15

FOLLICLE FALLACIES

FROM DAWN GLOW, TO SEARING DARKNESS, to blistering midday light. Ow. Far should’ve known better than to stare out the vistaport during a jump—the shift in views paired with the Grid’s timelessness created a special kind of queasy—but it was better than being forced to face Eliot’s smirk. He’d thought, after some alone time with Priya and a nap, that the girl might be less infuriating. Not so. Her cockiness was salt in the wound, stinging for how easily she’d sent Far’s future spinning. A single wink, a shiny book. Years of work down the drain…

Phosphene stars marred Far’s vision, crept through the writing on the wall before him. He stared hard at what chalky fragments he could—Rembrandt, sapphire, fire, Hindenburg—and dug his fingers into the armrest. Priya was right: no sense in losing his head. This was far from over. He’d pin his life back into place piece by piece, starting with this chair. He’d never liked the captain’s seat—it was uncomfortable and such a violent shade of orange—but now it felt like his, because he’d had to fight for it.

“Time?” he asked Gram.

“We hit our target,” the Engineer said. He himself had the look of a man who’d dodged ten bullets. “April eighteenth, 2020. Noon.”

At least something was going Far’s way today. “Let the vacation commence.”

He really did want a vacation. Ideally, it’d involve him and Priya by a pool, a pale lager with two lime wedges, and a world without cares. Las Vegas had most of these things—true—but Far couldn’t rest until he knew what Eliot was up to.

The girl stood close to him, barefoot. Without her boots, she was quite short, small enough to blow away. Her hair was still coiffed in a first-class style, but its fanciness had frayed. Single strands quirked out from the pins, flew around her shoulders. All it would take was a quick pluck….

“I’ll gather our wardrobes!” Imogen headed toward the common area closet. “What are your measurements, Eliot? I can lend you one of my outfits, if it fits. Your waist is so tiny!”

“It’s this haze of a corset.” Eliot turned her back to Far.

There, just there! A lone hair ripe for the taking. He was certain he could snag it without Eliot noticing—working for Lux, he’d developed quite a set of thief fingers—but when he tugged the strand, it didn’t break the way it should have. To his horror, Far realized that he’d not only gathered a single hair from Eliot’s head but an entire wig. He dropped the hairpiece.

Eliot turned to face him. Where Far expected to see anger, there was only a hoity twist of lips. Where he expected to find her natural hair, there was none. Eliot’s scalp was as smooth as the rest of her. Those eyebrows, the ones that reminded him of penwork—they really were drawn on. Even her eyelashes were missing. Far’s brain must have autofilled them in before now.

“Well, shazm.” He glanced at the wig, now a glossy brown pile by his feet. “This is awkward.”

It became even more so when Saffron emerged to attack what he mistook for a fellow fur-thing. The red panda snatched the wig in his jaws and took off for the common area, striped tail waving.

“Saffron! No!” Imogen wasn’t fast enough to catch him. The animal leaped from couch to shelf to pipes, beyond their reach.

“Your hair…” Far trailed off, at a loss.

“Has been purloined by a ginger raccoon, from the looks of things.” Eliot squinted at the wardrobe: army uniforms, a pair of riding chaps, a prison jumpsuit. The original flowered waistcoat he’d worn in the Versailles Sim hung among them. Far wondered if she recognized the outfit. “Or were you referring to my lack of it?”

“Um…”

Imogen climbed on top of the couch, swatting clothing aside to find her furry ward. “Get back here, you scallywag! You can’t just steal people’s hair.”

One of Eliot’s inked eyebrows rose as she looked back at Far. Clearly she harbored the same sentiment. He needed to think of an excuse, anything other than the obvious—

“I thought I saw a feather,” he said lamely. “I was trying to pull it out.”

“How considerate,” Eliot grunted. Far doubted she believed him. He wouldn’t believe him, and so far this girl had outwitted him at every turn.

Imogen continued uttering swears as colorful as her hair, standing on tiptoes in an attempt to reach the red panda’s roost. Gram joined her. His reach was longer, but Saffron had scooted so far back into the pipes that they’d have to dismantle the Invictus to get to the creature.

