Gwen shoved herself to the garage door of the motor pool with one final heave. Her arms ached worse than usual today, probably because she'd spent the last week confined to the chair. Her parents finally got their way; Dad rebuilt the downstairs powder room into a full bathroom. They'd moved a bed and armoire into the garage.
Oh, poor Gwen, who doesn't have to take the steps any more.
Ignoring the voice in her head, Gwen tried to massage some of the pain out of her biceps. The aching in her arms eased slightly, but expanded in her hands. The spiking pain quickly forced her to stop. She set the brake and leaned back, dangling her arms to let circulation help where massage couldn't. In the distance, she watched passively as a news van unloaded a crew. They were going to interview someone about the demons. The drug induced hallucinations.
Gwen wondered what Lane wanted. Her talk of hallucinations scared Gwen a bit. More than a bit, really. Gwen knew a few Bible verses from Comparative Religion, and a few more from Choir, but she'd never read Psalms. Entire verses popping into her head from nowhere had been a shock. Finding that the first had been a common quote was comforting; she'd probably heard it without realizing and quoted in a moment of stress.
The other? Damnably obscure. It being remarkably appropriate was even worse. When she asked Foster-Mom, she said it couldn't be Biblical, it was too violent and referenced other gods too much. Gwen searched to find it, and realized when she found it that it wasn't missing, or varying in translation. Just obscure. She still didn’t know how she knew it.
Because I was a nun.
"Shut up. Shut Up! SHUT UP!"
Gwen's hand smashed, flailing, into the garage door. Pain tore through her, blinding and deafening. Her hearing cleared in time to hear the garage door opener sliding to a stop, and Lane apologizing.
"Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were out there. Oh, god, I'm so stupid. I should have told you to call me when you got here. Can I get you something?"
"Amputation, preferably. What did you need?"
Gwen was taken aback by how shy Lane could be when she wasn't able to walk over or away from a situation. If she could take care of a problem herself, she was the juggernaut fighting the demons. If she couldn’t, she shut her mouth and left. That’s what happened with the field hockey and lacrosse teams. Lane had been able to lead the team on the field, but not to do any of the other things Mary expected of a Co-Captain. So she walked away. Now, though, she just sat there stammering.
"Push me inside at least."
Concern clear on her face, Lane did so. Once the door ratcheted down, she turned Gwen about and crouched down to look up at her. The difference in their heights made it difficult; Lane squatting butt on heels was almost as tall as Gwen slumped in her chair.
"You're hurting bad, aren't you?"
"Is it that obvious?"
"Yeah. Are you done classes for the day?"
"I have a couple, but I think I can get a doctor's note. Why?"
"I need to keep my GPA up to stay in the garage. I don't think I can do it alone."
"You called me up here to ask me if we can restart the study group?"
"Not really, but yeah, I need to. I know you don't, but if you can help me with that, I can help you with your chair."
"How do you mean?"
Yeah. Don't try to take our personal torture... I mean transportation device away.
"You need it motorized."
"Don't even think about it."
"Already did. I know a little about chairs."
"Sure you do."
"No, really. My mom has one. She busted up her legs way before she had me."
"Same thing that's wrong with you?"
"Nah. Industrial accident. My dad was the one who pulled her out."
"So she banged her knight in shining armor and begat you?"
Oh, yeah. Abuse your friend. Par for the course.
"Look, I didn't want you to make fun of me. I needed help, I didn't know who else to call."
"Lane, wait."
I can't wait to see how you're going to mess this up.
Lane stood there, motionless, her back to Gwen.
"Look. I'm sorry I snapped. I get real stupid sometimes."
"Yeah, right."
"I mean it. I've done it before, worse than I think you can imagine."
So you finally admit that we cursed us both?
"I hurt you, Lane. I hurt both of us, and I'm sorry."
"You didn't hurt me, Gwen. You scared me."
She doesn't know what we did. I'm not sure she knew then.
