see her.”
Anthea stops next to him, places a hand on one shoulder. “Where?” Hard to tell if she’s humoring him or having trouble dissecting the shadows and assembling them into a meaningful pattern.
Josué points at an amorphous Rorschach blotch in the grain, a blond discoloration worn smooth as the Wailing Wall by the hands of supplicants.
“Can I touch her?” he asks.
“I don’t see why not,” Anthea says.
Josué bends close, trails a tentative fingertip across the angel the way he might a live electrical wire.
“Feel anything?” Rigo asks.
“Not really.” Josué straightens, clearly disappointed by the lack of immediate gratification, and drifts over to the fence to look at the pictures, leaving them alone for a moment.
Anthea reaches for Rigo’s hand, threads her fingers through his. “It’s so quiet,” she says. “Peaceful.”
“Yeah.”
She gazes down at the table. Puckers her mouth. “It’s smaller than I remember.”
Rigo grins. “Everything looks bigger when you’re a kid.”
“The way it works,” she says, “is that people lie down on the table. That’s how you open up to the angel.”
An image of bloody sacrifices, something out of the Old Testament, flashes across Rigo’s mindscape.
“Do people really get cured?” he asks. It seems like one of those things that only happen in the distant past, like raising the dead or slaying dragons. It’s not a part of modern reality. Shit like that just doesn’t happen anymore. “I mean, have you personally known anyone who got better?” He does his best not to sound sarcastic, to treat it as an honest question.
“The time I was here this old woman had bone cancer in her spine. She was in a wheelchair, totally paralyzed. She had to be lifted onto the table. People stood in a circle around her, holding hands and chanting. Praying. After a few minutes, her hands moved, then her feet. Pretty soon, she was able to get up and walk.”
“How do you know it wasn’t staged?”
“You’re such a skeptic.” Her fingers tighten around his, the pressure affectionate but urgent, as if willing him to believe.
“I wonder what caused the image to appear?” he says.
“Maybe it’s like ashes,” she says, “or a shadow. You know, like those people in Hiroshima.”
“Maybe.”
“The angel always makes me think of us,” Anthea says.
Rigo blinks. “It does? Why?”
“Because we’re like a miracle,
papi
.”
Rigo stands there, quietly holding on to her hand and the moment for as long as he can. Except for a brief visit by the ICLU, it’s been a pleasant evening. The last thing he wants to do is ruin it by opening his mouth.
SIX
At work the next morning Rigo’s boss, Rijn Ajisa, calls first thing. Before he has a chance to suit up. “Rigo, could I see you in my office?” Her expression on the inside of his wraparounds is an implacable tableau, a blank screen onto which he projects the heat death of the universe. He’s only been to her office once before, the day he started work.
“Sure. No problem.” His stomach pinches, twists into a knotted rag as he pods from the vat building to the main corporate office. Gone is the pleasant afterglow from last night.
The leak in his biosuit. There must be a serious problem with the warm-blooded plants. They’ve been contaminated, hosed beyond repair.
Either that, or politicorp security found out about the delivery he made for Beto—the old woman was working undercover—and is now going to arrest him. If that’s the case, he’s screwed. Life as he knows it is over.
Like a condemned man, he mounts the stairs to Rijn Ajisa’s second-floor office. His legs feel leaden, his bowels queasy, as if he’s climbing the steps to a guillotine or hangman’s noose.
“Please close the door,” Ajisa says as soon as Rigo steps inside. Not a good sign. He nods, swallows. The door seals behind him like the lid of a coffin.
In addition to Ajisa, there’s a man he doesn’t
Anthea stops next to him, places a hand on one shoulder. “Where?” Hard to tell if she’s humoring him or having trouble dissecting the shadows and assembling them into a meaningful pattern.
Josué points at an amorphous Rorschach blotch in the grain, a blond discoloration worn smooth as the Wailing Wall by the hands of supplicants.
“Can I touch her?” he asks.
“I don’t see why not,” Anthea says.
Josué bends close, trails a tentative fingertip across the angel the way he might a live electrical wire.
“Feel anything?” Rigo asks.
“Not really.” Josué straightens, clearly disappointed by the lack of immediate gratification, and drifts over to the fence to look at the pictures, leaving them alone for a moment.
Anthea reaches for Rigo’s hand, threads her fingers through his. “It’s so quiet,” she says. “Peaceful.”
“Yeah.”
She gazes down at the table. Puckers her mouth. “It’s smaller than I remember.”
Rigo grins. “Everything looks bigger when you’re a kid.”
“The way it works,” she says, “is that people lie down on the table. That’s how you open up to the angel.”
An image of bloody sacrifices, something out of the Old Testament, flashes across Rigo’s mindscape.
“Do people really get cured?” he asks. It seems like one of those things that only happen in the distant past, like raising the dead or slaying dragons. It’s not a part of modern reality. Shit like that just doesn’t happen anymore. “I mean, have you personally known anyone who got better?” He does his best not to sound sarcastic, to treat it as an honest question.
“The time I was here this old woman had bone cancer in her spine. She was in a wheelchair, totally paralyzed. She had to be lifted onto the table. People stood in a circle around her, holding hands and chanting. Praying. After a few minutes, her hands moved, then her feet. Pretty soon, she was able to get up and walk.”
“How do you know it wasn’t staged?”
“You’re such a skeptic.” Her fingers tighten around his, the pressure affectionate but urgent, as if willing him to believe.
“I wonder what caused the image to appear?” he says.
“Maybe it’s like ashes,” she says, “or a shadow. You know, like those people in Hiroshima.”
“Maybe.”
“The angel always makes me think of us,” Anthea says.
Rigo blinks. “It does? Why?”
“Because we’re like a miracle,
papi
.”
Rigo stands there, quietly holding on to her hand and the moment for as long as he can. Except for a brief visit by the ICLU, it’s been a pleasant evening. The last thing he wants to do is ruin it by opening his mouth.
SIX
At work the next morning Rigo’s boss, Rijn Ajisa, calls first thing. Before he has a chance to suit up. “Rigo, could I see you in my office?” Her expression on the inside of his wraparounds is an implacable tableau, a blank screen onto which he projects the heat death of the universe. He’s only been to her office once before, the day he started work.
“Sure. No problem.” His stomach pinches, twists into a knotted rag as he pods from the vat building to the main corporate office. Gone is the pleasant afterglow from last night.
The leak in his biosuit. There must be a serious problem with the warm-blooded plants. They’ve been contaminated, hosed beyond repair.
Either that, or politicorp security found out about the delivery he made for Beto—the old woman was working undercover—and is now going to arrest him. If that’s the case, he’s screwed. Life as he knows it is over.
Like a condemned man, he mounts the stairs to Rijn Ajisa’s second-floor office. His legs feel leaden, his bowels queasy, as if he’s climbing the steps to a guillotine or hangman’s noose.
“Please close the door,” Ajisa says as soon as Rigo steps inside. Not a good sign. He nods, swallows. The door seals behind him like the lid of a coffin.
In addition to Ajisa, there’s a man he doesn’t
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