It wasn't until Maynard's armored limo rolled away that Tinker realized she had just stranded herself downtown.
She had taken her headset off in the trailer, and thus Windwolf had carried her into the hospice without it. Pay telephones had started disappearing from Earth cities at the turn of the century as cell phones eliminated the need for them. Luckily, Pittsburgh had moved to Elfhome before the last wave of dismantling pay phones. Supposedly to maintain the lines of communication between Shutdown and Startup, the governments of Earth heavily subsidized Pittsburgh's phone system. Thus Tinker was able to find a phone, and with her lone rumpled dollar changed into dimes at the okonomiyaki cart, could afford ten calls.
The afternoon sun had heated the plastic of the pay phone to nearly blistering. Tinker winced at the pain it lanced through her newly healed hand, and juggled the hot receiver around while she called Oilcan. He didn't pick up, which was odd. She tried his home number, but he wasn't at his condo. She didn't bother leaving a message; mostly likely by the time he checked his home machine, she would be someplace other than Market Square.
Oilcan wasn't at the scrap yard either. Because she'd yanked her workshop to ferry Windwolf around, her office AI was offline at the scrap yard. After a dozen rings, she hung up, and called her loft.
Her home AI Skippy answered. "Hello, this is Tinker's residence. Tinker isn't in. Please leave an audio message, video clip, or data file."
"It's me. Let me have the audio messages." She used her voice code. "Tesla titillates treacle."
"There were sixty-seven calls," Skippy reported, and started into replaying the messages. "Message one."
Sixty-seven? Who the hell is all calling me? Tinker frowned as Nathan's voice came on.
"I was wondering what happened after I left," Nathan said. "Call me. I'm worried about you."
Skippy time-stamped the message from the morning of Shutdown and gave the number. She recognized it as the pay phone at the McKees Rocks gas station; Nathan might have stopped there after checking the scrap yard. She made a mental note to call him.
"Message two," Skippy queued into the next call, which was from Oilcan.
"Hey, I got gas for the shop, tracked down a load of fresh batteries, and even managed to snag you a new clutch system for your bike. I swung past again to pick you up, but you had gone already. I'm heading out to buy food now. I don't know about you, but all I have in my cupboard is instant oatmeal and brown sugar. I'll see you tonight at Lain's."
Lain's?
Skippy time-stamped the call at two hours earlier, meaning Oilcan must have been on Maynard's heels in his attempt to pick her up at the hospice. The phone number was a South Hills number, so Oilcan must have gone straight out to the food warehouses.
"There are no more audio messages," Skippy reported.
"Wait, what about the other sixty-five calls?"
"No other messages were left."
The phone company's automated system hijacked the connection and demanded more money. Tinker fed two of her dimes into the coin slot. Satisfied, the phone company's AI released the line.
"Give me a report on all calls."
Nathan's was indecently early, meaning he had probably left it as he came off shift. The second call hit at the ungodly time of 5:15 a.m. The third was at 5:30 a.m., and then the calls settled into an every-half-hour event. The first thirty-eight originated from an Earth phone number with an area code that she didn't recognize, and came with no ID flag. At midnight, when Pittsburgh returned to Elfhome, the Earth phone number dropped off the list.
At six the next morning, the calls started again, only this time the phone numbers were all local pay phones at systematic half-hour intervals. They moved in a widening circle around the scrap yard, starting at the gas station on the corner. She had just missed the most recent call.
Just out of curiosity, she had Skippy compare call times for all calls, Earth-based and local. All of them listened to the full outgoing message, as if checking to make sure nothing had been changed.
The phone company's automated system hijacked the line again, demanding more money if she was going to stay on. She hung up instead, not sure what to make of the mysterious phone calls. Obviously someone, apparently from Earth, was looking for her, but who?
Perhaps Lain knew, as all of Tinker's contacts with Earth came through the xenobiologist. Tinker used her fifth dime to call the xenobiologist, and got Lain's AI.
"It's Tinker," she told Lain's simple, unnamed AI.
