by Julia Keller
18
Return to Redshift
For the next three days, no one heard anything from Rez. He didn’t answer console calls. His staff had been instructed not to bother him, and they followed those instructions, especially those who had been reprimanded by him in the past and still cringed when they remembered it. All anyone knew was that he had shut himself up in his office with the door locked. A band of light that showed underneath the door—and an indication on the observatory’s meter of a higher-than-normal expenditure of energy—proved that he was doing something. His office wasn’t as well equipped as his lab, but it had a computer. And as long as Rez had a computer, he could work.
Was he eating? Was he sleeping? Unknown.
Violet assumed that when the staff wasn’t around, he left his regular office and slipped into his lab. She knew Rez, and she knew that whatever he was doing, it was related to the alien transmissions and Shura’s paintings—and Rachel’s chip.
For Rez, everything came back to Rachel’s chip. It had to. The quest for its origin had even gotten him to put his exoplanet search on hold.
But why didn’t he want their help? Why was he pushing them away? They were supposed to be a team, weren’t they?
At least twice a day, Violet tried to contact him on his console. No reply.
Okay, Rez. Have it your way, she finally told herself. When he wanted them, when he needed their help, he’d call them back together, but not a second before. She was sure of it.
Because Rez was Rez.
* * *
Violet sat in her Senate office, behind the big brown desk whose many drawers were all still empty. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what to fill them with.
It was the third day of Rez’s self-imposed exile.
She had taken off her console and now absentmindedly rubbed her wrist in the spot where the console usually was.
This wasn’t a job for a console.
Spread out in front of her were two sheets of paper. Everything she had written on the sheets so far she had quickly crossed out, either with a straight line or with a bunch of crazy, overlapping circles.
Nothing she’d written this afternoon sounded even halfway right. She knew what she wanted to say, but the proper phrases were just … beyond … her … reach.
The letter needed to be perfect in every way. That’s why she had opted for pen and paper instead of her console. When the words were really important, she went retro. She liked the feel of a pen in her hand, plus the sound of that pen scratching along a square piece of real paper. Her father had told her about that feel, and that sound, and one day, just to please him, she’d tried it. He was right. Actual writing—forming letters and numbers with your own hand, in your own way, on a real piece of paper—was much more satisfying than using a fingertip to touch a console screen here and there.
Her console chirped. The sky-blue jewel told her it was Jonetta.
“Got some news,” Jonetta said, “about the research you asked me to do. Can you meet me tonight? Won’t take long.”
She knew Jonetta hadn’t found Ogden Crowley’s console. If she had, she would have led with the news. So this had to be something else.
“Sure. How about Redshift?”
“Really?” Jonetta’s voice was incredulous. “You want to meet there?”
Violet had fully expected her to question the location. Not only was Redshift the worst place imaginable to carry on a conversation—it was always loud and always dark and always crowded—but it held complicated memories for Violet, a fact that Jonetta knew all too well.
But Violet had her reasons.
“Yeah. I do. Oh, how’s Tin Man?”
She hadn’t told Jonetta about Rachel’s chip, or, before that, about Rez’s search for the exoplanet, or about the threat of New Earth’s diminishing orbit. Jonetta was a good, trustworthy friend, but Violet kept her in the layer just outside the inner ring of her friends. She wasn’t part of the core.
“He’s fine,” Jonetta answered. “Too restless to hang out at his house for very much longer, that’s for sure. How’d he get so beat up, anyway? He wouldn’t say.”
“Wrong place, wrong time. I’ll meet you at Redshift in twenty minutes, okay?”
* * *
Redshift.
