Chapter 31

It was nearly midnight when James got home. He sank into the couch, turned on a random anime and set the volume low. He wanted sleep, but his mind circled itself like a roller derby.

August had been ready to put the whole thing behind her. It was written in the slump of her shoulders when she said, Should we give up, then? But James had gotten idiotically swept up in helping, failing to focus on what he was helping with. He had two purposes: clear Donald's name and help August get her life back. Furthering a dead-end investigation was not compatible with either goal.

Worse, there must be thousands of people who would give their firstborn for a glimpse of Donald's hard drive, and August might be one of them. A little corporate espionage between friends. That would explain the mysterious "financial backer." A few grand was a pittance for leaping twenty years forward in technology.

Why did James keep sticking his nose into August's business?

It came down to understanding; a possibly self-deceptive belief that he could see what made August who she was, and that she was too much like himself to give up on. August was the polar opposite to Kanade. Kanade was a foreign song made human: mysterious and surpassingly beautiful, but conveying only feeling, never meaning.

His Holmesian over-analyzation was a hindrance in relationships. The only way to counter it was to quash thought and just be in the moment, every moment. Wherever that took him would be the path of fewest regrets.

James slept, and dreamed that he was in a sky with no earth below.

Terrified. Exalted.

Flying.

***

Morning dawned clear and cold. James awoke with the first rays of sun, looking forward to the day just because it held no specific promise. His last completely unstructured day with nothing on the to-do was buried so deep in memory that a crew of archeologists couldn't find it.

He stood outside his apartment in a sweater and jeans, freezing but wanting some air and sun. This early on a Sunday, the streets were deserted. Nothing stirred save stray snowflakes—not falling from the cloudless sky, merely relocating in leisure.

Staring into the deep blue of winter, inspiration struck. James went inside, sat down at the computer and began to type.

In four hours, he wrote more than in the previous six months combined. He had begun with no direction and wound up with, in his own opinion, some of the best pieces he had ever written, precisely because they weren't laden with intent. They were just stories. Just fun.

What a concept. James had first begun writing outside of what was required for school because it was fun. When had it become obligation instead?

He stood and stretched. Just past noon. He was hungry, but there was no food. Unlike so many other things, the last serious grocery spree was clear in his memory; in the back of the fridge was the container of sour cream for the tacos he had never made, now truly sour, dated months previous.

Time to shop.

***

Fridge stocked, appetite sated. What next?

James was energized enough for a bike ride, something he hadn't done roughly since Abe Lincoln was in power, but winter didn't lend itself to a return to office.

He sat down on the couch, put on the headset and exchanged worlds, appearing in the park on the old familiar hill. For a moment, something soft pressed against his lips. A flesh memory that wouldn't likely fade.

There were a dozen messages on his phone.

Ten were in thanks for invites to the Christmas party, a rollicking smash hit with anyone who enjoyed alcohol and raucous behavior. Good thing Donald was rich, because there had been physical damage to the house. Not that Donald had been one to fall behind when it came to getting hammered and tearing shit up.

One message was from Casey on Christmas night, lamenting her inability to attend the party and wishing James a Merry Christmas.

The final message was from Kanade, also from Christmas night. All it said was, "Wish I was there."

As James was looking down at his phone, it started buzzing with an incoming call, something which happened with suspicious regularity. It often seemed as if people were just staring at their contact list waiting for him to log in.

"Hello?"

"James Kirkpatrick?"

"Yes?"

"Daisy Egan."

No wonder he hadn't been able to pinpoint the voice. Though Daisy was part of the usual unit, she seemed like Donald's assistant even in-game rather than someone who wanted to play around and enjoy herself. James had almost forgotten to invite her to the Christmas party, but remembered on the morning of the Christmas Eve. Predictably declined.

"Hey," he said. "What's the occasion?"

"I am with Sara. You are to join us."

Daisy in a nutshell. Straight to the point. "What are we doing?"

"Educating."

"I ... see."

"Come to the east gate."

She clicked off before James even had a chance to agree.

He found them outside the wall, beside the well-trodden road leading to the upper forest. The snow coating most of the town was nowhere in evidence. The air was as warm as a late spring afternoon.

Daisy was Daisy. She wore a business suit in robin's egg blue. Her ponytail and glasses were professorial, if any professor had ever been so glacial.

Sara, on the other hand...

James had never contemplated how she might look without scythe and leather. Her outfit was now like any normal girl of college age: blue jeans, loafers, half-sleeve white blouse. Her hair was the usual curly mass, but laced in pink ribbons, extraordinary amid the combination of jade eyes and skin like coffee with extra cream. If not for Daisy, he might not have recognized her.

"Hey," he said. "Nice look. It suits you."

"I do not agree," Sara said.

"I will leave James Kirkpatrick in command," Daisy said.

"Come again?"

"Assist Sara in her task," Daisy instructed, then vanished, leaving James with his mouth slack and Sara observing impartially.

After a moment, he turned to her. "It's just you and me, kid."

"A 1979 feature film starring George Burns and Brooke Shields," Sara said.

