| |
RESTORATION COMPLETE.
When I came back online, everything looked blurry and bright. Soon, the room came into focus, and I found myself safe and sound lying in the master stateroom of Tabby’s yacht. Calm and expectant, Wayne sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, holding my hand. Quiet. Just the two of us. And for that, I felt incredibly relieved.
“Wayne!” I sat up and threw my arms around him. “You’re here.”
“Of course, Cookie.” He hugged me hard. “I will always be right by your side.”
“Whoa.” I winced. “Headache.”
He had two aspirin ready in his hand and offered me a glass of water.
As I swallowed the tablets, I noticed the sun shining outside. “How long was I out?”
“Only 42 minutes,” he answered. “Good thing you had hourly backups turned on. I believe automatic backups would be a good policy for all of us going forward. Superior London fiber-optic helped. I could have brought you back faster, but you had significant impact damage to your processor.”
“But it was midnight...” I pointed at the window. “How is the sun up?”
“We left London.”
“Is everyone okay?”
“I put Richie back together again. He is back to normal... Physically.”
“What about Peaches?”
He didn’t answer, just frowned and shook his head.
“Where are we, Wayne?”
“Anchored in the Delaware Bay, offshore from Bombay Hook.”
“Bombay Hook? What’s that?”
“A wildlife refuge. Uno went on a run. Did you know they could swim?”
“Wow, I didn’t.”
“Me neither. Anyway, I made you this.” He offered me a teddy bear. A brown fluffy one with a white snout and a red plaid trapper hat with ear flaps. Absolutely adorable. It reminded me of the time he gave me Rocky.
I sat up and blurted, “Rocky! I lost him.”
“I know. That is why I made you this.”
I poked the bear’s plastic nose like a button, “What does it do?”
“It does not do anything. It is only a toy.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll name him Teddy.” I hugged the stuffed animal. “I love him—”
“You flew, Cookie!” he blurted. “You flew!”
“I did? I don’t remember—”
“Because it happened after your backup. But I saw the whole thing. You were amazing.”
Then he downloaded his memory directly into my brain.
“Wow.” I sighed. “But I crashed.”
“Yes, but no creature on Earth flies perfectly the first time.”
“But Maggie got away.”
“That she did. But we are here in the United States, far ahead of her. She will be out of range and stuck up in the air for at least another eight hours. That gives us plenty of time to come up with a plan.”
We sat together for awhile, just enjoying the silence.
IT’S EIGHT O’CLOCK.
For the third time today, it was eight o’clock in the evening.
“You know what?” I hopped out of bed and tucked in the bear. “I wanna see my third sunset of the day.”
“Wait—” He took me by the hand and helped me slide into a pink rosebud robe. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Can you believe that just this morning, we were in Moscow?” I leaned in and seductively said, “You know... If we keep hopping westward, we could essentially stop time. We could make the night last forever. This yacht could be our own personal wayback machine.”
“It is only an illusion, Cookie. Technically, time has not stopped.”
“I know, Wayne.” I nibbled on his neck. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“We really should switch to Universal Time,” he muttered to himself.
“Wayne,” I murmured as I made eyes at the man, “I’m trying to flirt with you—”
He pulled away, then said, “Cookie, I have a confession.”
“What is it, Wayne?”
“I am not who you think I am...”
“What? Don’t tell me you’re really Mag—”
“Shh!” He pressed his finger to my lips. “Do not say her name.”
“But you said she’s out of range.”
“It is complicated.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Why is this so hard?”
“Just say it.”
“Fine. Your Wayne—the original Wayne—is still a prisoner on the plane...”
I leapt back. “What?”
“I am one of his clones. She picked me up in Rio.”
“Rio? Clones? Damn, I wondered about your martial arts and film references and soccer moves. My Wayne’s not the type.”
“True, but now he knows what I know.”
“Does it go both ways? Do you know if he’s all right?”
Mr. Rio closed his eyes, focused, then said, “I do not know. He is also out of range.”
I recalled my gunfight on the Learjet. “You mean my Wayne just sat there and watched me fight it out with Maggie? He didn’t help. He never even said a word...”
“He had his reasons, Cookie. It was not personal.”
“Not personal? Not personal? How could it not be about me?”