If there were an unofficial HQ for anybody on New Earth between the ages of sixteen and nineteen, Violet often thought, it would be Redshift. A raucous dance club, a reliable hookup spot, a stage for the best new music, and the birthplace of the trendiest new drinks, Redshift was legendary. At night, the sky above it was shot through with the crisscrossing beams of its rooftop strobe lights, and the street that ran in front of it was packed with Unis and private cars and bobbing throngs of people. Through the golden double doors that marked the entrance would parade couples and threesomes and individuals—it didn’t matter if you came by yourself, because nobody ever left that way—with the joy of bright expectancy on every face.
Violet had happily wasted many, many hours in Redshift over the last few years. She’d danced, she’d knocked back a fair number of Neptunia Nodes, she’d melted into the throbbing frenzy of the band’s bass beat, a beat with which your heartbeat automatically synched up.
But she hadn’t been to Redshift in months. Not since she had become Senator Crowley.
Which was precisely why she wanted to go there tonight for her meeting with Jonetta.
* * *
It was the same old Redshift.
Jumping lights, velvety darkness, laugher that erupted in great blurts of alcohol-fueled hilarity, music so loud that it made you want to rip your ears off and swaddle them in Bubble Wrap—but in a good way.
Violet spotted a high metal table with two stools at the far edge of the dance floor. She nabbed it. Except for the mini-explosions of light that pierced the room at erratic intervals, the club was blackout dark. In the old days, that was what she’d relished about the place. It was a melting, come-closer kind of darkness. It was a darkness that scooped you up and whispered, You belong here. She’d been comforted by this darkness over and over again, on nights when she was sure her world was unraveling for good.
Being back here, though, felt just a little bit strange. She’d outgrown this, hadn’t she? Outgrown the need for thumping music and the oily closeness of sweaty bodies and the floating, magical feeling? She was way too old for the place, right? She was nineteen now, and a senator, and Redshift was—
“Hey, Violet.”
She flinched. Jonetta had approached on her blind side, leaning over to speak in Violet’s ear because the music was so loud.
“Jonetta, hey.” She waved toward the empty stool.
“What?”
“I said, ‘Hey.’”
“What?”
“HEY.”
Jonetta nodded. “So now you get why I didn’t want to meet here. I mean, come on,” she said, raising her voice and carefully enunciating each word.
And then, a piece of luck dropped in their laps. The band took a break. It was a robot band tonight, and robot bands were always louder than human ones. In an instant, the fuzzy static and frantic, writhing guitar riffs were replaced by the ordinary noise of a club: talk, laughter, the constant clink of glassware.
“Just wanted to see the place again,” Violet said. “Haven’t been back since I took the Senate seat. It used to be my second home.”
“Yeah. I know.” Jonetta’s voice had a sarcastic edge. As Violet’s assistant at Crowley & Associates Detective Agency, she’d covered for her boss on many mornings when Violet was hung over after an all-nighter at this very club. Occasionally, Violet would fall asleep at her desk after an especially manic evening at Redshift.
“Those days,” Violet said with a rueful sigh, “are gone forever.”
Jonetta looked around. “Do you see any of your old friends yet?”
“Nope. Which is great. Buy you a drink?”
“No, thanks. Actually, I don’t have a lot of time. I’m work
ing on five different cases. Can you believe it?”
Violet could believe it. Jonetta was a better detective and businesswoman than she’d ever been. Which wasn’t a stretch.
Detective—strike one. Senator—strike two. Would she ever find what she was truly meant to do? Violet shook her head. She needed to focus. This wasn’t Career Day.
“So no luck finding the console, I guess,” Violet said glumly. “Even in those new places you were going to try.”
“Right. And trust me, I worked at it. Talked to everybody who’d had any contact with your dad in the last few weeks of his life, to see if they knew where he put it.” Jonetta hesitated. Violet couldn’t see the details of her face beyond its general shape—the club was too dark—but she could guess at the expression: thoughtfulness, a kind of quiet knowing.
“My guess,” Jonetta added, “is that he hid it deliberately. It wasn’t just misplaced. Your dad went to great lengths to make sure you didn’t get his console. At least not right away.”
