"More than you know."
"Anyway, your father said, 'She'll be one of my office assistants. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a great way for her to meet the senior VPs. They're always pilfering from my office staff. I don't force them to hire anyone. I simply give my office staff a chance to shine, and the VPs come begging for them in short order.'"
"Sounds like a respectable opportunity."
"I thought so, too. So I took it. And here I am."
Her bashfulness had eroded, and after another hour she had invited him to her place. Lem hadn't thought this through very well. He could have said no. Sleeping with her was not on the agenda. Despoina was just out of college. He was seven, eight years her senior. Maybe more. And despite his reputation on the gossip nets, he did not sleep with every woman he met. With Despoina, he had anticipated a nice dinner, some helpful, revealing conversation, and that would be the end of it.
And yet here they were, lip-locked in the kitchen the morning after with Despoina as giddy as a schoolgirl.
She broke off the kiss and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Let's do something fun today, go somewhere. I'll call in sick. You can, too. We'll take the skimmer out."
He didn't know what to say. "Where would we go?"
"I don't know. Where do couples go on Luna?"
Couples? This was veering into dangerous waters. Over wine, as he had expected, she had told him everything she knew about the State Department visit. The Americans wanted to purchase some of Father's fleet, weaponize them, and use them to attack the Formic ship. Father, according to Despoina, had named an exorbitant price he knew the Americans couldn't afford, and that had been the end of it.
It was nothing Lem could use against Father, and it wasn't even particularly interesting. All things considered, it was hardly worth the price of dinner. And yet, Lem had stayed the night anyway.
The thought suddenly repulsed him. While Victor's and Imala's corpses floated in space, while Chinese families burned under the onslaught, Lem had drunk himself silly and rolled in the sheets.
He reached back, gently took her arms from around his waist, and put her at arm's length. "This is not a good day to call in sick, Des."
"Why not?"
He gestured to the vid screen. "Formic reinforcements landed in China. They've killed millions more people."
She put a hand to her mouth. "That's awful." She looked back at him. "But--"
"What does that have to do with us?"
She nodded.
Was she really that naive? Were the numbers so big that they lost all meaning to her?
He didn't want to mention the drones. He wasn't sure what she knew. "I need to see my father immediately," said Lem.
"Of course. Yes. That makes sense."
They left the building at different times. Lem first went home to shower and change. There were several messages from Benyawe. She was furious. Where was he? They had lost contact with Victor and Imala. Radio, biometrics, everything. The drones had attacked. Why?
Ask my father, Lem thought.
There were messages from Simona as well. Urgent ones. He was to call her. He ignored those as well.
He returned to his skimmer and left the city, heading out toward Father's office at company headquarters. He brought the skimmer down on the landing pad, and it descended below the surface. A moment later in the docking bay, the bots grabbed the skimmer and slid it into one of the parking tubes. When Lem got out, he was surprised to find Simona waiting for him, holopad held tight to her chest, lips pressed together in a hard line.
"Who was the lucky girl this time?" she said.
He gave her his warmest smile. "Simona, shouldn't you be getting coffee for my father? I'll take one as well. Sugar. Cream. Oh and a shoulder massage."
"I called your apartment last night. I called the warehouse. I called your wrist pad."
"That's a lot of calling. I hope you didn't overexert your fingertips."
"You didn't answer or return my holos."
Lem adjusted his cufflinks "I was indisposed."
"Indisposed or inverted?"
He looked perplexed. "Are you calling me a vampire, Simona, or was that supposed to be vulgar?"
She brushed it aside, tapped at her holopad. "Forget it. I don't want to know."
"Really? You seem quite interested to be uninterested."
She gave him a "spare me" look. "Discovering your perverse exploits is the last thing on my mind, Lem."
"So it is on your mind somewhere. I'm flattered."
She hugged her holopad again and sighed. "Perhaps you haven't noticed we have a crisis on our hands here."
