I feel a pinch at my waist and I whirl. Raine smiles. I swear she must have hidden wings she can move so silently. I glance around, looking for the nugget-head, but for the moment we’re alone and I quickly take a chance and kiss her, knowing it will likely be my last opportunity of the day.
My timing has become impeccable. Two seconds later, Hap appears at the garage stairway with Shane at his side. They walk toward us. Raine and I casually step apart like we aren’t even aware of each other’s presence.
Shane inserts himself between us. “Cece’s late as usual, I see.”
“Why didn’t you just have her pick you up at your own place?” I ask.
“Why didn’t you?” he returns.
“I was already in the area.”
He smiles. “As was I.”
It’s going to be a long day.
Cece arrives with Vina and Ian already in the car, a long black job with four rows of seats, a modern-day stretch limo that I imagine still sucks up fuel like a thirsty dragon—even if it is algae-based energy. Her family has to be loaded to get away with transportation like that. Maybe this is what the Secretary aspires to. Government pay, even when you’re raking in untold kickbacks from government contractors, still has to be limiting for someone of his ambitions. Hap doesn’t come with us. Apparently Cece’s bodyguard was deemed sufficient protection for all of us. I manage to get a seat opposite Vina, though she stretches out her foot to keep connecting with mine.
Our first stop is the riverfront. The abatement walls are indeed ugly. I almost want to suggest graffiti as a way to improve them, but I doubt that spray cans exist anymore and don’t want to even try to explain what that kind of art is. The walls were placed at the high-water mark before water levels began to recede slightly due to decades of global regulations. I look beyond these walls to the ones below that hem in the river now. Still large and still ugly, I wonder if they’ll ever be able to get rid of those too. Cece performs measurements and density tests to help analyze the cost of removal. Ian shows only cursory interest in the walls, which I have to admit are crumbling and being taken back by the earth anyway. Based on my estimates, they’ll be gone in another few hundred years, though unlike me, most people don’t have that kind of time to burn.
I try to feign interest. Notes are talked onto virtual tablets and added to measurements and videos and we all climb back into the car.
Next we stop at an experimental dance academy, then an improv studio, and finally, due to Sha
ne’s continuing insistence, the waterfront public tour kiosks. We get out of the car and walk past three, finally stopping at the wharf. No one speaks. Vina shields her eyes from the sun, looking at gulls overhead. Cece leans over the rail, looking at the water lapping below. Raine sits on a bench in the shade, her bored mask firmly in place. Disinterest is worn like a badge by everyone. Shane walks over and sits close to Raine, draping his arm behind her on the bench. I suddenly feel like Hap, wanting to cross over to him in three steps and lift him by the throat. He shoots me a smile, almost a dare, like he can read my mind.
Don’t touch her, pig.
“Well, I think that we have a winner,” he says, breaking the silence. He goes on to proclaim his suggestion as the clear project choice and estimates that the ratio of tourists to Tour Bots is a hundred to one.
“How’d you come up with that number?” Ian asks.
“I eyed it.”
“Who cares anyway?” Cece asks.
“The Collective will, for one. It would benefit the most Citizens. We want this thing approved don’t we?”
“We aren’t finished yet,” I say. “We still have another stop.”
“No we don’t,” Shane says. “The Non-pact suggestion was stricken as an option.”
Ian steps forward. “By who?”
“If you must know, the Secretary himself. He said it was an inappropriate proposal. And of course, he’s right.”
Raine swallows. Her expression has gone from bored to alert.
Ian glares at Shane. “And just how did he find out about it?”
Shane shrugs.
I take a deep breath. And then another, my eyes drilling into Shane. Don’t let the enemy push you before you’re ready.
I’m ready.
“So, that’s not stopping us, right?” I say, pasting on a cheerful smile. “All projects don’t have to be on Collective time. I’m still in.”
There’s a brief moment of shocked silence before Vina chimes in, “Me too!”