"Why do I feel like I just walked into Daisy's version of Whose Line is it Anyway?"

"I do not know."

"The things you know versus the things you don't never ceases to amaze."

"Thank you," Sara said.

"So, what's the task of the day?"

"I have been instructed to acquire a pet."

"A pet?"

"Yes."

"What pet? Any pet?"

"One of my choosing."

James contemplated, then motioned Sara to move further off the beaten path. A little privacy couldn't hurt for a conversation this bizarre.

"What's with these instructions?"

"I do not understand the question."

"Neither do I." James rubbed at his temples. "Okay. A pet. Are there pet stores in this game?"

"I am not permitted financial means."

"You have to capture it?"

"I am not permitted use of force or trickery."

Definitely a headache coming on.

Sara always gave grammatically sound responses, yet parsing her meaning was like scaling Everest with a jump rope and tongs. She couldn't grasp the theme of the conversation.

"You can't buy it or catch it," James said, mostly to himself. "What the hell are you supposed to do?"

"I must persuade," Sara said, standing with the ramrod posture of an earnest Marine Corps private. Casual clothes notwithstanding, she was unmistakably the Scythe. The idea that he might have failed to recognize her now seemed ludicrous.

"Persuade," James echoed.

"Yes."

"Can you elaborate?"

After five seconds of almost audible grinding in her brain, Sara said, "I must convince a pet to follow me of its own accord, in the manner of Kanade Aizawa and her phosphorescent hexaped."

"Wigglewaggle chose to follow Kanade?"

"Phosphorescent hexapeds cannot be coerced," Sara said.

James had a sudden inkling as to the purpose of the day's foolishness. "Who instructed you to do this? Daisy?"

"Donald Marsh. Daisy Egan was to be my supervisor but deemed you more suitable."

Just who was Sara that Donald would end up in charge of what she did during the Christmas holidays? A hypothesis began to form, so outlandish that it was almost laughable. James couldn't just come out and ask, because if correct, he wouldn't get a straight answer.

But this might be the perfect opportunity to find out indirectly.

"Okay." James rubbed his hands together. "Let's get started."

***

Operation: Pet Get commenced at 12:57 PM EST in the upper Laurentian forest.

Sara had a list in her phone of every animal suitably small and non-aggressive to become a pet. James scrolled through it with her and helped weigh the pros and cons of each, ultimately settling on a type of flying squirrel indigenous to the surrounding area.

The bestiary claimed that flying squirrels were devoted fans of a certain local berry. James suggested that they look for the berry first. Gathering a few small handfuls was the work of half an hour.

That turned out to be the easy part.

Finding the squirrels presented no difficulty. They were everywhere. The problem reared its head when James had Sara coax the squirrels out of hiding by standing in the open with berries in her palm. The squirrels would come gliding out of the treetops, snatch the berries and keep right on going. Sara's total lack of personality had the squirrels treating her as an inanimate part of the forest. The encyclopedia specifically mentioned that flying squirrels were partial to energetic and outgoing owners, which in hindsight was a severe miscalculation.

After ninety minutes of Sara standing as stilted as the pope at a Richard Dawkins book signing, James suggested trying a different sort of pet. In a strangely heartening display of stubbornness, Sara insisted on a flying squirrel.

They soldiered on.

Between attempts, James confirmed that Sara's knowledge of math, sciences, language and trivia was unrivaled, and that her ability to hold a normal conversation was abnormally stunted. She was a female version of the teenaged Donald Marsh: brilliant to the point of inhibiting her ability to identify with other people, leading to interpersonal skills that lagged far behind her intellectual development.

 ...Actually, Donald was still like that.

It was mid-afternoon when James sat down against a tree and said, "I don't think this is going to work."

"I must agree." In a minuscule but notable display of frustration, Sara's lips were pursed.

"Why don't you take a break?" James indicated another tree with a comfortable-looking blanket of moss at its base.

"I do not require breaks," Sara said, but went to the tree and sat, cross-legged and stiff-backed: the world's tensest yogi.

James stretched his legs out. "Can I ask some personal questions?"

Sara stared, impassive as ever, but the time it took her to answer implied some internal struggle. "...Yes."

"What do you do for fun?"

Sara sat and stared and thought, stared, thought, and stared some more. "I read."

"What do you read?"

"Books."

Was there some universe in which an alternate Sara was giving the same responses to an alternate James, but was cleverly mocking him instead of being entirely serious?

"What books? Fiction? Science fiction? Fantasy? Technical manuals?" James paused and then added, "Romances?"

"Yes," Sara said.

"All of them?"

"Yes."

James sat back against the tree. This was no good. He needed phrasing that would force Sara to elaborate.

"Can you give me some examples of books you've enjoyed?"

A corner of her brow drew down and a corner of her lip turned inward in contemplation. "I have read Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein twice."

James was about to say those are authors, not books, but with Sara, it probably meant that she had read the whole body of their work twice each.

"What do you like about science fiction?"

"It is not anthropocentric."

"You prefer writing that isn't about humans?"

"I do not dislike stories about humans, but I feel that the nature of reality supports the idea that other forms of life can and should exist."