Violet was about to react; that had been Evie Carruthers’s theory, too, and it still rankled. A sudden spike of laughter rose from the other side of the room, followed by hoots and a lot of clapping and whistling.
All at once, she felt a hollowness opening up inside her. The laughter had reminded her of Mickey and his nonstop barrage of terrible jokes. And she really did miss the AstroRob. But there was more to it, too. There were other things she missed. She missed … herself. Herself—and days gone by. She missed the girl who, not too long ago, would’ve been on the other side of the room right now, laughing, dancing, raising hell, having fun. She had to be an adult now. She had to figure out what profession she ought to be pursuing. Oh, and while she was doing that, she also had to help her friends save New Earth.
Easy-peasy, Violet thought ruefully.
“Violet?”
She shook off the gloom. Returned her attention to the here and now, which meant returning her attention to Jonetta. “Yeah. Right here. Okay. Listen, my dad was an old man. He misplaced things. All the time. That’s what old people do. They forget.”
“Not a console.” Jonetta’s voice was firm. “And not if you’re the founder and former president of New Earth, and you’ve been keeping a console journal for years and years, which you intend to donate to the New Earth History Museum someday. The director of Starbridge told me that. He also told me how carefully your dad kept track of it. He always had his console with him, even on the day he died.”
Violet’s mind flashed back to the last time she saw her father. His heart had been failing rapidly. The head of the Starbridge nursing staff called her. Come now, the woman said.
Leaning over him as he lay motionless in his bed, taking his last weary, labored breaths, she had told him she loved him as she held his hand …
And there was no console on his wrist. She recalled that specifically.
It might have been in a drawer, of course. Or on a high shelf. In another room. But she’d scoured the apartment. And now so had Jonetta.
“It’s right here in my notes,” Jonetta said. Her voice drew Violet out of her reverie. “Hold on.” She touched her own console, bringing up a lemon-yellow jewel. A second touch opened it. “So after our formal interview, the director was just making small talk about how important consoles are to life. How they’re really an extension of our very selves. They contain the record of who we are. He said he’d made the same point to your dad, the day before he died. And your dad nodded and recited a poem.”
“A poem?”
“Yeah. Well, part of one, anyway. The director didn’t know where it came from. But your dad, he said, closed his eyes and started talking. The director recorded it and wrote it down. Here goes: ‘That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true / Such is life’s trial, as Old Earth smiles and knows.’ I looked it up. It’s a line from a poem by an Old Earth poet named Robert Browning. Ring any bells?”
“My father always admired his work,” Violet replied. “But as for how it relates to his console? Nope. Not a clue.”
“Guess you don’t have much time these days to read Old Earth poetry. What with being a senator and all.”
“I don’t have much time to do anything except wish I knew how to do a better job.” Violet had surprised herself with that outburst. She hadn’t intended to discuss this with Jonetta. “I guess,” she continued, “I wanted to use this little visit to Redshift as a test. To see how it felt. To remember when I used to have fun.”
“Fun?” Jonetta’s eyes widened. “Is that how you remember it? Frankly, you seemed pretty lost back then, Vi.” She used her old nickname for Violet—the one Violet hated—to rock her friend back to reality. “Drinking too much and hanging out with strange guys is not the behavior of somebody who’s happy.”
“I didn’t say I was happy. I just said I had fun.”
“Good point.”
“So that’s why I might do it.”
“Do what?”
“Resign my Senate seat. I was drafting a letter of resignation when you called.”
“Who-o-o-a.” Jonetta stretched out the word. “That’s huge, Violet.”
“Yeah.”
Jonetta checked her console. “I’m late for an interview, but I’ll cancel it if you need to talk. Just let me—”
Violet’s console chirped. The black jewel was marked URGENT. It was Rez.
“Something big’s happened,” he declared. “I mean big. Come to the lab. Right now. I’ve called the others, too. They’re on their way.”
