“You alright, honey?” his waitress wants to know.
He’s fine, thank you, though still rubbing his arm.
Another sip of bourbon, hearing Penelope’s voice in his head: “Low-tech pain reliever.” And then another idea: He could text Jenka and see if he could get Muad’Dib’s real name. If he had that, and a peak at the Virgin Galactic flight manifest, he’d at least know if loitering at the Spaceport was worth the hassle. But not wanting to text Jenka, he realizes he could just start with the flight manifest itself—which is when the semblance of a plan starts to coalesce.
Dropping a twenty on the table for his drink, Lion stands up and walks over to the waitress. “Question,” he says, after catching her attention. “When’s the last flight in or out of the Spaceport?”
“A red-eye from New York that shows up,” she glances at her watch, “in a couple hours. After that, they shut ’er down for the night.”
“Good to know,” says Lion, “thank you.”
He finds the same taxi waiting for him in front of the hotel, a swirl of gasoline exhaust fumes giving it away.
“Back to the Holiday Inn, sir?” once he climbs inside.
“Lion,” he says, “please call me Lion.”
“Ricardo,” says the driver.
“Not the Holiday Inn, Ricardo. I need to make a stop first.”
SPACE JAIL
The Spaceport at night, a curved concrete shadow and a floating ring of blue lights above it—got to be the upper rim of the main terminal—surrounded by the blackness of the desert sky. The overall effect is less futuristic than anachronistic, the spaceport not as a burgeoning hub of intergalactic travel, rather as the remnants of some long-departed civilization, an advanced society rumored to have unlocked the secrets to the stars and vanished.
The taxi stops out front, and Ricardo turns to face him. “Do you want me to wait?”
At this time of night, without the apps on his phone to lean on, this taxi may be the only game in town. Or the only game that takes him back to town. Lion hedges his bet, paying for the fare and taking an extra hundred out of his wallet. Operating entirely with a playbook drawn from cinematic scenes of espionage, he tears the bill in half, passes one stub to Ricardo, and tells him he can have the rest if he’s still here when Lion returns.
“Seriously, man?” Taking half the bill, “Seen too many James Bond movies?”
“Yeah,” thinking it through, “that’s exactly what happened.”
Out of the cab and through the front doors and the main room is more crowded than expected. A small clan of Prada-clad Euro-males have colonized the food court; a large Nigerian contingent occupies a four-pack of couches just inside the glass doors. Wives in bright-colored prints, husbands in double-breasted gangster.
“Numbah six,” says one of the men, beaming, “I have suffehed for you, numbah six.”
Walking farther inside the terminal, he spots an ancient Indian woman in a blue spaceport jumpsuit pushing a mop, trailed by a single toddler in a hand-sewn dress, filling out a coloring book. A couple more steps and Lion starts to waver. It’s been over a decade since he’s dusted off this skillset, though he can still remember his editor’s first pep talk on the subject: “Be a journalist, Zorn. Don’t give a hoot how. Get me some goddamn confirmation.”
Get me some goddamn confirmation gets him moving again. Past the Nigerians and across the lobby, then around a corner to the Virgin Galactic side of the terminal. Technically, it’s his first time in the extra-terrestrial wing, though it has the same cowboy modern flavor as the terrestrial version: sweeping ceilings, stone floors, the occasional bleached-white bull skull beside photographs of space commerce luminaries.
Also, lighter security, thankfully, and probably due to the late hour.
Lion notices a scrolling screen mounted on a wall displaying astronaut requirements and processes. Walks over to take a closer look. A three-day offsite training held prior to launch teaches passengers emergency space response basics and the ins-and-outs of macro and micro gravity management. Also, all passengers must undergo a forty-eight-hour quarantine, held here at the terminal. A safety measure meant to ensure no one carries unwanted germs into space.
As if humans themselves aren’t the real unwanted germs is his first thought. “Shit” is his second.
That safety measure guarantees that if Muad’Dib is on the next flight out, he’s already ensconced in quarantine. A metallic taste in the back of his mouth, like molars biting foil.
