learn.
Reset.
Repent.
—
"The Burn” was not bad—poetically speaking—for the Crudetastrophe. Marcus could not come up with a biblical-sounding term for powersat, either. “We never learn” rang all too true, although his take on the lessons to be learned and the poet's clearly differed.
US 33-W narrowed to two lanes, soon ran out of embedded sensors for autodrive, and lost its shoulders to narrow some more. Sturdy trees crowded right up to the pavement. He slowed way down, and his fretting changed to showing up late. The “towns” along the “highway” became smaller and smaller, and the houses scattered between towns ever shabbier.
Until there were no towns. He guessed he had missed the West Virginia border. By then he was well into the Appalachians, deep within the George Washington National Forest. Negotiating switchbacks. Up and down steep grades, many of them miles long. As were—whenever gaps opened among the trees—the luxuriant wooded vistas. Stunning. Fantastic.
The Blue Ridge? By comparison (at least where he had crested it), that was a speed bump.
And despite Marcus's best intentions, he thought, Lindsey would have loved this drive.
* * * *
For a long time, he and Lindsey had been great together.
Almost always they had fun. Even when they didn't, when the world made one of them sputter, the other would find the silver lining, or the amusing absurdity of it all, or a way to put matters into perspective. They both liked scenic drives and country inns. They liked hiking and canoeing, classical music and experimenting with exotic cuisines. They learned together to scuba. They mocked the same bad movies.
More than anything, she always knew the right thing to say.
" I know your brother is a slacker,” she had once said, driving home from a miserable dinner out with his parents.
Had Marcus not already loved Lindsey, those few words would have done the trick.
It was nothing against Sean. His older brother was who he was. Sliding through life on charm and modest ambitions somehow worked for him.
But growing up, “It's not what you know, it's who you know,” had suited Marcus about as well as, “Why can't you be more like your brother?"
As a kid, Marcus could never understand why their parents tolerated Sean's mediocre grades and goofing off. The folks did not much like their jobs, but they were far from lazy. Dad was a lawyer and the Washington lobbyist for a national association of rural electrical utilities. Mom was a realtor and had an MBA. Not until well into high school had Marcus seen the bigger picture. Wheedling legislative favors, unloading money pits onto unsuspecting buyers, and coasting through school had something in common. All were ways to game the system. And that apparently was what impressed his parents.
Marcus could never bring himself to see things their way. He wanted to learn, not just make good grades. To make a difference, not a living. To change the world, not game it.
Sean put in four years in general studies at a party college. He went on to become the one-man HR Department at a small company—gloating, to parental approval, that the position lacked quantifiable responsibilities.
Marcus earned a math degree at the University of Virginia and a Master's degree in systems engineering from MIT. He went on to do contract work at NASA where, with luck and if he did things right, maybe he could change more than one world.
What he could not change was his parents’ attitude. Their only feedback on Marcus's choices was that he worked too hard, that he let Space Systems Science and NASA take advantage of him. Sean said the same, only more bluntly: “You're a sucker, bro."
But Lindsey got him. He thought he got her.
Ready to move in together, the big question had been: where? His apartment was in Greenbelt, Maryland, near Goddard. Hers was in the City of Fairfax, Virginia, near the insurance company where she worked (and not far, as it happened, from the house where
Reset.
Repent.
—
"The Burn” was not bad—poetically speaking—for the Crudetastrophe. Marcus could not come up with a biblical-sounding term for powersat, either. “We never learn” rang all too true, although his take on the lessons to be learned and the poet's clearly differed.
US 33-W narrowed to two lanes, soon ran out of embedded sensors for autodrive, and lost its shoulders to narrow some more. Sturdy trees crowded right up to the pavement. He slowed way down, and his fretting changed to showing up late. The “towns” along the “highway” became smaller and smaller, and the houses scattered between towns ever shabbier.
Until there were no towns. He guessed he had missed the West Virginia border. By then he was well into the Appalachians, deep within the George Washington National Forest. Negotiating switchbacks. Up and down steep grades, many of them miles long. As were—whenever gaps opened among the trees—the luxuriant wooded vistas. Stunning. Fantastic.
The Blue Ridge? By comparison (at least where he had crested it), that was a speed bump.
And despite Marcus's best intentions, he thought, Lindsey would have loved this drive.
* * * *
For a long time, he and Lindsey had been great together.
Almost always they had fun. Even when they didn't, when the world made one of them sputter, the other would find the silver lining, or the amusing absurdity of it all, or a way to put matters into perspective. They both liked scenic drives and country inns. They liked hiking and canoeing, classical music and experimenting with exotic cuisines. They learned together to scuba. They mocked the same bad movies.
More than anything, she always knew the right thing to say.
" I know your brother is a slacker,” she had once said, driving home from a miserable dinner out with his parents.
Had Marcus not already loved Lindsey, those few words would have done the trick.
It was nothing against Sean. His older brother was who he was. Sliding through life on charm and modest ambitions somehow worked for him.
But growing up, “It's not what you know, it's who you know,” had suited Marcus about as well as, “Why can't you be more like your brother?"
As a kid, Marcus could never understand why their parents tolerated Sean's mediocre grades and goofing off. The folks did not much like their jobs, but they were far from lazy. Dad was a lawyer and the Washington lobbyist for a national association of rural electrical utilities. Mom was a realtor and had an MBA. Not until well into high school had Marcus seen the bigger picture. Wheedling legislative favors, unloading money pits onto unsuspecting buyers, and coasting through school had something in common. All were ways to game the system. And that apparently was what impressed his parents.
Marcus could never bring himself to see things their way. He wanted to learn, not just make good grades. To make a difference, not a living. To change the world, not game it.
Sean put in four years in general studies at a party college. He went on to become the one-man HR Department at a small company—gloating, to parental approval, that the position lacked quantifiable responsibilities.
Marcus earned a math degree at the University of Virginia and a Master's degree in systems engineering from MIT. He went on to do contract work at NASA where, with luck and if he did things right, maybe he could change more than one world.
What he could not change was his parents’ attitude. Their only feedback on Marcus's choices was that he worked too hard, that he let Space Systems Science and NASA take advantage of him. Sean said the same, only more bluntly: “You're a sucker, bro."
But Lindsey got him. He thought he got her.
Ready to move in together, the big question had been: where? His apartment was in Greenbelt, Maryland, near Goddard. Hers was in the City of Fairfax, Virginia, near the insurance company where she worked (and not far, as it happened, from the house where
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