Lin leans down from behind my desk chair and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
“What was that for?” I ask.
“Nothing. Just because I love you. I’m glad we never fight.”
It’s a little weird that she’d say that out of the blue, but I’ll take it.
“Well, thanks. I love you too.”
“Come on now,” she says, “you’ve been at this for weeks. You can take a few hours off from finding buyers for all of your family’s new gold. And staring at those CTTF reports on your other screen for another hour isn’t going to make your lost brother appear.”
“I know,” I shake my head. “I know. I just feel so cooped up since we’re not allowed to be out searching for him. It’s the least I can do to read all the reports that General Whitman sends us.”
“Come with me,” she says. “You told Grammy we’d come for the bowling tournament before the fireworks. It’s starting soon. It will be good to take your mind off of the manhunt for a little bit.”
She’s right. I know she’s right. Between the extra work from the Geologists’ find and the ongoing search for Jeff, it’s been such long hours all day every day for what feels like forever. And nothing to show for it, at least as far as Jeff is concerned.
At least General Whitman has kept to his word and made sure we got copies of everything that all of his agents and the folks from the FBI, ATF, Department of Defense, and state and local police forces all over the country have been doing to search for Jeff. Most of it is useless, but every page of it is indexed in my brain and continuously cross-correlated using my expanding software text analysis tools.
Despite our grounding, I am glad we started working with them. The Feds have a reach that makes our early efforts at finding Jeff seem like a friendly game of hide and seek. We’ve still got our own search for him ongoing through private investigators, but a lot of my work now is just helping the government filter out potential leads they found. Not that I’m really optimistic, Jeff could be literally anywhere in the world by now. Borders don’t mean much when you can just take off and fly at freeway speeds.
“Come on,” Lin insists again. “You promised.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m coming,” I acknowledge. My log tells me I made that agreement, so it must be true.
I get up from my desk for the first time in several hours. Other than bathroom breaks and exercise time in the mornings, I pretty much live here all my waking hours these days. I don’t think I’ve eaten a meal away from my office since we got back from St. Louis. One foot is asleep from the way I was sitting. I limp a little as blood rushes back in. The pins and needles sensation reminds me of losing bots from my cloud.
Lin laughs at me as she takes my arm and stabilizes me. She knows exactly what’s going on. Apparently, I sit funny when I’m stressed and that’s been every day lately.
“Come on, old man,” she teases.
“Old? I’m younger than you are!”
“Yes, but I don’t walk like I’m lame after I work at a desk.”
It’s true, but since she uses her standing desk, I hardly feel like that’s a fair comparison. I like her desk a lot because I have a great view of her from where I sit, but I’ve had my full attention on my screens all the time lately so I haven’t even been able to appreciate it.
We navigate the hallways of the Research Center hand in hand until we reach the outer doors. The commons outside are festive tonight. All the staff and sibs are out celebrating not just the Fourth of July, but also the official grand opening of the bowling alley. The lingering wood smoke smell from the barbecue pit gets me excited for the picnic-style dinner they’re serving out on the grass. Lin and I grab plates and get some slices of brisket and sides before settling down near Valerie.
“Where’s Evan?” Lin asks.
“Still helping Louise in her lab,” she says. “They should be out soon though.”
“Did he tell you what their secret project was?” I ask. “I’m still dying to know.”
Louise and Max have been pulling in other sibs to help the last couple of weeks, and I’m starting to feel like I’m the only one still in the dark about it. I could snoop with my bots any time I want to and figure it out, but Louise made me promise not to, so I won’t. I didn’t promise not to ask anyone else about it though.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“No, he just said it’s a surprise and that I would like it,” Valerie says.
“Yeah, he told me the same thing. I’m still dying of curiosity.”
Grammy and Gramps are making the rounds, handing out fresh slices of cornbread from large baskets and thanking the staff for working the holiday. I guess they don’t realize that most of them work all the holidays as part of their contracts. I love how all the little sibs jump right up and give them hugs whenever they come by. I’d like to imagine that’s how I was with them when I was young. If it was, I never got those memories back. I feel a twinge of sadness for the life I don’t remember living.
“Noah!” Grammy exclaims as she sees me. “I’m so glad you could pull yourself away from your work to come tonight.”
“Yeah, sorry I haven’t been around. It’s been busy.”
“Yes,” Lin says. “I practically had to drag him out.”