"Look, I'm not even sure we're talking about the same thing."
"The three of us were studying together. You were really into Mary, but she didn't catch on. I knew, and I think you were going to start hitting on me because you couldn't get her. I don't swing that way, and I figured you'd think I was some kind of homophobe."
"You. I'm not. Wait. You knew?"
She can't not know.
"Duh."
"You're the soul of eloquence, Lane."
"Look, at least I'm trying. You want to stuff a sock in the attitude?"
"All right. It's just a little bit of a shock, ok?"
"What, that my best friend was gay, or that you wanted me as second choice pity sex?"
Ooh, score one for the thug.
"Uh, no?"
"Then what?"
"That you... Wait, I'm your best friend?"
"Despite everything, yeah."
"Right. Look, I haven't been doing well lately. I'm sorry if I've been nasty to you. Forgive me, k?"
Lane looked like she wanted to say more but swallowed it and held out a hand.
"Sure."
Like she had a choice to say no.
Grinning and bearing the pain, Gwen reached out and took Lane's hand. Lane was being careful, and she appreciated it. Lane couldn't know that things had gotten bad enough that any movement hurt, if only a little. Gwen figured it would ease off once her leg healed up.
"Look, if you need me to help you study, I'll come over whenever. I'm ahead in most of my classes at this point. Something about not having a social life. If you're that worried about losing the teaching gig, I might even be able to go in and tweak things if we get you close enough. Electronic security here is a joke. What do you say, huh?"
"No. That’s really not... I mean, the girls are starting to come along, but I don't like teaching. Not patient enough for it."
"Who, you? Sorry. Habit."
Yeah, just laugh it off, thug.
Lane laughed, snorting at first, but soon giving in to whole body guffaws. She kept laughing, slowly collapsing until she lay on the floor, her eyes squinted shut. When she finished, she looked up at Gwen with gratitude clear in her expression.
"I needed that. I've been under a lot of stress."
Suddenly Lane's eyes went from grateful relaxation to hunted tension. She shook her head as if denying something, then heaved herself into a sitting position with an enormous sigh.
Everything she does is enormous. It's always been that way. Which is probably another reason we're all cursed.
"Gwen, the studying thing wasn't the reason I asked you to come up."
"Ok. What is it?"
A horrifying thought prompted by the earlier conversation raced through Gwen's head. She tried to banish it, but it made too much sense.
"You're not going to... You aren't looking to explore... Things, are you?"
Lane looked at her, and the confusion on her face relieved Gwen too much for her to express, even to herself.
"Never mind. I've got it on the brain."
"What the heck are you talking about? You're my best friend, but you can be so weird sometimes."
She has no idea, does she?
"Gwen, the reason I called you up here... It's not easy to say. I think I'm going insane."
"Sanity is overrated."
Like you'd know.
"I'm serious. I'm seeing things."
"Like spots? They're not like in cartoons, you don't get polka dots. It's more like static on a TV set. Those are signs of a physical condition, not mental instability. Of course, if whatever is causing them is stress related or neurological..."
"GWEN!"
"Yeah?"
"I'm not seeing spots. I'm seeing... and hearing... things."
Look, I see a bird of a feather!
"That could be really, really bad. You don't act like you're that whacked out. Are you sure those 'roids you're doing aren't taking their toll?"
"Gwen, I've gold you before, I don't do steroids. I've got a medical condition."
"Sure. What was that again?"
"Myostatin deficiency. I told you before."
"No, you didn't. You always said you couldn't remember."
"Yeah. I memorized it to tell you just before Mary left and we stopped hanging."
"Wait a sec."
Gwen reached down with one hand, pulling her laptop out of the pouch Foster-Dad had attached. With the other, she pulled up the tray Lane had bolted on back when they were hanging out more often. It wobbled a little as she did so.
"Y'know, I could weld that now. It would stop the wobble."
"Yeah, no. Gimme a sec."
