My coffee is ready. I take it. I say, “Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” the barista says.
The ferry is pulling in. I can see it through the plate glass. I head toward it. A man holds the door open for me.
I’m aware that people are following me. They are not in a precise line behind me. They form a loose knot, keeping pace with me. They are close, but not too close. Other people are jostled. I am not.
The sun is coming up behind tree-covered Angel Island. The fog lies between us and the city and I know this because I know a great deal about the area, though I’ve never been here.
An idea occurs to me. I try to think of what lies to the east of this area. I make it as far as a city called Berkeley. I have detailed information that far, street by street information, but then the map in my head turns vague. I know that somewhere out there is a city called Chicago. And another one called New York. And a place called Europe. I know a little about them, but only a very little.
Interesting. I’ve been incompletely educated. I know a lot about finding Evening, and I know almost nothing about anything else.
I lean on the rail of the ferry, out on the bow where the salt spray flies up and soon moistens my face. A young woman comes to stand beside me.
“Excuse me, I know you must get this a lot, but are you a model?”
“No,” I say. I’m curious. “Why would you think that?”
The young woman shakes her head ruefully. “You must know.”
“I don’t know a lot of things I should know.”
“Dude, you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”
“Am I?” I look around and see two girls nodding their heads in unison.
“Oh. Thank you,” I say.
“You should definitely be a model. Or a movie star,” the young woman says. “Or do ads or endorsements or…” She shrugs.
“He could sell me anything,” a middle-aged mom with two kids says. “Anything.”
Their words make me uncomfortable. I hunch my shoulders forward and drop my head a little. Then I stare out at the water and refuse to look behind me until we are docked in San Francisco.
Terra Spiker has given me a list of three places to look for Evening. The first is the family home. It’s a distance away in a neighborhood called Sea Cliff. I know that I can walk, or take a series of buses, or hail a cab.
There’s only one cab and his “out of service” light is on. I will need to walk, or take the bus, unless—
The cab swerves across three lanes and the window goes down.
“You need a ride?” the driver asks.
– 33 –
I’m frantic. I still have my phone, but I don’t have Solo’s number. I ask my phone where I can find a computer for rent. I follow the directions and head toward it at a trot.
This is happening too fast. I can’t let Solo do it.
Can I?
The copy center is closed. It doesn’t open for another two hours. I look around, desperate. I’m in the financial district now, a midget at the feet of giants. The Transamerica Pyramid is in one direction, the Bank of America building in the other. I head toward the B of A, hesitate, stop, wish I had psychic powers, look carefully in every direction. Nothing. No one but a street person, an older woman, who pushes a shopping cart toward me while muttering, “I told her it was okay, I told her it was okay.”
Schizophrenia, a genetic condition. The kind of terrifying disease that might be cured with the right knowledge, if you knew just where to find the particular genetic codes and could snip, snip, paste, paste.
Would the mentally ill street person want to be cured if she knew that it meant a basement full of freaks and monsters?
Don’t be a fool, I tell myself. Of course she would. Just about anyone would.
Where did Solo go?
He could be anywhere, I realize. He doesn’t need to wait for some library or printing company to open. There are computers all around me. They’re piled seventy stories high. Solo, being Solo, may have already found an office left unlocked, or charmed his way past a security guard. The odds are that the deadly data is already propagating across the Web.
This isn’t his decision. It’s our decision.
“Yeah, well, screw you, Solo,” I say bitterly. “You can drop dead and die!”
I’m aware of the redundancy in that statement.
I head dejectedly back to the pier warehouse. I pause at a doughnut shop. I go in, telling myself I’ll just grab a cup of coffee. I come out with a dozen doughnuts, some of them still so fresh they’re hot. I devour two on my way home.
It isn’t far back to the pier. The door’s unlocked, just as I’d left it. Some part of me hopes Aislin’s returned. I want to hear her tease me for resorting to comfort pastry.
Some other part of me is hoping Solo’s returned, so I can scream at him and then, quite possibly, kiss him for several days.
More doughnut.
As soon as I’m inside, I know I’m not alone.
The rising sun beams through the high windows. It lights the tops of the statues glaring down at me with animal ferocity.
The sun also lights one side of his face.
He sees me.
He doesn’t move.
“Evening?” he asks.
“Adam,” I say.
– 34 –
SOLO
On the twenty-seventh floor of the Bank of America building I find a big law firm. They aren’t open for business, but they work the lawyers hard at places like this. A rushing, harried young woman is on her way in. She fumbles with the key, gets it finally, and throws open the door before hurrying inside.