Page 27 of Captain Santiago and the Sky Dome Waitress
Lucie rolled her eyes. “I want to stay, Barney! And there’s zero reason to stay except for a tiny bit…damn it, I worked it out. There’s a point seven five percent chance that he’d even consider the idea. But myemotions, Barny! They’re clinging to that tiny bit of hope and arguing I should just stay. When everyline of reasoning I can follow says I’m an idiot if I don’t get on that flight to Nicia.”
Barney was still frowning. “And watching that video, over and over, helps you figure that out?”
Lucie stirred her soup once more. “He didn’t letherdown.”
?
Elijah settled in his muscle chair, juggling the piping hot plate of tamales, his mouth watering. “Computer, show tonight’s tank game.”
The screen built in front of him, pulling ozone from the air and ionizing it to carry a charge.
“No, bigger,” Elijah demanded, as the images of a tankball game in progress started to run.
The screen expanded.
Elijah bit into the first tamale. As spices and delicious heat registered on his tongue, he watched the long, tall defenseman—woman, in this case—screaming at the referee. Her face under the helmet was as wild-looking as it had been in the Sky Dome the morning she had flung food everywhere.
“What the…” Elijah muttered, as the tamale dripped cheese onto the plate. “Go back five minutes. Show me what happened.”
The stream backed up and began again. Elijah forgot to eat, as he watched Sona Shearer “accidentally” ram into another player, her headlong thrust through zero gee converting into a full stop, while the other player was flung at high velocity up against the one solid wall of the tank, under the goal mouth.
The player grew still, limbs hanging askew, as he drifted back across the tank.
While the referee tried to expel her from the game, Sona Shearer screamed back at him, her hands on her hips, until two more refs pushed themselves through the zee zone to grab her elbows and haul her to the exit hatch.
The streamer at the bottom of the tank declared AFTER THREE OFFICIAL WARNINGS, SHEARER FIRST EVER EXPULSION IN LEAGUE HISTORY.
“No kidding…” Elijah murmured. “Computer, dismiss the screen.”
The game went away.
Elijah ate his tamales, trying to ignore the silence. And trying tonotthink.
Finally, he put the tamales aside. “So why wasn’t Lucie there this morning?” he asked the air.
~ 10 ~
Lucie wouldn’t let Olivette scramble a second day without her. She made herself turn up for work and today the city’s rotation worked out so that New Cathay’s sun, Ji Xiu, was rising over the dome as Lucie stepped through the glass doors about thirty minutes before opening, smothering a yawn.
Olivette was on her knees on the carpet by the kitchen door, picking up pieces of broken crockery. There was alotof plate fragments on the floor around her knees.
Lucie hurried over. “Stars, Olivette! Here, let me help. What on earth happened?”
Olivette kept her chin down, sweeping the fragments onto the tray beside her. “I bumped into the stacker, that’s all. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” Lucie looked at the plate stacker and warmer. “Awhole stack, Ollie? How hard did you bump it?” She picked up the bigger pieces and dropped them on the tray with unmusical plinking sounds.
Olivette didn’t answer.
“Ollie?” Lucie repeated. “What’s going on? What really happened?”
“Nothing. It was an accident.” Olivette’s voice was muffled and thick.
“Ollie.” Lucie gripped the older woman’s arm. “Look at me.”
Olivette shook her head.
Lucie did what Elijah had done to her. She lifted Olivette’s chin. As her face came into view, Lucie sucked in her breath. Olivette’s eyes were red, and fresh tears stained her cheeks. The deep bruises under her eyes were darker than ever.