One of the best things about Martin Van Buren, in Gwen's opinion, was the wireless network. With that and her laptop, she could avoid having to tote huge numbers of books, could do her assignments without having to write, and best of all could surf the web. Technically the network was secure, but much as Lane had found a knack for things mechanical, Gwen had found her medium in the electronic world.
Now she used the least part of that knack to search up the information on her friend's condition. It wasn't difficult to find the basics, but it looked like detailed research was harder to find.
"Gwen, I..."
"Just a few seconds."
A few minutes more searching told her why it seemed so hard to find good information. The confirmed diagnosed cases she could find could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Lane wasn't listed, but that didn't surprise Gwen. The students at Martin Van Buren tended to be those who were kept out of the public eye by their families.
"Ok, I see how you could wind up looking so buff without 'roids, but if you're not on 'roids, what are all those supplements?"
"Vitamins and calcium, mostly. Some painkillers when I'm sore from workouts. Look, this isn't helping."
"Ok, so what do you want me to do?"
"Look straight up. Tell me what you see."
"Lane?"
"Yes, Gwen?"
"I can't look straight up."
Gwen hated the way Lane's look of confusion melted into one of vaguely ashamed pity. She'd seen that from everyone else she'd confided in, but never from Lane. Maybe because Gwen had never demonstrated to Lane exactly how disabled she was.
Don't you mean crippled?
"Ok. Lemme try this another way. Yo, turtle, can you come down here?"
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Gwen recognized the accent almost immediately. Indian, given the faintness of the accent, one who had spent quite a while speaking with Americans. Helping Foster-Mom with work now and then was finally paying off. All of that froze in her mind as the speaker floated into her field of vision.
"Certainly I can, Mistress Lake, but I would prefer if you stopped calling me 'Turtle'. I don't call you 'Monkey', or 'Human', so I would prefer you call me by my given name."
"What's your name?"
Gwen's whole world shimmered as the terrapin apparition settled into a position roughly at her eye level. That put it at around Lane's waist, where she now stood, arms akimbo, staring down at the hovering sea turtle.
"Oh, my. I have been rather remiss, haven't I? I apologize most profusely. I've been known by many names. I suppose, if you must be rather technical, most of them translated to 'Turtle' in one way or another."
"Yeah. So why don't I just stick with that?"
"Because I don't like it very much. Why don't you call me 'Soh'?"
"So?"
"No, Lane. He said 'Soh'. With an 'H' on the end. I haven't heard that name before, but the modification of pronunciation is pretty common. I think there are even some English homophones that rely on similar distinctions."
"I have no idea what you just said. So..."
"Yes, Mistress Lake?"
"See, you respond to it."
"I am at least partially responding to the mental image you are projecting when you make that sound."
"Wait a second. You mean Lane isn't showing me a sea turtle that happens to be in the motor pool, she's not showing me a flying sea turtle in her motor pool, she's not just showing me a flying, talking sea turtle in the motor pool, she's showing me a flying, talking, telepathic sea turtle in the motor pool?"
"I'm not precisely telepathic, but you haven't been noticing my mouth move, have you?"
"So, you're not precisely telepathic, but you can read Lane's mind and put your voice in my head?"
"Exactly."
"That was meant to be sarcasm."
"Yes, but sarcasm is beneath one of your station. In refusing to acknowledge it, I protect us both from what might be irreparable social harm."
Station? Who IS this turtle?
"I have been sent to assist your... friend with certain tasks she is fated to attempt."
Gwen noticed the turtle's pause. Immediately, she searched for a way to cover up her secrets. Little things like talking flying turtles were nothing compared to a voice in her head believing that she and her friends were cursed reincarnations of people who'd died thousands of years ago, if they existed at all.
We existed. Exist. Will have had existed. Reincarnation and fourth dimensional topography play merry hell with grammar, don’t they?
"I'm not gay, Soh. Gwen is, but we never did it."
