11.
“Well, that’s grim,” I said after giving Harry’s world-ending pronouncement a moment to settle. It felt like someone had popped a window and sucked all the atmosphere out of the plane. Kat stared straight ahead, blinking a few times. Harry, for his part, said nothing. “Time just stops? Forever?”
Harry nodded. “It all ends. No more forward motion, no more probabilities after that. It’s going to happen, 99.9%—unless somehow we get you where you’re going by then.” He latched on to me, put his hands on my shoulders, eyes wild. “You’re the only one of us in this plane that has a future beyond that.”
“Well, having just spent what felt like days absent your company and that of anyone else,” I said, “trust me when I tell you I’m going to do everything I can to stop this. And not just because I accidentally destroyed the only thing I had to read.”
“Please, Sienna,” Harry said, and he wrinkled my shirt as he grasped me, “you have to. You have to save us from—this.”
“Dude,” Kat said, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder and trying to pry him away from me, “you need to relax, okay? Do you want a Valium?”
Harry swung his head around at her as though she were out of her mind. “What are you doing with Valium?”
Kat shrugged. “I lead a stressful life, okay?”
Harry stared at her, thought about it a second, and said, “Yeah, okay. Maybe I could use one.” He slumped back into his chair, all the strength gone out of his legs. “There’s nothing to do until we get to Nagasaki anyway.”
Kat froze halfway to her purse and cocked her head to the side. “Nagasaki? I thought we were going to Tokyo?”
I glanced at Kat. “No. We need to get to Nagasaki.”
Harry’s eyes darted around. “Oh, shit. We’re on track to Tokyo.”
I bit off an angry reply that would have scorched the air. It wasn’t his fault his powers weren’t fully working, or that he was so stressed he was likely to strain a muscle just sitting in his seat. Harry wasn’t used to things falling apart around him, at least not without being able to see a clear path around them. I remembered when he’d walked me out of being surrounded by almost the entirety of President Harmon’s military and FBI task forces in Salt Lake City, Utah, placid as a sunny spring day the whole time.
It was a stark contrast to the sad, sweating Harry who was sitting in front of me now. He really did need that Valium.
“That’s fine,” I said. “We can just change it up. Tell the pilot we need to go to Nagasaki—”
“You can’t do that,” the flight attendant said from just outside the galley. She’d leaned her head out to talk to us. “He already filed the flight plan. We’re on track, and we can’t change it now. But we can still get you to Nagasaki—after we land in Tokyo and clear customs, refuel and have some crew rest.”
I stared at her. She had a pretty sunny disposition, as you might expect someone who was charged with dealing with the uber-lux wealthy celebrity set. A huge part of her job was probably customer service. “How long do you think we’ll be on the ground for … refueling and crew rest and all that?”
“Probably overnight,” she said. “We’ll be landing in the late afternoon local time. The crew rest period is—”
“That’s not going to work,” I said, putting my hand into my hair and bowing my head. “Crap.”
“We’re going to need to catch the bullet train,” Harry said, almost croaking at this point. I wondered how much more stress he could take. Kat offered him a couple pills, her arm at maximum extension, presumably so as not to get too close to him. “Thanks,” he said, as she nearly dropped them outside his grasp. He had to work to catch them, too, but he downed them without anything to wash them down. “Then we can charter a boat. That’ll get us there quicker than waiting for the plane.”
“Ooh, traveling Japan like one of the little people,” Kat bubbled. “Sounds like fun!”
“Yes, being crowded on public transit in one of the most populous per-square-mile countries on the planet sounds like a real joy,” I said, “especially among those gropey guys who use it as an opportunity to get handsy with strangers. Sounds like a real great time—for Harvey Weinstein.”
“Nobody gets handsy with me and gets away with it anymore,” Kat said dismissively. “Broken fingers are a big price to pay.”
“Wow,” Harry said, looking up at her, his drink drained and all the color from his face gone with it. “That’s very … Sienna of you.”