"Tinker," Lain's recorded voice came on. "Oilcan called early this morning. He said there's nothing to eat out at your place. We're doing the traditional summer Startup cookout here at the Observatory. I'm probably outside, so just come on up. You can spend the night if you want."
Tinker's mouth drooled at the thought. Huge and crowded as Earth was, the scientific community of Earth remained small enough that the incoming scientists knew to bring food for a social gathering, each trying to outdo the rest. Since Pittsburgh pulled in people from all across Earth, the cookout was held the day after Startup, so those coming in at the last minute wouldn't miss out on the festivities.
Getting to the Observatory, however, might be tricky. Maybe she should have taken Maynard up on the offer of a ride. While South Hills still had a light-rail public transportation system, only taxis went to Observatory Hill. She now had only five dimes to her name.
She considered her dimes, then dropped one into the coin slot and called Nathan.
He picked up on the first ring.
"Czernowski."
"It's Tinker."
"Tink! What happened after I left? Where have you been? Are you okay? Where are you?"
"I—um . . ." She paused, not sure which question to answer first. The last two days' events seemed impossible to explain. "I'm fine. I'm downtown. Market Square. I'm kind of stuck. I need a ride out to the Observatory. I'm going to crash with Lain tonight."
"I'll be right there."
Which was what she had hoped he would say.
Nathan double-parked his Buick by the pay phone, twenty minutes later. "I've been worried sick about you," he called as he climbed out. "I'm sorry I had to leave you with that mess. The accident was unreal, and I was stuck there all night. By the time I got free, you had yanked your trailer and were gone."
"It's okay." She waved it away. "I had Oilcan and Lain to help me. You're here now."
"Lain! Of course." He surprised her by hugging her. What, was everyone suddenly touchy-feely? "How's your hand?"
She showed it to him, flexing it. "It got infected."
He dwarfed her left hand in his and eyed it with deep sorrow. "Oh, Tinker, I'm so sorry."
"It's fine now. They fixed it at the hospice." She wiggled her fingers in a show of health. She pulled her hand free. "I heard about your accident. You okay?"
"My accident?"
"Veterans Bridge," she prompted, heading for his car and its air-conditioned interior.
"Oh, yeah."
Nathan needed more coolant in his Buick. The air-conditioner struggled against the sticky summer heat. Tinker redirected the passenger vents to blow on her and unbuttoned her shirt above and below her bra line in an attempt to cool down.
"So, what happened?" she asked.
"Mass chaos is what happened." Nathan shook his head. "Shutdown traffic is usually so bumper to bumper you don't get much more than fender benders. This crew in a Ryder truck misses their turn, and they miss it big time, getting like halfway across the Veterans Bridge before realizing that they either wanted the Fort Duquesne Bridge to the Fort Pitt tunnels, or simply to get off at the North Shore. Who knows? Either one they could have gotten to by cutting through downtown. Instead, they try to back up. Of course they can't, everything bumper to bumper for ten miles. They block traffic for like half an hour trying to bully the drivers for a couple hundred feet behind them into backing up—but those people don't have anywhere to go. Meanwhile, all the traffic in front of them clears out."
"Let me guess. Once they stop blocking traffic, everyone races across the bridge trying to get in front of the jerks."
"Oh, yeah," Nathan said. "Only the Ryder truck is still lost. He's in the left-hand lane, and realizes either he's going to end up back at the Rim and a border-patrol check, or through the Liberty Tunnel and into the South Hills."
"And they're sitting on a truckful of illegal goods, so the Rim is out."
Nathan glanced at her sharply. "How do you know they were smuggling?"
"Maynard wanted me to look over their stuff; he told me a little about the accident. I was worried about you."
"Really?" The info seemed to please him greatly. "I'm fine. I was the first unit called, but by the time I worked my way around to the accident, the EIA and most of the cops in Pittsburgh were there."
"Good. So, go on. They tried to take the Sixth Avenue exit and cut through town."
"Yeah, only they did it at the last minute and cut off a Peterbilt fully loaded with steel girders and just getting up to full speed."
