Jamal grunted. “Not great. You checked your account lately?”
“I've considered it from time to time,” I said, “but I keep thinking...no. I'd like to make this a one-way broadcast thing. I upload pictures or say something, everybody listens, I take zero feedback and just keep living my life without listening to anyone else's bullshit.”
He blinked a couple times. “That's...not really how social media is supposed to work.”
“But it's how I want it to work,” I said. “Imagine my alternatives: log in, scan the comments of people all over the world who have seen me on TV just this morning doing...I don't know, some sort of killing in an exotic environment, like Alabama. 'I think you were just a touch too mean today,'” I said in a high and mocking, schoolmarm voice. “'Why can't you be nice and gentle when you lay smack down on bad guys? Would it kill you to put a little more kindness out there in the world?' And the answer is, yes, Karen. Yes, it might kill me to be nicer to people trying to murder me and destroy the world. Now get your yoga-pants-wearing ass back to the wine bar and let me try to save your sheep self from the wolves.”
Jamal broke into a wicked case of the giggles. “Yeah, that's probably how it'd go.”
“I know it,” I said, tapping my fingers against the denim on my thigh. I really wanted a drink for some (fairly obvious) reason. “Which is why I don't read the comments. Sure, most of them would probably be fine. Some might even be encouraging. But the Karens of the world?” I shook my head. “If you want me to rehab my image, we should probably limit my contact to people.”
“You may have a point there,” Jamal said, and scrolled up the page a little. He parked it on a post from...someone. I leaned in to look, and he blew up the picture a little bit. I didn't recognize them. “This is 'Confuzius282,' an influencer in the health and wellness space. Kind of a life coach that does a lot of fitness videos, yoga, whatnot.”
I stared at the picture. It looked like a slightly malnourished white man who hovered around the age of forty. His hair was a little curly up top, and he sported a few days of beard growth. Also, he had no shirt on, but concave chests weren't my thing. “Is it mean if I ask if some of his dietary advice crosses into the realm of encouraging eating disorders?”
Jamal thought about it for a second. “Yes. But that's not the point of this. Read the post.”
“What did I just say about reading internet comments?”
“Don't reply to it. Just read.”
“Ugh,” I said, putting the full oomph of my miserable teenage girl tendencies behind the expression. “Fine.”
Seeing the events in Jersey City play out today, I can't help but catch a super bad energy from this. Anyone who knows me knows that my feelings about the damage we are doing to the planet run very deep...and that desperate times are going to require very desperate measures...
I read a little further and resisted the urge to throw up in my mouth. “Blargh, he's rooting for them.” I almost batted the laptop out of his hand in pure frustration. “Also, this is the most sanctimonious, narcissistic horseshit I've ever read. It's all 'I, me, my.' 'I think,' 'my feelings' – am I supposed to care about the feelings of others?”
Jamal pursed his lips before speaking. “Most would consider that a baseline human tendency, yeah.”
“Well, I don't,” I said, reaching over and closing the laptop lid before he had a chance to inflict any more of this slug's bleeding feelz onto me. “This is the deal – I save their lives, they don't make me experience any of their excess heartbreaks.” Man, I wanted a drink. “If I don't know these people, why do I have to feel their pain? No, not even pain, because this guy hasn't lost a family member to climate change or the nuclear near-meltdown today. That I could understand. That I could empathize with.” I thumped my chest above my heart. “That'd get me right about here, in fact.”
I waved my hand at the laptop. “But people sitting behind screens, sharing their tiny feels about their perceptions of reality? People complaining about being upset that we killed some villain that was setting fires and blowing things up? They can go fuck themselves.”
Jamal raised an eyebrow. “How do you know anyone's saying anything like that?”
“It's the internet. Some asshat somewhere is always saying shit like that.”
“You're not wrong.” He chuckled again under his breath. “But about this...this whole thing.” He opened the laptop again. “The point I was making in reading this...this guy–”
“Confuzedass69?”
