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EPILOGUE
THREE MONTHS LATER, THE GRANGE, PORTLAND, OREGON
“Watch it, Pierce!” Metal’s anxious voice rang out. “Don’t drop him!”
Pierce was a sharpshooter and combat driver with incredibly steady hands and was as strong as an ox. He wasn’t about to drop a three-month-old baby, so he ignored Metal. As was everyone else, as Metal anxiously made the rounds, following his amazingly cute twin boys, bouncing from lap to lap.
There were lots of laps. It was Raul and Emma’s engagement party, and the huge place in the foothills of Mt. Hood was full. A lot of them were Raul’s extended family, come from all over to meet Emma. She charmed them all, speaking excellent Spanish and helping the younger members with their videogame scores.
That they were all together celebrating two people in love was a miracle, considering that there had been a very real possibility that the world would be burned to ashes in a nuclear war.
When Riley’s video, pieced together brilliantly by Antz software, hit the airwaves, it didn’t make that much of a splash with the general public, but it made a big splash at the Pentagon, where the Sommers Group had been about to be awarded contracts worth over a billion dollars.
Lots of red faces. Lots of careers unmade. And lots of careers made of people who’d pleaded for reason to prevail. And reason prevailed. The aggressive moves immediately ceased, and there was talk of new trade deals and a treaty. Everyone walking back gingerly from the threshold of war.
Adrian Sommers’ trial was scheduled to begin in a month.
Riley had been working for ASI for two months and had loved every single second of it. It was a great place to work and she was working with her best friends in the whole world. She slotted in easily, and the Queens of IT were grateful for her help, since Felicity had given birth and had been on maternity leave, though working from home. The company had experienced one of its regular expansions of business, and by the time Felicity came back, they were all working flat-out.
Riley was incredibly happy there. The work was interesting, the bosses generous and appreciative, the ASI guys affectionate and fun.
The workplace was gorgeous, too, which didn’t hurt. That was thanks to the wife of one of the Big Bosses, Suzanne Huntington, who had a magic touch with spaces. She’d designed the beautiful Grange, too, where they were celebrating the engagement, eating incredible food prepared by the wife of an ASI operator, Isabel Delvaux-Harris, a world-renowned food expert.
But the big advantage was working with Pierce, seeing Pierce almost every day. He had to travel some, all the ASI operators did, but there was an unspoken rule that if an operator was away, his wife or his woman was looked after. Pierce had had to take business trips to Boston and Mexico City and she had had to beat away the invitations to dinner with a stick.
She didn’t turn down the invitations to go shopping with Suzanne and Isabel and Lauren Jackman, though. She discovered she loved shopping. Who knew?
“He’s such a cutie,” Pierce cooed, holding one of the twins up above his head. They were Michael and Richard—Mick and Rick—but nobody could tell them apart except for their parents. They looked a lot like Metal, but somewhere in there were Felicity’s fine features.
Riley could tell that they’d be heartbreakers when they grew up.
Felicity had had the world’s worst pregnancy—projectile vomiting on a regular basis—but the delivery had been straightforward and she’d been champing at the bit to come back to work almost immediately. She’d been working from home since day three after birth, though everyone told her to rest.
A whole village worth of people was looking after her babies, so she was in a corner talking to Hope and Suzanne, leaving all the anxiety to Metal.
Pierce pumped the baby—either Rick or Mick—up and down like a weight lifter pumps iron, and the baby gurgled happily, giving Pierce the most charming toothless gummy grin. Pierce grinned back.
“Who do I have here?” he asked Metal, who was watching his son bounce up and down, hands ready to catch him when Pierce dropped him.
“Mick,” Metal said, though Riley couldn’t see how he could tell.
“Up you go, Mick.” Pierce threw him a little, catching him. Mick squealed and gurgled, tiny limbs churning. Clearly having a great time.
Then Mick farted, and he delivered an industrial level of poop, an amount so vast it overran his diapers and onesie, and ran down his little legs.
Pierce’s look of horror and dismay was so funny Riley broke out in peals of laughter. As did everyone else, after an initial period of utter silence. The laughter went out in concentric circles as everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look.
Metal grabbed his kid and went off to change his diaper, grinning. Felicity said Metal had become a champion diaper-changer. There were two kids so someone always needed a diaper changed.
A Martinez woman—either Raul’s sister or a cousin or a sister-in-law, there were so many it was hard to keep them straight—had a tea towel and a bottle of water, and washed Pierce’s arm right then and there.
Riley bit her lips to stop laughing and walked up to Pierce.
Luckily, he’d overcome his horror and was laughing, too. “My ma always said kids are barbarians.”
His best friend Raul slapped his back. “I’m sure we’ll find out for ourselves soon enough, buddy,” and looked meaningfully at Emma. Emma just smiled back.
All of a sudden, the music changed and someone shouted, “Jitterbug!”
