Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(13)

She thought of something Vallejo had said a while back: “You want a war? Bomb the hell out of something.”

But you didn’t start a war after all, Vallejo, you bag of dicks. You failed.

A giggle rose up in her throat, so inappropriate. She washed it down with more cocktail. It crossed her mind that she wasn’t a giggler, generally, and no way the alcohol could be affecting her behavior so quickly.

Message three: the colonel in charge of the Texas-Oklahoma border reported no new drone attacks. The pause in conflict wasn’t speeding her toward her cabinet post, plus this silence had a stink of Texas on it. Like they were planning something bigger. She was still waiting for the other boot to fall. And it would, she had zero doubts.

Message item four: a nuncio from the Holy See, the person who used to be her Vatican counterpart when she was in the foreign service, would be visiting the Inland East Coast Territory next week and wanted to hook up. Well, not in that sense. In the papal one. Probably he wanted to pray over the victims of Mother Nature’s latest violence, or pray for the future of humanity, or some such bullshit.

“Query the security situation on that one and have housekeeping at the Eastern Command prep for guests, just in case,” she told mech-Daniel. “It might be good for a vid op if nothing else. If I can’t get there in person, you can paste me in.”

“Query sent,” the machine said pleasantly. “Rafael Castrejon messaged on your personal channel. He says ratings for your ‘Daniel Lives’ episode were, quote, big-sexy, and would you and your husband—that would be me, I suppose—be interested in giving a tour of your shared home and marital bliss?”

Um, she’d need to get back to him on that one. Next.

“And finally,” said mech-Daniel in a slightly different tone, “you have a response from your earlier conversation.”

Excitement sliced through her body.

“Yes, that. Give me that one.” Stupid blood, racing. Stupid brain, calling up memories like a sweaty panorama.

Mech-Daniel blinked several times, and his eyes tracked upward and to the left. He had facial tells for various programmatic routines, but this expression was something he seemed to have devised on his own. As far as Angela could discern, it meant he disliked what he was about to do, but he was a machine, so he did it anyway.

“‘And O, ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, forebode not any severing of our loves,’” he intoned.

Angela paused with the now down-to-the-dregs drink halfway to her mouth. “Come again?”

He repeated the message. It clanged into her brain space, dissonant in a way that meant…something. She just couldn’t hold onto the thought noodle long enough to inspect it.

The rim of the whiskey bulb wobbled in and out of focus.

“Reply,” she murmured, raising one hand to knuckle the blur out of her eyes. “Tell him, ‘But those first affections, be they what they may, have the power to make our noisy years seem moments in the being, the eternal silence. Truths that perish…never.’”

No, that wasn’t right. The quote. It wasn’t right, which was wrong, because she was always right. Or maybe everything was wrong.

The fuzzies closed in. Warped in. Rosed in, flower petals in backward bloom, poppy-pink and shrinking together in a soft, secret huddle, regressing. Whiff of green on the air, chemically not rose petals, breath held in expectation of sudden beauty. But nothing happened. No flowers opened. The green smell deepened to black.

She was asleep but knew it. With certainty, she knew it. She was asleep. Boozy sleep? Sweet puppy eyes, spiked drinksy, and tight-furled flower sleep. A sleep: just one sleep, or multiple sleeps?

Dreaming.

Totally dreaming, all of it, even the part where the joints of the Hotel Riu slipped and then came loose. Far, far away, a giant moaned in protest. She reclined in its belly, shifting as it rolled. The building/giant’s long bones snapped, and the sound was a cannon shot. The whole world lurched, a quake deep in the earth. Did they have earthquakes in Guadalajara? How far south did the San Andreas fault go? Or wait, wasn’t there a volcano around here somewhere?

Geology had never been her strong suit. Angela was more of a geography girl. She could draw those lines herself.

Lines. Separations. Breaking. A fissure appeared in the wall, branching and leaving, a time-lapse of a tree in springtime, emerging from dormancy. The night crackled like superheated popcorn. Or maybe something else was popping. Something she didn’t want to think about. Staccato.

The arched doorway to the bathroom, clearly made of children’s modeling clay, folded in on itself.

Move. Don’t wallow. Only useless princesses get rescued. Smart girls rescue themselves. Paralyzed. Sleep stalking at the wrongest fucking time.

If I sleep, I die.

The last thought roared in out of nowhere and smelled like truth. It should have been followed by regret, deep ache for the people who would miss her, but that was…well, who, really? She couldn’t summon any sadness for her parents. They started the missing-her process a long time ago, when they sent her away to school halfway around the world. Her mentor? Zeke might hurt, but her death would be the best thing that ever happened to his campaign. An October surprise. He’d win in a landslide.

There was no one. No one else. Not anymore.

I’m going to die alone. Her brain accepted the statement with fatalistic calm.