A Long, Long Sleep (20 page)

“A romantic second honeymoon,” Ron said. “Can’t have a five- year- old along to spoil to mood. Back into stass. The child is thirteen. She wants to go on a week- long field trip, and she fights with her mother about it. Can’t have that.

Stass her until the trip is over. Problem solved.”

He laid his hands carefully on his desk and leaned forward, just a little. I couldn’t meet his eyes, but his voice would not stop. “Stass her when you’re tired. Stass her when you’re busy. Stass her when she’s fretful. Stass her when you’re bored. Stass her when she isn’t doing exactly what you want her to do.

Before you know it, the parents have aged ten, twelve, twenty years . . . and the child is still a child.”

I couldn’t look at him. He was telling me my life. I wanted to hit him. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted this feeling inside me to go away. I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a high cliff, and I couldn’t stop shaking.

“Rosalinda.” Ron’s soft, dark voice wavered with age, but it sounded very kind.

“The helicopter crash that killed Mark and Jacqueline Fitzroy took place thirty-two years ago, more than nine years after the Dark Times officially ended.” I looked up at him then, unable to understand what he was saying. “It wasn’t to save your life. They never came to get you,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“They never let you go. They never let you grow up.”

There was a moment of stillness, of darkness, and in that moment I could have sworn I had died.

“No, no, no!” someone shouted in my ear. “No one knew I was there! Everyone died!” I wished she would shut up; I was trying to understand where I had gone in the darkness. I opened my eyes, and I saw a strange- looking young woman below me, standing on the parquet floor, her fist raised in defiance. The old man sat at his desk, his eyes serious, watching her intently, and Bren stood backed up against the wall, almost in fear, his face so pale his mahogany skin looked like milky coffee. Only then did I realize the voice was mine. “They loved me!” the girl shouted. “They wanted to protect me! I don’t believe you!”

Bren’s grandfather stood up and marched out of the room. Hovering near the ceiling, I watched him go with detached interest. Did the girl frighten him as much as she frightened me? That little girl down there looked like a phantom

— much more like a walking corpse than the Plastine. There were bright- red spots high on each cheek, and her ears were red as strawberries. She was so thin I could see each individual muscle as it clenched in fury, as she waved her fist impotently at the empty desk. Her brown eyes were empty, dead holes.

Gaps. What was it Otto had said? This unfathomable abyss inside your soul. It frightened him.

It frightened me, too.

There was more to it than that, though I thought I was the only one who could see it. I could see the girl burning with a bright, ghostly fire of rage, fierce enough to engulf the whole room. More than fierce enough to burn her to a cinder. I hovered near the ceiling, but I wondered if I was only part of that fire

— a burning spirit of rage and disbelief.

Something about that thought brought me back to myself, and I couldn’t see the fire anymore, or myself, just my clenched fist before my face, and Bren against the wall. He looked positively stricken. “I don’t believe it,” I whispered to him.

Bren opened his mouth, but then closed it again, as if he were afraid to say anything.

And his grandfather walked back into the room and held a framed photograph out for me to see. I took it with the hand that wasn’t still clenched.

He must have taken the picture from Guillory’s of fice. I recognized the room before I recognized the people —the ballroom on the ground floor of the Uni Building. The photo showed wealthy people in expensive clothes mingling. I recognized a shadowy figure in the back corner that might have been Bren’s grandfather, closer to his prime. This must have been taken at the yearly company party. The traditional unicorn ice sculpture was melting in the background. Mom and Daddy were older, much older, but I recognized them.

Mom still had her beautiful blond mane of hair. She must have dyed it, because Daddy’s hair had gone completely white. Mom looked younger than she should have, and different, and I recognized the effects of plastic surgery.

I’d seen enough of it in friends of the family. Daddy was still well dressed, and his eyes were still distracted. His smile was still brusque and insincere, and he seemed to be focusing on something other than where he was. They were old —

it had clearly been decades since I’d been put into stass. But the most damning thing was the figure standing between them, holding a champagne glass and grinning from ear to ear. A young man, midtwenties, clearly fresh out of business school, looking just a little in awe of the two figures who were posing with him. Reggie Guillory.

Reggie Guillory, who wasn’t even born when I was put into stass. No wonder Guillory had spoken as if he’d known my parents. In this picture he wasn’t much more than twenty- five, his hair still a natural gold, his expensive tan somewhat darker, looking even more like a golden statue, as he had that unnatural perfection that sculptors always strive to achieve.

It was proof in my very hands, and I still didn’t want to believe it. I lifted the photograph and threw it with tremendous force against the far wall. The glass splintered, and the frame split in two.