"Ah, yes. I understand now, I think. I'm certain I don't understand your hesitation, but I shall abide by your wishes regarding this. At any rate, I had been wondering how I was going to assist you as well as Mistress Lake, but given your fondness for and proficiency with that device of yours, I think I have found a way."
Before she could react, the floating terrapin drifted down, one fin darting out to brush gently against the USB ports on the side of her laptop. A spark jumped across the gap between fin and port, and Gwen's nostrils filled with the scent of burning metal.
"You! This thing is expensive! What did you? I'm going to make soup out of you if you...!"
All the while her mouth ran on, spitting out spluttered imprecations, her hands flew over the keyboard, trying to determine what damage had been done. Part of her wanted to shut the machine down, pull it apart, and swap out whatever the smell was coming from, but she was afraid to. Afraid that if she shut the machine down, it wouldn't start back up again, and afraid that if she did find what had burned, it would be too expensive to replace.
She ran some basic diagnostics; other than an alert that there had been a temperature spike, nothing seemed out of order. After a few moments, she noticed something else. An extra network connection showed next to her clock. It was obviously a fluke; she knew her laptop only had two connection devices, and the land line wasn't connected. She checked the network connections; the system reported the land line connection as down, but reported two wireless connections rather than the one Gwen knew should be there.
"You stupid turtle, you fried my wireless card!"
"I did? I'm sorry about that. I used part of it as a template, but I didn't think I'd broken the original. No matter, it's quite redundant now."
"Redundant? What are you talking..."
Gwen's question cut off in mid-sentence. The new network connection was active, with something actively transferring to her computer, expanding itself and taking over resources as it did. She tried to stop the transfer, but before she could it finished. What looked like a chat program opened, confiscating a small portion down one side of her screen. One chat request waiting for connection, a standard 'welcome' message from someone named 'Pey'.
"I swear, when I figure out what kind of virus you put on my machine, I'm going to use Lane's welding torch to burn 'I will not infect Gwen's computer with viruses' on that shell of yours."
She stared at the blinking chat request. Most viruses required some kind of cooperation from a user of the host computer. If she accepted the chat request, she was opening her computer up to any number of problems. However, this program had already installed itself. There were only a few possible ways it could have done that, and all of them required the access she feared giving away by clicking on the waiting chat message.
"Oh, what the heck. I can always wipe it clean and re-image it."
She clicked to accept the chat request, and a full screen window popped open. It looked vaguely like a video player, but while it had volume controls, there were no playback controls; just a disconnect button. After a moment where the player just flashed the word 'connecting', a nightmare visage flashed onto the screen. After a moment's shock, she realized nightmare wasn't quite the right word. The perfect animation loaned the ape the appearance of reality, but no ape on Earth ever had skin that shade of neon purple, nor hair that brilliant orange. Gwen wasn't a zoologist, but she thought the face was wrong as well. Finally, no ape on earth had ever spoken, let alone spoken English with a faintly Southern accent.
"Welcome to the Internets. As yours is a new connection, I've been assigned as your personal tech support until you have the hang of things. All you need to do is open a chat window and ask me your question. If I'm not available, you can try to connect with one of our other tech support personnel, or you can record a message for me. During this first session, I'll show you how to do both of those."
Gwen opened her mouth to say something, but the simian lifted a hand, as if asking for patience. It fascinated her enough to comply; a simulation like this was hard enough to do, but having it respond to Gwen readying herself to speak was phenomenal. Right then she decided she was going to play along, at least long enough to figure out who had programmed the thing.
"If you can't connect to the Internets at all, check to be sure your inter-dimensional transceiver apparatus hasn't been damaged. If it has not, try selecting 'auto-reconnect' from the chat application menu. Be prepared for a significant delay; the software will be running through all possible connection configurations until it finds an available Internets node. Depending on the speed of your computing device and the flexibility of your transceiver, this may take some time.
