In every life
She had felt an immediate connection the first day she saw him at the Clubhouse. He had said maybe three words to her, but something about him, maybe the way he responded to Michael’s Q and A method of explaining the other, which revealed that his frustration mirrored hers, or the passion (usually anger, but sometimes hope, excitement) which poured out of every word, not like he was forcing it in there but, quite the opposite, like he was trying to keep his emotion out of his voice and failing, or maybe it was the way he was the focus of everyone’s attention that had tickled some part of her monkey brain to assign him an importance he didn’t have, or maybe it was all or none of those things and she was just making shit up long after the fact. Wasn’t love supposed to be nonsensical?
She let herself use the word in her head then put it away and hoped it wouldn’t float up with the buoyancy she felt certain it possessed and replaced it with memories of gut feelings.
When he had looked at her, at the clubhouse in training, but more intensely when they had been alone on that second job in her Self’s apartment (a memory she had been forced to request from Lucy, who had trimmed it out of the training mem, and who had finally given it to her with a simple, “Be careful, sweetheart,” that held a softness in the syllables so potent it was like Lucy was speaking for the first time, though even without the pure mem, when the words had faded, the feeling hadn’t, and she had wanted the mem only to confirm what she had remembered without it, that it had been so fucking easy talking to him, like they had known each other before, forever, when his big brown eyes, curved in a permanent sad wrinkle at the edges, and which she knew held flecks of green only visible in bright sun, caught her and only her, she had been sure she was dreaming and none of this shit was real after all.
But it hadn’t been that bad at first. Like a cut in those old kung fu movies where the guy takes a few steps afterward and then an arm falls off or something. Only once she started to notice it, to prod it and test the depth of it, did the wound expand and reveal itself as totally fucking mortal.
The first clue had been the door job, when she dropped in wrong and showed up late. It hadn’t happened since her first days with ST67, and though she had expected Philip to grill her about being forced to drive with Luke and the resulting highway catastrophe, he had only softly asked her what had been on her mind.
She obviously couldn’t tell him that her Self had gone back to bed to continue the dream of a guy who looked a lot like a certain new recruit or that she had been terrified of being sent to find him (him being “assigned” to her and all) once she had heard he hadn’t checked in, so it had been hours before she even got on the road. So she had lied, said something about… new job panic or something, and that had been it.
And there was another thing. Philip had been so hard on him from the jump. She couldn’t understand it. He had always been gentle with her, but with Gradie he was like a frustrated gym coach. She had assumed it was sexism, but something about it seemed too specific, like something Philip saw in Gradie made him afraid. It had been so jarring she had to ask around and see if Gradie had fucked up on his last team or something.
“Nope,” EP told her. “This is his first team, actually. Remember, Michael said he found him in a Hardworld?”
Maybe that was it. Super cool guy who got born in a Hardworld instead of the Other, like he was made to be a Hardworlder. Clinched the main kill on his first job. Seemed to be hand-picked by her new ultra-rich mysterious benefactor boss. Maybe that was why she liked him.
No. He wasn’t cool, not like that. He wasn’t like a guy taking it slow and careful and precise like Philip or Michael wanted a Hardworlder to be. He was like a kid exploring. He fucked up and beat himself up about it harder than Philip ever did but kept going like there was something to get out of Hardworlding that she had never even thought of.
No. It wasn’t any of that. It was something deeper than who he was or what he did. It was like when she talked to him she was touching him directly. A connection. That’s all she could really call it. Like they clicked. A perfect match. A soul mate.
But her mind was always the self-saboteur, and as she reflected on their time together, the now all too familiar chain reaction of thoughts played itself out in sequence;
“He was just trying to be nice to you. No he just wanted to fuck you. Well, actually, he felt sorry for you so he was nice to you, even though you were an annoying bitch and said that thing about his jacket and made him sit in the back because you didn’t want him seeing how shitty you looked with basically no makeup, and you spilled that coffee on him, but he didn’t even get mad or yell at you like Catrino, just seemed disappointed, because you weren’t even worth getting all mad over.”
But now she had a new weapon against that other her. A weapon she drew and fired without even thinking.
But he kissed me.
Shut up!
But it was too late. The memory of the kiss exploded in her mind, all the more alive because she had been trying the entire race not to think about it.
He had kissed her like he needed her to live, like he was going to the end of the world and taking her with him. Like the dream was going to vanish in an instant and the last and only thing he wanted to do before it did was kiss her.
But what had she done to earn it? Just had fucking take out with him and given him shit about every little thing? And what had she done after it? Pushed him away and told him to knock it off, basically, embarrassed him in front of everyone. Been embarrassed herself in a way he wasn't.
Fucking finally, the last remnants of the sandstorm cleared, and they were speeding across a wide mirrormetal track spread across the desert, right into a portal of pure sunlight, and she hoped to hell that win or lose, the god damned finale would at least be distracting.
The sunlight reached a blinding crescendo with that same cartoon teleport noise effect then broke apart with a distorted cannon shot sound and she was back with the other racers in a tube, only this time it was gilded.