It wasn’t enough to destroy the proof. I needed to wreck everything. If my stass tube were there, I’d have taken my fury out on it, but it wasn’t. Instead I ripped down one of the landscapes that graced the wall and flung it like a Frisbee across the room. Bren ducked. I threw knickknacks. I hurled heavy paperweights, which left gratifying dents in the walls. My hands closed on glasses from the bar, and I hurled them against the windows, where they smashed satisfyingly, leaving delightful- looking broken shards.

I realized after a little while that no one was trying to stop me. In fact, Bren’s grandfather had somehow sidled up beside me and was patiently handing me objects to throw. Bren stood in the doorway, out of the way of any shrapnel, with a look on his face that I can only describe as a serious smile.

I dropped the last item —a metal tumbler from the bar. It landed with a clatter on the floor, and I followed it. I felt better.

A gentle hand caressed my hair. “I’m so sorry, Rose,” said Ron. Then he stood up, and I saw him go and touch Bren’s shoulder.

Whatever he said to him, Bren came up and rubbed my back. “You’re okay now,” he said, more to reassure himself, I think. “No one’ll let anything like that happen again. We won’t let it happen. Me and Mom and Granddad, we’ll make sure of it.”

I looked up at him. I felt hollow. “I’m tired,” I whispered.

Bren smirked a little and helped me sit up. “I’m not surprised. I should take you to play tennis — you’ve got a great arm.” He helped me to my feet and let me rest my weight on his shoulder while he led me to the couch. “Here,” he said.

I curled up on the sofa and took a deep breath. Ron disappeared again and then reappeared with an afghan. He tucked it gently around me. “Nothing will hurt you here. I promise,” he whispered. “You rest now.” He had the most relaxing voice.

I think I might have smiled a little, but I was asleep so quickly it was almost like stasis. Just as sweet, too. My fear had left me. I’d already lost everything.

What else was there to fear?

I couldn’t have been asleep long, no more than an hour or so. When I woke, it was still dark, and Bren was clearing some of the debris from my tantrum, throwing it into a big garbage can. I took a deep breath and stretched. I felt good, almost satisfied, as if I were settled into a hot tub after a long day. The afghan over me was warm and smelled of cologne, probably Ron’s.

Bren and I were alone in the room. “Where’s your granddad?”

“Still examining Guillory’s accounts,” Bren said. “He didn’t want to wake you, so he left to make some calls. Even if Guillory didn’t sic this Plastine on you, Granddad’s gathering some pretty shady stuff. He says he hasn’t been paying enough attention the last few months. He’s getting angrier and angrier as he sorts through it all.”

“I’m surprised he isn’t angry at me,” I said. I threw the blanket off and knelt next to Bren to help him pick up the detritus. “Look what I did to his of fice.”

Bren grinned. “He helped you do it! I kept trying not to laugh.”

“I can’t remember the last time I got angry like that. If I ever have.”

“You probably haven’t,” Bren said.

I considered this. He was right. I didn’t get angry. I didn’t complain. I didn’t even draw attention to myself. Because if I had . . .

I tried to put the thought away. Oddly, I had the feeling I’d been doing that for years.

“I know I’ve never totally trashed a room,” Bren continued.

I carefully picked up another shard of glass. “They prob-ably have janitors for this kind of thing.”

“I don’t want to leave Granddad’s of fice like this,” Bren said. “He’s usually pretty fastidious.”

“But they probably have brooms,” I pointed out. “This is broken glass.”

Bren frowned, then shrugged and kept picking up shards. “I’ll be careful.”

We cleaned in silence for a while.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Bren said awkwardly. “It didn’t even occur to me that you didn’t know. Everyone knows. It’s one of the reasons Otto was so drawn to you. He feels just as abandoned.”

I closed my eyes. “Do you really think they meant . . . to leave me there?”

Bren hesitated. “I didn’t know them. The Dark Times were so horrific, I could see someone keeping their child away from all that. Even if it was dangerous.”

Twenty years in stass would have been dangerous, too. Not as bad as what I suffered after sixty- two, though. If I’d been released only twenty years after I was stassed, I would probably have been able to eat normally after two months.

As opposed to now. “But . . . he said nine years. . . .”

“Yeah,” Bren said, his tone soft. “Granddad says they were very careful to make sure no one knew, or cared, that you were staying young while they raised you.

That’s why I couldn’t find your birth records. They did everything they could.