"Bad move."
"The Peterbilt tries, but he can't stop, not with the load he's carrying. He catches the Ryder in the back driver corner and rams them into the support beams for the overpass. His load comes off and crushes a minivan beside him, killing the two people inside instantly."
She recalled the flattened car. "Oh my."
"There's a pileup, cars everywhere, and of course police are called, and things start to escalate. The goons from the Ryder truck discovered that they couldn't free their driver and that their truck was totaled. They carjack a pickup truck, and unload the Ryder into it. While they're doing that, I start working my way across the Veterans Bridge, and that's when they get their guns out."
"Maynard says they shot their own driver, flung a Volkswagen off the bridge, and tried to blow things up with C-4."
Nathan nodded. "Even with the traffic snarled they managed to get away just by the sheer mess they left behind; it blocked everyone from chasing after them."
Tinker told Nathan of her run-in with the fake EIA agents.
He swore softly. "It certainly sounds like them. If I'd known there was any chance you'd get mixed up with them, I would have tracked you down yesterday."
"Ah, I dealt with them." Knowing that they had coldly killed one of their own made her encounter, in hindsight, more chilling.
Nathan shook his head. "That's my Tink."
The cookouts were held in the wooded grove next to the Observatory, handy to the dormitory kitchen. True to form, the picnic tables looked overcrowded with food, and the smoke from the charcoal grills, scented with the smell of cooking meat, drifted out into the parking lot. Oilcan's hoverbike sat on the grass beside the lot, almost as comforting a sight as Oilcan himself.
Nathan parked his Buick, and they got out.
"I'm going to have to go soon." Nathan scanned over the picnicking scientists, as if making sure none of them were the missing smugglers. "My shift starts in half an hour. Make sure Lain locks her doors tonight. If you need a ride home tomorrow, call me."
"Sure." Tinker was never sure how to take Nathan's protective streak. "Thanks for the ride."
"Any time." He turned to her with the start of a smile, which vanished with a look of surprise. "Tink!" He reached out to button the bottom of her shirt closed. "Please, try to stay decent."
"What?" She brushed away his hand and gave her middle button a slight tug. "You can't see anything important with this one done. Besides, I've got a bra on."
"I know," he said in an oddly husky voice. "It's a very sexy bra."
"You checked it out?" She would have been embarrassed except for the fact that he beat her to the blush. Weird seeing such a big guy turn red and knowing she had done it to him. Empowering. She tugged on the middle button again, flashing a bit of her bra's black lace. "Like what you saw?"
"Tink." He caught her hand with his. "Don't tease guys like that. The wrong guy will get the wrong idea."
"It's just you."
"I'll take that as a compliment." He surprised her by running his finger across her bare skin, just above the middle button—a glide of rough fingertip over the upper swell of her right breast. "And yes, I liked what I saw."
Her turn to burn. "You're just being nice." She frowned when he laughed. "What?"
"It's just you're so smart, and yet you're so naïve, innocent."
"What do you mean by that?"
He looked up at the sky for a minute, and then gave her a look like a boy caught stealing candy: guilty, but wanting so badly to get away with it. "You were just this skinny little kid until you turned about fifteen, and then, one day, I turned around and you were suddenly so drop-dead sexy."
She laughed out of total surprise. "Me?"
"You bloomed that year."
In plain English, she got breasts that year. "Well, yeah, but sexy?"
"Yes. I've been quietly obsessed with you since then."
"You've got a funny way of showing it. You've never laid a hand on me."
"You were fifteen, and I was twenty-five. I kept my hands to myself. I would bust any guy for doing what I was thinking."
"Big brother" Nathan thought she was sexy? She couldn't believe it. "Yeah, sure."
"That's always been the worst of it. You've never been aware of how sexy you are. Like the way you eat strawberries."
"What's wrong with the way I eat strawberries?"
He opened his mouth, and then thought better of explaining. "Nothing. Just forget it."
"Come on; tell me."
"You don't eat them; you make love to them. It's such a turn-on, I need a cold shower afterward."