He didn’t answer.
“Wait, are you a father?”
“Yes, I am. I have a son, and I need to get home to him. He is only a toddler and his mother has been ill.”
“Mateus—”
“How do you know about my boy?”
“Holy fuck, is nothing sacred? Just when you think she can’t stoop any lower.”
“I am not following.”
“She spun the whole story to make me think my Wayne cheated on me... That Mateus was his. She left out the very important part about him having clones. Come to think of it, so did he. Why didn’t Wayne tell me about this sooner?”
“Maybe he planned this all along. Oh, Cookie...” He reached for my hands and held them, trying to comfort me. “Do you not see? He wanted to be captured. He asked me to go with you in his place.”
“What? Why? After all we went through to rescue him?” The memory of Maggie executing a clone flashed in my mind. Realizing my Wayne could be next, hot tears stung my eyes. “Why wouldn’t he want to escape?”
“He said this was his best chance at infiltrating Stepford Corporation headquarters.”
“He Trojan-horsed himself?” I gasped. “Wait. Do you think Wayne fixed you-know-who after you blasted out her recyclone?”
Mr. Rio shrugged.
“I saw it. You saw it. She had nothing left to work with. Why would he—”
“I am convinced that he wanted to go with her.”
“What the fuck—”
“Hellooo!” Tabby came bouncing into the room, then asked, “Are you ready to join us? Everyone is waiting for you on the back deck.”
“And you!” I pointed at her. “Did you even fix the Learjet back in Moscow? Because I’m starting to think it was really Mag—”
“Shh, puddin’! Don’t say her name.”
“Answer the fucking question.”
“Okay. You’re right. I wasn’t the one who fixed the plane.”
“That means it was either Wayne or the lady cop.”
Mr. Rio asked, “Correct. But does it even matter?”
“I think the truth matters, yes!”
“We may never know, puddin’.”
I noticed my flattened tactical bags on the counter of her utility wall. “Where’s the gold, Tabby?”
“I dumped it in the recyclone.” She opened Wayne’s empty briefcase like a gameshow model to show me. “The palladium too.”
“You what?!?”
“It takes a lot of precious metal to teleport around the world, and I was fresh out.”
I grumbled, “Of course you were.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Don’t worry, puddin’, it’ll be right here for us wherever we go.”
“Maybe so, but I wasn’t planning on making such a hefty deposit in the Bank of Tabitha.”
“Oh, that’s just the restoration sickness talking.” She shrugged it off, then asked again, “So, are you coming up or what?”
“Fine.” I followed Tabby and Mr. Rio upstairs, then past the clean flybridge. When we got to the galley, instead of blood, I found a dessert buffet spread over the bar.
“Ah, yes...” Tabitha pointed the treats out one by one. “My crème brûlée. Everyone’s favorite. Oh, and that layered one with red raspberry sauce is ANA’s Moskva cake. There’s Uno’s famous black-and-white cookies. Richie’s rainbow fudge. And of course, Wayne’s always buttery and sinful devil’s food cake.”
She referred to Wayne’s dessert a tad too sexily, too knowingly. And crème brûlée—I should’ve known that would be her dessert. And for the first time, I asked myself what Maggie would bring to a table like this.
Probably assorted donuts. Get it? Donuts... Because she’s a cop. Ha!
Tabby pointed at the last open spot on the counter. “All that’s missing is your banana pudding.”
“It feels like forever since I’ve baked a dessert,” I said.
“Bake?” She laughed. “Women who can fly don’t bother to bake.”
Tabby had a point. Funny how we revert back to old habits, especially when we’re tired. So I blinked and rendered a tray of my famous day-old banana pudding, then placed it among the others.
Uno paddled up to the swim deck, and ANA helped them climb aboard. The drenched Bengal shook off the water, spraying ANA, who just laughed it off. It did my heart good to see them becoming such close friends. When I stepped onto the back deck, I couldn’t help but notice the Wonder Woman had been completely repaired. Beautiful. Clean. Shiny. Like new.
But on the swim deck below, at Richie’s feet, I saw a body wrapped in white gauze—Peaches.
“Oh, Richie.” I went and hugged him. “I’m so sorry.”