“Best surrender.” It was all Far could do to keep from laughing, not because this was funny, but because the whole wig- napping scene had surpassed absurd. “It’s in the lair of the beast now.”

“Saffron isn’t a beast,” Imogen huffed. “He’s a beastie.”

Gram balanced on the couch’s highest point, swiping as far as he could. No use. He fell back onto Imogen’s cushion. His weight created a seesaw effect—and Imogen, having nowhere else to steady herself, grasped Gram’s biceps.

“What on earth is going on?” Priya’s bunk door slid open. The gold BeatBix headphones slung around her neck were genuine, BB logo righted, snatched and gifted by Far for their six-month anniversary. She’d worn them to sleep ever since. Indeed, she looked like she did most mornings: hair mussed, eyes misty with dreams as they peered into the common area. “Oh—”

Imogen snatched her hands back. Far had never seen his cousin so pink: hotter than bubble gum, deeper than coral. He wished they’d sort things out and kiss already. The Invictus was small enough as it was. There simply wasn’t room for so many unaddressed pheromones.

“Saffron ran off with Eliot’s hair.” Gram stepped off the couch, clearing his throat. “I mean, wig.”

Far could pinpoint the moment his girlfriend went into Medic mode. Her stare went sharp, then soft as she examined Eliot’s baldness. “Alopecia universalis. Right?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Medic worth her salt!” Eliot’s voice held a showmanship boom—all the ship’s a stage. “You’d be amazed how many don’t know the proper name without a med-droid beeping it in their ear.”

“Alopecia universalis.” Imogen considered the Latin, face aflame. “Universal foxsickness?”

“A fancy way of saying my immune system isn’t such a fan of my hair follicles. Every single hair on my body fell out when I was six years old and never returned.”

“It’s rare,” Priya remarked. “Rarer than rare in Central time. I’ve only ever read up on cases.”

This was yet another sign that Eliot was out of her era. But if her condition was rare in Central time, wouldn’t it be almost nonexistent in the future? Was it possible she was from the past? More questions, endless questions. The spinning feeling from looking out the Invictus’s vistaport hadn’t faded the way it usually did. Instead, Far felt himself winding tighter. This girl. This smirking, roundabout riddle of a girl. She was impossible to get a handle on, and it vexed him….

“I’m so sorry about your wig, Eliot.” Though none of this was Imogen’s fault, she apologized. “I’ll go out and buy you another one before we hit the town. What color do you prefer? Blond? Brunette? Fire-engine red? You’d sport peacock green excellently.”

“No need,” Eliot told her. “I only use wigs when I need to blend in. No one in Vegas is going to bat an eyelash at the lack of mine.”

“You’ll turn heads with that dress, though,” the Historian pointed out. “The year 2020 wasn’t really known for floor-length frills.”

The Invictus fell back into its pre-expedition ritual. Priya disappeared to change out the fuel rods. Gram returned to his console to find a parking spot, while Imogen weeded out any dollars printed post–landing year from their US cash stash. Afterward, she printed age-appropriate false IDs for the five of them, then reprinted them when Gram pointed out that her math had made them all twenty instead of twenty-one, and what was the use of that? Eliot helped sort bills and clothes alike, making piles of swimsuits and clubwear under the Historian’s sporadic direction. Above it all, Saffron nibbled the wig with happy squeaking noises.

The scene felt so… normal. Eliot had Recorder training, no doubt. How else would she sync with the rhythm of the ship so fast? Far settled back into his captain’s chair, eyes never leaving the thief. She watched him, too. Her glances weren’t subtle or sly or pointed. They just were. Straight on, unabashed. Nothing like the don’t blink duels he held with Lux. He had no idea what game Eliot was playing, much less how to win it. He needed answers. There was more than one way to collect DNA. Skin, blood, spit. All were a good means harder to procure than hair, especially now that Eliot was onto them, but Far was up for the challenge.

He’d figure out who this girl was.

He’d take his future back.