Secrets: Chapter 29

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Chapter 29

After braving the draft, Kanade brought James back to Laurentia for a wander through the streets beneath festive decoration. Christmas was called something else in Shattered Land, but it was undeniably Christmas, and a fairy dusting of snow covered everything, though the temperature was pleasant for walking. The glories of magic.

The trip wound to a stop at Kanade's house.

"You got a new couch," James said.

Previously, almost everything in the house had been stone, including the chairs and seats. Now, the couch was black leather, looking plush and soft enough to dip into like fondue.

"Try it out," Kanade said, smiling. "I'll be right back." She went past the kitchen and up a flight of steps.

James sat. It was like being swallowed by a marshmallow. Among the antiquated stonework, an enormous leather couch was incongruous as decor, but its comfort was impossible to argue with.

The rest of the room was contrastingly spartan. The couch faced a bare wall of textured sandstone tile. No pictures, no posters, no clocks. No plants in the corners, no standing lamps. The light came from recesses covered in translucent glass. A glimpse of the kitchen suggested more of the same.

Kanade came back down, softly humming a tune. A familiar presence bolted beneath her, bounding down three steps at a time and then scuttling along the ground. James leaned further into the leather, resigned, as Wigglewaggle made a flying leap into his lap and scampered up his arm. Instead of nesting on his hair, the creature lay flat on the backrest of the couch with its head on his shoulder. Sudden stillness suggested instant sleep.

"Whenever you're around, I think I'm playing second fiddle," Kanade said, standing in the archway of the kitchen.

"He doesn't have time to get tired of me."

"Hmm. Well, settle in, you've got a marathon ahead."

With how comfortable James was, settling in sounded just fine. "Okay. Explain this marathon. I'm staring at a stone wall."

Kanade held up something retrieved from upstairs. "The solution is before you."

James peered at it. "A remote control?"

"Sort of." Kanade walked over and sat next to him, wiggling back and forth into the cushions. "Ooh. So comfy. I should have gotten one of these ages ago."

She held the remote up and poked at it. A panel of the stone wall unhinged and slid back, revealing a gigantic television screen. Numbers appeared in the screen's upper right corner, scrolling down at a blurring speed from 274 to 003.

"—oining us for everyone's favorite pre-celebration celebration, the Studio 3 marathon Christmas special," exclaimed an enthusiastic young Asian woman in a Santa suit cut off at the thigh. "We'll begin with the best of the best for your viewing pleasure: a two-hour Christmas edition of Ryu and the High School Beat Box. Ryu and his friends have been practicing for the Christmas concert for three episodes, but what will they do when disaster strikes at the winter formal? Stay tuned to find out, and don't forget, this is a marathon, so coming up right after Ryu we'll have meatier fare for mature audiences as The Darkest Heart pumps through its first ever holiday special."

"No way," James said. "Seriously?"

"You sounded like Casey just then."

"Ryu is my favorite show."

"I know," Kanade said, turning enough to smile at him.

***

During the intermission between Ryu and The Darkest Heart, James stretched his legs and rolled his shoulders, causing Wigglewaggle to snuffle and resettle.

"I'm trying to understand this," he said. "How can you get a feed of live broadcasts through a television in a virtual world?"

"Umm." Kanade raised her arms up over her head, kicked her feet and let out a huge sigh of release. "Have you heard of NetMeet?"

"I don't know. Vaguely. I'm not a computer person."

An amused smile blossomed over Kanade's face. "It's a program that lets other programs talk to each other. We use it for our recording sessions, for example. I'll have the data stored in our studio, and then Casey or Julia can load up the audio mixing software and use it inside the game. Really convenient if, for example, one of your band members is in Texas." She peered at his face. "You're not glazing over, are you?"

"No, I'm thinking. These things are not my forte." James ran a hand through his hair. "How does that relate to the television?"

"I'm using NetMeet to import a cable feed. I can get channels from anywhere in the world."

"Amazing. What about stored media? Can you pull something out of a hard drive?"

"Did you have something in mind?"

"I have a ton of Ryu at home."

Kanade twirled an end of her hair in thought for a few moments, a faint smile playing over her lips. "Let's watch it."

"You can do that? From my computer?"

"Let's find out. Can you make us some popcorn?"

James wandered into the kitchen with Wigglewaggle perched on his shoulder. On top of the stone counter sat a microwave as out of place as the couch. Two minutes of rummaging and five minutes of popping produced two hot and ready bags. He checked the fridge—stone on the outside, a normal fridge on the inside—and procured two cans of generic soft drink.

When James walked back into the living room, he was looking at an image of his laptop's file directory. His folder of recorded media was open on the screen.

"You actually did it."

"Piece of cake." Kanade smiled, fiddling with her device, which was apparently a lot more potent than any television remote control. "Let's see. Here's the folder with Ryu in it ... and here's The Darkest Heart. Hmm. Which folder has the secret stash of porn?"

James sat, trying not to fling Wigglewaggle into a far corner of the room with any sudden movements. "It's the folder that says porn."

"Oh, I see it."

"Too early in the day for that one."

"Shall we be prudes until ten o'clock?"

"What are you threatening to do after ten?"

Kanade's smile grew wider. "Oh ... who knows."

James watched her fool around on his desktop and then queue up the two previous Ryu Christmas specials, all from a screen in a virtual world that she had somehow connected to his home computer's hard drive.

"Is this even legal?"

"Hmm ... since you asked me to ... it's probably fine?" A near-giggle escaped. "Don't tell on me, okay?"

"How do you know how to do this?"

Kanade sat back down on the couch, a little closer to him than before. She took one of the bags of popcorn and began to munch.

"Well," she said, between mouthfuls, "I guess you'd say I grew up on this stuff."

