Join (12 page)

Chance feels as though the
world has blinked. There is no acknowledgment of the convulsion that just gripped all four of Leap's drives.

Leap One is saying, “Where else would I go? I've never been scared enough to rent an apartment somewhere just to make sure my drives aren't all in the same place at the same time.”

Chance Two closes her eyes to focus on remembering what she has just seen—the spasm that Leap apparently didn't feel. She tries to compare it with symptom panels for join pathologies. After Chance Three's death, she's still able to find her way through the literature, but her ability to recall information has been blunted.

When a drive dies, research suggests a diminution of expert skill that is roughly proportional to lost brainpower times a coefficient dependent on the level of join integration. The integration of Chance Three was excellent—there were few kinesthetic barriers. Chance is confident that she is still extremely well informed on join pathologies and treatments, and Chance is very sure that whatever the hell Leap just did was the result of a join pathology.

Chance Two says, “You know, you did it. Just now. The twitch thing.” She waves at all of Leap's drives. “All of you did.”

A nearly imperceptible shudder passes through Leap's drives, a weakening of confidence. Then Leap Four, whom Chance hasn't spent much time with, says, “I'm aware that I do that.”

Chance is silent and then says, “I'm glad, because if it is what I think it looks like, it could be very, very dangerous.”

Leap Two says, “My One and Two drives are physically tired. Two stayed up for a while after we got in last night. I'm going to rest them. My Three is getting ready for a shift. He's going to be making something to eat. You're welcome to have some—tofu scramble?”

“Are you changing the subject? I'm a friend, Leap. You know, I might be able to help you.”

Leap One yawns. Leap Three yawns and says, “Great, we can talk while I make breakfast.”

Chance watches Leap One and Two leave the room. There's been a lot of research done on the physical space joins leave between drives. Drives will stand closer to one another than solos of most cultures would. They often touch as they pass. As Leap Two passes Leap Four, she stops for a moment to brush at Leap Four's eye, an almost unconscious gesture.

That kind of intimacy among drives is mocked by solos. Before most solo resentment hardened into religious resistance, there was a famous sketch comedy show,
Howard, Howard, Howard, Howard, Howard, Howard, and Howard
, that parodied the closeness. The seven Howards would stand in a circle, five men and two women, picking one another's noses.

“Okay,” Chance says when Leap One and Two have gone, “tell me what's going on.”

Leap Four sits across from Chance at the table. Leap Three is moving between the refrigerator and the stove.

Leap Four says, “You mean the . . .” She pulls her shoulders up and raises her upper lip for a moment, then says, “It's probably what you think it is.”

Chance says, “I don't know what I think it is. I haven't diagnosed it. I'm not sure that I can anymore. Have you been to someone for an opinion?”

“No,” says Leap. “And I think you do know what it is; you're just saying you don't know what sort of join pathology or how far advanced it is. But you know it's join related.”

Chance is still getting used to speaking to Leap Four. Drives eventually share the gestures and expressions of a join, but each drive also maintains a distinct style. For example, some drives' faces are great for conveying reserve, some for contempt, some for perseverance, etcetera. Each drive's nervous system is different. Each drive's body proportions are different. The length of each drive's limbs is different. Even things as simple as the quality of a drive's teeth can contribute to a drive's ability to communicate a particular message.

Leap Four appears introspective, physically awkward, almost unaware of the possibility of being observed. She often looks as though she's remembering something funny. Like all of Leap's drives, she shows contempt fluently—a swiftly passing shadow.

Leap Four glances down. Chance can see her eyes moving as she thinks through whatever concerns she has. Leap Four says, “I may know a little more about it.”

Chance says, “To me, it looks like a network break. I can't help thinking about it. This is recent—it must be your most recent join—your Four. But that was years ago, and it's happening only now. I know this is difficult to talk about, but could your Four have a latent dementia, or another kind of issue like that, that's been getting worse, that wasn't diagnosed when you joined? Things have moved fast in the last five years. We know how to treat this sort of thing.”

Leap Four laughs. “I know. I probably know as much about it as you do. I don't think the problem is with my Four.”

They watch each other for a few moments, neither speaking. Then Chance says, “I'm a”—Chance takes a moment before beginning again—“I was a join doctor. It's what I did for several years. And I'm your best friend. You could have talked to me.”

“No. I'm sorry. I love you, but you would have told the airline.”

“They
have to know
! We're flying live cargo!”

Leap says, “There are at least three independent systems checking everything that happens.”

“And the weather still almost just got us. Last night!”

“No, no. Do you really think we were in danger?”

“Yes!” Then Chance does a few quick mental calculations and says, “I don't know.”

Leap says, “You know as well as I do. The odds are astronomical.”

“No, about one in three-point-six-two million. For each flight we pilot.”

“Okay. Yes. That's probably the number.”

“It is.”

“But that's the number whether or not I'm in the seat.”

“You know, I felt like shit,” Chance says. Her voice rises. “I'm already close to the edge. Now I'm dealing with a
murderer
! You made me think it might have been
me
. I
doubted
myself.” Chance is trying to calm herself.

“I'm sorry,” Leap Four says. “I'm so sorry.”

