Chapter 13
Aryl

“It’s so good to have people here,” Jaha says, taking Ver’s lavender jacket. As she brings it closer to the wall, a hook forms out of the polymer. “We haven’t had guests in months. Medea, remind me how long it’s been?”

Jaha’s voice carries a faint Three-er accent, but at first listen, she sounds as if she’s from One. Sometimes I wish my parents had adjusted to this moon as well as she has—acting like One-ers, sounding like them.

“No one outside the family has set foot in this apartment for seven months and six days,” chimes a monotone voice that seems to come from everywhere. “Hello, visitors. I am Medea, the Eppis’ home AI.”

“Hello,” Ver says dryly. I blink, amused. Most One-ers ignore home AIs. There must not be many on Three.

Jaha and Cal’s apartment isn’t the kind of place where you could host parties—even five dancing people in here would be a stretch. But the walls are sunny yellow, and the living room window has no blinds or curtains. The floor is cluttered with everything from baby toys to appliance packaging to adults’ shoes and jackets.

It feels safe.

Still, I keep an eye on Ver, worrying that she’ll trip on some knickknack. If she gets hurt when I’m around, the police will assume I’m at fault and think I’m even more of a brute. That’s the only reason I care.

Ahead of me, Ver’s stopped in front of a pair of scuffed black boots, the laces threadbare. Cal’s boots. He wore those on chilly days. His feet were small—I never noticed that when he was alive. Feels apt, though. Parts of that boy from the mountains never grew up.

Jaha wades through the clutter and deposits Dimmi in her cradle in a corner of the living room. Dimmi starts to wail, prompting a groan from Jaha.

“I’ve got her,” I say, stepping over to the cradle and rocking it side to side. From when I was four until I was about ten, my parents spent all their time at work, leaving me to watch Ester. I could get peace from my sister’s wails if I played with her or gave her a spaceship plushie or fed her.

I scan the floor for toys, grab a tattered pink elephant that’s been loved to within a hair’s width of its life, and hold it out to Dimmi. She keeps crying. Maybe she’s cold? I lift her up, take the fleecy blanket from underneath her, and wrap her inside it. When I pass her the pink elephant again, she stops crying. Babies are all different, just like any other humans, but when it comes to needing warmth and comfort, each one is the same.

In the kitchenette, Jaha’s heating up freeze-dried vegetables and precooked quinoa on the stove while she talks to Ver. She looks animated, grateful for non-baby company. She always was talkative in lab. Sometimes I’d move to the library to read and write so we wouldn’t chat for hours about dance and clothes, or the puzzling ways One-ers behave toward us.

“Things hadn’t been easy,” she says, unprompted. “Funding was running low, and we didn’t know when we’d get more from the Institute or ExSapiens. Cal was making budget cuts at home to pay off interest on lab equipment—I had to stop buying produce farmed on One.” She grimaces. “But it’s not like Cal spent any time here. I took care of this whole place—and Dimmi—by myself.”

“Trust me, we know,” I say, remembering how I played physical therapist during Jaha’s pregnancy.

Ver scowls at me, probably warning me not to insult the dead man.

I add, “I’m sure Cal only wanted the best for all of you.”

But he wasn’t working overtime to survive, like my parents. He was doing it because, for whatever reason, he wanted to.

“He was always irritable when he did come home.” Jaha doesn’t disguise the pain on her face. “Then, late at night, he’d tell me he was sorry. That he felt he wasn’t enough as a man or a father.” She’s tearing up.

“Auntie, you don’t have to tell us any more,” Ver says, her voice sickly sweet.

“I think you’re both innocent,” Jaha blurts, looking us square in the eyes. “You didn’t kill my husband.”

It takes a second for the surprise—and the relief—to wear off.

“Thanks, I guess,” I say.

“Then what did kill him?” asks Ver.

Jaha doesn’t miss a beat. “Stress. Cal was frustrated and humiliated by his lack of progress. He felt he’d made no significant breakthroughs since he and I discovered antichronowaves all those years ago. I tried to remind him that discovery isn’t linear, that something would come if we kept working . . .”

My face wrinkles. “You think Cal was depressed?”

Jaha nods.

“You . . . think . . . Cal killed himself?” Ver says.

“I don’t know!” Jaha cries. “I don’t know.” In a hurry, she takes the food off the stovetop and transfers it onto three trays, burning herself in the process. She winces and sticks her index finger in her mouth.

The home AI folds down the table from the wall, I put Dimmi back in her cradle, and we sit, watching our food let off steam. Spongy quinoa and overcooked spinach that’s brown and shriveled like mulch. Ver looks hungrily at the food but pokes it around her plate, squinting as if it’s poisoned. Maybe that’s her careful Three-er brain at work. People from Ver’s moon are not known for trusting others.

As for me? I haven’t danced all day, so I can’t work up an appetite for this mush. My muscles feel limp and underutilized, my stomach still full from my last meal. I watch Jaha mix the quinoa and spinach on her own plate until it looks like green diarrhea, and I try not to gag.

But just as I pick up the spoon, there’s an announcement from the AI. “Jaha, someone’s at the door.”

“Tell him we’re not home,” Jaha says, her LED nose ring winking aggressively.

“I would,” the AI says, “but his insistent posture tells me he’ll wait outside until you let him in.”

“Give me a moment.” Jaha rises and goes to the mirror. Taking scarlet lipstick from her pocket, she smears it onto her mouth, dabs light brown cream under her eyes to hide her dark circles, and tucks stray black hairs into her braid. Once her stage makeup is set, she lets out a deep breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”

The door slides open, and the most muscular person I’ve ever seen lumbers into the apartment. The cheap material of his suit stretches over his thick limbs. He seems to be bald, but he’s so tall I can’t see the top of his head. When I see his round face, I’m shocked by how young he looks. Maybe twenty-two or so. His glowing eyes—too blue to be true—rake over all of us, seeming to assess whether or not we’re threats. They linger the longest on me, traveling up and down my body, before he blushes and turns away. I’m mildly annoyed, but I’m used to it.

Another man follows the large one inside. He’s tall, thin, and golden-skinned, probably a few years older than Jaha, with straight black hair tucked under a close-fitting, neon-orange knit cap. His posture is terrible, his gait loping and unsure. But I know better than to underestimate the brain under that questionable orange hat, or to believe someone dressed so casually can’t be important.

I recognize him. Everybody recognizes him. I stare, wondering if he’s real.

“Scrap, Jaha, you look rough,” says Pauling Yuan, founder of ExSapiens Biotechnologies, in a warm, scratchy voice. “Your face paint doesn’t fool me. Come here.”

Jaha lets out a croak of a sob, and Yuan’s bodyguard looks on with mild interest as Yuan embraces her, resting his chin on her head.

I’ve seen Yuan on holo all my life. I’ve heard Cal talk about the time they spent working together when they were both apprentices, before Yuan got famous. Now the man himself has appeared at my dead boss’s apartment and is hugging his wife.

I look out the window and fling a prayer to the stars that Pauling Yuan is here to help us too.