The matte black and grey of the more functional parts of the sci-fi city highway were replaced with a shiny polished tunnel of silver trimmed gold. The lane lines were pure diamond, the safety bulbs on the sunken “shoulders” ruby and emerald, and the floating central light tube pure platinum bristling with sapphire and amethyst. In the near distance, the tunnel opened up on the Imperial palace, solid white nanostone capped with domes of colored crystal and watered green gardens.
And still, she just wanted to be fucking done with it.
There was a light wrapped around her bike like she had snagged a chunk of sunlit cloud on the front fender, and the “computer” told her she could pick from any of the bike modes she had encountered in the race. Immediately, she picked the fifty cal, and the cloud faded and dual gilded cannons appeared at the front of her now very shiny and purple ribbon draped bike. She tried to line up a shot on one of the leading bikes and all hell broke loose.
Some engaged each other with the hand SMG things, while two who had chosen the midway battle mode flew over her, (which didn’t seem fair until she noticed they swerved around like the tunnel was full of turbulence) and shot missiles that missed their airborne targets and blew pieces of the track to bejeweled shrapnel. Someone else burrowed into the “ground” kicking up fléchettes of gold, while another lightbladed through two other bikes in one swerve and sent the burning pieces rolling towards her and throwing fuel everywhere.
She dipped. She dodged. She held the triggers and skidded over holes and warps in the track. She ignored those close to her and zeroed in on those far ahead with controlled bursts until the carnage made it impossible and she squeezed down and tried to gain some distance.
There was a line of clouds like the one that had clung to her bike up ahead and the computer told her what she had already figured out. If she struck one, she could change her bike power. Obviously, the original design had the powers at random and the clouds operating like a Mario Kart mystery box, but a bunch of dweebs had moaned about “muh RNG” so now half the racers were using the burrow mode and the other half was almost completely airplanes, so by the time the checkered ring appeared, she hadn’t dropped a single racer and was snugly in sixth place.
Right before the finish, someone a few bikes up flew their plane too close to the edges and another racer got them with the SMG, so Sam made it onto the red velvet carpet with a big roman numeral V over her head.
The bikes came to a stop. The top three riders took a victory lap around the circuit board ziggurat then dismounted and climbed the steps and took their trophies and bowed and all that and the emperor floated above them and saluted and that was it and Sam was back in the stalls kicking her bike down into the goo where it lived.
She changed into her Other outfit, this time her leather and reptile skin body suit half covered by a thick fur-lined coat in dark grey over the black everything else, and capped off with a pair of dark purple mirrored visor sunglasses. Her craft was parked on the other side of the amphitheater, and she didn’t want anyone trying to talk to her about a race she had already mostly forgotten, and she was already feeling the edges of the drop that told her she would soon be touching the Real. Despite everyone telling her you eventually didn’t even notice, she never liked to be around anyone when it happened. If she was mid-sentence, her thought would fizzle out. If she was trying to do anything, her attention dropped and she was off thinking about that other her, wondering what she would say if they ever met, wondering if that other life would ever right itself.
A warm chime on her communicator interrupted her thoughts.
“Hey girl, great job,” Sinthea said. “You beat your time on the comps for this one! If you wanna stop by real quick, we can go over—”
“Uh, maybe later, I uh,”
Then she was there, that other her, for just an instant, like locking eyes with an old lover in a hallway, and you stand there waiting for words that are never spoken, and just when you get offended they didn’t even say anything, you realize you didn’t say anything either, and then it was over,
And then the line was quiet and it was a full five seconds before Sinthea spoke.
“Ok, no rush. I’m still working on that Rumble Circuit slot, so—”
The conversation died as she approached the elevator lobby, and for a moment everything felt like some kind of mutual role play, like everyone around her might at any moment stop and say, “oh, wasn’t that fun,” and the whole god damned Other would drop away and there would be just her and the Real again, and in that moment she was ready to let it all die, to go back to that other her, but there was one thing now that seemed not to fit, not to want to go down the whirlpool drain with everything else into the realm of “just a dream”, and so the memory of the kiss hovered there, like a hole burnt into—
This time it was the Nokia ringtone.
“You done bike riding through the sugar plums and shit?”
“Yeah, there weren’t even any cute fairies or anything.”
“Meet me up top. Lot 19. Numero Uno.”
“You flying the meanie combini?”
“You keep calling it that I’m gonna throw a match down the fuel tank. And yeah, I had to pick up some data for the twins or some shit.”
“Okay, coming up.”
She took the elevator and it hummed musically like all old school Othervators, letting her know that despite the lack of sensation, movement was happening, honest. She stepped out on a spoke of one of the resort’s big craft lot that looked like a dandelion from a distance. Of the 25 lots that orbited the resort and were connected by televators, only the first five or so were ever full, which meant Mr. Too Cool for Everything had picked the lot far enough away to be alone but not so far away, like one of the last two or something, that it drew attention. Sometimes, being able to follow the path of his thoughts, which felt like a march or the assembly of a car part or something, made her feel annoyed at the proximity of his presence in her head, especially when he was scolding her in training or running through a job mem, but now, after the solitude of the race and Arthel and the rest of it, and maybe because of the unusually sensitive touch of the Real, she found the evidence of his machinations comforting.