Jamal almost smiled. Almost. “He's not the only influencer – or normal person – seeing the silver lining in the acts of our villains. There's an undercurrent beneath this. One that prompted those copycats in Jersey.”
I clenched my hands. “One that'll prompt more, you think?”
“It could,” Jamal said.
I tried to calm my twitchy nerves as I sat there next to him. “You worried?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, and stopped messing with the computer. “I know my brother...comes on strong. And he's not wrong about politicians taking advantage of things for their own power. But climate change? It worries me. And I ain't much of a worrier, you know?”
“I don't...” My hand jumped a little as I squeezed it. “I don't know what to think anymore, Jamal. I can't process the deeper arguments. I think it'd take a scientist to.”
“I've listened to some of the scientists. The things they say? That's what worries me. Not what the politicians spout off about.” He waved a hand. “The idea of what happens when those IPCC estimates come in, and tracts of the world are flooded, and–”
“Good news on that: so far the modeling has sucked.”
“Well, that's kind of how modeling works, isn't it? You make a guess. It's off. You dial it in closer to right.” He stared at me through those shining glasses. “Would you rather them be wrong in the conservative direction? 'Uh, bad news, guys, we were wrong about our modeling, and now the entire state of Florida is completely underwater twenty years sooner than we predicted. Sorry about that, it's a little late to do anything, though. Our bad.'”
I laughed at his funny voice. “You may have a point there.”
“I'd rather they err on the side of 'Manhattan is NOT completely underwater yet,' you know?”
“Mmmmmaybe. Having lived there recently...” I shrugged. “It's very...people-y.”
“I like people all right,” Jamal said.
“So do I. At the appropriate distance.”
“You going to set up residency on Mars, then?”
I chuckled again. “You are en fuego today.”
“I don't get as hot as you when you're on fire, but...I have my moments.” He brushed the port of the computer. “This is the thing, though, Sienna...what if it's all right? What if we do flood? What if the crops die off? What if the mass extinctions–”
“Jamal,” I said softly, and he stopped. “Listen to me, because this is so important. There is only so much we can control in life.”
“I'm not sure that's true,” he said.
“There is only so much we should endeavor to control in life,” I amended, “because when you start reaching beyond that...you kind of become the worst humanity has to offer, regardless of your intentions when you start out. Look at the Soviets. The Chinese Communists. They were responding to dramatic economic inequalities, and they ended up killing over 100 million people. So many they can't even properly count it. Toss in Cambodia, Vietnam...all the other places. This is what humanity does when it tries to remake the world in whatever direction they think is best: we destroy.”
“You can't tell me there's not a way–”
“I can tell you these people haven't found the way,” I said. “All those oil wells, the tanker, the refinery, all that pollution. How many people died from that? How many would have died? Old folks in nursing homes, people with respiratory conditions that would be slowly choking in their own juices if we hadn't put out the fires, if Reed hadn't blown that bad air away?
How much of a black eye did they just give nuclear power, which is the only near-zero-emission power source there is that reasonably works right now? Never mind the people the meltdown could have killed, just look at their professed aims – zero emissions – and what they just did that set those things back. Who knows when they'll build another nuclear power plant now? Oil is probably leaking into the groundwater in North Dakota right now, and there's nothing we can do about it until we get free of having to chase these clowns, because Augustus is maybe the only one of us who can actually stop those plasma bursts.”
“Why not have Reed hire Veronika?” Jamal asked. “Why not call back Greg Vansen, have him jet us around? Get this thing over fast.”
“We're not rich,” I said. “Publicly, at least. Though if this goes on much longer, I may have to. Under the table.”
“I don't know,” Jamal said, just shaking his head. “I hear you. Everything you say sounds reasonable. And I agree, they're not doing us any favors on their...awareness tour or whatever it is. They ain't solving the problem. But I don't see anyone else solving it, either.”
