The Dazzling Heights
Watt shrugged. “That’s just a side project. I was trying to see if I could improve the motion-tracking features, using Nadia’s computing abilities.”
She pulled the headset on, but nothing happened. “It doesn’t actually work yet,” Watt pointed out, though he seemed amused by her efforts.
Leda left the headset on for a moment. She liked having the safety of the lens between herself and the world, liked hiding her features from Watt’s incisive gaze. She wondered what Nadia was thinking right now, hiding there in Watt’s brain, watching her. Oh, god—had Nadia been watching them through Watt’s eyes this whole time? Something about it creeped Leda out, as if there had been a ghost in bed with them.
She pulled the headset off and stood up to hunt for her clothes, which were scattered in the textured darkness. “I should go.”
“Okay,” Watt said. He sounded disappointed, but maybe she was imagining it.
Leda paused in the doorway to look back at him. He’d kicked off the sheets and lay back in bed like a sketched shadow. The soft light from the hallway picked out his unruly hair, his disarming smile. He suddenly looked very young and boyish and not scary at all. Leda’s heart slowed a little.
She remembered that she was going to Dubai for the weekend. It would be her first night without Watt since before the rehab check-in.
“Hey,” she whispered. Watt looked up at her, expectant. “Do you want to come with me to Dubai, for the Mirrors launch party?”
Watt smiled. “Yeah. I’d like to come.”
Later, as she walked home from the lift stop, Leda looked around, startled, at the familiar yet somehow alien streets. Her block seemed simpler, cleaner; the lights from the lamps falling in beautiful pools against the darkness. It was the same and yet utterly different from normal, and Leda realized that maybe she was what had changed. There was a great gulf between the Leda of yesterday and the Leda of today.
She knew that Watt had a computer inside him. But so what? It wasn’t any weirder than anything else that had happened lately. He was still Watt, she reasoned, and he was still going to Dubai with her. Coming for real; not coerced, or blackmailed, but because he actually wanted to be there as her date.
For the first time in her life, Leda Cole had dirt on someone—serious dirt, come to think of it—and had absolutely no intention of putting it to use.
RYLIN
“PLEASE, MRS. LANE. I really need to switch to the intro-level holography class,” Rylin pleaded, standing at the registrar’s desk yet again.
It was Friday morning, and she was repeating the same plea she’d been making all week long to no avail, begging the registrar to switch her from Xiayne’s holography class to the Intro to Holography section that Cord had mentioned. That class was taught by a woman named Elaine Blyson—who had white hair and bright red lipstick and seemed like a perfectly safe choice for a professor.
So far Mrs. Lane had been no help, but Rylin refused to give up. She couldn’t bear the thought of walking into the classroom that afternoon and seeing Xiayne. She wanted to put the whole damn mess behind her and move on.
“I’ll do anything,” she said urgently, leaning her forearms onto the woman’s desk. “I’ll take double arts next year. I’ll do another independent study. I just cannot stay enrolled in that class.”
“Miss Myers, as I’ve reminded you all week, the course selection period has long since ended. It’s too late for you to drop a class now. It was already too late when you were added to the class—you only got in at all because you were a mid-semester addition.” Mrs. Lane sniffed and turned back to her tablet. “Frankly, I don’t understand your desire to drop the class. You know it’s our most popular elective. And after that fabulous independent study you just participated in … I’m a bit shocked.”
“Is there a problem here?”
Rylin was stunned to see Leda Cole in the doorway of Mrs. Lane’s office. “Forgive me for interrupting,” Leda went on, with a charming smile, “I was just on my way back from a student government meeting and had a question for Mrs. Lane.”
Rylin tried to make eye contact with her, baffled, but Leda was staring determinedly at the administrator.
“Miss Cole! Maybe you can talk some sense into Miss Myers here,” Mrs. Lane exclaimed. “She’s trying to drop down to the intro-level holography class, and I’ve been telling her all week that it’s simply impossible.”
“Intro to Holography? Really?” Leda glanced at Rylin with a questioning expression. Rylin stayed silent. She had no desire to piss off Leda.
Leda seemed to read something in Rylin’s demeanor, and turned back to the older woman. “But you know, Mrs. Lane, our class is incredibly oversubscribed. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the worst thing if Rylin were to drop it.”
“I forgot that you’re in that class as well!” Mrs. Lane exclaimed. “So you understand how important it is to maintain the classroom balance—”
“Mrs. Lane,” Leda cut in smoothly, “Rylin is an incredible student, but she might benefit from the intro class. You should see the holos she took at Hotel Burroughs last Thursday—the material is scintillating, but the lighting is far too bright. You can see every last dirty little detail in the shots.” She slightly emphasized the last few sentences. Mrs. Lane colored, but said nothing.
“Of course, I’m aware of the school policies,” Leda went on, an eyebrow raised meaningfully. “But I’m not sure Rylin is yet. Perhaps it would help to have Dean Moreland explain them to her, so she can understand the implications? I know he has just the right touch when it comes to sensitive matters, like this.”
Mrs. Lane’s mouth was hanging open, utterly speechless. Rylin looked back and forth from Leda to the registrar in bewilderment. She wasn’t sure whether or not to speak. “Mrs. Lane—” she finally began, but the woman cut her off.
“Yes, Miss Cole, I see your point,” she said, nodding vigorously. Her expression was strangely pinched. “Miss Myers, I’m dropping you down to the base-level course. It meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the arts pavilion.”
“Um, thank you,” Rylin stammered, but Leda was already dragging her out into the hallway, a satisfied smirk on her face.
“You’re welcome,” Leda declared, and turned away.
“Wait! What the hell just happened? How did you do that?” And why?
Leda shrugged. “Mrs. Lane is having an affair with Dean Moreland, who, as you may know, is married. They meet at the Hotel Burroughs every Thursday.”
Rylin hadn’t heard anything about an affair. “Does everyone know about that?” she asked, surprised.
“No. Just me,” Leda answered mysteriously.
“Oh.” Rylin stood there, overwhelmed by a curious sense of relief, and resentment that she was now indebted to Leda Cole. “Well, thank you.”
“Don’t worry, you can owe me one.”
“Leda—” she called out, and the other girl turned back expectantly. Rylin gulped. “Why did you just help me? I thought you hated me.”
A brief flash of something, guilt or indecision or maybe even regret, crossed Leda’s face. “Maybe I’m just sick of everyone thinking I’m a coldhearted bitch,” she said matter-of-factly.
Rylin couldn’t think of an appropriate answer to that.
“Can I ask, though,” Leda went on, “why did you want to drop the class?”
Rylin briefly considered lying, but after what had just happened, she felt she owed Leda the real story. “During my independent study last week, Xiayne kissed me. I don’t want to see him again, for obvious reasons.”
“Xiayne came on to you?” Leda repeated. Rylin nodded, and Leda rolled her eyes. “God, what an ass. I’m sorry. And here I thought he might actually be one of the decent ones.”
“Do those exist?” Rylin said drily, and to her surprise, Leda laughed.
“You make a good point. Hey,” she said, as if a sudden idea was striking her, “are you going to the Dubai launch party this weekend?”
Rylin had heard the other kids talking about it all week—scheduling their private hydrojets and discussing the gowns they’d ordered, since the theme was a black-and-white ball. She’d told herself it was all ridiculous. Partying in New York was no longer good enough for these highliers—they had to fly halfway around the world to get drunk with the same people as always?