“Shit,” he says again.
He flashes on Shiz telling him about Muad’Dib—did he know about the quarantine? Did he lie? And what now?
Lion scrolls down the page, looking for return flights. Finds what he needs a few paragraphs later: the Bigelow Space Hotel Deluxe Package—a three-day stay. Today’s Monday. Three days makes Thursday. But he’s getting ahead of himself. This decision is only relevant if Muad’Dib is actually on the next flight out.
He takes a deep breath, leaves the scrolling screen and crosses over to the Virgin Galactic counter, a long black marble monolith, like a ship’s prow, and piloted by a solitary captain: a silver-haired Japanese man in a handsome pin-striped suit.
“Excuse me,” says Lion, aiming for a worried tone. “I think my brother is on the next flight out. If he is, I know he’s already in quarantine. Would it be possible for me to leave him a note?”
“I can see by your garb,” says the agent, prim, proper, solid eye contact, “you are familiar with our ways.”
Lion glances down. Black jeans, black boots, and a black T-shirt. “My garb?”
“It is the prophecy,” he says, nodding slowly.
“Pardon?”
“It has been written.”
“Wha…?”
“I am just freakin’ with you, man,” says the agent, suddenly grinning. “Welcome to Virgin Galactic. How can I be of assistance?”
“My brother,” says Lion, deciding to start again. “Last Thursday was his fortieth birthday. Our parents bought him a ticket to space. I just want to leave him a note before he departs. Wish him a safe trip, tell him to make it back home in one piece.”
“I do not like what you’re implying,” says the agent, suddenly serious again. “Our safety record is spotless.”
“We had an argument,” sighs Lion. “I drove all night from Denver. It was stupid. But he’s going to space, and it’s space, right—anything could happen.”
“Zero accidents on the job,” glaring at him. “We have made outer space as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”
“So anything can’t happen?”
Still glaring. “As safe as Mount Rushmore.”
“Okay,” says Lion, not sure what to do next.
“But what am I?” says the agent, snapping his cuffs out, “a barbarian? Of course you can leave him a note.”
This is not going, not in any way, like he imagined.
“He’s half Moroccan,” tries Lion. “I’m not sure which passport he’s traveling under. Can we check two names?”
“No sweat off my buttocks,” punching a few keys on his keyboard and bringing up a new screen. “What names?”
“Either Mike Dib or, if it’s the other passport, Muad’Dib,” spelling it out for him.
“Hmmm,” says the clerk, staring at the screen, clicking a few more keys. “I had a Maude Dib.”
“Maude?”
“Is your brother perhaps a woman?”
“Pardon?”
“No matter,” shaking his head. “The reservation was canceled two days ago.” He points toward the Nigerians on the couches. “I believe one of those gentlemen got the sixth seat.”
“That can’t be true,” says Lion, trying to edge around the counter to see the screen for himself.
“Sir?” Pointing at the floor. “Don’t step beyond the line.”
Lion looks down and sees nothing.
“I don’t want to have to have you arrested.”
“I just want to make sure we’re
talking about the right person.”
“You don’t want to go to space jail.”
“Space jail?”
“Still freakin’ you,” he says, another smile. “I can’t have you arrested for stepping over this line. There’s no line. What are we, in Singapore?”
Turning the screen toward Lion, the agent taps his finger on a line of text, highlighted in red.
“See Maude Dib, right here? Canceled. Like the prophecy told us.”
“Prophecy?”
“Freakin’ you,” he says again.
But now able to see the screen: CANCELED, in neat block text.
“Thanks for the freakin’,” says Lion, rapping two knuckles on the counter before walking away with his jaw clenched and mind reeling.
ON AN OTHERWISE LONELY NIGHT
The last shuttle must have departed.
By the time he makes it back to the terrestrial wing, the Nigerians in double-breasted gangster are gone, as are the Prada-clad Euro-males. The terminal, save for the cleaning woman and her child, is all but empty.
Nothing but the deep-space echo of his boots bouncing off the cold stone floor.
