The Paradox Initiative (11 page)

Kestrel made herself eat her
sesame chicken and steamed vegetables. She had no appetite, but her mother had always told her…

She
stopped. Her stomach turned over. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then another, and pulled down a drink of milk.

She sat back
against the cushy seat, glancing at her half-full plate, and folded her arms.

They’d put her in a booth by herself, which gave her a small amount of relief. She didn’t feel so exposed, the way she
had several other times when she’d been sitting at a little table in the middle of a busy dining room. She glanced around at the red walls, the sparkling oriental décor, and the clusters of families laughing all around her. Aidus and Marcus loved Chinese food. It was their favorite. And her dad liked it because it was usually cheap…

Kestrel shoved her plate away. She could
n’t eat any more.

The staff android came by a while later and took her plate and glass
. But she didn’t go anywhere. She sat there alone until the restaurant emptied and fell quiet, and the chef had to come and politely ask her to leave.

She c
rossed the threshold of the suite, paused, and sighed. Her breath hurt her.

It was dark in here, except for a light on in her room. He’d gone to sleep already. Tugging her ponyta
il loose and tiredly braiding her hair, she stepped up the stair and went into her room. The door shut behind her. Quietly, she put on her soft night clothes, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and came out and stared at her bed.

She choked, then clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Stop,” she insisted, calming her shaking. She threw her covers back and climbed in, snuggling down before she turned out the light.

Dead silence and complete blackness descended on her. Her breathing shuddered. A tear trickled down her temple. She dashed it away.
Her forehead twisted. She couldn’t stand it anymore.

She threw off her covers, stumbled over to the closet and pulled out the complimentary bathrobe. She tugged it on and tied the sash, then groped her way to the bedroom door. It hissed open just as her hand hit the wall next to it. Carefully, though her legs trembled, she slid her feet forward until she found the edge of the stair, then stepped down. She crossed the carpet, moving to her right, until her hands bumped against the plush softness of the chair next to the wall, right by the star window.

She maneuvered around its arm and sat down, tucking her feet under her and stuffing her hands in the soft pockets of the robe. Then, she closed her eyes, and listened.

It took a few minutes of straining—and she had to hold perfectly still for a long time—but finally, she heard it.

Wolfe’s breathing.

Steady, deep. And just across the room, on the bed.

She listened, her eyebrows drawing together, as the sound of him filled her consciousness. Until her breathing joined with his. She opened her eyes.

Carefully, she reached up, and pushed open the
sliding star window.

Light spilled in. White, soft light. Billions of stars waited just outside, not seeming to move at all, even though she knew the ship was racing along at a speed she could never comprehend. Her
brow tense, she kept listening, as the stars out there twinkled coldly.

“What are you doing
up?”

His voice jolted her. Her head twitched around, but she couldn’t see anything but dark.

“I …can’t sleep,” she answered.

“Hm,” he grunted. He didn’t say any more. Kestrel swallowed, wrapping her arms around herself again and turning to the window.

“Something bothering you?”

His voice startled her again. Kestrel shifted, that pain in her chest coming back.

“Oh, no, just…” She swallowed again. “My bike.”

“Your bike?”

“Yeah,” Kestrel said tightly, staring out the window. “The one we left in that shed.”

“What about it?”

She almost looked toward him. His voice sounded different. Not irritated or indifferent this time…

“My brothers found it for
me,” she said. “Marcus and Aidus—they’re twins. They found it in a junk heap outside of where they work in the summertime. They brought it home and surprised me. I’d always wanted one.” She shook her head. “But it wouldn’t run. Not at all. So…My dad and I worked on her every night in the garage, buying parts one at a time, picking out the right color to paint her, giving her a little personality.” Kestrel smiled. That hurt, too. She fiddled with the end of her sash. “I named her Thrix. Dad gave me the idea. Told me it was the name of a famous racehorse he’d watched when he was a kid.” She shrugged one shoulder. “And since he put down about half the money fixing her up, he told me I’d better be careful with her, or I’d be in more trouble than I knew what to do with.” Kestrel smiled again, her vision clouding. She swiped at her face, then did it again. Her lower lip trembled, and she stared resolutely out the window, even though she could hardly see it.

Quiet reigned for a moment. Then, a soft rustling made her shift in her seat.

Footsteps across the carpet.

Then, he stood in front of her. Loomed over her, his left half caught in the starlight, his other half in complete blackness. He looked down at her—
one of his gray eyes appeared silver.

“It
was
a pretty bike,” he said. “Handled like a dream.”

Kestrel, meeting his
gaze, managed a nod. He stood for a second, put his hands in his pockets, and glanced out the window too.

Then, as if something occurred to him, h
e turned away from the window, searching. He moved and grabbed one of the other chairs, then dragged it over so it faced her. Then he snatched up a small, stool-like coffee table and set it between them.

“Not enough light,” Wolfe
commented under his breath, then crossed back over toward his bed, picked up the standing lamp and brought it back over, setting it down to Kestrel’s left. He turned it on—it glowed at half power, illuminating them both but not blocking the view of the stars.

