freeway, Persey realized that she would prefer being monologued to the oppressive silence that currently existed in the back of the Hummer.
That said, establishing lines of communication was not her forte. Half a dozen times she wanted to open her mouth and say, Where are you from? How did you get invited to the tournament? So black’s your favorite “color,” huh? Each time, she’d steal a glance at her ride-mate, who maintained a laser-sharp focus on her smartphone, and the words would dry up on her tongue.
The Hummer began to pick up steam once they made it through downtown Las Vegas. Casinos and shopping malls transitioned into tract housing developments and mini malls, from urban to suburban, and finally both fell away so suddenly it was as if they’d crossed an invisible barrier into no-man’s-land.
Which wasn’t too far off the mark. Before long, Persey caught sight of a bullet-shaped white object out of the corner of her eye, pacing the green Hummer. She turned and saw what appeared to be a remote-controlled jet plane landing on an air strip that ran parallel to the highway.
“Whoa,” she said, hardly even aware the syllable had come out of her mouth.
The word seemed to snap Neela to attention. “Cool, right? It’s a drone landing at the air force base. I’ve never seen one in person, but I researched this whole area before I got on the plane and saw that they run a lot of drone training missions from here. I also studied the demography, topography, and climatography of this region.” Neela snorted. “All the ‘aphies,’ really. That’s a joke.”
“I laughed on the inside,” Persey said, hoping as the words left her mouth that she didn’t sound too much like an asshole.
“You did? Oh, nice! Thank you.” Then Neela quickly typed something into her phone. “Sorry to be rude, but I have to write down what I just said. I, um, like to keep track of what I do that makes people laugh because I don’t always understand why they do it. I didn’t want you to think that I was ignoring your very kind overtures of camaraderie by escaping into my phone even though it is my safety mechanism when I’m not quite sure of social cues.”
Persey could only imagine Neela in high school, where snooty bitches would make fun of her mercilessly behind her back. Shit, to her face. Humans were brutal.
“You think it’ll come in handy?” Persey asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from anything personal. “I mean all your studies. Like for solving one of the puzzles?”
“Maybe,” Neela said with a shrug. “Who knows? My ex-girlfriend always told me I go overboard with stuff like this. Thinking of every possible outcome. I can’t not overprepare, you know? It would make me bonkers. I’m the kind of person who needs a concrete sense of all contingencies in order to weigh my decision-making efficiently. It helps me cut down on my anxiety.”
Persey understood completely. She could count on one hand the number of times in her life that she’d done something—from picking out clothes to asking her parents for, well, anything—without reasoning out (agonizing over) the possible outcomes first. She’d try to consider all aspects of the decision, all possibilities, before taking any kind of action, fearing not only the negative outcomes of her decisions, but the positives as well. Basically, anything that put her in the spotlight. Persey’s number one goal in life was not to be noticed at all.
Neela cocked her head to the side. “You said your name is Persey?”
“Yep.”
“For Persephone?”
Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it. “Yep.”
“I like it. I had a girlfriend named Penelope once, which I know isn’t exactly the same as Persephone, though they’re from sort of the same source material and people were always telling her where her name came from as if she wouldn’t have known that information already from every stupid genealogy project she’d been forced to do in elementary school. I would get irritated when someone tried to mansplain her name because I hate it when people share their knowledge with total strangers to make themselves feel superior, but she always told me to ignore it.”
“I’m more Penelope there,” Persey said. “I let it go.” Do you?
“Yeah, I thought you might be. But that’s why you need friends to—” She stopped mid-sentence, her attention caught by something outside the heavily tinted windows. “Holy cow babies!”
Persey stared out the window, though at first she couldn’t tell what had elicited