Changing your schools. Erasing your image from the public record. Keeping you secluded, except for speci fic functions.” He looked down. “Keeping you scared. Maybe they meant to come get you in the end, but . . .”

“Another nine years.” I couldn’t fathom it. “Was I really that awful?” I whispered.

Bren dropped another shard of glass into the bin. “No one can be that awful.”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at Mom,” I said.

Bren skirted the broken glass and came to sit a little behind me. “I yell at my mom all the time,” he said. “I get sent to my room. Somehow, I don’t think stasis is an equivalent punishment.”

“It wasn’t a punishment!” I said, turning to him.

Bren’s face was impassive. “Wasn’t it?” He took my hand and helped me stand up. He led me back to the couch and sat down with me. His arm wrapped around my shoulders and held me securely. Spiders entered my flesh where he touched me, warm, delicate spiders, with many tingling legs.

“Don’t,” I said, trying to pull away.

“I can’t be your friend?” Bren asked.

“You are, it’s just . . . I haven’t gotten over you yet, okay? It’s distracting.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He let me go.

I gripped the sides of my head. “Oh, God, this is embarrassing!”

“What is?”

“You know all this stuff about me. It isn’t fair. Tell me something.”

“What?”

“Anything,” I said. “Tell me something personal. I barely know you.”

Bren gave a soft chuckle. “There’s . . . not a lot personal to say,” he said. “The most important aspect of my life is tennis . . . and I fully intend to give that up after high school. Tournaments, at least. I’ve never been in love, ’cause the whole idea kind of scares me. I’ve never spent more than two weeks outside ComUnity, and I’ll probably end up coming back here after college, just ’cause there’s nothing strong enough in me to keep me away.” He sighed. “Kind of depressing, now you ask me about it. I tend to follow the path of least resistance. The most exciting things that have ever happened in my life have been in that subbasement.”

I frowned at that statement. “You mean, I’m the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to you?”

“Yup. But that really isn’t surprising, Rose —you’re the most interesting thing that’s happened to humanity since they discovered life on Europa.”

Echos of Otto again. It was like we were bound together.

“Even if you weren’t Mark Fitzroy’s daughter, finding someone in stasis after that long would be worldwide news. Being who you are . . .”

I sighed. “I knew I was a freak.”

“You might be right,” Bren’s grandfather said, striding into the room. I thought at first he had been listening to me, but he went on. “Reggie has taken out a considerable sum of money from one of the company accounts recently. It wouldn’t be enough to pay for a Plastine, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t combined it with other funds. I’m still looking.”

Bren stood up to get back to his cleaning. “You think you can trace it all, if he did it?”

“I hope so.” Ron looked right at me. “Don’t worry. It’ll all be all right.”

For some reason, I believed him.

Part of me wanted to go back to sleep again, and part of me didn’t want to stay still. I looked over at Bren and considered getting up to help him clean, but something in his demeanor told me he wanted to think, and I’d get in the way.

I returned to my sketchbook. I’d finished my time- lapse sequence of Xavier and needed to start something new. I wasn’t in the mood for one of my landscapes —too agitated. I didn’t want to sketch Bren —too complicated. So I turned to sketch his grandfather instead.

Ron sat at his desk, having turned off the holo on his cell and inserted it in his ear, so he could have a more private conversation. “No, I understand that,” he was saying. “I’m afraid, it is urgent. Very much so. . . . Well, I wouldn’t want to have to tell that to the board. . . . I’d only do that if I had to. . . .” He sounded quietly intimidating. I was glad he was doing it for me, and not to me. I would never want to cross this man.

He was very easy to sketch. My charcoal flew down the lines of his nose, up over his cheekbones, along his jawline. His throat gave me some trouble. I hadn’t had much opportunity to sketch older men, and I wasn’t used to the folds of skin. Once I had the general line of him, I went back to concentrate on his brow, to make sure I had captured his eyes behind his glasses. He was very easy to draw.

Too easy.

I knew these lines. I looked back up at the old man who was leaning back in his chair with the easy practice of many decades at this desk. No way. I was just obsessed and seeing things.

I turned back to my sketchbook. I sketched out the line of him again —

cheekbones, chin, jawline, nose —but ignored the folds of his skin, his glasses, the cut of his hair. I drew his eyes again.

It couldn’t be. I had to be imagining it. I closed my eyes for a moment, then looked again.

I knew this face. I knew it very, very well.

Ice crept through my blood. There was a sickly taste of acid in my mouth, but for once I didn’t feel nauseated. I simply sat there, staring mutely at the old, old man.

