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  Jackie had the blunt yet playful demeanor and hard assertiveness of a television physical trainer. She also had the iron discipline and the frustratingly perfect body, not to mention the resume history, of a physical trainer; all of which was to say that she was a former and still part-time physical trainer. Jo adored her, but she could see how her direct manner put some of the parents on the defensive from time to time, at least until they got to know her better.

  Jo continued to wind the cord as she dealt with the anxiety Jackie’s friendly question caused. “Uh, yeah. Definitely.” She hedged.

  “What?” Jackie stopped organizing books and looked over her shoulder.

  “Um… what are we doing? Uh, well…”

  “No. What?” Jackie turned to face her squarely. “I mean what’s wrong? You’re acting weird.”

  “Newsflash: Jo’s acting weird,” Jo said, fidgeting with the clip at the end of the vacuum cord, “this can’t surprise you anymore…”

  “Nice try. Spill! Are you fighting with Mr. Wonderful? Is he available?” Jackie finished with a sly grin and theatrical nod.

  “We’re not fighting.” Jo evaded. Jackie arched an eyebrow and waited.

  “Ok, we’re not talking… well, I’m not talk… I mean I’m not returning his calls… I mean… none of your business! …or rather, I’ve already talked to my therapist about it… I mean uh, no comment.” Jo covered her eyes with a shaking hand and giggled uncomfortably.

  “That was even more awesome than when you went in the wrong bathroom.” Jackie laughed.

  Jo nodded and giggled louder. “I’m a basket case full of baskets and more cases… of basket cases… and… uh, freaks… with problems.”

  “You,” Jackie leveled a finger at Jo, “are hilarious! Have you ever considered standup…" Then, seemingly seized with inspiration, she turned her leveled finger upward. “Aha! Hey! Wait a second—this is perfect! Not only is there an amazing bachelor available in my zip code, but I am the only one who knows he’s available… and I know someone with his number…”

  “Really?” Jo blew out a sigh of relief, “You’d do that for me?” She fumbled in her pocket, finally bringing out her phone.

  “For you?” Jackie wrinkled her brow, “Most people would say ‘to you’. Jo, I just told you that I’d be happy to steal your frankly awesome man while you were confused and he was on the rebound, and you’re thanking me?! You were not just about to send me his digits!”

  “Ummmm…” Jo fidgeted with the phone. “No. I uh, just got a text. It was from the bank, just in case you were wondering…” Jo pretended to check the messages on her phone, then looked up into Jackie’s clear, unconvinced eyes. “Maybe? Ok, yeah. I think you two would make a wonderful couple.”

  “You are from Venus.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Where’s Venus?! Merciful baby Anubis, girl! What do your strange faraway people call the planet second from our small, yellow sun?”

  “Sorry!” Jo felt her face begin to burn, “At least I know what the sun is… I guess this rules out extraterrestrial… Maybe I’m a mermaid?”

  Jackie smirked her disapproval, “This is going to be one of those sweet stories where I start off skeptical, then end up believing in mermaids, isn’t it?”

  Jo shook her head in bemusement. “So, I’ll take that to mean that mermaids aren’t real.”

  “You think all amnesiacs are this funny?” Jackie laughed. “You know, I actually can’t tell when you’re joking…”

  “Neither can I.”

  “Let’s discuss it over dinner, then.” Jackie took the vacuum from Jo and began to walk toward the closet.

  “Uh… I don’t know… I might have plans…” Jo said, both excited by the diversion from the weekend’s looming loneliness, and terrified by the thought of the mess she would inevitably make of the human interaction.

  “Yeah. With Jeremy, right?” Jackie looked back over her shoulder, giving Jo a level look, “unless that ‘text message’ from the bank was a dinner invite, I’m pretty sure you’re free.”

  Jo desperately wanted to take Jackie up on the offer, but it didn’t take long for her awkward fear to push her desires aside. Dr. Smith said it would take her a while to begin to feel comfortable with other adults… heaven knew she never felt truly comfortable around Jeremy.

