The Pedestal (8 page)

She giggles. “You know, a ladies’ man.”

I scoff at the absurdity. “Me? Oh, that’s funny. What else?”

She bites her lip, gaze pushing through my eyes to some plane far beyond them. I sense that the conversation is about to go a little deeper than I’ve been in a while, but I don’t stop her. I’m not sure I could if I wanted to. “I kind of get the feeling you don’t quite… um, belong.”

I feel my heart deflate, but I try to smile anyway. “Wow. How flattering.” I lean back in my seat, crossing my arms.

Mitzy covers her mouth with a cringe. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

I wave off her apology. “It’s fine, really. Besides, you’re right. This place,” I nod toward the window, into Vegas’s pretentious cityscape, “isn’t really my thing.”

The brightness in her eyes fades a notch and her mouth forms a bittersweet curve. “That’s not quite what I mean,” she says softly.

Meeting her gaze, I nod slowly. The truth is, I know exactly what she means.

I feel her hand seek out mine and the world seems to flicker. “The thing is, Wilson,” she says quietly, “Neither do I.”

An hour or more later, I walk her outside to the street. As we stand by the tram tracks, radioactive in the glow of blinking neon, I realize she really is exceptionally pretty. Just not necessarily in the conventional way—her charm is a vital component, and with it added to the equation of her allure, she’s truly a delightful creature.

A tram clatters through the moment and cinches against the curb at our feet. I’m hesitant to let her go; after talking with her, I feel more confused than ever. I’m afraid of what might happen if I dare to stick with her—because there is some undeniable chemistry happening between us—but I’m equally afraid of letting her out of my sight until I’ve unraveled this tangle of pretense.

Mitzy seems to detect—if not understand—my apprehension, and before I’m aware of what’s coming, she steps boldly—yet somehow timidly—into my arms and touches my lips with hers.

The moment we connect, I feel like I’m drowning in electrified honey. It’s a sweet, unpracticed gesture that feels more real than any human contact I’ve ever known. Images of corn fields and homemade apple pies enfold me. I try not to think, to just bask in the moment—but from the periphery of my mind, a voice berates me. I should probably listen to it, because even now, with lips tingling and cheeks aglow, I recognize that what I’m doing is not only wrong—it’s dangerous. Yet I can’t seem to grab hold of common sense; it tosses about like a kite in the wind—and before I know it?

Well, I suppose what’s done is done.

Like it or not, my heart has just divided. When I return home to Adrian, a piece of me will undoubtedly remain here, with this lady. Long after her tram departs, I stand there in a daze.

Oh, crank. What’ve I stepped in this time?

I hole up in a cheap hotel—a good mile from the strip, where an average Joe like myself can still afford to sleep indoors—and spend the next several hours fact-finding on the nexus. I’m getting better at it. Plus, I’m better able to focus my efforts with Mitzy’s xchange profile at my disposal.

Stuffing my face from a second-rate room service menu, I find the first bit of interesting news: in February of 2091, a woman named Mitzy Renard was in fact killed—along with others, including her husband—in a freak automobile accident in Paris. The driver of the other vehicle, an eccentric local historian named Etienne Aucoin, was purportedly obsessed with the antiquities of transportation. Only a year before, he was arrested for operating an illegally restored motorbike after losing control of the machine and colliding with a road sign. He survived—miraculously, by the tone of article—only to repeat his insanity later, this time with irreparable consequences.

This situation is starting to show all the hallmarks of data corruption, or perhaps misaligned data feeds. Fifty years ago, this sort of thing supposedly happened all the time. Records of like individuals sometimes became entangled through a variety of early-nexus hiccups and subsequently spawned broad confusion that lasted months or even years. These days, our records are uniquely keyed to our DNA profiles via our implants, rather than to the implants themselves. As a child, I remember hearing about these twins who had some weirdness with their implants because they shared the same nuclear DNA. But even that nonsense is ancient history. It simply isn’t possible for one person to be electronically confused with another.

Or so I thought.

I’m not sleeping well at all. My sleep add-ons have individually been mildly helpful, but while each seems effective at putting me out, I repeatedly wake with a start, uncomfortable and confused about where I am, and none of them seems capable of keeping me out. Part of the problem, I know, is that I’m simply overwhelmed by the sheer variety of disconcerting situations in which I’ve found myself over the last several days. My mind simply won’t shut off, and no amount of pleading makes a difference. Perhaps more than that, I’m a creature of habit, and I’ve betrayed my nature. This little adventure of mine feels less like a casual broadening of my horizons than an unpleasant stretching of my coping skills, which I’ve coerced well past their reasonable limits.

I can’t wait to get home and curl up in my own bed, on the pillow I’ve spent years deforming to the curvature of my head. I can’t wait to look out my own window at a view that is—while virtually featureless—blessedly familiar and perfectly void of the gaudy lighting and tacky architecture for which Las Vegas is both loved and hated the world over.

