dogging my heels for years now… you two would be great together!
“Tyler?” She sounded distressed. “Tyler, if you don’t want to talk—”
“Actually I don’t think I do.”
“Then put Jason on, would you please?”
I gave him the cell. Jason listened for a moment. Then he said, “We’re up the hill. No. No. Why don’t you come out here? It’s not as cold as all that. No.”
I didn’t want to see her. I started to walk away. Jason tossed me the phone and said, “Don’t be an asshole, Tyler. I need to talk to you and Diane both.”
“About what?”
“About the future.”
It was an annoyingly cryptic remark. “Maybe you’re not cold, but I am.” Freezing.
“This is more important than whatever problem you’re having with my sister.” He looked almost comically serious. “And I know what she means to you.”
“She doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“That wouldn’t be true even if you were just friends.”
“We
are
just friends.” I had never really talked to him about Diane; this was one of the places our conversations weren’t supposed to go. “Ask her yourself.”
“You’re pissed because she introduced you to this Holly person.”
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“But that’s just Diane being saintly. It’s her new thing. She’s been reading those books.”
“What books?”
“Apocalyptic theology. Usually from the best-seller shelf. You know: C. R. Ratel,
Praying in the Dark
, the abnegation of the worldly self. You need to watch more daytime television, Tyler. She wasn’t trying to insult you. It’s some kind of gesture.”
“That makes it okay?” I took a few more steps away from him, toward the house. I started wondering how to get home without a ride.
“Tyler,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made me turn back. “Tyler. Listen. You asked what was bothering me.” He sighed. “E.D. told me something about the October Event. It’s not public yet. I promised I wouldn’t talk about it. But I’m going to break that promise. I’m going to break it because there are only three people in the world who feel like family to me, and one of them is my father, and the other two are you and Diane. So could you possibly bear with me just for the next few minutes?”
I caught sight of Diane working her way up the slope, still struggling into her snowy white parka, one arm in, one arm out
I looked at Jason’s face, grievously unhappy in the dim holiday light from below us. That frightened me, and despite what I was feeling I agreed to hear what he had to say.
He whispered something to Diane when she reached the gazebo. She looked at him wide-eyed and stood back from both of us. Then Jason began to talk, softly, methodically, almost soothingly, delivering a nightmare as if it were a bedtime story.
He had heard all this from E.D., of course.
E.D. had done well after the October Event. When the satellites failed, Lawton Industries had stepped forward with plans for an immediate, practical replacement technology: high-altitude aerostats, sophisticated balloons designed to hover indefinitely in the stratosphere. Five years later E.D.‘s aerostats were carrying telecom payloads and repeaters, doing multipoint voice and data broadcasts, doing almost anything (apart from GPS and astronomy) a conventional satellite could have done. E.D.’s power and influence had grown apace. Lately he had formed an aerospace lobby group, the Perihelion Foundation, and he had consulted for the federal government on a number of less public projects—in this case, NASA’s ARV (Automated Reentry Vehicle) program.
NASA had been refining its ARV probes for a couple of years now. The initial launches had been designed as investigations of the October shield. Could it be penetrated, and could useful data be retrieved from outside?
The first attempt was almost literally a shot in the dark, a simple ARV payload atop a refurbished Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS,
“Tyler?” She sounded distressed. “Tyler, if you don’t want to talk—”
“Actually I don’t think I do.”
“Then put Jason on, would you please?”
I gave him the cell. Jason listened for a moment. Then he said, “We’re up the hill. No. No. Why don’t you come out here? It’s not as cold as all that. No.”
I didn’t want to see her. I started to walk away. Jason tossed me the phone and said, “Don’t be an asshole, Tyler. I need to talk to you and Diane both.”
“About what?”
“About the future.”
It was an annoyingly cryptic remark. “Maybe you’re not cold, but I am.” Freezing.
“This is more important than whatever problem you’re having with my sister.” He looked almost comically serious. “And I know what she means to you.”
“She doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“That wouldn’t be true even if you were just friends.”
“We
are
just friends.” I had never really talked to him about Diane; this was one of the places our conversations weren’t supposed to go. “Ask her yourself.”
“You’re pissed because she introduced you to this Holly person.”
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“But that’s just Diane being saintly. It’s her new thing. She’s been reading those books.”
“What books?”
“Apocalyptic theology. Usually from the best-seller shelf. You know: C. R. Ratel,
Praying in the Dark
, the abnegation of the worldly self. You need to watch more daytime television, Tyler. She wasn’t trying to insult you. It’s some kind of gesture.”
“That makes it okay?” I took a few more steps away from him, toward the house. I started wondering how to get home without a ride.
“Tyler,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made me turn back. “Tyler. Listen. You asked what was bothering me.” He sighed. “E.D. told me something about the October Event. It’s not public yet. I promised I wouldn’t talk about it. But I’m going to break that promise. I’m going to break it because there are only three people in the world who feel like family to me, and one of them is my father, and the other two are you and Diane. So could you possibly bear with me just for the next few minutes?”
I caught sight of Diane working her way up the slope, still struggling into her snowy white parka, one arm in, one arm out
I looked at Jason’s face, grievously unhappy in the dim holiday light from below us. That frightened me, and despite what I was feeling I agreed to hear what he had to say.
He whispered something to Diane when she reached the gazebo. She looked at him wide-eyed and stood back from both of us. Then Jason began to talk, softly, methodically, almost soothingly, delivering a nightmare as if it were a bedtime story.
He had heard all this from E.D., of course.
E.D. had done well after the October Event. When the satellites failed, Lawton Industries had stepped forward with plans for an immediate, practical replacement technology: high-altitude aerostats, sophisticated balloons designed to hover indefinitely in the stratosphere. Five years later E.D.‘s aerostats were carrying telecom payloads and repeaters, doing multipoint voice and data broadcasts, doing almost anything (apart from GPS and astronomy) a conventional satellite could have done. E.D.’s power and influence had grown apace. Lately he had formed an aerospace lobby group, the Perihelion Foundation, and he had consulted for the federal government on a number of less public projects—in this case, NASA’s ARV (Automated Reentry Vehicle) program.
NASA had been refining its ARV probes for a couple of years now. The initial launches had been designed as investigations of the October shield. Could it be penetrated, and could useful data be retrieved from outside?
The first attempt was almost literally a shot in the dark, a simple ARV payload atop a refurbished Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS,
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