  After a few seconds of internal struggle, she found the courage to be cowardly, “No thanks. I’m really beat tonight… maybe next week?”

  “You always say that,” Jackie stowed the vacuum and turned back to Jo with an exasperated look, “I’m surprised I’m still asking… that was the last time for sure.”

  “And you always say that.” Jo shot back with an unexpected flush of humor. They both smiled as they realized it was true. “Look. I’ve got issues, I admit it.”

  “We all got issues, honey. What’s so scary about dinner, anyway? Y’know, I’m not hitting on you, right?”

  Jo snorted, shaking her head. “Yeah, I get that, it’s just that… I don’t know… I just don’t feel like I belong with other people.”

  “Like I said: I’m not hitting on you.”

  “Yeah,” an embarrassing blush joined Jo’s smile, “gotcha. I didn’t mean ‘belong’ like that… it’s just… people make me feel guilty.”

  “Guilty?”

  “Yeah. Crazy eh? Just ask my shrink… crazy.” She tapped on her right temple for emphasis, her smile sheepish now, her eyes expectant.

  “The kids don’t freak you out… you’re a natural at this job.”

  “No… I love kids… that’s one of the reasons Dr. Smith helped me get this job.”

  “You mean Anaya’s dad?”

  “Her mom. My psychiatrist kinda got me this job.” Jo said, and then tried not to hold her breath as she waited for Jackie’s judgment.

  “Ah.” Jackie nodded, “So she’s your shrink eh? She ever hypnotize you with a watch or anything… hey, she ever tell you that you were getting sleepy, anything like that?”

  “Right!” Jo said, “No, nothing like that. She’s mostly trying to help me to reconstruct my memory and cope until it comes back… she says the inferiority complex should resolve itself naturally when I come to terms with who I am—whoever that may turn out to be.”

  “Aw, that’s easy.” Jackie gave Jo a too-hard-ex-personal-trainer clap on the shoulder, “You’re the best preschool teacher I’ve ever seen in my extensive eighteen months of experience.” Jackie continued her earnest nodding until Jo smiled.

  “So,” Jackie said, “we take in a movie tonight. I haven’t seen Urban Bouquet yet. I hear it’s guaranteed to make all women and most men cry.”

  “Urban Bouquet,” Jo mused, “Maybe we could meet at the theater then…”

  “Riiiiight!” Jackie snorted, “Do I look stupid? You’d stand me up.”

  “No, I…” Jo sputtered for a moment, “uh… would not… at all… ok, yeah, you got me.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” Jackie shook her head, “No you don’t, sister! We’re going right now… we’re walking out that door, you will stay in my sight at all times and we’re going out to get some very unhealthy food, then straight to the show. Yes Jo, this is the week we actually do the girls’ night out thing.”

  Jo was paralyzed by alternating surges of gratitude and terror. “I thought you weren’t hitting on me.” She managed a weak smile.

  “Just ‘cause you don’t have a boyfriend anymore don’t make the rest of the world gay.” Jackie waved a judgmental finger between them, “Now quit it or I’ll have to take you out clubbing and see if we can’t solve that boyfriend problem, too.”

  “Gah! No!” Jo held up her hands in mock surrender.

  Object Lesson

  Chicago, 2119

  Crow leaned against the wall, half trying for a strikingly cool pose, half trying not to fall down. He assumed that this was what getting old would feel like, though he knew full well he’d never know for sure. At twenty two years old, he could only expec
t maybe another three to five more years of a life that was slouching toward a wasting death with each passing day. For as long as he could remember, he’d felt the palsy, itching through his bones, burning the sense from his nerves—killing him slowly.

  His mind held only the last three years of memory. The clerics told him that the seizure that left him a blank slate three years ago was the third since his birth. Like most teams, Phoenix had first met in recovery, virtual infants with only days or weeks of remembered experience. The clerics had implied that some members of the team had worked together before, but it was against one of the many League prescriptions to discuss details of past, unremembered lives. The clerics said it was the healthiest way to deal with a dwindling population of the terminally ill, the best way to keep them docile. Of course they hadn’t actually said it exactly that way, it was more “This system provides our precious children the most peace and the greatest opportunity for happiness.”