Bren’s grandfather turned off his cell and stood up, turning toward the door. I bolted from the couch, scrambling to get there ahead of him. My movement startled Bren, who knocked over the trash can with a bang.

Bren’s grandfather raised an eyebrow as I stood before him. “Yes?”

The words fell flatly from my mouth. “What’s your excuse?”

A flash of nervousness passed over his face. “About what?” he asked.

I passed him the sketchbook. He frowned as he looked at the charcoal sketch I had done of him, and the other half- formed line drawing beside it. I reached forward and turned to the previous page so that he could see it.

It was the last image of my sequence of Xavier: Xavier at seventeen, his fond smile, his sparkling hazel- green eyes, the little goatee, the look of hesitant self-effacement, which always kept his arrogant streak from overpowering him.

The old man blinked at the drawing, his already sad eyes turning sadder. He flipped back another page, and there he was at fifteen, not yet grown into his nose, just a hint of downy fuzz touching his chin, his self- consciousness more pronounced. Back again to twelve, with the glimmer of mischief behind his eyes. He skipped a few pages, closing the book at the drawing of when he was three, a chubby- cheeked cherub with chocolate on his nose. “I’m surprised you remember,” he said.

I stared at Xavier, my Xavier, grown into his seventies, skin sagging, yellow hair turned white, bright hazel eyes cloudy with age, a barely concealed tremor in his right hand. My Xavier. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. The dead, hollow feeling had returned. “It wasn’t so long ago,” I said.

Xavier smiled ruefully. “Yes, it was.”

He was right. It had all been so long ago —in another life, when I was another girl. A chosen princess of UniCorp, champagne queen every time I opened my eyes, fashionable, sedate. A girl whose devoted parents would never abandon her to a slow death by stass fatigue, a girl who had a best friend who loved her and would always be there for her. I’d been trying to hold on to that life, to convince myself that I was still that girl, and I wasn’t. I was someone new, lost and alone, a child out of time, a burden to Guillory and Bren and everyone else who only suffered because of my reappearance. A burden to him.

“You arranged for my studio,” I said, all the mysteries falling gently into place.

“And Desert Roads. And Bren . . .” My voice caught on the name, and I glanced at my Prince Charming. Bren stood, bewildered by our exchange, frowning, his hazel- green eyes narrowed in confusion.

I could see it, now that I let myself. I’d let the dark skin and the textured hair and the Eurasian eyes mask the line of his jaw, the shape of his nose, the color of his eyes. No wonder I had fallen for him like a rock off a cliff.

I turned back to Xavier. “ ‘Call me Ron’?” I closed my eyes. Ron. Ronald was his middle name; he had taken to using Ronny in school because of the kids teasing him about the X in Xavier. It wasn’t surprising he used it for business.

The tears were falling now, but no sobs wracked my chest. Water simply streamed unchecked from my eyes. “How could you?”

Xavier closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head, his face a mask of sorrow. “I didn’t know,” he whispered.

The lameness of his excuse boiled the river of tears inside me. My hand came up and I slapped him hard across the cheek. He turned his head with the blow, pulling away so that he didn’t feel the full force of it.

I was horrified the moment I’d done it. That was something I could have done, even justifiably, to my Xavier. But an old man deserved more respect from me.

I didn’t know what to say, how to feel, or whom to turn to. I did the only thing I could. Before Xavier even had time to turn his face back to me, I bolted.

I hadn’t even run so fast from the Plastine. My footsteps echoed like thunder through the atrium. I heard someone shouting after me, but I didn’t even pause. I stabbed the down button for the lift. It was still on the top floor, waiting for me. I jumped inside and pounded on the close door button.

Through my tear- blurred vision I could see a dark form running down the atrium after me. Xavier couldn’t possibly run so fast —that had to be Bren. I didn’t wait for him.

The door closed and I rode the eighty floors down to the ground level. My hurried exit frightened the security guard, who leaped from his alcove, weapon raised. “What’s the trouble?” he asked, only half- reassured at seeing it was only me.

“Just open the door.” I was surprised I could get any coherent words out at all.

The security guard opened the door for me, and I fell out into the teal- blue light that lifts the darkness into morning. My limoskiff had moved in the night, and I didn’t know how to call it. It always just knew when I got out of school. I panicked and started to run. I didn’t know or care where, just anywhere.

“Rose!” I stumbled at the voice and fell onto the grass. I’d ended up in the decorative park garden, just to the left of the building. “Rose!” Bren caught up to me, panting. I was gasping like a fish, my muscles burning, my lungs bursting. Bren’s endurance was far and away better than my slowly recuperating body’s.