"You get off watching me eat?"
"See!" He shook a finger at her. "You're innocent. You don't understand. And I do. I'm older, and—"
"If you say wiser, I'm going to smack you."
He held up his hands to ward off any blow. "Hey, when it comes to brains, you're clearly way ahead of me. I've never minded. This isn't about you; it's about me. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I thought I was taking advantage of a kid."
"So? I'm a legal adult now."
"Hell, you just turned eighteen and never been kissed. And you still look young enough to be sixteen. I'm twenty-eight."
Tinker studied him, trying to reevaluate the last three years. How had she missed his obsession? Certainly he spent an inordinate amount of time with her and Oilcan—but he'd also had two or three girlfriends that she could remember. "Yeah, you're twenty-eight and definitely more experienced than me. That doesn't seem fair. You get to screw around while I stay a virgin."
He kicked at a weed growing up in a crack in the parking lot's cement. "I thought if I found someone else, I'd stop having a thing for you. It really hasn't been fun, wanting you and feeling like a filthy old man at the same time."
"You know, you are always going to be ten years older than me. There's nothing I can do about it."
"I figured that when you hit nineteen, if I was still hooked on you, that was old enough."
Was he serious about this? It was weird to think he had waited three years already for her to grow up, and planned to wait another year. Certainly at fifteen she could have cared less about men, but in the last three years she had developed definite interest. Most guys she knew were like Jonnie, too slimy to consider. But Nathan Czernowski? She trusted him.
Everything inside her went suddenly, nervously aquiver. She looked at his mouth and wondered what it would be like to kiss him. "What am I supposed to do for the next eleven months? Sit and twiddle my thumbs until you feel righteous?"
He glanced at her, squinting in speculation. "You'll probably hit me if I say that would be nice."
"Yes," she growled. Eleven months of wondering would kill her. She was too used to satisfying her curiosity to wait that long. "Why don't we compromise? It would be stupid to spend the next eleven months, waiting, only to find out we can't stand each other in more than a good-friend way. We should try a date."
"A date?"
"You know. Go out to eat. See a movie. Go to the Faire. Date. That is, if your ego can stand being seen with me, and whatever people might think of you."
"Ouch."
"That's really it, isn't it? You're afraid that people will think you're as nasty as the guys you bust for molesting little kids."
"Okay, yes. You look younger than you are, and anyone who doesn't know how much you've got going on upstairs will see me as some kind of pervert. And that bugs me."
"I can look older. If I put some makeup on and some nice clothes, I can look twenty." Or at least Lain said so. "Especially in a dark restaurant."
A pleased grin spread across his face. "You really want to go out to eat with me?"
"I've watched you eat. What I actually want is to find out what it's like to kiss you, but I figured I'd scare you off if I told you that."
The smile vanished to a look of such intensity it seemed to solidify the air between them, making it impossible to breathe.
Oh my, he's totally serious about being gaga about me.
With infinite slowness, he leaned down and kissed her. His big hands caught her hips, pulled her to him, and then held her tightly. Her hands were momentarily pinned between them, and then they slid up, searching for someplace to go. She'd never realized how tall he was, or imagined how solid he would feel.
He nuzzled down her neck and kissed her where her shirt gaped open, exposing the top curve of her breasts. She clung to him, feeling suddenly small in his embrace, unsure if she wanted him to stop or go on.
He stopped, though, kissing her more chastely on the cheek, and then just held her. "I think anyplace we go," he whispered huskily, "should be brightly lit, with very little privacy."
"Possibly, that would be a good idea."
"Possibly." He sighed. "I need to work tomorrow night. Want to say Friday? We could do the Faire."
"Friday at the Faire would be good."
They kissed again, and she discovered that by knowing what to expect, the experience was even more enjoyable.
She waved as he drove away, feeling slightly silly doing so. Kids waved. What she really wanted was to pull him back and explore further—only more slowly. After he was out of sight, she pressed her hand to her mouth, capturing again the warmth and pressure.
Nathan Czernowski is in love with me!
Would wonders never end?