  Sometimes Crow wondered why the palsy happened. There wasn’t a lot of info on that subject from their synthetic parents, the Clerics. He sometimes wondered if it was a natural plague, or a consequence of some ancient laboratory accident or apocalyptic war. In the end, he supposed it didn’t really matter. Almost everyone had died, and everybody still left was dying, but at a somewhat more leisurely pace. No one could say why, but sometime soon, there wouldn’t be anyone left to care and the mystery would be left to some future alien archaeologist.

  A shuffling stir from the hallway called Crow from his thoughts. He straightened his posture, reinforced his nonchalance then spent the last few seconds tweaking it all and hoping it was working.

  She shuffled around the corner and everything changed. It wasn’t like down in the Hallow… no visceral thrill coursed through his nerves; no blessed sledgehammer of her eyes announced their meeting—yet he was still knocked all the way off his game. His eyes darted, his concentration wavered and his right knee almost buckled. His practiced smile retreated to the horizontal line of consternation he usually wore.

  Her lips twitched upward, dry skin wrinkling at the corners, her sunken eyes didn’t sparkle, but when he looked at her the right way, he could still see a ghost of her as she was in the Hallow, where her spirit could shine without the burden of dying flesh.

  “So,” she teased, “stand much?”

  “Actually, no.” he said and they shared a weak smile.

  “How long till the chair, you think?” She prodded.

  “Longer than you, shuffler.”

  “My feet go up and down.”

  “Right, but not nearly enough.” He grinned as they turned down the hall. Crow slid his feet across the floor, mocking her slow gait.

  “You heading straight home?” She asked, struggling to shuffle as little as possible.

  “Nah… food. You?”

  “Food. Ash like. You, me—eat?”

  Crow grunted, Ash nodded, and they shuffled down the dim, yellow-tinted hall together.

  ***

  The restaurant was dusty, dark and sparsely populated, much like the city outside its ancient smoked glass windows. With a high ceiling, lavish granite and woodwork, it was built to accommodate and impress perhaps eighty affluent diners, but now, even at seven p.m. on Saturday, only three solitary patrons were spread out across the floor. Two men sat far apart at an expansive teak and brass bar, and an emaciated woman sat in a wheelchair at a table against the far wall. Ash and Crow shuffled across the polished marble floor of the entranceway and navigated the trivial maze of scratched tables and worn leather booths, finally settling into a booth in the emptiest of the restaurant’s empty corners. Less than a minute later, a cleric in a crisp black tuxedo brought them water and menus.

  Because they were flush with entertainment credits from their latest League victory, they pulled out all the stops and ordered hot soup with rice added to give it an interesting texture. To drink: something cold and carbonated. Like everyone else they knew, taste was an abstract concept for them, not something they could remember or imagine. For them, eating was about nutrition. As they could vaguely sense temperature, and texture, how the food felt was about the only variety they could perceive, if not quite enjoy.

  They waited, sipping their cool bubbly drinks and engaging in idle conversation until the cleric brought their food. Their conversation then slowed to accommodate their clumsy eating, until they sat brooding in an uncomfortable silence with the remains of their food between them. Crow’s bowl was half empty; Ash’s was half full.

  “You hear Delta’s recruiting?” Ash said, hoping to kick start the banter. She knew Crow hated Chrome, the captain of Delta.

  “Who died?”

  “Ironically, Death.” She said, somewhat deflated. “How many is that in the league this month?”

  “Deathwish… wow. Never thought that guy would go. Three.” Crow said, stirring his tasteless soup, “You hear Daggs bit it two days back?”

  “No! Really?” Ash said, raising an eyebrow.

  “RPG came from nowhere… the good ones never seem to have impressive endings.”

  “How’s Daggs dealing with the afterlife?” Ash asked.