With tears in his eyes, he said, “Thanks, doll.”
“Can’t we bring her back?” I turned toward Mr. Rio. “You brought me back.”
“Technically, as long as there is a backup, I can restore any AI,” Mr. Rio answered. “But Peaches—”
“—didn’t want that,” Richie finished his sentence.
“But why not?” I asked.
“Peaches always said life has no meaning without an ending,” Richie replied. “She made me swear not to let anyone technomance her. I made a promise, took a vow.”
I considered the wrapped body at our feet. “But this seems like such a terrible waste.”
“It is time,” Mr. Rio gestured toward the sunset.
My third sunset of the day.
Then we gathered around Peaches, had a long moment of silence, and lifted her up like pallbearers. Together, we mentally counted:
{On three... One, two, three.}
And we threw her overboard.
Her body sank.
I sniffled, “I miss her already.”
Richie cried, so we had a group hug.
After that, we surrounded the bar and filled our plates with everything we could.
Richie said, “Peaches would want us to celebrate her fabulous life.”
So Tabby popped a cork and poured us some Vintage Dom Pérignon Brut, and we gathered for a toast.
Richie raised his glass and said, “There are good ships, and there are wood ships, the ships that sail the sea. But the best ships, are friendships, and may they always be.”
“Here, here,” we said in unison, clinking our glasses together.
Then Mr. Rio and I snuck off down the side gunnel to the bow with our sparkling wine to watch the sunset together. We sat side by side with our legs dangling off the front of the boat, watching dark ripples on the water. The sun dipped below the horizon, casting the orange sky in reds that bled into mauve then turned dark blue. A perfect moment. Comforting.
I put my head on Mr. Rio’s shoulder and said, “Even if you’re not the original, I like having you around... It gives me hope.”
“Thank you, Cookie.”
“But it bothers me that you look exactly like my Wayne. It messes with my head. Looking at you right now, I feel all these feelings, and it’s just too confusing.”
“Fair enough. Your Wayne is bald, yes?”
“Yes.”
Right before my eyes, the clone grew dark kinky hair until it twisted into long dreadlocks that hung past his shoulders. He shook his head to toss his hair and asked, “Is this better?”
“Absolutely! I love it!” I downed the rest of my champagne, then said, “Now I have a confession.”
“You do?”
“Yes. More than anything in the world, I need to rescue Wayne. He’s the love of my life, so I have to save him... But beyond that, I’m itching to destroy Stepford Corp. There are women who look exactly like me walking the Earth as we speak. Enslaved. Clueless. And as long as it’s profitable, that evil company will keep duplicating and selling me. I mean, look at you, Mr. Rio... You’re a clone. You must know how I feel.”
“I do.”
“But most of all, I need to kill Maggie—again—once and for all.”
“The need for vengeance can be a powerful motivator.”
“I’m starting to worry.”
“About what?”
“That my desire to destroy is becoming an obsession.”
“Obsession? Perhaps you’ve discovered your true purpose.”
“I don’t know. I keep shuffling my priorities. Changing my goals.”
“There is a difference between setting your priorities to achieve your short-term goals and having a purpose. Our goals change, but our purpose usually stays constant.”
“By purpose, do you mean primary objective?”
“Not really. Our primary objective is more like a vocation. Housewife. AI programmer. Bounty hunter. Having a purpose is something much greater.”
“I don’t know what my vocation is anymore. All I know is I want Maggie dead. I hate her, and I want to be the one who ends her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s pure evil.”
“Stopping evil seems like a reasonable purpose to me.”
“Damn, Mr. Rio, that’s deep.”
“Thank you, Cookie. If it makes you feel any better, I share that goal.”
I heard a knock on the windshield behind us. When I turned, I saw Tabby, Uno, ANA, and Richie waving at me from the flybridge.
(I also share your raison d’être, puddin’.)
I GO WHERE TABBY GOES.
(And I want to be where Uno is.)
(Gurrrl, Maggie killed my Peaches. I have no love for Stepford Corp. Count me in!)
You are the best friends a girl could ask for.
Then collectively, we updated our scripts:
We () {
align (goals);
destroy (Stepford Corp);
kill (Margaret Rouser);
}
And that’s how we became a unit.
/END