“She taught me well.” Kat flushed a little then glanced at me.
I frowned. “That does seem a little less Kat than I recall. Remember when that douchecanoe producer guy was taking full advantage of you?”
“That was the catalyst for my change,” she said. “You held up the mirror and showed me how I was being taken advantage of. So … y’know … no more. I’m powerful … and stuff—”
“You come off as stronger if you don’t have to say it,” Harry mumbled. “Also, ‘and stuff’ undermines the power of your statement.”
“Good for you,” I said, nodding along, ignoring Harry, who I suspected was beginning to feel the liquor portion of his drink already. I kinda felt like once the pills hit home he’d crash out, which would be a good thing given his current state of disaster and the length of our flight ahead. “So—about this alternate route to Nagasaki—”
“I’ll get on it,” Kat said, heading back to her seat, bag in hand. “I’ll figure out the train schedules and get it planned. You guys just chill for a bit.” She frowned at Harry. “Especially you. Go full icebox, please.” And then she sat, phone in hand, browsing the net, lips puckered in concentration.
I moved to sit next to Harry, and caught a whiff of gin that made my eyes burn. “What the hell did you get? A gin and no tonic?”
“Tom Collins,” Harry said, not quite slurring but getting a little close. He held up his glass, which was a tallboy. “Extra Tom, low on the Collins.”
“Is the Tom alcohol and the Collins the … what, club soda?”
“For the purposes of this metaphor?” He smiled. “Yes.”
“Harry,” I said, lowering my voice, mostly for the sake of not having the flight attendant hear, since I would have had to go beyond meta low to keep Kat from overhearing us, “I know you’re a little … out of sorts because—”
“Because time is going to end? Yes,” he said, “I am out of sorts. Of all sorts. The sorts of patience and sanity and —” He stopped and stared at me. “Wait. This is how you people feel every time the world ends.”
I thought about it a second. “Yeah, probably. Sort of, anyway. Stress, panic, fruity notes of worry and fatigue—”
“Oh, God.” Harry sagged in his seat. “Seriously. You feel this way every time?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite as desperate as you look,” I said, and he sagged a little more, like I’d let the air out of him. I took a breath, and tried to find a better answer. “Okay … yeah, I’ve felt that way before. Once. Maybe twice.” He kept staring at me. “Maybe a few times. But I never let it get me down for too long, Harry.”
He stared at me with these worshipful eyes. “That’s why you’re the hero, Sienna.”
“Oh, screw you, Harry,” I said, turning away from him.
“No, I’m serious,” he said, and when I looked back, he wasn’t making anime eyes at me.
He was totally sincere.
Naturally, this made me hideously uncomfortable, so I changed the subject. “Can I get you another drink?”
“Why does it bother you that people think you’re a hero?” Harry asked, dimestore psychoanalyzing me.
“Because I’m used to attaching my feelings of self-worth to being a terrible criminal,” I lobbed back, easy, with a smug smile. “My whole identity is tied up in it.”
“Bullshit,” Harry slurred. “I saw what happened to you in that bar back in Minneapolis. The woman who came up to you, thanked you for saving her granddaughter—and that was back before you’d even decided to really be a hero. It was in … what, your Directorate days? When you were just hunting criminal metas. Before Sovereign, even—”
“What’s your point?” I asked, feeling suddenly very restless, and jonesing—just a little—for time to stop again, at least long enough for me to escape this conversation.
“When time stopped,” he stared at me, all self-serious, “you were so excited about charging into this because you had something to do. A problem to attack, a potential villain to outwit … but every time I talk to you about heroics, you start poo-pooing it—”
“I do not poo-poo—”
“Everybody does it, sweetie,” Kat murmured from across the aisle. “Even you.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you’re gonna eavesdrop, Kat, you could at least get more than that part of the conversation.” I shifted my focus back to Harry. “Look—”
“I’m looking,” Harry said with a grin, already buzzing, no doubt, and the look on his face was … well, he was looking right at me, and not blinking. It was, uhm …
I squirmed a little in my seat. “Look , not stare awkwardly.”
