation. I figured we would have to pay double on such short notice, but a tropical storm near Miami had disrupted flights and there’d been several cancellations.

We secured a cottage away from the beach for seven hundred dollars. I left Tara and Jade with all the unused cash, for groceries, shopping, and restaurants.

“No plastic, right? And no cell phones. Not only will they track you with it, it’s expensive as all get-out. Stick to e-mail. The WiFi’s free.”

“Yes, Mother,” said Jade.

“You think you can survive this?” I was looking out the louvered windows at the palm trees. You couldn’t see the ocean from this side but the Baie du Cul-de-Sac was less than a hundred yards away.

Compared to the icy bite of New Prospect’s air, the breeze which pushed the curtains was like a caress—warm, slightly humid, and laced with the scent of tropical flowers. Inside, the cottage was tile floors and wicker furniture with brightly colored cushions and a king-sized bed.

Hell, why wasn’t
I
staying there?

Tara said, “We’ll tough it out.”

I hugged them and jumped.

*   *   *

Things were not so good in the vault.

“—awfully weak,” Seeana said as I appeared.

Mom nodded at me, acknowledging my arrival, but turned back to Seeana who was kneeling on the mattress next to Grandmother.

Grandmother was on the Resmed ventilator and seemed so small, curled up in the middle of the mattress.

Seeana used her thumb to pull up Grandmother’s eyelid. “I don’t like the color of her sclera.”

Mom said, “A bit yellow, yeah.”

I didn’t like the fact that Grandmother didn’t flinch or even seem to notice that Seeana had pulled the lid up. “Unresponsive?” I said.

“She’s exhausted,” said Mom.

“Should we take her to a hospital?”

Mom said, “It may come to that. We drew some blood. Your father is having her levels checked. We’re a little concerned about liver function.”

“‘A little?’” I said.

Mom looked away. “This has not been a good day.”

Dad popped in, a sheet of computer printouts in his hand. “Liver enzymes are slightly elevated but it’s looking more like a flare up of the polymyositis. Her CK and aldolase levels are up. Do you want me to fetch her neurologist?”

Mom bit her lip. “If we hospitalize her, sure.”

“What’s CK and aldolase?” I asked.

Seeana said, “Muscle enzymes. More muscle damage. Not good. She was responding so well to physical therapy before the last break. I was hoping to move her into aqua exercise but there’s no way she’d handle that now.”

“Swimming?” I said.

“No. You wear floats that keep you upright, with your head above water. You can walk, jog, and do other exercises without putting any weight on your bones. But the water pressure pushes in on your chest and makes it harder to breathe.
Later
that’s great. Helps you exercise your diaphragm and chest muscles, but right now—” She shook her head. “Even with the respirator she’s having trouble fighting gravity.”

Mom and I locked eyes.

Dad said, “Son of a BITCH!”

Seeana was looking around, confused. She was the one who’d said it but she didn’t get it.

I said to her, “It’s the one thing I can do something about.”

*   *   *

Despite his initial reaction Dad said, “It’s an
insane
idea. It could
kill
her.”

Mom said, “She’s not exactly safe down
here
. Up there she could
fly
. Well float, but become truly mobile instead of pinned to the mattress like … like an insect mounted for display!”

It was odd, but I’d done the most pertinent research and I hadn’t even been aware it applied to Grandmother.

“Microgravity actually
encourages
osteoporosis,” I said.

“Sure.” Mom said, “We’re not trying to cure the osteoporosis. We’re trying to ease the pulmonary distress and allow nonimpact exercise.”

I felt I should make the whole case. “Yes, but the bone loss does other things. The calcium ends up in the bloodstream and can cause other problems. Renal stress and kidney stones.”

Seeana nodded. “Perhaps, but the Fosamax she’s been taking has really dropped her blood calcium levels and she could take potassium citrate supplements to reduce the chance of stones.”