More than anything else, though, I can’t wait to see Adrian. That kiss with Mitzy has awakened a lustful beast in me that I can’t wait to unleash.

Dawn eventually crawls from a drunken coma and, peeking grudgingly over the window sill, finds me already showered and repacking my overnight bag. I feel my NanoPrint shiver an alert of my early checkout to the nexus. When I step outside, a tram is already waiting for me, prepared to cater to my every unpredictable whim. For all my complaining about the nexus, moments like this help me appreciate just how convenient it can be. I’m too tired to be chasing down a ride.

I’m home by noon. I rummage through the fridge and throw together a sandwich, watch a little of the news. I have contact requests from Keith, Stewart and Adrian that I’ve ignored out of habit, but I give them my attention now. I delete Keith’s in midsentence—it’s clear from his tone that he knows exactly where I’ve been, and that I’m not at all under the weather—but who cares? Stewart’s left me a hearty grumbling about the evils of Sin City—admonishing that the house always wins—and Adrian says she misses me and can’t wait to see me.

I know Adrian’s probably at work, and I’m guessing Stewart’s taking his midday nap because—well, that’s what old people do, right? Nevertheless, I can’t stop yawning, so I hit the sack for a nice, long nap of my own.

I awake to a knocking on my door. I’m hoping for Adrian but settle for Uncle Stewart as he trudges in out of an ugly drizzle.

“Wilson, you scared me half to death,” he snips. I shut the door and, though he puts up a vigilant fight, manage to steer Stewart into the kitchen. I load two mugs with Folgers tablets, fill them with water, and set them aside to steep on the counter.

“Don’t you read your updates?” I parrot with a sarcastic frown.

“Very funny. As a matter of fact, I did. And I took a junky tram over here to talk some sense into you”—unlike me, Stewart prefers the air-cushioned comfort of a shuttle over the Spartan utility of the common tram. I guess they’re a little hard to come by after five o’clock—“but you were already gone.” His mouth stretches thin and his milky eyes glisten. “When your planner said you were in Vegas last night, I nearly had a stroke.”

Scrap.
“Sorry, Stew. I should’ve called.”

He nods, but his face remains taut, a mask of concern that prods my guilty heart. “What’re you doing, Wil? This isn’t like you—skipping out on work to gamble, not telling anyone where you’re going or when you’ll be back.” He pauses to shake his head, which is possibly his greatest weapon in any argument, and then adds, “I’m worried about you.”

I want to point out that I wasn’t in Vegas to gamble, but I have a hunch that he already knows this; his body may have seen better days, but his mind and his well-earned intuition are still razor sharp. I’m thinking that where I’ve been isn’t as much of an issue as my going there without first giving him the opportunity to talk me out of it. He really does seem worried, though. Yet as terrible as I feel about that, I’m just as annoyed by the kid treatment.

“Stew, don’t blow this out of proportion. I just needed a day to get my head on straight. Everyone needs to blow off some steam once in a while.”

“That’s all this is?”

I hate lying to anyone, especially to Stewart. But, as I’ve intimated before, I prefer not to fuel his overt need to protect me from the elements of daily life. So I make a rare exception—well, I guess it’s becoming less rare—and hope that I can pull it off.

“Of course. What else would it be?” I chuckle, throwing in a
don’t be silly
wave for good measure. I sip my coffee, which is steaming hot and perfectly doctored with cream, no-calorie sweetener, and just a hint of cinnamon. Dang, it’s good. Remember all that stuff I said earlier about wishing we still cooked from scratch? Yeah, disregard that nonsense. You just can’t beat a good cup of no-prep coffee.

Stew is staring at me hard, mulling over my performance—which is one of my best, in my opinion—like a critic who’s teetering on the fence. I lean back against my kitchen counter and wait for the verdict. A moment later, he sighs, shoulders visibly drooping as if a great weight has just been lifted away. He takes a loud slurp from his coffee—a rarity, by the way; I more than half-expected him to ignore his mug, or perhaps even pour it out, in his usual display of tea-loyalty—and finally rewards me with a smile.

“I was afraid that—” he begins to confess, but cuts himself off with a dismissive wave and a sheepish grin. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re okay.”

“I’m good, Stew. Really.” He nods his grudging acceptance and, as we exchange a truce smile, I’m suddenly aware of how glad I am to see him—and of my rumbling stomach, which hasn’t quite forgiven my poor stewardship over the past twenty-four hours. “How about I whip up some dinner?” I tempt, happy to change the subject. “You hungry?”

Stew gives me a toothy smile and rubs his diminutive potbelly, and I know we’re back on familiar ground. “Does a bear poop in the parking lot?”

I nearly cross my eyes over that one. “I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean, Stew. But I think I’m gonna have to ask you to leave my kitchen.”

“Oh, get over it. It wasn’t that bad—just a little before your time.”

“Seriously, Stew. That was just nasty. You’re spoiling history.”