Lise signals for her luggagebot to open. Carefully, she unpacks a long black evening gown and hangs it on the side of the storage unit. Then she takes a notebook and an automatic pencil, sits at the table, and begins making notations. She draws a distinctive V symbol on the page. Her Band hums; it’s Maim. She smiles and accepts the call.
“Hello,” she says.
“Hello, miss me?”
“It’s only been a day, but yes, what are you doing?”
“I’m in bed.”
“You’re on my side, aren’t you?”
“Yes. And I’m wearing your clothes.”
“Ha, well you should be here with me, except there’s nothing to be here for. It’s off.”
“What do you mean, it’s off?”
“She called it off. There’s no wedding; she’s not in love.”
“Oh good lordt, and you’ve come all that way. Is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine. It was the right thing to do, and I’m glad I’m here. I needed to be here. And I might stick around for a few days. They’re going to Antarctica.” Lise draws a second V, alongside the first.
“That’s not a coincidence, is it?”
“No, it’s not. I had a breakthrough with the code, an epiphany of sorts.” Lise scribbles wiggly markings across the tops of her V’s. “It came to me in a dream. I fell asleep on the transporter and when I woke I knew what they were—the markings on the Disc, the correlation. I know what it is.” Pressing lightly, she traces over her V markings many times, her pen working back and forth. “It’s obvious now. It’s all come together, and with the right catalyst I can make it work.”
“Have you told Tig?”
“No, we’ve had no time alone and he’s acting very strange. He keeps staring at Quinn like a lost puppy, and it’s pissing her off.”
“Oh fuck, just make sure he’s taking his Meds. Have you given her the stone?”
A shadow passes under the door; someone is standing outside the cabin, listening to their conversation.
“Not yet. Listen I need to go, I’ll call you later.”
“I love you.”
“Me, too. And make the bed before you leave.”
Seven
Pink diamonds.
We’re entangled qubits.
MORI FLICKS THE OFFICE chair with his hand and watches it spin a few times before pausing the revolutions and taking a seat. That was unexpected. Abruptly, he stands and paces the room, back and forth, before returning to the chair, where he sits again. A bit of a surprise—he wasn’t expecting that. She’s not 100 percent sure; she’s only 80 percent. He grins. Only 80 percent. Eighty percent is great; of course, it is. He has nothing to worry about. It’s a glitch and she’ll come around. It’s too soon. She just needs more time, and the event, Dining in the Clouds—it’s overwhelming. He reprimands himself. He should have realized sooner; she’s young and everything is new, and she’s never traveled before, never even left Hobart. Her life skills are, well, they’re limited. What did Niels say? “Brains of a fifty-year-old, emotional maturity of a fifteen-year-old.” Well, maybe he was right after all.
Niels. What’s he going to say about all this? Mori knows he won’t say, “I told you so”—the phrase is not in his repertoire. Niels has a multitude of despondent expressions that succinctly sum up his options on the human race. He already thinks Mori’s an idiot, and he knows he fucked up in Antarctica. Well, he doesn’t need to know about the wedding situation. She just needs time, that’s all, and Mori is prepared to wait. He’ll make an effort with the sex; he’s been lazy, he’ll concede that, forgetting to renew the subscription on his SelfMed, but he’ll sort it out and reinstall the program.
Okay, enough self-recrimination. This is not about him; it has nothing to do with him. She’s young and naïve and female; it’s to be expected. But, didn’t he handle it well? He chuckles. He got the cloud dress out of it. Smart thinking, bottom-up thinking, yes, that was a profit, a gain for him.
Now he needs to focus, synergize his brain, and carry out the final checks on the Cloud Ship. There’s time, he’s not behind, but the platform needs be raised so he can generate the effect: a giant cumulous cloud on a base of aerogel. Quinn suggested the base material and it’s perfect, 99 percent air and 1 percent silicon; guests will feel like they are walking on a cloud. Controlling the temperature and humidity will keep the cloud stable, and a combination of nuclear forces, which Quinn helped him correlate, will hold the effect together.
***
Later that afternoon, rested, perfectly punctual, and wearing a white cumulous cloud with white knee-length boots (to keep her feet warm five thousand meters above sea level), Quinn carefully steps into the first AirPod. The arrival is a significant part of the experience: guests will traverse solid terra firma to the ethereal beauty of the cumulous cloud in AirPods. After checking that her veil of mist is still intact, she rises into the sky and is dismayed to see that Mori’s cumulous cloud is not a perfect example; it’s too wispy and its cotton-like, cauliflower-shaped piles lack height and volume. It also arcs to the right, like a great white shark has taken an enormous bite from one side. But, she acknowledges, it’s a good effort, an adequate cloud, and it’s his first attempt; with practice, he’ll become more acquainted with the Tech.
On board, her task is to greet the guests, help them out of the Pods, make some small talk about the weather, and then point them toward the bar. If a longer conversation is required, she’ll start discussing electromagnetism and the combination of weak and strong nuclear forces holding the cloud together, and the guests will then seek solace in a cold beverage without her direction.
Before anyone else arrives, she skulls one drink for nerves. It will be her only one of the night; a sober cloud is more emotionally resilient than a drunk cloud. But she knows that later tonight, after this day over, after she gets down and kills the cloud dress, she’s going to drink more alcohol than she should.
The numbers on board multiply as the guests arrive, and soon a noisy din settles over the cloud. Exotic food circles the room: fertilized hens’ eggs with fennel pollen, snake hearts with truffle salt, large fish eyes with monstera deliciosa foam, bananas that taste like sumac, edible cutlery that tastes like saffron, edible plates that taste like tuna. One guest tries to eat her serviette, which isn’t edible, forcing Quinn to intervene, and a little tug-of-war ensues between them before Quinn firmly snatches it from her. There’s no wine; instead, an endless round of cocktails and spirits drifts past on levitating trays.
Lise, Ada, and Tig board. Tig is wearing longer pants and a black shirt with a gold-embroidered collar. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, the metal bangles nestled at his wrists and his titanium skeleton exposed at his elbow. It’s a bold move in a crowd like this; some guests won’t appreciate sharing their exclusive dining experience with a cyborg. He appears not to care, in fact he has a disdainful smirk on his face, which Quinn puts down to intellectual impediment.
The dress code is formal. Both Ada and Lise wear full-length evening gowns, one in red and the other black. A tight red choker encases Ada’s fine neck and Lise wears a single pink stone, the color of raspberries. Unpolished and rough-cut, it hangs on a thin silver thread around her neck. When she and Ada see Quinn, they pull her to one side, look her over, the full head-to-toe examination, and then burst into laughter.