“You really have problems with people who pay you the compliment of great attention,” Harry said, still grinning. “Come on, Sienna. We’ve been together for months. When are you going to accept that I genuinely—” I tensed, fearing the last word he’d throw in there. “—like you?”
I unclenched. Slightly.
“Maybe someday,” I said, trying to breeze past all that. I wondered if, given that his digestion was meta-enhanced, maybe the Valium would be sped into his bloodstream soon.
“You’re a hero,” he mumbled, putting his head back and breaking that intense eye contact that felt like it had lasted an eternity. “The sooner you accept that … the better off you’ll be.” And he turned his head away from me and closed his eyes, looking like he might finally go for some crew rest.
“He’s not wrong, you know,” Kat said, not looking up from her phone. “You’ve got real problems dealing with people who actually like you, who admire you. Remember that chick by the fountain in LA who practically worshipped you?”
I searched my memory. “Not really, but in my defense … I’ve kinda been through hell since then. Maybe several hells.”
“My therapist says—”
“Please don’t—”
“—that sometimes we have trouble accepting parts of our identity that we grapple with,” Kat said, now looking up at me. “And that maybe … inside … there’s a segment of us that’s self-loathing and struggles with the idea that we’re worthy of love.”
I stared at Kat, suppressing eight hundred thousand sarcastic responses to that. It was a miracle, frankly, that none got through, and I wished that I was on a flight that provided cookies because I felt I deserved one after this amazing performance. I allowed a simple, “Is that so?” to slip through. Vaguely sarcastic, but not terribly malicious.
Maybe I was a hero after all.
Okay, that was sarcasm.
“That is so,” Kat said, either missing the irony or ignoring it in favor of skewering me with her overwrought, ham-handed point. “You are a person worthy of—”
“Please stop,” I said.
“—love. Say it with me: ‘I am a person worthy of—’”
“Please stop. Please make it stop.”
“—’love.’”
I waited after that came out. “Are you done?” I asked, staring at her through slitted eyes, like I expected another bomb to drop.
She shrugged and looked back to her phone. “For now. We’ll talk more later, when you’re in a spirit of acceptance and not defensiveness.”
“If I’m defensive, it’s because I’m used to being attacked,” I pointed out.
“We’ll work on that,” she said.
I started to snap my answer, but settled for a slightly bitter, “You do that. I, on the other hand, am going to work on fixing this world-ending mess, which seems to be of slightly higher priority than me embracing some hippy-dippy mantra that won’t actually fix a damned thing.”
“Except allow you to feel a sense of self-worth,” Kat singsonged, a smile on her lips, “and, eventually, lo—”
“For the love of Zeus, stop—”
She snickered under her breath. “I’ll get you to say it by the end of this.” She glanced at Harry. “Hell, I was sure you were going to have a stroke when you thought he was going to say it a minute ago.”
I looked at Harry. He was snoring gently, already out, lucky for him. He needed a nap to lower his blood pressure. “Harry doesn’t love me,” I said, feeling a great tightness from my back all the way through my core—chest, stomach muscles, everything between. “He’s just, y’know, bored. Looking for someone to keep him entertained. I’m a convenience.”
“You sure about that?” Kat asked.
Harry’s face was relaxed, his jaw slightly slack, that look of intense worry thankfully gone—again. He looked a lot better without it. “Pretty sure,” I said truthfully.
“Okay,” Kat said, and she didn’t sound so sure. But thankfully, she went back to planning the next leg of our trip, leaving me to sit in silence, as though I’d been restored to the moment of frozen time that I’d lived for hours. Time went on, though, as evidenced by the noise of the engines, thrumming in the background, carrying us through the night. And somewhere, over the vast and seemingly infinite Pacific, I, like Harry, fell asleep.