***

By the time they were done, it was full dark out. Wigglewaggle hadn't moved in hours. At Kanade's direction, James put the creature to bed in a small nest of blankets upstairs. Kanade's room was decorated in the same vein as the rest of the house: a stone bed frame with a mattress and sheets, a stone dresser and wardrobe, a full-length mirror and not much else. The bed didn't look slept in.

No surprise. James had discovered the hard way that falling asleep in the game was a one-way ticket to reality.

He went downstairs and found Kanade by the door.

"Will you come with me to the hill?" she said.

"Is that phrased in the interrogative to make it sound like I have a choice?"

"Don't use my words against me. And listen, I'm doing you a favor by dragging you to the park."

"Are you?"

"It's nine-thirty. If we're still in the house at ten, who knows what might happen."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Saving you. Let's go, it's a perfect night to see the stars."

"Won't the hill be covered in snow?"

Kanade pointed to a pile of blankets on the floor. "It's all under control."

The sky was clear as black glass, the distant stars beacons on an unlit sea. The air was crisp but not uncomfortably cold. The blankets kept the heat of their bodies from drifting into the ground. They lay side by side, close enough that they could have touched. Kanade's warmth was a bubble of gentler night.

"Have you found a dream yet?" she asked, holding up a hand, gazing between her fingers like the gaps were tiny telescopes.

James breathed out a stream of mist, watching it swirl into wisps, then into nothing. "If I said that I wish for things just not to change, would that be pathetic?"

"No. It would make me sad, but only because I'm the same."

"You?" It was hard not to scoff. "No way."

"Are you afraid of change?"

James watched the stars twinkle and recede. Were they like real stars? Would they last forever, or would they fade into eternity?

"Terrified of it," he said.

"Me, too."

"Why?"

Kanade's hand dropped to her side, close enough to his that it was like a current ran through the air, bridging the tiny gap not with flesh, but only intent.

"Whenever I imagine the future," she said, words curling away into vapor, "I can't see the happy ending."

"I know what you mean."

"That's why I come here. I look out at those stars and I think that if there are a billion-billion stars and planets full of lives, at least some of them must be able to greet the future with a smile."

Did Kanade have a room 459 somewhere, waiting for her return? Was that why she spent so much time here, where the only limit to life was what you could dream?

"What's blocking the future you want to greet?" James asked. "We all have obstacles that we can't see past. You can tell me."

"What does it mean to be real?" Kanade said. "The future ... it's real. It's coming. But you can't touch it." She waved her hand out at the sky, at the trees draped in snow. "What about this place? These things? We can touch them. We can see them. They're already here. How can they not be real?"

"Reality is what you make it," James said.

"Do you really believe that?" Kanade turned to look at him. Her eyes had always been black, but the depth of the darkness tonight was different.

"Yes." James didn't flinch away. "Even if I hide from reality more than I fight to change it, that's just my weakness."

"Only one person knows my reality," Kanade said. "He doesn't treat me the way you do. He can't. And I know that once I tell you, the same thing will happen."

"If you're that afraid, don't tell me. Everyone has secrets."

"I can't. I can't keep it to myself forever. But ... I just..."

The urge was almost irresistible to take hold of the hand so close to his and tell her that she could write whatever ending she wanted. Did James have the right to tell such a gentle lie?

"It won't be my choice anyway," Kanade said, suddenly sighing.

"I don't understand."

"I know. I'm sorry." Kanade's voice rode a thin edge of ice, cracking beneath the weight. "I wanted you to forget all the things that you can't forget. But when I'm with you I just have this urge to talk, and once I start, I say the things I promised myself I wouldn't. I'm weak."

"If you were too strong, it would be a pretty dull rescue mission for the knight in shining armor."

"I thought you were a mentalist with brass knuckles."

"Titanium. And don't you know a metaphor when you hear one?"

Kanade expelled a quick breath in what was nearly a puff of laughter. "Thanks. For being here."

"My pleasure."

"You don't mind if I keep this secret? If I keep looking for a happy ending?"

"Don't stop looking."

"I won't. So, back to what I originally asked. Have you found a dream yet?"

James nodded. "Maybe."

"What is it?"

"A secret."

"Show me yours, I'll show you mine," Kanade said.

James pulled out his phone to check the time. "It is after ten o'clock."

Kanade rolled up on her elbow to face him and said, "Lucky for you we're in public and it's kind of cold, or there might be trouble."

"Strange definition of luck." James put his phone away. "Hey, originally when I called you today, I meant to ask something."

"If it's about the bank robbery from the other day, I don't even own a balaclava."

James smiled. "Donald's having a Christmas party on the 25th. I was wondering if you'd want to go with me."

"Like ... a date?"

"Yes."

"I'd love to," Kanade said. "Where is it?"

"The party? Donald's house."

"Oh. I guess that should have been obvious."

"Too far to come?"

"I ... won't be able to make it."

"That's alright. Another time, then."

"Are you upset?" Kanade chewed on her lip.

"I'm not," James said, and it was almost true. "Just thought it might be nice to do something like this for real."

Kanade pushed herself up in the grass and gazed at him as he lay with his hands behind his head. In silhouette, with the moon at her back, her expression was unreadable.

Then she leaned forward and down and kissed him.

Her lips were soft and warm. The flush of her breath chased away the night. After what might have been seconds or forever, she pulled back.

"Wasn't that real?" Kanade said, then quickly stood and turned away. "Have fun at the party. I wish I could go. Merry Christmas, James."

She hurried into the dark, leaving him there on the ground with the blankets, unable to do anything but watch until she was gone.

the end of the line
stations remaining: unknown
so kiss and don't tell

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