"Finally, if you are connecting to the Internets via any personally inherent means, you may or may not be receiving this full transmission. If that's the case, please attempt to indicate the nature of your connection, at which time I will transfer you to a more appropriate technical support person."
At this point, the simian's face softened, just like a human's would do when they completed reading a script and could speak freely. A grin spread across his features, showing petite tusks and fangs, the same type you'd expect to see on a real ape. Gwen caught herself almost buying into the illusion. Whoever programmed this was good.
"Honestly, I don't think you're connected direct, you don't look like a mechanical and the signal is digital, but there's something odd about it, and if I see something odd I've got to give you the ‘opt for another tech’ spiel. So, do you want another tech, or are you going to stick with the Pey-master?"
Gwen stared, fascinated, at the simian visage on her screen. Whoever had done the animation work was good. Fantastic hair: normally difficult to animate, either all of it flowed like cloth or it looked like helmet hair, but it rarely looked like real hair. This was fantastic. It looked as realistic as any of the people Gwen had used video chat with. As she stared in fascination, the simian's face fell, the professional, friendly grin faded into slight annoyance.
"Hello? Is the audio working? Is the translation right? If you can understand me, please nod, or say hello, or something."
Gwen blinked, shocked at the annoyance in the simian's tone. She was certain that if she didn't reply, he would start swearing at his computer. In fact, he turned away from her, looking over his shoulder, his mouth opening to call out, when Soh coughed, breaking her fugue.
"Wait. I'm sorry, I was just a little distracted by how real you look."
"I hope I look real. If I don't look real, it means the transmission software is hosed, and the rendering engine is trying to make up the gap. If that happens too often, try looking for another node. Since I look real now, it means your local isn't fundamentally inconsistent with the functional constraints of the 'Nets."
"Who made you?"
"That's a little personal, don't you think? Tell you what, though, since I like your eyes, I'll tell you a secret."
The simian looked around, as if checking for eavesdroppers, then leaned toward the camera. Gwen leaned in as well, turning her ear to catch his whisper.
"Mommy and daddy. Now, don't go telling my boss I told you that. In some locals that could count as pornography. 'Course, like I said, I like your eyes. You don't look like a prude or a snitch. Now, you ready for a crash course in the Internets?"
"I wish you'd stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Calling it the Internets. I hate that almost as much as I hate hearing it called the Intarweb, or any other derivative. It's a singular abbreviated noun, indicating multiple interconnected networks. Making it plural doesn't make any sense."
"I call it the Internets because you're connected to the Internets. You purchased or maybe built a hyperdimensional connection device, attached it to your computer, and we downloaded the support software when we detected you trying to connect."
"Hyperdimensional? Look, this has been fun and all, but physics doesn't support hyperdimensional anything. The amount of power it would take to modify hyperdimensional objects, even just enough for communication, is greater than the sum total of energy in the universe."
"Well, Pretty Eyes, I suggest you check your math and your assumptions, because last time I checked, the only hominids in the local I'm sitting died out in the last ice age. Now, who sold you the HD device?"
"Nobody sold me any device. I was talking with my friend's imaginary floating sea turtle, and he fried my network card, and then you downloaded yourself onto my laptop."
"Ok, miss. A few things. One, I'm not 'in' your laptop. No matter how much the pretty picture makes it look like I am, I'm here in the support center waiting for new connections, so I can help them out."
At that moment, Gwen heard a faint voice, as if someone off camera was calling out. From what she could tell, the voice was young, male, and tightly controlled.
"Pey, is there a problem?"
"No, sir. Just talking with a new connection, sir."
"Why the raised voice, then?"
"Sorry, sir, there was a possible audio connection problem. All worked out now, sir."
"That's good. You know you're still on probation from that last incident."
"Yes sir. Would you like to review the call, sir?"
Gwen watched Pey's face as he waited in vain for a response. At some point during the last exchange, she realized she'd come to believe in the personhood of the simian before her.