And there, at the end of spoke 1, (which looked like a construction crane with a velvet carpet draped over the top), glowing warmly like home, was the Philips gas station the twins had given him a few weeks into their time with Liquid Light. Evidence of the fact that they had hit it off instantly, while Sam had barely managed to scratch the cold shell of Lindsey’s professionalism despite nestling herself as deeply under her wing as she could manage.
Inside, Philip was behind the counter, finishing up a phone call. She grabbed a bag of Gardettos and opened it loudly until he hung up.
“You know all this shit is stale, right? Not to mention not being fucking real.”
“Angel made some of the stuff I like taste right.”
Philip narrowed his gaze at her.
“You need to tell that sad boy you ain’t interested.”
“I did!”
“Did you do it correctly? Did you dash all of his hopes? I know you can be too nice when it comes down to it.”
“What you mean like Catrino?”
Philip’s reaction told her he hadn’t even thought about that son of a bitch in months.
“What? I was behind you one hundred percent on that shit! I just don’t want to have to drop Gloomy in a Hardworld and give him the message directly!”
“He’s fine. He hasn’t even looked at me since he heard about—”
She stared at Philip’s shoes and tried to think about how they actually had dust on them.
“Jesus. No fucking professionals to be found.”
“It’s fine. I'm just making a big deal about nothing.”
“Fuck that! Listen, hey,” he moved in and took her shoulders in his hands.
“I can keep Five Seven on a wide flank. Maybe pair him with Celeste or even make him watch EP like he was supposed—”
“No! It’s fine! He just got all freaked out. He never saw any of us die before like that.”
Philip could have said a lot of things, like how that wasn’t true at all, or how he thought she was being too nice again, or even that Gradie was a shitty self-absorbed amateur who should be delegated to dumping Philips ashtray for kissing Sam like that, all of which she felt sure she could hear echoing out of the back of his gaze, but he just sighed and said,
“God damn. I’m the fucking old guy now.”
“You ever kiss any of your old teammates?”
He laughed out loud.
“God damn no! Not a lot of lookers on my team, and the one—”
He stopped himself with a chuckle.
“But yeah, I had my share of interteam romances, spending half a job chasing tale more than the target. All of us did, back when it was a young guy’s game.”
He took out a cigar and shook his head.
“Professionals, I actually fucking said that. Jesus Christ I’m actually there.”
After a silent drag, he smiled.
“Anyway, thanks for bearing with my senior moment. You ready to drop back in to the clubhouse or what?”
“Fucking yes! Are we sneaking in?”
“Fuck no! I don’t sneak shit! But if you mean Mike, then yeah he lifted his little embargo, at least for most of the team.”
“Besides who?”
It was a few weeks before she saw him. Philip, as if sensing her anxiety, ran her through a ton of direct simulations, live chases, had her try and drive the upgraded wagon into the ground, gave her some time in drone piloting in case EP got taken out or she needed to run surveillance solo or from the SUV, even let her use some of the “007 bullshit” Philip disdained, like thermite drones and the “batmobile” the twins had tried to cobble together, a gun mounted, armored roving “hacking” station with 360 degree thermal/nightvision views and under carriage drone ports and smoke grenades that even Michael had said would never see the light of day in a live job as long as he was calling the shots.
Then one day, as she was taking turns with Philip trying to break and take next year's Camry in under a minute, a matte black Supra rolled into the driveway.
Some small things had been said, to her or Philip or to no one in particular, words that had cracked and dissolved like the cigarette smoke flying off her face, especially next to the dense, razor-sharp words that came next, when Philip left to go do something she hadn’t heard.
“I’m sorry I kissed you. I’m not used to seeing someone die, I guess.”
Yep. That was it. Just a freak out. Nothing more. Nothing personal.
“Are you really sorry?”
He stared at her. His breath deepened, and he looked right at her lips with a hunger that made her knees weak and her breath catch.
She turned away and hoped he would grab her. He didn’t. She stepped away, defiantly, and kept walking. Finally, she heard his footsteps behind her, then his voice.
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have done it I don’t want to make you feel weird around me I really liked talking to you and working with you, it's…”
It was all in one breath and the words might as well have been gibberish. He didn’t mean it. She could tell what he really wanted to say.
Don’t go. Come back.
She felt the shock run up her chest and down her back and her pulse sent little pulses all over her.
“It's fine! Let’s move on!”
She got into the driver’s seat of his Supra and closed the door before he realized she had even been walking towards it.
“You want to drive it?”
She rolled the window down and looked up at him, and like an idiot he let his lust bleed out of her face, and like a bigger idiot she smiled knowingly at him.
“Nah, I want to see you try to catch me.”
She was on the main road going fifty for half a minute before she saw the Camry swerve out of the development behind her, and she smiled so big into the rearview she almost went off the road.
But a part of her knew, like a sudden sense of direction, that the route she was on was inescapable.
