Darla groaned and rolled off the link bed, thumping to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Gods! What time was it?
“About time you woke up, sleepyhead,” her father's voice called up the staircase.
She put a hand on the bed and climbed to her feet, dusting her coveralls off. Making a face at herself in the wall mirror, she patted her hair back into place and went down the stairs to face Reality.
“You missed the breakfast rush,” Manny remarked, sliding a plate of sausage and scrambled eggs in front of her as she slumped into one of the stools at the counter.
“Sorry about that,” she mumbled, around a mouthful of eggs. “I must have forgotten to set the alarm.”
“Well, it wasn't that much of a breakfast crowd anyway,” he said. “Don't talk with your mouth full. I just hope it was because you were studying late.”
She swallowed and forked another helping into her mouth to avoid answering. Her father had a keen ear for guilt, having experienced his own share over the years.
He noticed the silence. “You were studying, weren't you?”
She took the cup he handed her and sipped the worst coffee in the world. True karmic punishment: had she arisen earlier, she would have made a better pot herself, as usual. Her father was a good man, but his idea of coffee was that it was something to wake up with, not something to enjoy. She made a note to dump the pot when his back was turned and make something decent for the lunch crowd.
“Did Agnes call back?” she asked him innocently.
“Again with the distractions. Forget Mrs. Neuburg, I told you already. Fix your own life and let me fix mine, okay? And fixing yours means keeping your grades up. There was a message for you,” he remarked, changing the subject abruptly to forestall an argument.
“A message?” She frowned. “From who?”
“You see? My point exactly. You need to stop gaming and go out and meet some real people once in a while. Then maybe you'd at least have a chance of guessing who messages you.”
“My teammates are real people,” she said, tired of that old argument. “Who was it?”
Manny padded over behind the register and tapped a key. The antique monitor was not as old as it appeared. “Someone called Farker,” he said. “is that a real name, 'Farker'?”
“It's real,” she told him, getting up to look at the message. “I met him last night.” The message was short. All it said was:
Please contact me at your earliest convenience.
We need to talk about your new friend. – Farker
New friend? Who did he mean, Cheiron or Ace? She deleted the message, wishing she had been awake to do it before her father saw it. But she could see from the little smile on his face that the damage had been done.
“So you made two new friends last night!” His smile upgraded to a grin. “Maybe it wasn't a total waste of an evening after all. Tell me about both of them. Does the other one have a better name than 'Farker'?”
“That depends on your criteria,” she retorted. “It's hard to pronounce, so I just call him Ace. I think he's Greek.”
“Oh.” His grin vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. “Well maybe you should call this Farker, then. He sounds more promising to me. Foreign you don't need. Plenty of them on this continent already.”
Darla raised an eyebrow. There was no need to state the obvious. Her father had been raised on a kibbutz in Israel. If W3 had never happened, she doubted that he would be here in the former United States. But United Earth had erased the old borders, more or less. Moving from the State of Israel to the State of America was as uncomplicated as moving from old New York to old California was in the pre-War days: merely a matter of moving expenses.
But she didn't bring that up. She knew he had emigrated because of Elizabeth. So she just settled for a politically correct reply. “There are no more foreigners, Dad. United Earth makes us all citizens.”
He snorted. “Slogans? Yeah, I know. I was in the UE Army, or had you forgotten? But it's just as easy to fall in love with someone who lives near you as it is to love someone far away. Easier, even. I know what I'm talking about.” And he paused to touch his shirt pocket again and closed his eyes for a moment.
Darla seized her chance and dumped the coffeepot in the sink and turned on the water to rinse the dregs down the drain. “I'm making a fresh pot,” she said. “You want some?”
He made a dismissive gesture. “No, thank you. I can't afford to drink your coffee. Someone has to stay awake to run the grille. Fortunately, I've had two cups of my own already.”
She sighed as she poured coffee grounds into another paper liner and refilled the ancient drip coffee machine's water reservoir. “Please don't make the coffee anymore,” she begged. “Our roaches are getting hyperactive from the fumes alone.”
“Life goes on, even while you're asleep,” he retorted. “So what should I be serving the breakfast crowd when you sleep late? Tea?” He made a face. “Or do you think everyone loves NeWater as much as you do? Fish drink water. For paying customers, we have coffee. What kind of a diner would I be running if people couldn't get a decent cup of coffee?” He hoisted a plastic trash bag out of the trash can by the grille and took it out back to the dumpster.
“Fish don't drink water,” she called at his receding back. “They breathe it. Not everyone breathes coffee, like you do.”
She glanced at the register's display again. Ye gods, she really had overslept. It was almost time for the lunch crowd. She felt a stab of guilt, but smothered it by managing to work up some righteous indignation that Manny had read her email.
Chapter 13: Aes: Aes meets an old friend
Gamers and Gods: AES Page 16