Lem tapped his cheek with his index finger, pretending to be deep in thought. "Crisis, crisis, hmm, nothing's ringing a bell. Oh wait, do you mean that my father singlehandedly flushed the company down the toilet by doing exactly what I told him not to? Or is there some other crisis I haven't heard about?"
She rolled her eyes and turned away. "Just get in the shuttle."
He noticed the shuttle then, parked off to the side of the terminal. One of Father's security men opened the back door, and Simona climbed inside. Lem followed her in and sat beside her. They took off a moment later, zipping through the vehicular traffic tunnels, which meant they obviously weren't going to Father's office.
Lem took in the interior of the shuttle and bounced a little in the posh seats. "Since when do I get the executive treatment? Maybe you've forgotten I've been demoted. I thought these digs were for people my father liked?"
She was tapping at her pad and didn't look up. "Will you stop being a child for once?"
He spoke in a pouty voice. "Someone rolled off the wrong side of the bed this morning and fell in a bucket of sourpuss."
Simona made no reply.
"How did you know I was going to be at the parking tubes?" Lem asked. "I know you haven't been waiting there all morning. I wasn't scheduled to be here at all."
"Do you really have to ask?"
"I have a hunch, but I'd like to hear it from you."
She looked up at him. "Next time you steal a proximity chip, be a little more discreet about how you use it. And try an erasing program so no one can backtrack all your movements and know where you are at all times."
"If you've been able to track me why did you call my apartment and the warehouse last night? You would have known I wasn't there."
"Because I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to keep the proximity chip after such flagrant abuse of it. I thought you would have dumped it or traded it. We picked up the signal south of town, but I didn't think it was you. Why would you go down there? I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. Silly me."
"Well don't I feel like the village idiot." He was quiet a moment. "So you know where I went last night? You have an address?"
"Who you spend your recreational time with is your business, Lem. I've already erased the address from the memory banks. Believe me, I'm not particularly eager to find out whoever it was who gave you an STD last night."
"You're really annoyed about this, aren't you?"
"Damn right I am. I couldn't get you when I needed you."
The bite in her tone angered him. "Well I'm sorry if I'm not at your every beck and call, Simona. But if you turn back the dials of your memory just a hair, you'll recall that I asked for your help to stop my father and this drone attack, and you didn't exactly spring to my side."
Her voice was calm, but there was steel behind it. "Let's not point fingers, Lem. What's done is done. My loyalty is with your father. I've been clear on that. He pays my salary."
"Are you really that cheap, Simona? Is that all that matters to you? A paycheck? Well, let's hope the Formics don't make you a better offer."
He regretted saying it as soon as the words came out, and he could see that they had stung. She stared at him, jaw set, then turned away, shaking her head.
He should apologize.
There was a line, and he had crossed it.
She tapped at her ho
lopad, her head bowed, her long hair obscuring her face from him.
He was on the verge of apologizing when he recalled that she had kept information from him. He wasn't the bad guy here. He had needed critical information about the drone launch dates, and she had knowingly kept him in the dark. Where were the apologies she owed him, huh?
And ever since he had come back from the Kuiper Belt, she had snapped at him and ordered him around like a dog, like some mindless mutt. Go here, Lem. Say this, Lem. Don't say that, Lem. Follow me, Lem. Smile for the cameras, Lem. Double time, hurry up. Snap, snap.
She was Father's puppet, and he had been hers, jumping from one PR interview to the next, playing his part like the trick dog he was.
And Simona, always in her laughably long, modest skirts and high necklines and self-righteous holier-than-thou attitude. It was so infuriating, so condescending, so--
Simona sniffed.
He looked at her. She rotated farther away from him, hiding her face.
Was she ... crying?
Suddenly he felt guilty. He had never seen her exude any emotion other than impatience and annoyance.
He should say something.
