“I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it,” he told Taki, who was perched on a stool by the bench alongside. “It hasn’t got enough juice left. I think maybe we’re just gonna have to write off another one.”
Later, Kevin called Eric at the lab. His outrage had abated, and he had decided that adult business was something best left to adults. It wasn’t as if Vanessa was related in any way that made it his problem to get involved in personally, anyway. Even if it were, he had no idea what he was supposed to do.
“Dad,” he said. “Would it be okay for Taki to stay over tonight? We really got the plane working properly today, and we’re right in the middle of making the mods permanent. And Mom and Harriet have both left.”
“Sure,” Eric said. “In fact, it would work out better. We can take Taki with us to Hiroyuki’s for the barbecue tomorrow, and it will save anyone having to pick him up tonight.”
Kevin nodded, giving Taki a silent thumbs-up sign. “That’s what we thought too.”
“Oh, and Michelle was here at the lab again today,” Eric said. “Apparently Ohira forgot to invite her. I thought that was a bit unforgivable since she’s hardly a stranger to the family. So I said she could come along with us too. She’ll be stopping by the house at about noon.”
“Great,” Kevin said. He frowned to himself. Had he imagined it, or was there just a hint of a swagger in Eric’s voice? A note of feeling quite pleased with himself, in fact.
“Okay, I shouldn’t be very much longer. Put three steaks and some veg on the timer for about eight. Then after dinner you can show me what you did on the plane.”
“Sure. Will do. We’ll see you later, then.” Kevin hung up. “It’s okay. You can drive back over with us tomorrow.” He looked back at the phone and contemplated it for a few seconds. “Good for you Dad,” he muttered, then nodded approvingly.
CHAPTER NINE
It was late Friday evening in downtown Seattle. In her apartment on the Eastlake side of Lake Union, Michelle pushed herself back from the computer in the cluttered room that she used as a home office and stretched her arms back past the sides of the chair. In the dimmed lighting, the blue from the screen picked out her features, while the rest of the room reflected the subdued hues of city lights glowing on the far shore through the half-open drapes. Far to the left, the floodlit Space Needle stood as a backdrop, its flickering image mirrored on water.
New York had been a city of lights and water too, but there the water was a separate element, surrounding the city but as a thing apart, defining where a different existence began, like a dark, besieging force. Here, the water insinuated itself and mingled with the lights, was part of the city and its life.
The remains of a burrito-enchilada combination that she had called out for earlier in the evening lay in a foil tray with sauce cups, wrappings, crumpled napkins, and an empty Heineken can on the coffee table behind her chair. She’d had a dinner date with Tom tonight, but called and taken a raincheck on the pretext of an urgent case due on Monday that was going to take the whole weekend to prepare for. She didn’t think he believed her, and she didn’t really care that much. She just wasn’t up to another evening of being subjected to a not-very-subtly-put line that a better life was waiting if only women would learn to loosen up a little more, like men; in other words, if she took the initiative and asked, he’d be agreeable. Instead, she had spent the time delving deeper into the matter that had taken up most of her afternoon.
The collation summarized on the screen was from an information search and retrieval service located in St. Louis, that she subscribed to—electronic news clipping. The volume of information generated by a modern society was simply too overwhelming to attempt tackling raw and undigested. Michelle had already read the items listed. They revealed more clearly than anything she had learned from Corfe the new upsurge of fears concerning DNC that seemed to be circulating among the technical community. In fact, she was probably already ahead of Corfe. Although it was he who had first alerted her, she didn’t think he was aware of the full extent and the virulence of what was going on.