He wore his jeans still, and a long-sleeve
d gray shirt rolled up to the elbows. His hair looked like he’d just run his hands through it. Kestrel could see the scars on his face clearly, and the tattoos on his arms. But she also caught a glimpse of a softening around his eyes and mouth. She gazed at him a moment, uncertain.

“Well, since we seem to be in the same boat,” he said, scooting his chair closer to the table. “Have you ever played checkers?”

“What?” Kestrel said, surprised.

“It’s
easy,” he said, pulling out his leather book and flipping through it. “Okay, here’s the board. Kinda…makeshift, but it works.” He opened the book and laid it out, pages up. Both pages together formed rows of checked squares, colored with some sort of ink. The leather was limp enough that the book stayed open. “Here’s the pieces.” He pulled out an envelope from between the pages, opened it, and dumped out twenty-four little paper circles—half of them colored black, the others blank. “You can be black,” he said, quickly sorting those pieces out from the others and pushing them toward her. Kestrel leaned forward, trying to pay attention to his movements.

“All right, put those pie
ces of yours on the line of dark squares closest to you,” he instructed. Kestrel did, being very careful with her fingertips as she touched the little bits.

“It’s
paper, Brown Eyes. Not glass,” he said. “A lot rougher hands have touched it than yours, trust me.”

She glanced up at him, but he was busy setting out his own pieces. She did the same
as he did, attempting not to be so cautious.

“All right,” he said, glancing over the board. “Black goes first, then we take turns. Now, you can only move your pieces to dark squares, so you always have to go diagonally, like this,” he put his finger down on one of her pieces and slid it
toward him, then put it back. “And you can’t go back toward your base line there. You have to keep moving forward, always. Make sense?”

“So far,” Kestrel said, putting a finger to her lip as she
narrowed her eyes at the board.

“In a normal move, you can only move a piece forward one square,” Wolfe went on. “If you find one of
my
pieces in your way, then you jump over it and take it off the board. And if you find a whole row of mine there, with spaces in the middle, you can jump over them and take them until you can’t anymore. But if you can make a jump, you have to. No option.”

“Is that the point of the game?” Kestrel asked. “To make jumps?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “And take my pieces.
And
get to my back row, here. Once you do that, we put another piece on top of yours and crown it ‘king,’—that way it can move backward or forward, whatever you want.”

“How do you win?”

“By getting me into a position where I can’t move without being taken,” Wolfe said. “Usually that works by taking all my pieces, but it doesn’t have to.”

“So we’re basically trying to corner each other,” Kestrel realized, looking up at him. “But whoever does it first wins.”

“Right,” he nodded. “You start. I’ll go easy on you.”

He
did
go easy on her. The first game, he coached her along, his voice deep and precise, advising her every move, pointing at the pieces. She listened, eyes fixed on the board, considering everything he said. Then, before she realized it, she’d won.

“Ha,” she cried softly
, sitting up. “I…Wait, you can’t move that one, can you?”

“No,” he shook his head. “And I can’t move that one, or that one either.”

“I won!” she realized. “And I don’t even know how to play!”

“
Good job,” he said. “Let’s reset.”

They did, Kestrel quite
eager this time. They began...

And he beat her soundly.

“Wait…” She frowned sharply at the pieces. “What just happened?”

He sat back and folded his arms.

“I can’t move,” she said, pointing. “How did you…?”

“
You got cocky…” he sighed, shaking his head in mock regret as he sat forward again and brushed the pieces off the board.

“I did not get cocky,”
Kestrel objected. “Put those back—we’re going again.”

The edge of his mouth curled up as he counted out the pieces.

“If you say so.”

They played again. He beat her again. And again, and again, and again.

And then it came to a draw.

And then
she
beat
him
.

“
I let you win that time,” he said, flicking her kinged pieces off of his back row, then crossing his arms and resting them on the table.

“You did not!”
Kestrel objected, leaning forward to pick up her scattered bits. “I made three jumps in a row. You had no idea that was coming—”

He shrugged
.

“
You must have been hallucinating.”

“No, I
saw
your face—”

He gestured to the board
, chuckling.

“
Look, I was just being a gentleman—”

“Oh, excuses,” Kestrel
scoffed. “You just don’t want to admit that the person who didn’t know how to play this at
all
about an hour ago can now
beat
you—”

“
Truth be told, I refuse to be beaten by a girl,” he said frankly—and suddenly gave her a warm, unguarded grin. His eyebrows lifted with a hint of teasing. It startled Kestrel—she burst out laughing.

And he laughed
, too.

He
ducked his head for an instant to hide it, but he couldn’t help it. It sounded deep and rusty, but genuine. It rang through the room and lit up his whole face. Kestrel covered her mouth, trying unsuccessfully to stifle herself.

“Okay,
okay, fine,” she finally decided, blinking her watery eyes and mussing the pieces. “We’ll go again.” She tried to send him a pointed look. “See if you can rescue your pride somehow.”

“You’re
really a glutton for punishment,” he observed.

“
Says the guy who is about to
lose
,” she countered. “C’mon, set up your pieces.”

And he did. And they played and played, long into the night.