Her mouth twists. “Bold.”
“Or desperate.”
She gives me a long look, one exhausted woman to another. “Yeah. Fair enough.” She jerks her chin at the folio on my desk. “You read the part about tonight?”
“I have.”
“You going?”
“Apparently my choices are attend or be dragged there by production interns.”
That earns a short laugh. “Sonya.”
“Tilda.”
She nods once. “See you in the sponsor circus, Tilda.”
“Can’t wait.”
When she disappears into her room, I shut the door and lean against it for one second.
I am here.
Actually here.
Not on a shuttle. Not in transit. Not imagining worst-case scenarios from a cheap apartment two worlds away. Here. Inside the machine.
The air-conditioning whispers through the vents. Jesse hums softly to himself. Somewhere far off, I hear amplified cheers from an arena, followed by the deep metallic clang of something massive shifting into place.
I turn back to the room.
“All right,” I say quietly. “We adapt.”
Jesse looks up from his pencils. “A-dap.”
“Yes, exactly.”
Late afternoon slides toward evening with dangerous speed.
I take Jesse to the daycare center for a short pre-check acclimation session so tomorrow morning isn’t his first abrupt separation in a strange place. Kavi meets us at the door with a bubble wand and the confidence of a man who has defeated far worse odds than my son’s suspicious stare.
“Five minutes,” he says. “Then ten tomorrow. Ease him in.”
Jesse clings to my leg at first.
“This is stupid,” I whisper to myself.
Kavi hears anyway. “Most useful things are.”
He kneels to Jesse’s height. “Want to see something illegal?”
Jesse blinks. “Illegal?”
Kavi produces the bubble wand like a stage magician. “Extremely.”
He blows one bubble. Then three. Then a shimmering storm of them.
Jesse gasps.