So you've been deceived by the thing designed to deceive you?
"Look, I'm not sure how it happened, but I appreciate any help you could give me getting my connection back to where it was."
"You're not sure how... I've heard of spontaneous cases happening, but it's an urban legend. Are you sure there isn't a multidimensional entity of some kind there?"
Gwen had become so completely engrossed in her conversation with the simian in front of her, she'd forgotten about the terrapin floating around above her head. His voice startled her, and her laptop shifted enough on her lap for the integral camera to include him in the view.
"I believe you're referring to me. I had hoped that with sufficient data access, this young lady would be able to solve some of the dilemmas with which she is presented. Do you think you could assist her with finding the appropriate data repositories?"
"I'll try. It would help if I knew what the constraints of her local are. From the look of you, personal reality shifting is possible in that local?"
"Not exactly. You are familiar with realities which require external energy sources to achieve hyperdimensional connections?"
"Yeah. The folks who hook in from those are usually a little boring, but they're better at math. Depending on how bad the differential is, we can sometimes hook them up with another local with power to spare."
"At any rate, Miss MacAdams is from a reality with a steep energy gradient, but it is in close proximity to several with excess energy. In addition, there are certain flaws in the structure of reality here which allow import of the energy required for hyperdimensional connections."
"Huh. I didn't know that was possible. If I remember my math from college, it's not unless the local itself is unstable."
"There are some questions as to the stability of this reality. I am in fact here to address those. Now, if you could assist my young friend to initiate her studies, particularly the ones you referred to wherein entities in certain realities can manipulate those realities, I would appreciate it. I have other duties I must attend."
"You got it. Oh, I hate to be a pain, but I've gotten dinged for this a lot. Who's handling the charges on the account?"
"I'll discuss it with Miss MacAdams once she's more familiar with things. If she's unable to cover the charges, I will do so."
"Your name, sir?"
"Soh."
"So?"
"With an 'h'. Soh."
"OK, sir. Like I said, I really don’t care, but if I don't ask, I could get fired."
Gwen barely noticed Soh drifting off. He chatted with Lane as he did so, asking her something about whether she thought he was real now. Listening to the conversation between Soh and Pey, some of what they said started to make sense to her, at least in principle. In fact, it made her a little lightheaded.
"Pey?"
"Yes Ms. MacAdams?"
"It's Gwen. OK, you call it the Internets because it is, right?"
"Yes. The first few locals to achieve communication each had computing device communication networks which had been interconnected to form an Internet. Since that term was in use, they called the interconnected Internets... Well, just that."
"So I've got access to the Internets of more than one universe?"
"Well now, Universe is a kinda stretchy term. You've got access to all the locals which have contacted us. The only restriction is you've got to grant access in return."
"As much as I have. I'm not sure if that's enough?"
"Aren't you with a government, or at least a research institute?"
"Nope, just little ol' me and my friend's talking turtle."
"I've got to figure out who he is. Anyway, I'm sending you a few pieces of software now. Two are encryption / decryption packages, one is a crawler, and one is a search engine. One of the first two will get you into most anything in your local; if you find anything it can't, let me know. The other is pretty standard privacy software, I use it myself. It's not proof against everything out there, but it is what it is.”
Pey's shrug showed he wasn't impressed with his own tools, but expected they would meet whatever needs she had for now.
"Now the crawler is part of the agreement; you let it do its thing and catalog what your local has online, and in return you get to use the search engine, which shows you everything everyone else has put online."
"This is amazingly flexible software. I'm having a bit of problem believing it's real."
"Gwen, if your local has an Internet, I'm sure you've experienced the idea that if someone out there wants something, someone will make a version of it, and someone else will make a better version?"
"Yeah, but some of these things are just not mathematically likely."
"As of right now, there are over, um..."
Keys rattled and Pey turned his head for a moment to check a screen next to him. As he did, Gwen noticed a jack connected to one side of his neck.
