“Thanks, darling.” I thumbed off and looked into the mirror of the screen. Despite the night’s sleep, I still looked pretty haggard. I should’ve shaved and changed out of my uniform.
I ducked into a men’s room for a quick shave and comb and then walked down to the second floor. Union Station was a transportation hub, but also a museum of rail technology. I walked by some subways of the previous century, with their makeshift bulletproofing all pitted and dented. Then a steam-powered locomotive from the nineteenth that actually looked to be in better shape.
Amelia was waiting at the door to the bar. “I took a cab,” she explained as we embraced.
She steered me into the gloom and odd music of the bar. “So who’s this Pete? A friend, you said?”
“He’s Peter Blankenship.” I shook my head. The name was vaguely familiar. “The cosmologist.” A serving robot took our iced tea orders and said we had to spend ten dollars to take the booth. I got a glass of whiskey.
“So you’re old friends.”
“No, we just met. I wanted to keep our meeting secret.”
We took our drinks to an empty booth and sat down. She looked intense. “Let me try to—”
“I killed somebody.”
“What?”
“I killed a boy, a civilian. Shot him with my soldierboy.”
“But how could you? I thought you weren’t even supposed to kill soldiers.”
“It was an accident.”
“What, you stepped on him or something?”
“No, it was the laser—”
“You ‘accidentally’ shot him with a laser?”
“A bullet. I was aiming for his knees.”
“An unarmed civilian?”
“He was armed—it was him with the laser! It was a madhouse, a mob out of control. We were ordered to shoot anyone with a weapon.”
“But he couldn’t have hurt you. Just your machine.”
“He was shooting wildly,” I lied; half-lied. “He could have killed dozens himself.”
“You couldn’t have shot for the weapon he was using?”
“No, it was a heavy-duty Nipponex. They have Ablar, a bulletproof and antispalling coating. Look, I aimed for his knees, then somebody jostled him from behind. He pitched forward and the bullet hit him in the chest.”
“So it was sort of an industrial accident. He shouldn’t have been playing with the big boys’ toys.”
“If you want to put it that way.”
“How would you put it? You pulled the trigger.”
“This is crazy. You don’t know about Liberia yesterday?”
“Africa? We’ve been too busy—”
“There’s a Liberia in Costa Rica.”
“I see. That’s where the boy was.”
“And a thousand others. Also past tense.” I took a long drink of whiskey and coughed. “Some extremists killed a couple of hundred children, and made it look like we’d been responsible. That was horrible enough. Then a mob attacked us, and . . . and . . . the riot control measures backfired. They’re supposed to be benign, but they caused the death of hundreds more, trampled. Then they started shooting, shooting their own people. So we, we . . .”
“Oh, my God. I’m sorry,” she said, her voice trembling. “You need real support, and here I come all edgy with fatigue and preoccupied. You poor . . . have you been to a counselor?”
“Yeah. He was a big help.” I plucked an ice cube from the tea and dropped it in the whiskey. “He said I’d get over it.”
“Will you?”
“Sure. He gave me some pills.”
“Well, be careful with the pills and the booze.”
“Yes, doctor.” I took a cool sip.
“Seriously. I’m worried.”
“Yeah, me too.” Worried, wearied. “So what are you and this Pete doing?”
“But you—”
“Let’s just change the subject. What did he want you for?”
“Jupiter. He’s challenging some basic cosmological assumptions.”
“Then why you? Probably everyone from Macro on down knows more about cosmology—hell, I probably do.”
“I’m sure you do. But that’s why he chose me—everyone senior to me was in on the planning stages of the Project, and they have this consensus about . . . certain aspects of it.”
“What aspects?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Oh, come on.”
She touched her tea but didn’t drink it; looked into it. “Because you can’t really keep a secret. All your platoon would know as soon as you jacked.”
“They wouldn’t know shit. Nobody else in that platoon can tell a Hamiltonian from a hamburger. Anything technical, they might pick up on my emotional reaction, but that’s it. No technical details; they might as well be in Greek.”
“Your emotional reaction is what I’m talking about. I can’t say any more. Don’t ask me.”
“Okay. Okay.” I took another drink of whiskey and pushed the order button. “Let’s get something to eat.” She