Chuck and Marcus fill my screen as I give them the details on what we expect Jeff might have planned. Chuck’s smile fades quickly as he contemplates some of the more horrific ones. Marcus gets even twitchier than normal. Once I’m sure they understand what we need, and that it’s a high enough priority to drop everything else, I say goodbye and disconnect.

I glance at my schedule. The next call on my docket is with General Whitman.

“Is this Noah Kimball calling?” the grizzled voice on the other end of the connection says.

“Yes, sir.” I still don’t know why I call him sir. Something about his bearing seems to demand it, even over the phone. “I just wanted to follow up on that phone number that we gave you. If you were able to track it to a specific location, we could go there and do some investigations that I’m not sure your team could do without us.”

“Yes, about that. I saw that report. You still didn’t tell us how you got that number. How do you even know it’s him?”

“It’s him, sir. And I’m afraid I still can’t tell you how we know that he was using that number.” Not without implicating myself in a couple of deaths anyway.

“Well then,” he says dismissively, “we can’t put it under active surveillance. Not without enough evidence for probable cause. There’s something in this country called the Constitution, and we stand by it. Be glad we were willing to look at it at all.”

I suspect that he’s lying—that his people very much have the number under surveillance but that he doesn’t want to share his intel with us—though through a phone call my polygraph is very nearly useless so I can’t be sure. I don’t push back on him. I’m not scared of many people. Given what I can do, Jeff is the only one that really makes me worry. But if I had to put together a list of people that still manage to intimidate me with words alone, General Whitman would be right near the top of it.

Well, nothing to do about it now and there’s no point pushing if he’s not willing to give up any info. “Thank you anyway, sir.”

“And what makes you so sure about this? Are you aware of any imminent threats that we don’t know about?”

“Nothing imminent that we know of, and we’re working on solutions to all the potential threats we can think of. I’ll send you a full report later today of what dangers we suspect Jeff might be considering.”

“You know this would be a lot easier for everyone if you’d just agree to equip some of my agents with your gear?”

“I’m aware. But you also know that one of my father’s highest priorities in creating the Butler Institute and working internationally was making sure that he never handed full control of his tech over to any government body.”

“Tom and I argued about that more times than I can count. He’s still wrong, but we’ll honor his wishes. Mostly because it would take an act of Congress to reverse the other wrong decision that says this technology shouldn’t be a military secret. But that was all before your time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything else to report?”

“Just that we very strongly recommend not taking any direct action against Jeff at this time if you were to locate him. If we take a swing and miss, he would probably just disappear again, and we may not find him again until it’s too late. Or worse yet, he’ll prematurely activate whatever he’s got planned which could quickly spiral out of anyone’s control. Even if we get him, it’s very likely that he has some deadman switches set up that could cause big problems. The list of things he might be working on contains some literal world-ending events. Knowing where ground zero is ahead of time and what the triggers are could make the difference between life or death on the planet.”

“Your concern is noted,” he says in a tone that tells me we’re done.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll let you know when we learn anything new.”

Blah. Not that I expected much, but that was a full-on strike out. I hang up and check my schedule again. No more calls for this morning.

To Lin: Hey there. You want to come up to the office and work on something with me? Or better yet take a break with me?

From Lin: Be there in a moment. I meant to come up earlier but I found myself distracted by Chad.

Chad? Chad’s dead. Or my memory is wrong again. I should see what she’s talking about. I feel her out on the commons, sitting on the grass and holding a baby. Keeya and Lucie are there, but something is different about Lucie. From the air vibrations around them, I’d guess they were laughing about something, but I value their privacy enough not to form a mic. When did Lucie have her baby? I must have felt it when that happened. How did I not log that?

Strange. I’ll have to check my software and make sure I don’t have any new bugs. Maybe I can get Lin to help with that. She passes the baby back to Keeya and comes up to the office.

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“That baby is so cute,” Lin beams as she walks in.

“Sure. They all kind of look like aliens to me.”

“But cute aliens!” she insists.

“Sure. I guess they’re cute enough.”

“We should definitely have one. Or maybe three. Not right now, of course, but eventually.”

I can’t even imagine fatherhood. How would that even work with my mind the way it is? Time to change the subject. “Do you think you’ll be up for coming to morning workout tomorrow? It’s always more fun when you’re there.”

Her smile fades and she gets an irritated look. Her vitals jump from calm to agitated.

“You know I’m still in mourning.”

“OK, just asking. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Because you think I’m starting to get fat?”

Where did that come from? “No! I think you look great. I was just asking.”

“Are you going to make me run laps next?”

“No!” I laugh. “I trust you to make good health choices. If you don’t want to do morning exercises with me, that’s fine. I just thought it was something fun for us to do together.”

“You’re sure you don’t think I’m getting fat?”

“Even if you were, you’d still be beautiful to me.”

That was clearly the wrong answer. Anger flashes in her eyes as her arms cross. Her blood pressure jumps.

“You do think I’m fat!”

“No, I—”

“I spent most of my life trying not to die from cancer. I went months at a time barely able to eat anything or keep anything down. I don’t think it’s too much to let me enjoy some food now that I can.”

“I didn’t—”

“I don’t tell you what to eat or not eat,” she says, advancing on me. “I don’t force you to exercise!”

“But I—”

“And now you think I’m fat and ugly! You won’t want me—”

“Lin!” I shout. She stops cold as if I had struck her. I put my hands up defensively. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. Just listen to me for a second. Please.”

She nods slowly, but the wounded look that had filled her face lingers.

“That all sounds like something Yang Song would say to you. I never worry about your weight. I think you’re great just the way you are. If anything, you should gain a little more. I love that you have some curves now.”

“Really?” she asks, her blood pressure dropping. “You don’t want me to be skinny like I was when we met?”

“No! You’ve read my logs. Right from the start I thought you’d be cuter if you weren’t so thin. You look way better now.”

“OK,” she says, her anger subsiding. She pushes me gently down into one of the chairs and takes a seat on my lap. “I’m not too heavy for you like this?”

She’s definitely not. She’s not fat, just pleasantly curvy. Comparing her old index pictures to what I see now, the weight she has added since her skeletal days has been in all the right places. Yang Song must have been really mean to her about her weight.

“No, you’re just right.”

She kisses me, first on the lips then on the neck. This is the Lin I know. She’s amazing. And apparently also slightly crazy and manipulative, but I can deal with that now that I know.

“Now you think I’m just mean and angry.”

“No, you’re fine.”

“You’ll think I just yell at you all the time.”

“I really won’t.”

“I’m sorry for getting so angry,” she says between nibbles on my neck. “It’s really not about you. You’re right. Yang Song used to say the meanest things to make me exercise. She told me that no one would want me if I didn’t go running and look like a model. But I still miss her.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not true, you know?” I reassure her. “I’ll love you no matter what you look like. I fell in love with you through our letters, it was never about your appearance. I mean, it doesn’t hurt that you turned out gorgeous, but I don’t just love you for your sexy body.”

She nuzzles in. She’s warm, and soft in all the right places. It’s such a very nice feeling. This is what I usually remember feeling when I read back through all my interactions with her. Not the fights, just the happiness.

“We should just forget about this, don’t you think?

“You know I forget everything.”

“But not really. You keep it in your implant forever. Now you’ll always remember me being insecure and acting like a crazy woman.”

“A little crazy never hurts. Well, sometimes it does, but from you, I don’t mind. And it’s not like I’m all that sane either.”

She laughs and kisses me some more. “Please? I just want everything perfect between us.”

“If it’ll make you happy. But just this once.”