“No worries,” Grammy says, smiling and looking around at my younger siblings. “We’ve had plenty keeping us busy, too.”
I wish briefly that my busy times were as fun as theirs. I’ve seen what they’ve been doing through my hundreds of eyes, and it’s been story time with toddlers, training the kitchen staff on how to make proper barbecue, and of course setting up the bowling alley. They even have a nightly mahjong game going with Mrs. Hastings and Yang Song. They’ve been filling their days making themselves useful around here, meeting needs I didn’t even realize that we had before. I would love to be able to forget about stopping my brother from ending the world for a little while and just spend some time with them. I guess I will tonight.
The dinner is delicious, like all the cooking that Gramps does. Brisket with dirty rice, green beans, and endless supply of cornbread they keep pushing on me. The little kids keep running back to the serving tables to get more wedges of watermelon, the sweet juice running down their chins as they eat and play on the grass.
“Come on,” Lin says when I finish my meal. She takes my hand and we head out through the main front gate. “Let’s go try bowling. Gramps says it is very enjoyable.”
I’m pretty sure I’ve bowled before, but I can’t remember doing it, so I just go along. The bowling alley is great, and it looks like all the kids love it. Grammy and Gramps come in as we wait our turn for a lane and sit on the high stools at the back with Mrs. Hastings. All of them beam as Marc shows a bunch of the younger sibs how to bowl. Yang Song sits with them, observing the scene with a more stern gaze. It seems strange to me how much they’ve all become good friends over this last month, coming from such different backgrounds. Especially Yang Song.
Lin, Valerie, and I finally get our turn at a lane and Andrea joins us to round out the foursome. Lin goes first and somehow manages to get both of her balls out of our lane and into the next. I get up and some kind of muscle memory kicks in as I launch the ball toward the pins, knocking down eight of them. Andrea gets a strike and Valerie gets a pair of gutterballs. On Lin’s next turn Andrea helpfully puts up one of her instructional shadows like she does for yoga, showing the exact motions Lin should make. This time she launches the ball backwards and nearly hits Valerie with it. I’m the only one who manages not to laugh as she turns around, though it’s a monumental effort.
I end up getting a respectable score, well above Lin and Valerie but nowhere close to Andrea’s 280. I wonder if she’s cheating with the bots, but if she is she’s being too sneaky for me to tell how she’s doing it.
Evan and Louise finally come through the doors and join us.
“About time, big boy,” Valerie says, jumping up to give Evan a peck on the cheek.
“Sorry, we were in a good groove. I think we’ll have it done soon. Louise just needed a fresh set of eyes on a couple of the issues.”
“Then we’ll finally get to see the big surprise?” I ask.
“Yes,” Louise replies. “So you’ll finally be able to stop asking.”
We bowl a couple more games, with Lin transitioning to a technique that Grammy suggests, launching the ball with both hands from between her legs, then it’s time for the fireworks show. Lin and I grab a seat on the residence steps and watch Andrea do the most amazing display. Her projections are fireworks in every way except the smoking smell. Then she gets to the grand finale and makes it way more detailed and animated than any real fireworks could be. Burst of bright colors stream through the sky, sometimes turning into unicorns or dragons that chase each other through the heavens, sometimes unfolding in impossibly complex geometries that rewrite the stars.
Once the show is over, Lin pulls me away towards the Residence doors. She takes my arm as we walk across the enormous foyer and pulls my body close to hers.
“Do you want to sleep in my room tonight?” she offers, pressing herself against me.
“I would like that. I would like that a lot.”
I look back at my logs over the last few weeks and realize I’ve been neglecting paying attention to Lin like she deserves. I’ve got a couple of whole evenings when I didn’t even talk to her, which is strange since I always try to spend a good chunk of time with her every night. Also strange, I have some nights where I’m missing time out of my logs. Am I turning into so much of a workaholic that I’m dozing off in the evenings?
“And you know I mean sex, right?” she asks. “Not just necking or sleeping?”
“I was really hoping that was what you meant.”
“You’re sure?” she asks, a twinkle in her eyes. “You’re definitely ready?”
“Have I somehow given you the impression that I’m the one that’s been slowing us down?”
She laughs and pulls me closer. I feel the warmth of her body against mine. I look down into her endless dark eyes. I love this girl. She twirls and slips out from my arms, then pulls me into her room. She closes the door behind us and locks it.
“Then access level Alpha granted.”