“Because there really are no easy solutions,” I said softly. “Only hard ones.” I sighed, looking out at Reed, still talking to the agent in charge. “Only hard ones.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
Scout
The woods where they'd made camp were heavy, dense, and near a mountaintop. Scout could feel the air, lighter in her lungs than it would be closer to sea level. She was laboring – just a little harder – to breathe. Not as much as she had before she'd taken the serum, gotten the powers, but still...it made her wish she still had her inhaler and could take a quick hit to bring her back to an even plane.
Isaac had stalked off into the woods after they'd landed. Night was falling, they were somewhere in either West Virginia or Pennsylvania. None of them had GPS at this point; their phones, powered off, had gone into a river less than ten miles from the camp, and then they'd circled around and gone in the opposite direction.
“What's up his ass?” Francine asked. She'd sat against a tree, her leg, now grown back, extended in front of her, her pants leg shorn off where it had been burned cleanly below the knee. She scratched the stubble of hair on her calf.
Scout hesitated. They'd been sitting here for a few minutes. Isaac's footsteps had faded almost immediately, but still, neither of them had said anything until now. “I don't know,” she finally said, softly.
Francine brought her head around to look Scout right in the eye. “I've got some weed. You want to light up and talk about it?”
An uneasy giggle escaped Scout. “Hell yeah.”
They lit up and a few minutes later, they were laughing. Scout was feeling a lot looser, that slightly wavy-headed feeling already settled in. It made her next real question pop out easily, and with a lot less effort than if she'd had to work up to it.
“Did you sleep with Isaac in the control room of that refinery?”
Francine was in the middle of puffing her joint, and she coughed, cloud of smoke spewing out of her mouth as she choked on the hit. “How'd...you know?” she croaked.
“Nealon told me,” Scout said, feeling less of an internal deflation than she thought she would. “I thought maybe she was lying, but...”
Francine shook her head. “No.” She took a puff and held it, then puckered her lips and let it out slow. “No, we did that.” She wouldn't look Scout in the eye, though. “They...they walked in right in the middle of...” She offered Scout the joint, still not looking at her.
Scout took it. Why didn't she feel more...disappointed?
I'm sorry, Scout, AJ said. But you've kinda known for a while. In your heart, anyway.
“Yeah,” Scout said, exhaling.
“Was he your first?” Francine asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Scout said again, offering back the joint. “Yeah, he was.”
“I'm sorry,” Francine said, and she sounded like she really was. “God, I actually feel bad now. I was trying not to before because – look, monogamy is just another structure designed to imprison us, you know? It's like chains. Invisible chains.” She took a hit, held it, then blew it out slow. “Like so many other patriarchal structures designed to keep us in servitude to our man. So...yeah. I hit that. I'm sorry for you, but not that I did it.” She looked at Scout for the first time. “You need to reclaim your power. Don't get tied to one man.”
Scout's cheeks were burning. “Whatever. I've known for a while.”
“If you don't let yourself get tied to one man, you're not reliant on him, you know? You can be independent.” She took another hit. “You'll never be really free if you're tied to one person. And you need to get free, Scout.” She took another long puff before passing it over, and the joint blazed at the end. “You need to free your mind and your heart, because Isaac?” She shook her head. “He should have told you, but no way is that man being tied down to any one woman.”
“You don't know me, Francine.” Isaac's quiet voice pierced the gathering twilight. He came out from behind a tree, tossing something to each of them. They each caught it, of course. It was an easy lob.
Cell phones. New ones, burners.
“You go to Walmart or something?” Francine asked, peering at the object in her hand.
“Yeah,” Isaac said, slipping up next to her and snatching the joint out of her mouth before giving it a solid puff himself and letting it flow out of his mouth and nose. The smoke crawled up his face, and he went back for another. “Be more careful, huh? Only one of us using at a time.” He slipped his own into his pocket. “I went first so...fight it out amongst yourselves who goes next.”
