I enjoy the satisfying splash as Evan and I drop another filter into the river. He takes a seat as I wander to the railing and look out at the dense forests along the banks. Now that my cloud is freed up, I send out feelers and confirm what the map in my index says: not a lot of people along this stretch. It hasn’t even been worth installing poles for most of the day. I get a twinge of guilt for being lazy as I settle into my chair next to my brother, but there’s nothing useful we can do until we get to our next filter drop site. I wave goodbye to Louise and the Geologist girls as their boat veers off on the other side of a cluster of small islands. They’ll get a build done on that tributary and merge back into a convoy later tonight.
Evan is already snoring in his chair. I feel a twinge of envy for his ability to just knock off like that. I reach out with an invisible hand and fetch my tablet so I can at least pretend to be productive. Nothing new going on back at the campus, and nothing new from Lin either. I sigh and close my eyes, trying my best to imitate Evan.
I think it must have worked, because my overlay’s clock says it’s an hour later now. There’s a break in the foliage off to the left, and as our boats approach I can see a whole crowd gathered there on the rocky shore, cheering us on. They must be from the town coming up on the bend in the river. I get up and wave back, feeling like a celebrity. I put up a little light show for the kids, which gets a great reaction.
Our guides, Mek and Simok this time, hop into one of the speedboats and jet over to meet up with them. They’ll do some PR for us like they do at most of the towns we pass, though it hardly seems like we need it here. Then they’ll pick up a dinner that they’ll bring when they come back. That’s been a lot of their time lately, jetting either up or downstream to the nearest village where we can get meals to go. I hope they have something like that fish curry we had yesterday. I wrote down that I really liked that. Really, anything is fine unless they come back with fried spiders again, though Erik thought the tarantulas were great. At least I can count on them having the mix of rice and pork with pickled vegetables that just about every town seems to have.
Other than jumping up another dam, we don’t have much else to do in Cambodia. We’ll hit the border with Laos tomorrow after the dam, and that’ll be it for this country.
I sit back down and check my email again on my tablet. There’s a new one from Lin. I think she’s finally acknowledged that running is not, in fact, a form of torture. Honestly though, it wasn’t so long ago that I probably would have agreed with her on that. I tap out a message telling her about our daily workouts. She responds a few minutes later and admits that a few kilometers of running isn’t all that bad. I’ll see if I can get her to work out with us while we’re in China, partly because I think it’ll be fun to do together, and partly because I can’t wait to see how amazing she looks in her workout gear in person.
I hear the splash from Chad’s boat as he and the Geologist boys drop a filter. I pop a big green thumbs up into the air, and Chad waves back with a big smile. We’ve been getting along well lately. Surprisingly well, as I scan through my interactions with him over the last several days. I’m starting to think that his drunk talk with me back in Phnom Penh flipped some kind of switch in him. He stopped pretending like he’s got some birthright to be running the Institute. He’s been putting his awesome work ethic in play, and acting like a real example and mentor to the younger class.
Andrea comes hurtling out of the sky and lands on the deck next to Chad. She hums a happy note and projects a map into the air between them, reporting where she had cleared landmines. Chad nods, gives her a pat on the shoulder, and takes to the air to pick up where she left off. A whole mess of the ugly little traps are still left over from the civil war here. There aren’t a lot of good solutions to finding and clearing them out when they’re in dense jungles like this. Flying teens with nanotech superpowers work pretty well though. It’s not so hard to remove a mine when you can spot it from a hundred meters up and reach inside to disable the triggering mechanism with a thought.
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Valerie waves at me from her boat, and once she has my attention points back and forth from my cat to herself. I get the message and gently pick her up and bring her across the rippling surface of the water.
“That boy of ours still sleeping?” she asks.
I nod. “For a couple of hours now.”
She runs her fingers through his curly hair, waking him. “Up you go, big guy. I’ve got some news.” She waits a moment as he comes to full alertness. “Well, gossip, really. But I think you’ll want to hear it anyway.”
“Hope it’s worth interrupting the best dream ever,” he replies. “I was with this girl. She was hot, and funny, and smart—”
“And her name was Valerie,” she interrupts. “I know. You’ve used that line before.”
“It’s not a line if it’s still true,” he protests.
“Anyway,” I interject. “What’s the news?”
Valerie parks herself on Evan’s lap and turns sideways so she can see us both. “So, I had a long talk with Keeya and Lucie today. Did you know they were dating each other before they got romantic with your brother?”
I shake my head, so does Evan. He gets the scowl on his face that he always gets when we talk about this stuff. I feel like I should be surprised, but looking back through my log, that actually makes sense with the way Chad described things.
She continues. “Their story is that they both liked him and they wanted to do some experimenting. It wasn’t about the money. Or at least, not just about the money. And it really was their idea, not his, even if he had whatever contracts he had with them.”
Evan’s face softens a little. The whole thing is weird to me, but it gives me hope that even the least likeable people can still be loved.
“Anyway, they like how things are shaping up, and they want to make it a long-term thing. They want to keep up their current jobs until one of them gets pregnant, then go live at the campus and raise Chad Junior there together.”
“Chad Junior?” Evan asks.
“Only if they get a boy,” she says, laughing. “They both like the name.”
I shake my head. “What if it’s a girl? Chadarella? Chadette?”
“Simone, actually,” Valerie replies. “Or maybe Naledi. They haven’t decided. But if it’s a boy, it’s definitely Chad.”
“So that’s the news?” Evan asks, arching an eyebrow at her. “They really like Chad and they want to move in with us?”
“I did warn you it was more gossip than news,” she says. “But if you could see about making that OK in your next Butler sibling meeting, I think it would be a good idea.”
“But they still want to get paid to have the kid?” I ask.
“Well, yeah,” she answers. “They’re not crazy enough to let an eight-figure payout slip by. But I think you’ll like what they want to do with it.”
“And that is…”
“About a million to get Lucie’s father out of debt, then the rest to build orphanages like the one Keeya grew up in. If they can live on campus for free, they don’t plan to keep any of it. And this way you don’t even need to hire a nanny for the kid.”
I mull that for a minute. Evan seems to be doing the same.
“It’s not a bad idea,” I finally say. “It’s growing on me. Maybe we could even get them to forget about some of the payout if we go build them the orphanages they want. Might even be a fun trip.”
Evan nods. “And we’ve got a lot of contacts in philanthropy networks that we could tap to help them get funding for staff and supplies. I bet we could find people that would do it just for the publicity we can get them by doing a partnership.”
“Mothers raising their own children in the Butler family?” I say. “What crazy thing will they think of next? And Chad and Keeya and Lucie will just be a couple? Or a trio?”
“I think it’s called a throuple,” Valerie supplies helpfully. “So, you two think you can make it happen? I told them I’d talk to you. I figured if Chad asked, you guys might balk at it, but I think it makes sense.”
Evan and I look at each other and nod. I know what we’re going to be talking about in our next sibling meeting.