“There’s other negative effects of microgravity,” I said. “Nearly everyone throws up initially. The otoliths float up and start banging off of parts of your inner ear that they would normally only hit if you were lying on your side or upside down or flat on your back. Your brain compensates after a few days but vomiting is a pretty common result of the vertigo. Also from the fluid moving into your upper body. Your head gets puffy and your sinuses feel stuffed up and your body senses there’s too much liquid and it tries to get rid of it—sometimes by vomiting. You definitely pee a lot the first two days.”

“Is this fluid dangerous?”

“Well, it’s not pleasant. The longest time I’ve spent in orbit was ninety minutes and I could feel it. On the other hand, I’ve never stayed up the forty-eight hours or so where things start adjusting.”

“Have you thrown up?” Davy asked. “You never mentioned being space sick.”

“I came all the way back to Earth more than once for nausea-related reasons but I’ve apparently been up enough that my brain no longer interprets the vestibular input as being caused by some toxin that needs to be removed from my stomach ASAP.”

“Are the fluids in the head dangerous for someone as old as Mother?”

I raised my hands and shrugged. “The closest thing we have is John Glenn’s flight on STS-95 back in ’98. He was
older
than grandmother, seventy-seven then, but he was in excellent health.

“I do know that there was some question about whether higher intercranial pressure could increase the chance of strokes or retinal bleeding, but it’s never really been tested. You don’t spend that kind of money sending people up who
might
not survive it.”

Dad said, “We could get her into a really
good
hospital. We can afford it. They’re not going to order a drone missile strike on Johns Hopkins or the Mayo Clinic.”

“Maybe not, but she would still be a hostage—a target. Someone could still do something in one of those settings, like the awful tracking device they put in her hip.”

“We need to get that out,” said Davy.

Seeana said, “We need to get her
healthy
. The last surgery nearly killed her. I don’t know if putting her in orbit will help, but I do know this underground storeroom of yours is pretty bad. I’m worried about the ventilation down here. It was designed to hold records, not people.”

“Don’t you think you should at least
ask
a doctor?” said Dad.

“No.”

We all looked down, shocked. I don’t think any of us realized Grandmother was awake, much less listening. Her voice was weak but she’d pulled the oxygen mask off to be heard.

“Mother? How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough.”

“But you said no?”

“I said no to
asking a doctor
. They don’t know if it will help but they’d be crazy to say yes. What a malpractice suit. So
don’t
ask them. Just do it.”

“You
want
to?”

“Of course I
want
to, even if it doesn’t help.” She looked at Dad, “Even if it’s an insane idea and kills me dead.” She took two deep breaths with the mask back on before adding, “I want a chance to be Space Girl, too.”

THIRTY-THREE

Davy: Columns On the Board

It was
taglamig
, the cool dry season in the Philippines, though both the “cool” and “dry” were relative since the temperature and the humidity were both in the seventies. One of Tessa’s younger brothers answered the door of her parents’ house next to Muntinlupa City Technical Institute, where her father taught.

Tessa was right behind him, shrugging into a light jacket. “Coming, Mr. Davy. Go on, Ferdy.”

Behind Tessa, a man walked into the hallway as the boy retreated back into the house. He was Tessa’s height but stout, with gray temples and bifocal glasses “Tessa?”

She turned around, an exasperated expression on her face. “
Ama
!” She sighed loudly, then gestured to Davy. “Mr. Davy, this is my father, Professor Adolfo Lapena. He has been wanting to meet you.
Ama
, this is my employer, Mr. David.”

“David Rice,” Davy said, and shook the man’s hand.

Tessa looked embarrassed. “We can go now!”

Davy raised his eyebrows. “Ah. We
are
in a bit of a hurry but did you have a concern, sir?”

Professor Lapena was studying Davy’s face. “You are paying my daughter more than
I
make as a senior faculty member at my technical college.”

“Oh?”
Great
. The man thought his daughter was doing something immoral or illegal to make so much money. Davy supposed that he
was
taking her in and out of the country illegally, but he didn’t see how to reassure the man. “Don’t you trust your daughter?”

Tessa flashed an expression at Davy that told him this was how
she
was seeing this.

Professor Lapena said, “I am told you have a daughter. You can understand, then, that I want to make sure my daughter is not being taken advantage of.”