Again, neither says anything for a while. At the stove, Leap Three is slowing. He looks tired and unhappy. Leap Four continues, “I was scared. I felt like I needed to protect myself. It's no excuse. I'm sorry. One reason I asked you to come here was to tell you about it.”

“How long have you known? How long has it been going on?”

“A few months.”

“Shit. It's progressive, isn't it?”

“Yes. I think so,” Leap Four says.

“Leap, you can't ignore this. These things can—there's a decent likelihood it could kill you.”

“Yeah, if Rope doesn't.”

“I can't understand you right now. Rope just killed one of my drives. How can you make that joke?”

“I don't know that it was a joke.”

Chance is hurting. Each of her drives feels physically sensitive; each drive's stomach is upset; each drive has a low-level headache. Chance Five is sweating and unable to sleep.

Chance forces herself to concentrate on Leap's problem. To try and ignore the threats to herself. “You think that you do know what's going on?” she asks. “What the problem is?”

Leap is reaching a decision. Leap Three stops moving. He's standing in front of the stove. Leap Four says, “Yeah, I think so. I think I know. I'm sorry I lied. Like I said, I was scared.”

Leap Two is suddenly standing behind Leap Four, at the entrance to the kitchen. “Come on,” Leap Two says. “I'll show you what happened.”

As Leap Three punishes an
egg, Leap Two leads Chance from the kitchen. Leap moves hesitantly. She almost seems to be reconsidering whether to bring Chance to wherever they're going. They stop at the bottom of the staircase in the house's main entrance.

“You need to prepare yourself,” Leap says, “and understand that I already know everything you're going to want to tell me. I know you'll still say something about it, and the truth is that I want to talk about it, and I want your thoughts. But try to avoid the obvious, please. I'm well aware. It's painful.”

Leap Two starts up the stairs. At the top is a short hall surrounded by five doors. One of Leap's mothers had this house built. It's three stories and a basement, but Chance hasn't thought about access to the third floor. Two of the five doors are open, including the one to the room where Chance was sleeping. Leap opens another door, revealing a staircase that leads up to the home's third floor.

“You're hiding your secret in the attic?”

Leap closes her eyes and cracks a very small smile. “Yes,” she says.

When they reach the top, they enter a single large room. The light is dazzling. Chance's eyes need a moment to adjust. Light floods in from a wall of windows set into gabled dormers near the top of the stairs. Beyond the windows are blue sky and the rising sun. Another bank of windows lines the opposite wall.

The room is filled with creams and faded greens, an over wing chair—a wing chair with arms flattened and flared to allow perching, so two or three drives can share—two slipper chairs, and a single large sofa. A long bronze coffee table, glass topped and filled with sparkling chunks of geodes, sits in front of the sofa. Scattered about the room are tall, wave-shaped, polished glass sculptures that drape thin, semitranslucent shadows over one another and everything else. Near the far end of the room is a bed. Josette lies in it, her thin white hair spreading in snaggly luxury around under her frail, wrinkled head. Leap Two turns toward Chance. Chance sees Josette smiling at her in the distance, sees Leap Two smiling right beside her.

Chance says, “Oh my God, Leap.”

Leap Two says, “Oh, don't be a prig.”

Chance knows what is happening to Leap. She can roughly characterize when it all started. She can reasonably estimate the rate of progress and Leap's current state. And there can be no doubt about the pathology's future trajectory (and it is a join pathology). The condition itself is mysterious, but its progress is copiously documented.

As a child named Ian,
Leap remembers hiding under an end table.

“Okay, Chuck, then you take him!” His mother's words freeze him there.

He doesn't like his uncle Chuck. Chuck has been telling Leap's mother how she spoils Leap, how she coddles him. Chuck thinks there's something wrong with Leap; that he may be retarded. He thinks Leap's mom lets him get away with too much; doesn't push back when Leap says he'd rather not go to the baseball game or when Leap decides to read instead of watching football or playing bridge with the family. It's an old theme.

Leap's mother knows that suggesting Chuck do anything at all to help will shut Chuck up. This time, though, she's angrier than usual, and her words plant a suggestion of emptiness in Leap, even though he knows she doesn't mean it.

He hears his father laugh, the warm, assured laugh of a man who can negotiate a bitter family feud with a smile and a wink. Or at least thinks he can. The retro cuckoo clock is ticking directly across the room from Leap. Otherwise, the voices of the adults and his own breathing are the only sounds in the world that he hears.

“You know, she has a point,” Leap's father says. “No one else could do what Josette has been able to do with our boy.”

“Ah.” Leap hears his mother snort contemptuously.

“What?” his father asks. Leap imagines his mother shaking her head and miming waving away the smell of bourbon.

“Well, he is freakishly slow,” Chuck says, and laughs. Leap hears his father's weak chuckle. Chuck is goading Josette. He says, “I mean for a village idiot.” For the two brothers—Leap's dad and Chuck—family conflict is often the start of their fun.

There's an electric silence. Leap imagines the look on his mother's face. Then he doesn't have to imagine it; he hears that look in the tone of her voice: the low, level, even voice she uses to end conversations and make people squirm with almost physical discomfort.