Now they were getting somewhere. Sara had never used a phrase like I feel.

"Are there other authors that you particularly enjoy?"

"Philip K. Dick. Arthur C. Clarke. Orson Scott Card. Piers Anthony."

Hard science fiction was outside his expertise, but Piers Anthony seemed to be the odd man out. Wasn't he a fantasy writer?

"Do you have a favorite movie?"

"The Matrix," Sara replied, instantly.

"Who was your favorite character?"

"The Oracle."

What was it about the Oracle that had piqued Sara's interest? James would have to watch the trilogy again, but for the moment, there was a task to hand. Intriguing hints of personality had surfaced, but Sara's ultimate problem remained. She couldn't discuss the merits of alien civilization with a flying squirrel.

"Okay." James stood. "Time to bend the rules."

He gave Sara instructions to rouse him in five minutes, then donned the focusing ring he had received from Kanade so long ago.

The sun, warm on the canopy; snow in the city miles away; winter and summer at once. Every creature that rustled in the undergrowth, he heard and felt. He had a million hearts and all of them were beating.

He was life.

It was there, in a bush of thorny limbs and razor petals: pain. A strange sensation, to be both the thorn and the flesh it pierced; cold and dark and lonesome, because that small part of him felt it, and he felt what it felt.

He snapped awake and was James Franklin Kirkpatrick again, shivering in the warmth of the mid-afternoon forest.

"It has only been two minutes," Sara said, actually volunteering information, probably accustomed to a taskmaster like Daisy and wary of James believing she had failed to awaken him.

"Come on," James said, and began walking, pushing aside branches and stepping over weeds.

A few minutes on, a large bush, thick and thorn-studded, thrust out of the ground at the edge of a clearing. It bloomed in several colors, not quite vibrantly, the palette running more cool than hot. A juvenile flying squirrel was entangled in one of the densest thorny clusters. Misjudged glide, badly timed gust of wind, branch broken off—whatever the cause, it was caught, and soon to die.

Sara knelt at the edge of the bush and peered in toward the squirrel. "Would it not be more prudent to form relations with a healthier specimen?"

He wanted to belly laugh. He wanted to cry.

"We just spent two hours trying. And that's not what a girl should be saying in this situation."

"What must I do?"

James had led a horse to water. Now to explain drinking. "Rescue it. Be gentle."

"Understood."

Sara stared at the arrangement of branches and thorns, then reached in with dexterity befitting the dark angel of the scythe. She snapped off two limbs of the bush, catching the tiny creature as it was loosed. It had no energy to attempt escape. It lay in Sara's hand and stared up at her with enormous round eyes, quivering in fear.

Sara scrutinized it like a chemistry student about to set the lab on fire, then turned to James.

"Now take it home," he said.

***

With only a slight worry that Sara might finish the creature off, James instructed her to lightly clean its wounds while he went down to the market.

It took fifteen minutes of strolling and browsing to find the right establishment. Both outside and inside the stall were cages and terrariums of domestic animals, dozens recognizable and hundreds not.

"G'day then!" said a voice.

James looked up to find a smiling man hailing him, exuding the now unmistakable aura of an NPC. The thick Aussie accent was worthy of a double-take.

"I was wondering if you could tell me about flying squirrels."

"Right lovely little ones." The man came around the counter to stand next to James. "In the market for a squirrel?"

"My friend found an injured one. I was hoping you could help me out with how to house it and what to feed it."

From a nearby wall-rack, the man produced a pamphlet: Flying Squirrels, Rearing and Care. "Here's how you do and she'll be right in no time."

"Thanks."

"We've cages in the back. Tall's best for a flyer."

James hung around long enough to note obvious deficiencies in the shopkeep's ability to converse outside the context of animal handling and care, then took his leave, cage and supplies in hand.

***

When James walked in the door to Sara's house, she was on the ground in front of her couch, knees drawn up sideways, gazing down at the squirrel where it lay curled on a towel. James watched her watching it. In that college girl outfit and with an almost gentle expression, Sara could have passed for a perfectly normal young woman. Until she opened her mouth.

"This creature is disturbingly fragile."

At least she was offering more frequent opinions.

"So are people," James said. "I brought a cage and some food. Just watch over our little guest."

While setting up the cage, populating it with branches and laying out food and water bowls, James contemplated what it meant to own and keep a pet in this world. If you didn't feed it, would it die? If so, would it reconstitute like a player?

"Okay." James sat back and ran a hand through his hair. "The rest is up to you."

Sara was still in the same position, clutching the care manual for flying squirrels like a talisman. "I am ... uncertain ... about being left in the supervision of such a delicate creature."

The motherly instinct natural to most girls was nowhere in Sara. Why and how she had become this way was a mystery, but this might be the reason Donald and Daisy had plotted this exercise. Maybe she was an abused child or someone's orphaned niece, raised in a strange environment. James could imagine all sorts of bizarre scenarios, including the one he had earlier begun to develop, still hovering in the back of his brain.

"You'll do fine. Put it in the cage, keep its food and water full, and change that bandage once in a while. I'll check on you later."

"Understood."