To Evan: So how did things go last night after I went to bed?
My brother gives me a sly smile from his seat.
From Evan: We had a very nice time, thank you.
To Evan: Just make sure your very nice times include protection. She’s still under contract for ten million if a Butler impregnates her and I don’t have that kind of slack in the budget right now.
From Evan: No, no. It’s not like that. Not yet, anyway. We just talked out in the hot tub.
To Evan: So you wouldn’t have gone back to her room if she had invited you?
He looks at her thoughtfully as she and Andrea play something on the jet’s gaming console.
From Evan: I reserve the right to not answer that. But she didn’t extend the invitation last night, so I doubt I need to worry about it anytime too soon.
Even though it’s a short flight, Cindy pops in offering snacks and drinks. I’m still full from breakfast, but Evan takes some cookies. I don’t even try to work, even though I have a pile of things in my electronic brain that need my attention. A few more hours of relaxing won’t hurt anything. Besides, running around that amusement park yesterday was a bigger workout than what Andrea puts us through and I’m still exhausted.
We touch down at the airstrip near campus, where I see an unmarked jet that I don’t recognize. Weird, who else would be flying here? I poke around with my bots for a second and there’s no one on the jet, so we walk to the van that’s waiting for us. Alan emerges from the driver’s seat.
“Welcome back, sirs! And ladies!” It feels weird to be called sir. My index tells me that I’ve told him just to use my name, but he seems to want to avoid that level of familiarity. He helps get all the loot from Hawaii and Disneyland loaded from the jet to the van even though it probably would have been just as fast if he got out of the way and let us do it with our bots. It was good that he thought to pick us up, since we’ve got Valerie with us and she can’t fly. It hadn’t even occurred to me to think of how we’d get back to campus.
“So who’s the visitor?” I ask him, pointing to the other jet as we start back towards home.
“I believe your Chinese delegation has arrived, but Louise has been coordinating everything without involving me, so I don’t know any of the details.” He seems a little put out by that, which I don’t mind. I wanted someone very hands-on for this job.
“A young woman and her translator?” I ask, as the computer part of my brain pops helpful reminders into my field of vision.
“Yes, sir.”
“Yeah, that’ll be them.”
Excellent. Louise must have closed that deal while we were gone. I can’t tell if I didn’t record something, or if I was just out of the loop on their arrival being today. Alan drops us off at the front gates, then goes to park the van. I feel Louise in the foyer of the Residence with a couple of people I don’t know. Valerie gives Evan a quick peck on the cheek and hurries away to the side door that opens directly to the medical wing. Andrea breaks off and heads toward the dorms. Evan and I open the big main doors and see a slender young woman talking to Louise through her stern-looking translator.
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“Oh, good, you’ve arrived just in time. Noah, Evan, this is Liu Mei Lin, and her translator Yang Song,” Louise says, introducing the pair. “These are my brothers that I was telling you about.”
Yang Song’s index entry pops right up, but I have to look the girl’s record up manually. My facial recognition probably failed because her face has changed too much from the weight loss. The picture I have indexed is a couple of years old, and I can barely recognize her from it. Her cheeks are empty hollows now and where she had once had long black hair, her bald head is wrapped in a red silk scarf. Either the disease or the treatments she’s been getting haven’t been kind to her. Probably both. Cancer sucks. She looks like she might be close to our age, but it’s hard to tell. I think I knew how old she was at some point, but it looks like I forgot to include it in her index entry.
“I am very nice to meet you,” the girl says slowly in thickly accented English. “ Please, call me just Lin. American name.”
That earns her a sharp look from her translator. “Miss Liu is pleased to meet you,” she repeats, in case we hadn’t understood. She pointedly leaves out the offer putting us on a first name basis with her.
“Thank you. Noah, Miss Liu is visiting us for a couple of days as part of her tour of the United States,” Louise says. I have to look in my index again to figure out why she’s talking like that. That’s right, we’re not officially offering her any treatment. Everything has to be done without any explicit claims. She’ll spontaneously recover some time after she leaves and when she gets home she’ll tell her father what nice hosts we were during her visit. Once he confirms she’s cancer-free, he’ll invite us to his country as his guests in gratitude for our hospitality. At least I sure hope that that’s the way General Liu understands our deal, since we had to couch everything very carefully in diplomatic doubletalk. Of course, nothing was final the last time I looked at it, so Louise may have changed things.
We all shake hands and exchange pleasantries. Yang Song translates everything, though from the readings my bots are getting for Lin’s reaction times, I suspect she understands most of what we’re saying.
“We’re honored to have you visit, Miss Liu” I say. “When did you arrive? If we’d known you were coming today we would have made sure to be here to greet you.”
Lin responds in Chinese, which Song renders back to us. “Just about an hour ago. Don’t worry, we didn’t plan to get here until this afternoon, but I was very excited to meet the family of Tom Butler. I love the work you have been doing in Africa. I am so sorry for your loss, your father was a great man.”
“And please, just Lin,” the girl adds again in English, bypassing Yang Song. “We can be friends.” She gets another frown, but the translator doesn’t try to correct her.
“I hope that we can, Lin,” Louise answers with a smile. “And I’m glad that you noticed our family’s work. We’re just trying to help out where we can. Our father’s dream lives on and we hope to continue making the world a better place for everyone. Please, let me show you to your rooms and you can get refreshed before we show you our research labs. You may find them very interesting.”
Evan and I say goodbye and let Louise escort them down the hall to where the guest rooms are. Evan’s eyes drift towards the hall that leads to the medical wing. I know he wants to go see Valerie again even though she just left us. I picture her tiny frame next to his massive one. They’re cute together in a mismatched kind of way. I head out, but Evan catches up to me after just a few seconds as I step down the front steps of the Residence. I guess he’s going to let Valerie actually do her job.
“She’s awesome, right?” he says without preamble. “Tell me you see how awesome she is.”
“Who, that Chinese girl? I can’t say, I barely know her.”
He smacks me playfully on the back of the head. “Valerie, duh. Now that you’ve finally taken some time to get to know her, you see what I’ve been saying all year, right?”
“Yeah, you’re a lucky guy,” I tell him sincerely. “She’s as good as you said.”
His grin is just too big, so I give him a poke in the ribs with my elbow. He responds with a laugh, then nearly plows me off the side of the walkway with a few steps in my direction.
“Do I need to get the lawyers to start work on a prenup?” I ask, only half-joking as I catch my balance. “Because we do need to change up her contracts if you’re going to get serious with her. We could just do both at the same time and save some billable hours.”
“Maybe soon, man, maybe soon.”
I just shake my head. This man has it bad for her. But I think she might be as great as he thinks she is, and I’ve never seen him so happy. I’m glad for him.