The only one.
I try to remember that, when I am with Miranda.
==========
Leisha Camden sat across the table from me and said, “Drew— what are
they doing at Huevos Verdes?”
I sipped my coffee. On a plate were fresh genemod grapes and
berries, with small buttery cookies smelling of lemon and ginger. There
was fresh cream for the coffee. The library in Leisha’s New Mexico
compound was airy and high-ceilinged, its light, earthy colors echoing
the New Mexico desert beyond the big windows. Here and there among the
monitors and bookshelves stood stark, graceful sculptures by artists I
didn’t know. Some sort of delicate, old-fashioned music played.
I said, “What’s that music?”
“Claude de Courcy.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Her. A sixteenth-century composer for the lute.” Leisha said this
impatiently, which only showed how tense she was. Usually the shapes
she made in my mind were all clean and hard-edged, rigid, glowing with
iridescence.
“Drew, you’re not answering me. What are Miri and the Supers doing
at Huevos Verdes?”
“I’ve been answering you for eight years—I don’t know.”
“I still don’t believe you.”
I looked at her. Sometime in the last year she had cut her hair;
maybe a woman got tired of caring for her hair after 106 years. She
still looked thirty-five. Sleepless didn’t age, and so far they didn’t
die, except through accidents or murder. Their bodies regenerated, an
unexpected side effect of their bizarre genetic engineering. And the
first generation of Sleepless, unlike Miranda’s, hadn’t been so
complexly altered that physical appearance couldn’t be controlled.
Leisha would be beautiful until she died.
She had raised me. She had educated me, to the limits of my
intelligence, which might once have been normal but could never compare
to the genemod-boosted IQ of donkeys, let alone Sleepless. When I
became crippled in a freak accident, at the age of ten, Leisha had
bought me my first powerchair. Leisha had loved me when I was a child,
and had declined to love me when I became a man, and had given me to
Miranda. Or Miranda to me.
She put both palms flat on the table and leaned forward. I
recognized what was coming. Leisha was a lawyer. “Drew—you never knew
my father. He died when I was in law school. I adored him. He was the
most stubborn human being I ever met. Until I met Miri, anyway.”
The spiky pain-shapes again. When Miri came down from Sanctuary
thirteen years ago, she came to Leisha Camden, the only Sleepless not
financially or ethically bound to Miri’s horror of a grandmother. Miri
came to Leisha for help in starting a new life. Just as I once had.
Leisha said, “My father was stubborn, generous, convinced he was
always right. He had boundless energy. He was capable of incredible
discipline, manic reliance on will, complete obsessive-ness when he
wanted something. He was willing to bend any rules that stood in his
way, but he wasn’t a tyrant. He was just implacable.
Does that sound like anybody you know? Does that sound like Miri?“
“Yes,” I said. Where do they get all these words, Leisha and Miri
and the rest of them? But these particular words fit. “It sounds like
Miranda.”
“And another thing about my father,” Leisha said, looking directly
at me. “He wore people out. He wore out two wives, one daughter, four
business partners, and, finally, his own heart. Just wore them out. He
was capable of destroying what he passionately loved just by applying
his own impossible standards toward improving it.”
I put down my coffee cup. Leisha put her palms flat on the table and
leaned toward me.
“Drew—I’m asking for the last time. What is Miri doing at Huevos
Verdes? You have to understand—I’m scared for her. Miri’s not like my
father in one important way. She’s not a loner. She’s desperate for a
community, growing up the way she did on Sanctuary, with Jennifer
Sharifi for a grandmother… but that’s not the
I try to remember that, when I am with Miranda.
==========
Leisha Camden sat across the table from me and said, “Drew— what are
they doing at Huevos Verdes?”
I sipped my coffee. On a plate were fresh genemod grapes and
berries, with small buttery cookies smelling of lemon and ginger. There
was fresh cream for the coffee. The library in Leisha’s New Mexico
compound was airy and high-ceilinged, its light, earthy colors echoing
the New Mexico desert beyond the big windows. Here and there among the
monitors and bookshelves stood stark, graceful sculptures by artists I
didn’t know. Some sort of delicate, old-fashioned music played.
I said, “What’s that music?”
“Claude de Courcy.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Her. A sixteenth-century composer for the lute.” Leisha said this
impatiently, which only showed how tense she was. Usually the shapes
she made in my mind were all clean and hard-edged, rigid, glowing with
iridescence.
“Drew, you’re not answering me. What are Miri and the Supers doing
at Huevos Verdes?”
“I’ve been answering you for eight years—I don’t know.”
“I still don’t believe you.”
I looked at her. Sometime in the last year she had cut her hair;
maybe a woman got tired of caring for her hair after 106 years. She
still looked thirty-five. Sleepless didn’t age, and so far they didn’t
die, except through accidents or murder. Their bodies regenerated, an
unexpected side effect of their bizarre genetic engineering. And the
first generation of Sleepless, unlike Miranda’s, hadn’t been so
complexly altered that physical appearance couldn’t be controlled.
Leisha would be beautiful until she died.
She had raised me. She had educated me, to the limits of my
intelligence, which might once have been normal but could never compare
to the genemod-boosted IQ of donkeys, let alone Sleepless. When I
became crippled in a freak accident, at the age of ten, Leisha had
bought me my first powerchair. Leisha had loved me when I was a child,
and had declined to love me when I became a man, and had given me to
Miranda. Or Miranda to me.
She put both palms flat on the table and leaned forward. I
recognized what was coming. Leisha was a lawyer. “Drew—you never knew
my father. He died when I was in law school. I adored him. He was the
most stubborn human being I ever met. Until I met Miri, anyway.”
The spiky pain-shapes again. When Miri came down from Sanctuary
thirteen years ago, she came to Leisha Camden, the only Sleepless not
financially or ethically bound to Miri’s horror of a grandmother. Miri
came to Leisha for help in starting a new life. Just as I once had.
Leisha said, “My father was stubborn, generous, convinced he was
always right. He had boundless energy. He was capable of incredible
discipline, manic reliance on will, complete obsessive-ness when he
wanted something. He was willing to bend any rules that stood in his
way, but he wasn’t a tyrant. He was just implacable.
Does that sound like anybody you know? Does that sound like Miri?“
“Yes,” I said. Where do they get all these words, Leisha and Miri
and the rest of them? But these particular words fit. “It sounds like
Miranda.”
“And another thing about my father,” Leisha said, looking directly
at me. “He wore people out. He wore out two wives, one daughter, four
business partners, and, finally, his own heart. Just wore them out. He
was capable of destroying what he passionately loved just by applying
his own impossible standards toward improving it.”
I put down my coffee cup. Leisha put her palms flat on the table and
leaned toward me.
“Drew—I’m asking for the last time. What is Miri doing at Huevos
Verdes? You have to understand—I’m scared for her. Miri’s not like my
father in one important way. She’s not a loner. She’s desperate for a
community, growing up the way she did on Sanctuary, with Jennifer
Sharifi for a grandmother… but that’s not the
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