“You can go,” Scout said. “I don't care.”
“Thanks,” Francine said, and turned hers on.
Isaac was watching Scout. She looked back. Wouldn't look away. Wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
He beckoned her, slowly walking backward into the trees.
Scout shook her head. Francine was buried in her phone, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction – the dignity – of trying to air their dirty laundry out of view. If he wanted to talk about it, he could talk about it here, in front of the other woman he'd slept with.
That's the way to do it, AJ said. Don't give him any ground. He might have been cool with polygamy, but he damned sure didn't say anything about it to you before he tried to get in your pants. Don't let him think it's okay to play you that way.
I won't, Scout said, in her mind. Thank you, AJ.
I'm with you, girlfriend.
Isaac must have gotten the point. He stopped walking backwards, came back toward them, still holding the joint. Francine had lost interest, was fully focused on her phone: head back against the tree, eyes closed, pale blue light dancing between her finger and the charging point as she talked right to the internet.
“Anyone want to talk about the next move?” Isaac asked. There seemed to be an experimental air to his question. “I've got a good one.”
Francine didn't say anything, and neither did Scout. She didn't feel the need to support Isaac in this. Not right now. “I'm tired,” she said. “We can talk about it tomorrow.” And she rolled over to go to sleep, giving him the cold shoulder he so rightly deserved.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE
Sienna
“Hey.”
The voice was soft, contrite, almost, and faded into my consciousness on a near-black background.
I opened my eyes to realize I was in a dreamwalk. Not one I'd conjured for myself, though I'd been trying (Harry, not answering or pre-empted by this), but one somebody else had pulled me into.
Scout.
“If it isn't the automobile industry's number one bugbear,” I quipped. “You know, other than unionization.”
Scout looked a little tattered. Or at least crestfallen. “Can we...not...right now?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not...what? Battle?”
She watched me with vague suspicion. “Yeah. You're after me all
day, I'm sure. Can we just declare a truce for nights?”
“Well, as you learned before,” I said, “while we can inflict pain on one another in dreams, there aren't any lasting effects from what we do in here.”
She brushed a hand against herself. “Well, I woke up hurting.”
I shrugged. “Pain gets to be an old friend after a while. And dreamwalk pain is like that old friend at his weakest. It fades almost immediately.”
She made a show of looking me up and down. “You've had a rough life, haven't you.” Not a question.
I conjured a couch out of the nothingness around us and plopped down. “This is what it takes to go after the bad guys. Pain, pain, and more pain, because they're not looking to wave the white flag at the first opportunity.”
Scout looked to the side. There was nothing there, so I assumed she was averting her eyes out of guilt. “I'm not like the villains you usually go after.”
I chuckled. “Sweetheart, you're exactly the villains I usually go after. Don't try and fool yourself otherwise.”
Her eyes flashed and now she looked right at me. “I'm not a villain. What I'm doing is right.”
“Said every villain ever.”
“You're wrong,” she said, and she started to pace, voice betraying her agitation. “You can't tell me these oil execs think they're right. Not when they know what they're doing. They're claiming everything is a scam, all the data, all the science–”
“It's a lot easier to claim that when the people coming hardest against you seem to want to use your industry as a punching bag for things that don't have anything to do with you,” I said. “You could make some really reasonable arguments against big oil. They're messy. They put a lot of carbon into the air. Those are the merits of the case, and it's not a bad one. But those aren't the lines of attack you hear most frequently.” I leaned forward on my couch. “What do people attack big oil on? 'They make obscene amounts of money.'”
“Poisoning the world.”
“Making it possible for people to actually live their lives,” I countered. “Look, I know you want to believe that this is all malicious and everything is terrible, the worst it's ever been, but modern life? This is the greatest we've ever had it as a species. And as much as we might hate it, part of that comes from oil. Without it, the transport industry – you know, the one that brings all our food to us – dies. All those nice clothes and electronics we use, too–”
Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39) Page 28