  “Haven’t seen him since the fatality,” Crow shrugged, “but then it’s not like I’m hanging out at the library… ever. I’m not really into the whole library of the dead thing. It’s depressing to watch them shambling around in the bookshelves, shell-shocked and trying to subsist without entertainment credits. No, I doubt I won’t be seeing either of them until their League suspensions end and they can get back into the Hallow.”

  “I’m sure they’ll find good teams after the suspension." Ash stirred her soup idly. “They ever talk to you?” She asked finally.

  “League fatalities? You mean the haunted dead?” he said with a playful grin, “They’re never much fun, blank-eyed zombies that they are… it’s like they’re always in the middle of another conversation that you’re interrupting. They just try to make the right noises at you so you’ll lose interest and they can shuffle away and lapse back into silence.”

  “No. Y’know… in the Hallow. Any of the marks ever talk to you?”

  “This area is off limits for now.” Crow quoted a familiar line from every guard who populated the more rudimentary training levels of the Hallow. They both smiled.

  “No, I mean in league play—anyone ever talked to you?”

  “Crow! Help! I stepped on another landmine!” he said, smiling—mocking.

  “I’ve only stepped on one.” She said through narrowed eyes.

  “Crow! Crow! My guts fell out again!”

  “Now that one was Shadow’s fault,” she laughed. She’d almost forgotten thoughts of murder and mercy. It was tempting to just ease back into the comfort of the shared banter, into the comfort of their friendship. But then she saw the pleading eyes, the blood—the trembling hands stilled forever. It was a splinter in her heart that she couldn’t remove by herself.

  “Seriously, Crow.”

  “I’ve heard people talking… usually before they realize we’re there, then the talking generally stops—‘cept for maybe a ‘no!’ or the odd grunt or gurgle of death’s onomatopoeia.”

  She put her elbows on the table, fingertips on her temples. Crow dipped his head a bit to try to catch her eye. “Hey… what?”

  “Today that soldier in the alley begged me for her life.”

  Crow waited, then he finally shrugged, hoping that would be enough to nudge the rest out of her.

  “She begged me not to orphan her children.”

  “Why’d you listen? You were on the job, and if I remember correctly, we were in a hurry…”

  “I don’t know… I really don’t, but it made me feel dirty.”

  “It’s a game.” He said.

  “How many times have you told me it’s not just a…”

  “You know what I mean.” Crow interrupted, “It’s not real. Maybe the begging was the Clerics’ idea of added realism.”

  “She begged me,
Crow. She was helpless.”

  “Ash, you know she had all the emotions, subtle needs, and tender feelings of an electric toothbrush.” Crow said, working hard to keep the frustration out of his voice. “She was probably programmed to make you hesitate. Besides, she had a commlink… you couldn’t just leave her.”

  “But she didn’t use it, Crow. That’s part of what I’m saying. If she was programmed to make me feel guilty, what was the point? If all that counted was the mission, she didn’t need to make me hesitate, she could have raised the alarm before I rounded the corner—she had the commlink in her hand, but all she wanted was to deal… to live.” Ash held up a hand between them, gesturing for patience. “Look. I can’t play this out any way but that she was trying to survive by bartering with me… she said she’d pass out soon, said I didn’t need to shoot… She begged for her children! What do clerics know about children or mothers?”

  “More than you do, Ash. They kinda are mothers… our mothers.”

  “May I warm your soup, Sir? Madame?” the stealthy cleric who had seemingly materialized at the end of their booth asked, looking from Crow to Ash.

  “Not now, Mom.” Crow said with what Ash would call his “wiseass eyebrow” arched in the waiter’s direction.

  “Mom…” the cleric, who was clearly a simulation of male, said thoughtfully.

  “No. Thanks.” Ash said, not entirely able to keep the corners of her lips in check. Crow noticed her amusement and his own grin broadened.

  “Could I interest you in some more croutons or tapioca?” The waiter lifted his serving tray slightly, “We’ve got water chestnuts today…”

  “We’re fine.” Crow said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  “You’re fine.” Ash said as the cleric walked toward the patrons at the bar.

  “Ash, you’re fine too.”