The Towering Sky

She was startled by the tender brush of longing she felt as Cord’s mouth touched hers. She tried to kiss him lightly, but it had been too long; they both fell forward into the kiss. Rylin pulled him instinctively closer. She felt dizzy with it, drunk with it, that Cord was here and real and hers.

But was that a good thing?

She had been here before, and it ended badly then, and why on earth did she expect it to be different this time?

Even though it cost every last ounce of her resolve, Rylin tore herself brutally away from the kiss.

“Cord,” she whispered, trying to ignore the way his hands felt, still clasped around her back. “What are we doing?”

“Making out, until for some inexplicable reason you forced us to stop,” he said and began to lower his mouth to hers. Rylin took a step back.

“You and me, together again? This is crazy.” No matter how much she wanted him, Rylin knew that she couldn’t go through it a second time: all the countless small wounds they’d inflicted on each other, all the misunderstandings and hurt and loss. Wasn’t that the definition of insanity, to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result?

“Of course it’s crazy. I’m crazy about you, Myers. I have been since that first day you stormed into my apartment last fall.” When she didn’t smile at that, he let out a breath. “What is it? What are you afraid of?”

She leaned her forehead against his chest to avoid having to look into his eyes. “That we’re being foolish. That nothing has changed, and we’ll just hurt each other all over again.”

“We both made mistakes last time, Rylin. I know now that I should have given you a chance to explain yourself that night. I should have realized how much I loved you before it was too late.” He bit back a sigh. “Eris told me to, you know.”

Rylin’s head shot up at that. “Eris?”

“The night she died. She told me that you were the real deal—that I should fight for you.”

“She didn’t even know me,” Rylin protested weakly.

“Eris made a lot of snap judgments,” Cord said, as if that explained everything. “She said that she could tell what you meant to me from the way I was looking at you.”

“Oh,” Rylin breathed. She probably should have felt weirded out by that, but for some reason it was nice—to know that Eris, a girl Rylin hadn’t even known, had believed in her and Cord.

And Leda believed in them. Rylin remembered what she’d said the other day, about needing something good to root for. As strange as it was, that thought warmed Rylin too.

“Rylin, I swear to you that if you give me another chance, I won’t make the same stupid mistakes. I can’t promise that I won’t make other, equally stupid mistakes,” Cord added ruefully, “but I’ll try my best.”

Rylin gave a cautious smile. “That seems fair. As long as we don’t repeat the old ones.”

“God, I’ve missed you.” Cord began to kiss her again, a rain of small warm kisses, each one punctuated with a sentence.

“I missed your laugh.” Kiss. “The way you call me out on my bullshit.” Kiss. “That turquoise bra you secretly wear under your dark clothes, just because you can get away with it.” Rylin opened her mouth to protest, but she couldn’t say anything, because Cord was already kissing her again and listing more things; and so she gave up and tilted her head back. Her pulse was going haywire, her entire body humming sharply to life.

“I missed that look you get on your face when you’re filming, your nose all crinkled.” Kiss. “The way your hair falls out of your ponytail and hangs around your face, just like this, when I kiss you.”

Rylin started to reach her hand up to fix it, but Cord shook his head. “No, leave it. You look beautiful.”

She smiled up at him in the shadows. “Getting me alone in a dark room and showering me with compliments? If I didn’t know better, Cord Anderton, I would say you’re attempting to seduce me.”

“Is it working?” he asked, and Rylin laughed, circling her arms blissfully around his shoulders.

They kissed more slowly this time as the tattered lights of the hologram flickered over them.



WATT



“TURN LEFT HERE,” Nadia whispered into Watt’s eartennas. Normally he would have let her direct him visually, with glowing arrows inscribed over his vision, but right now he wanted to soak in every last detail of MIT’s campus. Tall stone buildings stretched on either side of its paved streets, which were still wholly pedestrian; Cambridge had refused to ever tear them up and embed the magnetic flecks needed to keep hovercraft aloft. The bright winter sun danced over the white dome of the main building, its rows of elegant pillars standing guard over the quad. Watt was surprised how much he liked the old-fashioned classical architecture. Something about its brutal orderliness appealed to him. This, he thought, was where real learning happened.

The invitation to interview at MIT had come just two days ago. So far it was the only thing that had pulled Watt out of his dazed state—after he had somehow, inexplicably, screwed things up with Leda yet again.

But then, he had wanted MIT long before he even knew who Leda was.

He’d taken the Hyperloop this afternoon from Penn Station. Watt had never ridden one of the high-speed maglev trains before, and spent most of the ride staring out the window at the blurred sides of the tunnel, marveling at it. They’d been going almost a thousand miles an hour, yet there were no bumps or turbulence or discernable changes of speed. It hadn’t really felt as if they were moving at all.