Angling toward the doors, he passes a photograph of aerospace designer Burt Rutan standing beside his creation, SpaceShipOne, pale hands tucked in denim pockets, his gaze focused on the white stars painted on the craft’s bullet-shaped nose; then out into the night.
And that gas-powered taxicab, the one with the driver who has half a hundred-dollar bill—doesn’t appear to be anywhere in sight.
Lion glances back and forth. No cabs. No cars. Just a full moon, an inky sky, and a long road disappearing into the distance. If he doesn’t want to turn on his phone—and until he knows what the hell is going on, he really doesn’t want to turn on his phone—should he start walking?
The Space Ace is maybe seven miles away. The Holiday Inn almost forty.
But he’s awake. Strangely, wide awake. Maybe it’s the juice of his admittedly low-grade scam percolating through his system; maybe it’s residual ire at Penelope still with him. Either way, sleep is not coming soon and seven miles is what? Fifteen minutes a mile average walking speed. An hour and a half to the Space Ace. He does, after all, still have that reservation.
“Screw it,” he says, charging off the sidewalk and onto the street before he can change his mind.
Then he changes his mind, charges back.
Yanking his tobacco out of his sling-pack, Lion tries to roll a cigarette. But his fingers are too angry. The paper tears, the tobacco spills, and he crushes both into a ball and flicks it away in disgust.
A second later, he picks up the ball and tosses it in the trash can.
Another paper, another pinch of tobacco, a second attempt. This one sticks. As he’s reaching for his lighter, there’s a flash of headlights in the distance. Lion peers hopefully into the darkness—as if peering hopefully into the darkness ever produced the desired results.
A yellow maintenance truck turns into the driveway, its flatbed weighed down by tall metallic bottles shaped like oversized bowling pins. N2O printed on their sides. Nitrous oxide, used as a rocket fuel additive, remembering his one semester of chemistry, because its atomic bonds shatter easily and produce excess oxygen. Also a psychedelic, used by William James in his early experiments with consciousness. Interesting, in a way Lion doesn’t entirely understand, that the same compound accelerates explorations of both inner space and outer space.
Astronauts and psychonauts, both getting high on the same supply.
“If this is some kind of sign,” he whispers to the darkness, the truck, the memory of William James, but no answers coming. Instead, he takes a long drag off his cigarette and starts walking.
Does the road rise up to meet him?
Not for the first few miles. His thoughts are a rampage, obliterating the scenery. No scrub-brush shadows lining the road, no mountains like craggy witch’s teeth blotting out the horizon, nothing but the voice in his head for rotten company.
Even the Dune mantra, not worth a damn.
Eventually, one foot in front of the other does the job. A couple of miles in and he feels his vortex begin to shift. Perception returns in waves. He realizes there’s a desert around him, a sky above him, and a little more space in his head to think. What a strange week. What a strange night. He hears the Virgin Galactic agent telling him he’s going to space jail, and this almost cracks him up, but what it really does is make him want to tell Penelope about it. That one smarts.
“Arctic guerrilla marketing,” he says to no one in particular, “playing for keeps.”
But this thought makes him reconsider Penelope’s actual skillset: rock solid on the research tip, legitimate ass-kicking chops, and a perfectly executed seduction. Noncommittal flirtation sets the trap. Banter that becomes curiosity, because everyone has an ego, to bait it. Inquiry into his love life—or, really, any extra-personal question works—to accelerate rapport and spring the jaws. Right out of the playbook.
Step by goddamn step.
Plus, picking him over the rock star for a night of Get Naked on Ecstasy, ’cause that happens.
Whatever else is true, he realizes Penelope’s had some training. Lion learned most of what he knows about seduction from being a journalist, but there are other options. Industrial spy, clandestine services. None good.
Jenka’s assistant, alright.
But this tells him three things. First, he’s way the fuck in over his head. Second, no way this is simply about launching Arctic Pharmaceuticals and a new kind of social phobia drug. Third, did he mention, way the fuck over his head.
