Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(20)
Angela’s stomach rumbled. Because of grass. Not braised lobster or sweet floss halva. Grass. She was hungry enough that her belly was excited over a bunch of grass. Yeah, this day was looking up.
And that thought reminded her in a rush of how the day had started. Somebody had tried to kill her. Probably still wanted her dead. She tasted the sour of panic in her mouth and swallowed it back.
“Right,” she said evenly. “You mean the drought makes water for bathing a luxury. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive.” Or like a fucking princess. “In fact, I don’t need much to be comfortable.” A lie. “Did you know I was ambassador to the nation of Jolet Jin Anij, before it was sunk?” Youngest actual ambassador—not a made-up “goodwill” bullshit title—in the history of the preunification U.S. government. That was still a point of pride for her, evidence she was doing something right.
Even if sometimes it felt like she’d gone far, far off course in this life.
Fanaida arched one brow on her incredibly wrinkly forehead. “Little girl, you might have lived in lots of places, but I wasn’t talking about maps and nations. Wasn’t even talking about deprivation. We got water here, courtesy of a reclamation system. What we don’t have is time for you to diva yourself before the folks in charge get a look at you. You might not realize it, but we’re taking some risks harboring a continental senator. We need to make sure you aren’t going to start shouting kidnappish things and cause trouble.”
“The folks in charge…that would be Dr. Farad, right?” And Kellen? Was he also one of the people in charge? Of this group of questionable ethics and lurid behavior? She needed to step lightly.
“He’s one. Also my wife and Doc Hockley and young Garrett…we got a team here. A family. If you want to stay, most likely nobody is gonna put you out on your ass, but we gotta make sure you’re on board with our mission, dig?”
“Mission?”
“Haven’t you been riding next to this smelly sweet thing the last three hours?”
“An orphan infant camelid is your mission?”
The old lady snorted. “Yeah. She kind of is.” She left off petting the vicu?a and stared hard at Angela. “The Pentarc is a refuge. We have critters here, like Azul, but we also have, last I checked, upward of three hundred human refugees as well, folks we’ve snatched from parts of the world that were no longer safe. Seventy from Sudan, before the fall. Three extended families from Jolet Jin Anij.” She snorted. “Maybe you know them personally, ambassador girl.”
Angela’s head ached, but she struggled to keep her mien placid, concerned. “You saved them, before the ocean came?”
“I wasn’t on that mission, but yeah, my boys did. They swooped in and let anybody who could climb get on board. And then they brought the immigrants here. Poor souls still haven’t gotten over the trauma, but we’ll keep them until they’re able to stand being out in the world again. If. And it don’t matter if they never can. We will keep them safe. Because they matter.” She was looking at the orphan vicu?a when she said it. Her thin hands stroked fur.
Angela wasn’t sure what to say to that. She too had spent her life in service. But she had never rescued people on the brink of oblivion. She had never been a savior or superhero. Her work had always been more…administrative. And yet it had felt good, creating coalitions, reminding her diplomatic opposites of their bonds, of the bonds that all humans shared. She had pressured the international courts up to that last day to allow the residents of Jolet Jin Anij to emigrate without the requisite agreements in place. The world court had denied her request. The wheels of nations moved so slowly.
She had watched on satellite vid as the last speck of the big island disappeared beneath the ocean. Her team had dialed the screen resolution back so she didn’t have to see up close and real-time death on a massive scale. They didn’t know she’d gone back and watched, over and over, forcing her soul to embrace the horror. The guilt.
Angela had done all she could. Hadn’t she?
And yet, these people, Kellen’s people, had done more.
Mech-Daniel broke in with a quiet reminder that he had downloaded the meeting invitation and could lead her to the conference room where Dr. Farad awaited her.
She started and moved toward her robot husband, but Fanaida caught her by the arm. Something warm and electric arced from the old lady’s body to hers, and black eyes pierced her. Hard, those eyes, but curiously not judgmental. Like she’d seen all the world had to give, and she’d decided Angela was neither the best nor the worst of it. Or that maybe she had some potential for good.
“We aren’t the bad guys, no matter what you’ve been told.” The old woman leaned down and pressed a dry-lipped kiss to Angela’s forehead. “Now go see my son.”
The gesture felt solemn. Weighty. A benediction. Or maybe Angela was just out-of-her-gourd exhausted.
And no, there was nothing wet on her face, certainly nothing as pedestrian—as weak—as tears. She straightened her skirt and followed mech-Daniel to the central lift. Nothing at all.
? ? ?
Between the ages of five and twenty, Angela had been nurtured and taught in a hyperstructure, the Mustaqbal Institute, where all the uncommonly clever children were brought to learn. The school had covered more than six square kilometers and contained more than forty thousand souls, so the Pentarc, for all its size and heft, didn’t intimidate her, not one bit.