Lin’s email this morning is different from her usual ones. A lot of the formality that she’s included in most of her messages over the last few weeks is gone from it. I wonder if something shifted on her side, maybe she’s not getting them proofread anymore or something. I write back and along with the usual interchange I ask her if her tutors are still helping her with her messages.
The phone on my desk beeps, pulling me out of my thoughts about Lin and back to my present reality. I hit the button to answer.
“The call that your brother Chad requested with you is ready to go, sir,” Alan voice says.
“Thanks, Alan. Put him on.”
A beep and then I get a connection with some heavy white noise in the background.
“Noah?” The voice is barely audible.
“Hey Chad, what’s up?” I reply. “We missed you at the last couple of sibling meetings. Are you flying right now? I hear a lot of air flow.”
“Yeah,” Chad comes in faintly, “Can you hear me? Hold on, let me tighten up the helmet here, sorry. I had to do some fiddling with the default flight suit to get the sat phone to fit inside it so I can talk and fly.”
The satellite phone doesn’t have great audio under the best conditions, and Chad’s never been great at modding the default software. I wait while the white noise fades a little.
“Is this better?” his voice comes in more clearly.
“Yeah, I can hear you now.”
“Good.” He sounds upbeat. Cheerful, even. “Sorry I’ve been out of touch, it’s been crazy busy here. I had an hour of travel time back to my current home base tonight, so I thought I’d check in with you. I was looking at your prep for the Mekong trip. Great job, Noah! It all looks like it’s going to work, but I need one thing from you.”
“Sure,” I tell him, “just say what.”
“I’m going to need my own boat,” he says. “I’ve gotten used to having my own space, and it’s just not going to work for me to share one with any of the sibs.”
I glance at the half-dozen documents and spreadsheets spattered across my monitors. I feel a twinge of jealousy at the freedom and independence he’s been enjoying. Not to mention that he gets to be the hero in the news and the public face of the Institute, even though I’m the one running it.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“OK,” I tell him, trying to sound agreeable. “That’s not hard. I’ll add one more catamaran control board to the inventory list.”
“Great,” he says. “Also, plan for two of my staffers to come along. Add food and supplies and whatever else for them. That shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
My computer does its incoming message ding. My irritation with Chad fades to the back of my mind. Lin’s name pops up, which means she’s up late tonight and her mind is on me. It’s after midnight right now, her time. I want to read it now, but I also want to give it my full attention. I’ll wait until I’m done with Chad.
“Sure, that’s fine,” I tell my brother absently. “So two more boats instead of just one, then?”
“No, they can stay on mine,” he says. “We’ve been working together closely lately, and I’m used to having them around.”
“Sure,” I say. I check my index for anything else I was supposed to talk to him about. “Oh, how did your birthday go?”
“Absolutely amazing, brother. Best birthday yet. Sorry again for missing the meetings. We’ve just been so swamped over here. You know how it goes.”
I wish I did, but I don’t say that. Chad doesn’t need to hear me complain about how hard it is to run everything. I know that he’s working just as hard as I am, if not harder.
“Glad to hear it,” I say instead. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s it. Looking forward to seeing you all again. Tell everyone hi for me.”
“Will do, Chad. Later.”
I hit the button to end the call. I turn back to my screen and finally get to give that message from Lin my full attention. It’s from her, but it’s a different email address than the one she’s been using.
Noah,
I have finally convinced my tutors that I no longer need their help for these letters. I’ve also set up this email connection through a virtual private network to prevent anyone from monitoring what I send and receive. So now I have a little more freedom to express myself. I really like you, Noah. I liked you when I met you, and I like you more now that I’ve been able to get to know you through these letters. Do you have a girlfriend, Noah? Someone intimate in your life? I know that I should have asked before I kissed you, but it was such a special moment that I didn’t want to let it go by.
Noah, if you don’t have a girlfriend, could I be yours? I know we won’t be able to see each other very much now, but I think that will change. Since I’ve gotten better, I’m trying to convince my father to let me go to university in United States. We have some connections to Stanford University I would start next spring. Your Institute is not so far from there. I would be close enough that I could come visit you on the weekends. Would you like that?
Yours (hopefully),
Lin
Wow.
Well, that’s pretty cool. I’ve never had a girlfriend before. At least not that I can remember, and I think I would have captured something like that in my log. Lin is so smart and awesome. And bonus points for demonstrating her geek cred by setting up a VPN and encrypting her messages to me. I start tapping the keys, writing her back to tell her that yes, I would very much like to be her boyfriend.
Look Mom, I have a girlfriend now.