"Looks like over twelve thousand locals connected to the Internets. Now, that's just the count of locals actively uploading or downloading. There are probably hundreds of times that many with open connections, and some of the really high-end math and comp sci guys don't maintain open connections. Are you beginning to see what I'm saying?"
"Big bazaar?"
"Oh yeah."
"How do you know that idiom?"
"Ok, in the dictionary under non-sequitur it says, 'see barium enema'."
"How's that related?"
"Exactly."
"Oh. Anyhow, I'm curious. You sound like you're speaking colloquial English with a slight southern accent. Maybe Texas."
"The translation package we use is actually from one of those locals Mr. Soh mentioned. It annoyed me when I first tried to learn the math, but..."
Pey's shrug elegantly expressed his accepted frustration.
"Short version, it's magic."
"There is no such thing."
"Yes and no."
"How can it be yes and no?"
"Basically, each local has slightly different physical laws. Nothing huge, or rather nothing huge in the ones we're aware of, but in some of them those slight differences add up, and things that are possible in one local look like magic in another. In the case of the translator, it's not possible to code it where you're sitting, or even where I'm sitting, but the wizards who did the work are bang up guys. They put together a semi-sentient piece of software that can draw on the energy of their home local even in a local like mine or yours. They call it something that translates to daemon."
"So, is there anything else like that I can learn?"
"If I ask you something, are you going to get pissed and report me?"
"I wouldn't know how, but as long as you don't treat me like I'm stupid, I doubt it."
"Ok. I still like your eyes, so I'll chance it. Are you a user or a hacker?"
"I hack a little. I've got a physical condition that makes it hard to type a lot."
"OK, I'm going to run you through the standard searches, but most of our high-end stuff comes from places that don't connect all the time. I'm not going to pretend I'm showing you everything right off. I've had people who think they're master coders who couldn't understand basic logic and people who thought of themselves as super physicists who barely understood simple machines. Grok?"
"Yeah, I get you. Until a few minutes ago, I didn't think you were real."
"How about now?"
"You're more fun to talk to than most of the people I see every day. That'll do."
***
At some time during the conversation that followed, Gwen allowed Lane to lift her over to Mr. Joseph's desk. She hated leaving her chair, hated being lifted like a child, but her laptop battery desperately needed replacing. It barely held two hours charge, less if she did multimedia, and her conversation with Pey counted. After a while, she called out asking Lane if she had any soda. A few minutes later, or so it seemed, a delivery guy arrived with two pizzas and two liters of caffeinated bliss.
A while after that, she looked up to see Lane standing outside Mr. Josephs’ office door, arms folded. Motioning to Pey that she was taking a break, not logging off completely, she tipped her laptop mostly shut.
"What's up?"
"Feeling better?"
"Actually, yeah. Getting wrapped up inside my head does that."
"Yeah. You've been at it all day. Any idea when you'll be done?"
"Not really. Do you mind if I keep working here? I don't think my parents would understand Pey."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Do your parents know you're gay?"
"Whoa, I'm not sure what you're getting at. Too subtle for me. No."
"Why not?"
"I guess I just never thought to tell them. I didn't know myself until a few years ago."
"You figured it out when we were hanging together?"
"Kinda."
"It was Mary, wasn't it?"
It always is.
"Yeah. Look, I'm sorry I wigged out on you."
"You hurt and the new toy took your mind off that for a while. I can relate."
"Yeah, no. I meant two years ago. Just 'cause Mary took off doesn't mean I had to get all weird with you. Forgive me?"
"Already did. No worries. Just don't go all weird on me when I try to give you a hand, OK?"
"Give me a hand?"
"Yeah. I need help with academics. You need help with everything else, really. Let me give you a hand."
"I'll think about it."
Lane shrugged, turned around, and walked back toward her project Jeep. She stumbled at the same time Gwen’s inner critic screamed and her laptop shrieked.
It's happening again!