Keep walking, he tells himself. It’s late, and there are miles to go, but he feels it, the hard drop back into reality. He’s been played.
Like a piano.
The darkness around him encroaches, and an icy chill in the air. It’s just the moon going behind a cloud. He tells himself again, it’s just the moon going behind a cloud.
Twenty seconds later, the moon resurfaces, bouncing white lunar glow off refractive black asphalt and illuminating the world. Lion finds his limbs have stopped working. Frozen. A completely involuntary reaction to what? Then it registers. Directly in front of him, less than ten feet away, a coyote, adult male, German-shepherd big.
Lion gapes: gray-brown coat still winter thick, ears up, tail down, light orange diamond patches surrounding bright orange eyes.
Staring back at him.
Goosebumps on his skin, flutter in his gut, but then his training kicks in.
“Good evening,” crouching down, averting his gaze, dangling out a loose, sniff-able fist.
The coyote takes a few steps toward him. Lion stays still, keeps talking softly. He feels a warm wind blow in from the south, his heart flux inside of him. Eventually, he lifts up his gaze. Eye contact between apex predators tends to produce instant adrenaline.
Not in this case.
The coyote stands there, holding the contact, letting Lion know he knows. Two travelers sharing a lonely road on an otherwise lonely night, a little empathy among the brethren, an actual not-quite-human connection.
Not what Penelope’s selling, or Richard’s preaching. The real, raw deal. Perhaps it’s the sensation that Sietch Tabr can surface—now there’s a thought.
Lion holds the eye contact for another thirty seconds, then stands up and starts walking again. The coyote falls in beside him. Time seems to slow down. The stars shine a little brighter. And out of the corner of his eye, the glisten of fur.
They continue that way for about a half mile, primate and canid, and then, headlights over a rise in the distance.
The coyote stops, nudges Lion’s thigh with his snout, and nods once.
Lion nods back.
Then the animal peels off the road and into the desert, and Lion watches him melt into shadow, then darkness, then gone, thinking about what Fetu had once said, “Sit at the table long enough, pay enough attention, eventually the universe will let you peek at its cards
.”
“You’re talking about em-tracking?” Lion had asked.
“Something like that.”
In the moonlight, the headlights coalesce into a taxicab, slowing beside him, the window dropping. Ricardo, his driver, bug-eyed. “What are you doing, man? I went for gas. There’s real shit out here. Chupacabras, wolves, coming for your soul.”
“We can only hope,” says Lion, getting into the cab.
JUDGMENTAL MALAYS
He opens his eyes to a wedge of light through cheap Holiday Inn curtains. Too bright. And “Down by the Seaside” in cheerful synth tones.
So it’s not the light from the curtains, it’s the ringing of his cell, that’s why he’s awake.
He untangles himself from the sheets, crosses the hotel room, and grabs for the phone. “Hello?”
“I’m here a week now, waiting for a mission, getting softer.”
“Lorenzo,” says Lion.
“Good to hear your voice.”
“Back at you.”
“Where are you?”
Lion looks down at the carpet, mustard with blobs of black-light purple, like the glow from Shiz’s robo-aquarium. “It’s a good question.”
And he tries to answer it, filling Lorenzo in on the further adventures of Lion Zorn: the trip to Spaceport America, the potential double-cross, the missing Muad’Dib, the coyote that walked him home. “Then there’s Penelope…,” he says in conclusion.
“I told you to forget about her.”
“You did,” said Lion. “Didn’t seem to take.”
“I’ve been there,” says Lorenzo. “Colleen. Stacy. Ambergris. Who names their daughter Ambergris anyway? Amber I get, but ‘gris’ is a little too Haitian voodoo stripper for me. So—any idea what you’re going to do?”
“Honestly, I don’t have a clue.”
“You could come visit me in Kuala Lampur. It’s swampy hot and you can’t walk on the grass.”
“The grass? Why?”
“Snakes in the grass here.”
“Huh?”
“Cobras. Literally. Snakes in the grass. Possibly two snakes.”
Last Tango in Cyberspace Page 19
