The Towering Sky

“I’m not—I’m sorry—I mean, if I’m staring, it’s just because you’re so beautiful,” Watt said haltingly.

Leda caught her breath and quickly shook her head. She refused to let Watt dredge up any of those feelings. They belonged to the old Leda, and she and the old Leda had long since parted ways.

“Seriously, Watt. You say one more thing like that, and I’m gone,” she told him, ignoring the slightly mutinous cast to his expression. “Now, what’s our plan?”

“We should to talk to José when he gets here. Mariel was pretty close with him; he might have a sense of what Mariel knew.”

“How are you going to find out? Break into his contact lenses? Or steal his tablet?”

“I thought we could try talking to him. As a smart girl once told me, not every problem needs to be hacked,” Watt told her.

Leda flushed at the memory. It was something she’d said to Watt the very first night they kissed. “This isn’t a very sophisticated plan.”

“Sometimes simplicity is the key to success,” Watt countered, and shrugged. “Want to play beer pong while we wait? With soda, of course,” he amended, and gestured toward the far wall, where several beer pong tables were powered by graphene charge-packs. A group of older guys clustered around the tables, pounding on the surface and hollering at something that had happened in the game.

Leda’s throat felt sealed shut. No way in hell was she playing beer pong with Watt. It was too convivial, too relaxed, when she needed things between them to be strictly professional.

“Or we can keep staring at each other in silence,” Watt went on cheerfully.

Leda felt her old competitive instinct rising stubbornly to the surface. “I would love nothing more than to beat you at beer pong,” she snapped. “Except that none of the tables are free.”

“Not a problem,” Watt said easily. “Grab a pitcher and meet me over there?” He started toward the group of guys before she could argue.

Sure enough, when she returned a minute later with a plastic pitcher of lemonade, Watt was leaning with proprietary ease on a table. “How did you clear out the frat rats?” Leda asked, reluctantly impressed.

“I scared them away.”

“Right, because you’re so intimidating.” Leda rolled her eyes. “More like you used Nadia to hack their accounts, and sent them fake messages from the people they like.”

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Watt said mysteriously. He poured the lemonade into their cups, which were made of a metal so thin that they felt lighter than paper. Then he pressed a button and the cups leapt instantly into the air, lifted by the table’s powerful magnet, arranging themselves in a triangular shape perpendicular to the ground. Tiny bubbles of suction prevented the liquid inside from spilling.

“Did you know that when they first invented this game, there were no force fields?” Watt weighed one of the white pong balls in his hand, tossing it back and forth. “Apparently people had to constantly run around chasing their Ping-Pong balls when they overshot.”

“Quit stalling, Watt.”

He laughed and tossed the ball at a sharp angle. It bounced off the force field along the side of the table and clattered to the surface.

Leda felt an involuntary smile spreading over her features. She held out her hand and the Ping-Pong ball floated into her palm, responding to the powerful 3-D sensors as if by magic.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. Rebound shots are an advanced move.” She flung the pong ball deliberately against the force field. It collided with an audible sizzle, then clattered directly into one of Watt’s cups.

“Impressive.” He lifted the cup in a salute before tipping it back. Leda rolled up her sleeves and reached for the pong ball again, grinning wickedly.

“Ready to concede yet?”

“Not a chance.”

As they settled into the game, Leda felt her heartbeat relaxing, the tense knot in her stomach beginning to slowly uncoil. Strangely enough, she and Watt had never actually gotten to just hang out before. They had either been plotting against each other or plotting together against someone else or sneaking around, hooking up in secret. By the time they finally admitted how they felt, it was too late: Leda had learned the truth about Eris and fallen off the deep end, only to realize that she couldn’t let herself be with Watt.

Still, it was nice, pretending to be normal. If only for a moment.

Leda immediately went stone-faced. What did she think she was doing? She shouldn’t be relaxing around Watt, letting him make her laugh. She couldn’t afford to let him get close again, no matter how easy it—

Watt abruptly dropped the Ping-Pong ball and swiped his hand over the surface of the table, abandoning the game. “José is here.”

Leda turned, and saw at once who Watt was talking about.

José moved through the room with unmistakable authority. He looked several years older than they were: stocky, with a close-cropped dark beard. Red and black inktats curled around his bicep to disappear beneath the fabric of his shirt.

She hurried after Watt, who had already moved to stand on the edge of José’s circle of admirers. Eventually José turned to them with a slightly puzzled, but polite, expression.

Watt cleared his throat. “Hi, José. We were hoping to talk to you for a minute. Alone,” he added when José didn’t say anything. “It’s about Mariel.”