"Simona--"
She cut him off, her voice like a dagger. "Do. Not. Speak to me." She was crying. There was a crack in her voice. She didn't look at him. "Say one more word, one word, and I will scream rape and tell Charles to pull over and knock your teeth out. And don't think he won't. Charles knows who signs the checks."
She spat out the last words like venom.
Lem said nothing, not because he thought she'd make a scene, but because whatever he said would only make it worse.
They rode in silence for another minute. When they stopped, Charles, the driver, got out and opened the door for them. Simona exited first, then Lem.
An iron grip seized Lem by the forearm and suddenly Charles was at his ear, whispering. "She doesn't have to tell me to knock your teeth out, amigo. I'll do it because I want to. Make her cry again and see if I don't."
The man's viselike grip released, and Charles casually got into the shuttle and drove away. Lem watched him go, rubbing his forearm.
Fingers snapped behind him, and Lem turned. Simona was at the double doors, holding them open. "Your father is waiting, Lem."
She was her old self again, all business, perfectly poised, showing no sign of having just shed a tear. He followed her into a lobby. Lem didn't know the place, but it didn't look particularly special. Everything seemed dated, in fact. Old furniture. Old decor. An empty receptionist desk. Even the paintings on the walls were from ten years ago.
"Time for an upgrade, wouldn't you say?" Lem said. "This place is like a museum."
Simona didn't reply. She approached a door, and it unlocked automatically. When she pulled it open, it was thick and heavy like a bank vault. They stepped into a pristine white corridor, and Simona pulled the door closed behind them with an echoing clang.
"Okay. I'll bite," Lem said. "Where are we?"
"A place that doesn't exist," said Simona. She started walking briskly, and Lem had to hurry to keep up.
"That's a little cryptic. What is this nonexistent place?"
She didn't look at him. "Are you prepared to sign a nondisclosure agreement?"
"I signed one of those when I joined the company."
"This is different. This is special. You'll sign or you won't leave this facility."
He laughed. "Well now. There's a threat. Is there a dungeon in here for people who refuse? I've always suspected Father had a dungeon. Stone walls; rusty shackles; long-haired, toothless crazy old men as cellmates."
She didn't look at him or so much as crack a smile.
They walked in silence a moment. Whatever working relationship they had developed since his return from the Kuiper Belt was gone now. He could see that. He had shattered that in the car.
He cleared his throat and lost the flippant tone. "I'll sign whatever you want me to sign."
She stopped, faced him, and held out her holopad. It was a white screen with a black line at the bottom.
"What, now?" he said.
"Just sign it."
"I don't know what I'm signing."
"The document is two hundred and eighty pages long. Shall we have a seat on the floor so you can read all the legal language you don't understand?"
He let the insult pass. He probably deserved it. "In a sentence can you at least tell me what I'm signing?"
"And you'll believe me?"
"I was an ass to you in the car, so you certainly have every right to screw me over right now. But I also know that you're a good person with a conscience. Yes, I trust you."
She brushed the hair out of her face. "Is that an apology?"
"An attempt at an apology."
She exhaled. "You were more than an ass."
"Yes. That's true. I was worse than that."
"A troll."
"Okay. Not where I would go. A little too mythical for me, but yes, I was a troll."
She stared at him for a long moment, the holopad in the air between them, then she gave an exasperated sigh. "This is typical nondisclosure. Whatever you see in this facility can never be spoken of to anyone outside this facility. Even to me or to your father. It says if you break that agreement, we can sue you for all the money in the world and cut off your testicles."
He raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Except in your case, since you don't have any testicles, we would probably just sue you." She held up her stylus.
He took it, signed, and gave the stylus back to her.
Simona tucked her pad under her arm and started walking again.
Lem kept step beside her. "So what is this place and why am I here?"
"You're here at your father's insistence. As for why it's secret, it involves, like most things in this company, very proprietary tech. Have you ever heard of Project Parallax?"
"Should I have?"