Everything else slipped out of Violet’s mind: her father’s missing console, her potential resignation from the Senate, the fact that she missed Redshift like you’d miss a bad-for-you friend who was nevertheless irresistible.
She slid off her stool so fast she could’ve created friction burns on her backside.
“Later, Jonetta.”
* * *
Rez stood triumphantly in the center of his lab. His friends made a half circle around him: Violet, Shura, Kendall, Tin Man.
He had arranged Shura’s paintings all around the tight space, propping the canvases on the floor, leaning each one against a black stack of computer equipment.
He looked terrible. His hair was bunched across his scalp in random oily lumps, the result of his absentminded plucking while he worked at his computer, and his eyes were ringed with red. Clearly, he hadn’t used the time off to sleep, eat, change his clothes, or—Like that would ever happen, Violet told herself—shower.
He kind of … kind of smells a little bit, too. She wondered again at her weird choice of crushes.
But in an instant, those trivial concerns vanished. And she realized that, for all of his dishevelment, Rez was beaming.
Feet spread, hands on his hips, eyes feverishly bright, Rez addressed his friends. Hurriedly, his voice buoyed by excitement, he said, “I did it.”
“Did what?” Kendall asked.
“Well, a bunch of things, but let’s start with this. I know what the HELP message means.”
Kendall seemed exasperated. “What’s to figure out? Come on, Rez. You pulled me out of a staff meeting for this? The aliens—whoever they are—need assistance.”
“Yeah,” Violet said. She, too, was annoyed at being summoned on false pretenses, even though she’d left a bar instead of a staff meeting.
Shura was slightly perturbed as well. She put in a Yeah for solidarity’s sake.
“NO,” Rez thundered right back at them. “That is totally incorrect. Well, it’s half right. But it’s half wrong, too.”
Silence.
“The aliens,” Rez went on, “weren’t just asking for help. They were also offering it.”
More silence, but it was a different kind of silence now. It was a curious, tell-me-more silence.
“That’s what I’ve spent the last three days figuring out,” Rez said. “Using Shura’s paintings, I was able to reverse engineer the alien language. I started with their emotions and worked my way up to their wo
rds. Words into sentences. And so on.”
“How did you do that?” Violet asked.
“Art is data. It’s just information in another form.” Rez looked appreciatively at Shura. “I used your paintings and everything they told us about alien emotions and cross-referenced all of it with my cryptographic study of their language. Each time they tried to come up with one of our words to describe their emotions—remember trillum and nogg and waw?—I linked the word to a painting. Bit by bit, painting by painting, letter by letter, word by word, I cracked the code. I figured out the alien vernacular. Then I loaded it into my Simultaneous Translation app.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “They sent us a real message, not just the bits and pieces of their emotions, a few minutes ago.”
“Hold on,” Kendall said. “Given the distances involved, it would take thousands of years for a message to get from them to us. This can’t be coming in real time. It’s impossible.”
“No. It’s not,” Rez answered. “I mean, I can see why you’d think so, given twenty-third-century technology. But they’re far ahead of us.” He paused, trying to find a way to explain it. When he started speaking again, it was, Violet realized, the first time she’d ever heard Rez explain something when he wasn’t trying to sound superior, when he wasn’t trying to put somebody else down because they didn’t understand right away. His excitement at the new knowledge had made him leave all of that behind—the arrogance and the sarcastic edge, all of the things that had intensified after Rachel’s death.
“Here’s the deal,” Rez said in the patient voice of a teacher. “When I started reverse engineering the signal, I discovered how they were communicating with us. Think of it as a Time Tether. Like the Virtual Tether that enabled them to send the images to Shura’s imagination, the Time Tether syncs up two different epochs in time. Everything in the universe is really happening simultaneously. Time is just an artificial construct, a way of sorting things out and keeping track of them. Otherwise, it would be mass confusion—everything happening at the same time. The Time Tether taps back into that original simultaneity.”