"Only if you're an academic. An astrophysicist, say. Or a cosmologist. Project Parallax began eight years ago. It was an attempt to position satellites with high-powered telescopes at the outer edge of the solar system. Without the debris of our system clouding their views, the parallax satellites could give scientists a better look at the deep reaches of the universe."
"The Parallax Nexus," Lem said. "The database at universities. I have heard of this. We did that?"
"We do that. The nexus is still in operation, though it's managed through a subsidiary. The satellites, however, still belong to corporate and are still functional. They feed data back to the system continually. Research facilities, universities, space agencies like STASA. They all pay us a subscription fee to get data from the satellites."
"Subscription fees? That sounds like chump change. Is this profitable?"
"Hardly. But we enjoy very generous tax and tariff breaks from agencies with oversight of the space trade. That helps immensely."
Lem looked at the white walls. "So this is Project Parallax. I don't get it. What's so secretive about it? Every college kid who walks into a university library can log in to the Parallax Nexus. The data is there for all to see. We're wide open on this."
"I'll let your father explain that part."
She stopped at a place in the wall with an outline of a door. Lem would have walked right by it had she not stopped. A small, pink, cubed holofield appeared above a white shelf to their right. Simona inserted her hand into the field and did an intricate series of movements, as if she were spelling a lengthy word in sign language. There was a quiet click as the locks disengaged, and the door swung inward.
They stepped across the threshold and into ... the solar system.
Lem stopped. He was standing in outer space--or so it seemed, although he could still feel the floor beneath him. Before him were planets, asteroids, moons, all in miniature, all emitting a little light, floating at chest height. Simona walked past him, passing through a few asteroids, then the sun, to reach Father, who was standing on
the opposite side of the dark room, speaking with a technician.
Brief words were exchanged, and then Simona and Father crossed back to Lem.
"Have you heard anything from Victor or Imala?" Father asked.
The fake concern on Father's face was infuriating. You were the one who told me to cut them off, Father, Lem wanted to say. You were the one who sent the drones that likely killed them, after I begged you not to. And now you have the gall to act like you care?
With Simona present, however, Lem only said, "We lost contact when the drones attacked."
Father exhaled deeply and put his hands on his hips. "It's my fault."
Lem said nothing. If Father was waiting for him to argue the point, he was in for a disappointment.
"Are you all right?" Father asked.
"Me?" said Lem.
"They were your friends. I know this can't be easy. This wasn't your fault, son. I bear all the blame."
Damn right it wasn't my fault, thought Lem.
His father's words had struck him, though. Were Victor and Imala his friends? No, theirs had been a working relationship, nothing more. Victor despised Lem. Imala had been warmer, but not by much.
"You've seen the news," said Father. "About China."
"They'll blame you when they learn where the drone attack came from. They'll say you provoked the Formics and cost millions of lives."
"That's ridiculous," said Simona. "Militaries have been attacking the mothership since the beginning. Ukko was trying to protect Earth. Why would they blame him?"
It bothered Lem that Simona had referred to Father by his first name. It was too casual, unlike her.
"Lem's right," said Father. "This is what news programming does, Simona. They vilify people. And nobody's easier to hate than the wealthiest man alive."
"What are you going to do about it?" asked Lem. "The company might not survive this."
"The company, the company. I don't care about the company, Lem. I thought I was clear on that. If the human race goes the way of the dinosaurs, it won't matter if we hit our quarterly earnings goals. Our job is to end this." He put an arm around Lem's shoulder and gestured to the solar system. "So tell me, what do you think of our holofield?"
"Why am I looking at the solar system?"
"Why indeed," said Father. "We call this the Big Room. It's not an original name, I admit, but it's appropriate. This--" he made a sweeping gesture of the space. "This is like a screensaver. It's not to scale obviously. Nothing is actually this close together. But now that you're here, we can get started." He tapped his wrist pad, and the solar system disappeared. Light filled the room, revealing a massive, empty white space half the size of a gymnasium. The floor was transparent, with hundreds of holoprojectors positioned beneath it.