Little Delvar's tail had come off in the night, and that made Mariah feel sad. Which was silly, really, because Little Delvar's tail was always coming off, even more than real Delvar's tail did. Of course, when
real Delvar's tail came off, it was because he was being very emotional in some way, usually either angry or scared.
Little Delvar's tail fell off because it wasn't actually attached to his bottom by anything solid like thread, just by two strong magnets. That's how stuffed Delvar toys were
made. The tail was
supposed to be detachable.
Mariah wished that the real Delvar was still talking to her. Mariah wished that
any of her oldest friends were still talking to her.
Mariah hunted around under her sheets and blanket for a while, but then she started getting hungry, so she found her bunny slippers and her fluffy bathrobe and slipped out into the hall, looking for her papa or Leigh, who was her O-Pear. An O-Pear, as Mariah understood it, was a babysitter who lived with you and was part of your family. Leigh had been Mariah's O-Pear for years and years now, ever since Leigh had started college.
The first person Mariah saw after she left her room, however, wasn't Leigh, but Papa. He looked really tired and his hair was all stick-uppy, which meant he'd probably spent the whole night working again. Papa did that. He was really bad at keeping set schedules. That's why he needed an O-Pear, so someone could make sure that Mariah
did.
"M'rn'n," yawned Papa, but luckily, Mariah knew what he meant. She was very good at speaking Sleepy.
"Morning Papa!" Mariah chirped. "Did you and Uncle Nate and the Aunties get my god friends to talk to us yet?"
"Um," Papa said and Mariah didn't need him to say anything after that. She wasn't always good at reading people, but the way Papa's face just crumpled said it all.
"Never mind," Mariah said quickly. "You go to sleep, Papa. I'll see if Leigh's making breakfast."
Papa nodded stiffly and wandered off in the direction of his room, probably to fall down on top of the bed and pass out with his clothes still on, if Mariah knew her papa.
This would be a lot easier, Mariah thought, if her god friends still lived in the lab on Earth with Tia Charley like they had when she was really little. But they didn't. They had to go up into space to live in the satellite supercomputer, because they were getting too big for the lab computers. It was like how Mariah had to get new clothes sometimes because
she was too big.
But until they'd had to go up into space, Mariah had pretty much grown up with them, kind of like older cousins. Delvar had been born about ten months before Mariah had been (and eleven months before her mama had shoved Mariah into Papa's arms and walked out of both their lives), so Uncle Nate always used to tease Papa by calling them Irish twins. Of course, Papa wasn't
exactly Delvar's papa in the same way that he was Mariah's, but Tia Charley had based his 'personality matrix' on Papa and Papa had helped program and Awaken Delvar, so Delvar was almost, but not quite really, Mariah's big brother.
Except Delvar was already a grown-up, while Mariah still wasn't, not for
years, but that was just how TCAI were. They grew up faster than human people. Someday, when Mariah was bigger and better at programming, she'd make and raise TCAI too, just like Tia Charley, who was gonna teach her. They pinky-swore it and everything.
But Mariah wasn't big enough just yet.
When Mariah got to the kitchen, Leigh was already there and Mariah took a long moment to study Leigh and how Leigh's hair was parted and how Leigh was moving before nodding to herself. Leigh was a girl today. Leigh was a girl more days than she was a boy, but it was still always good to take a moment to check.
Leigh was scrambling eggs in the pan and there was toast in the toaster, and as Mariah got up onto the kitchen stool, the toast popped right up! So Leigh pulled the eggs to the side and turned off the stove and put the eggs onto the toast, so that Mariah could fold the toast in half and bring the eggs to her mouth that way.
(Leigh also put a tangerine on the plate, but Mariah would deal with
that later.)
"Hey, Mariah?" Leigh said. "I was thinking about what we'd do after our lessons today."
Mariah and Leigh both had remote lessons every morning, except Leigh was going to College (she called it Grad School, but it was basically Extra College) in her remote lessons, and Mariah was in (Special Day) Fifth Grade. After remote lessons they would usually do something fun together. Usually, they'd do it with Jamie next door if Jamie was free, because Leigh and Jamie were Best Friends (in a different way than Mariah and Leigh were also Best Friends), but Jamie…
"I was thinking," Leigh said, "that if you were okay with it, we'd go and visit Jamie and Frank and Nick at the hospital."
… Jamie was on Mundus. Jamie was probably having
lots of fun with Frank and Nick on Mundus. But 'cause she'd only gone in her head, not her body, her body was in the hospital now, along with everyone else who'd gone to Mundus and hadn't come back.
Papa made it sound like it was a lot of people. And every time Mariah went to the hospital it seemed like it was fuller than before. (Leigh said that was 'cause the DARPA people were contacting other people up and down the West Coast to get more people transferred to their special hospital.)
"I'll gather up my pictures," Mariah promises. "Jamie's gonna have the prettiest hospital room of them all."
There weren't very many private rooms left at the special DARPA hospital anymore. Most had as many beds as the doctors and nurses thought they could fit in them, with just enough room for the families to visit when they showed the guards their special pass. But if your family was important or had lots of money, they let you have a private room and Nick's family had money and Frank's uncle was Important and had More Money and Jamie and Frank were cousins. (Second cousins, Leigh had said, but Mariah wasn't sure why they were counting cousins.)
The private rooms were in one particular hallway, so when Mariah saw that Tia Charley was in one, she ran over right away. "Tia Charley!" she cried out. "I didn't know
you were here, too."
Tia Charley looked… well, she looked pretty tired. Like she hadn't been sleeping any better than Papa had. There were dark circles around her eyes and the roots of her hair had grown out black. It was longer than she usually liked to have it too.
"Hey,
mija," Tia Charley said, ruffling Mariah's hair. "Yeah. I'm visiting Tommie. You remember them, right? They babysat you a couple times when you were younger, before you got Leigh."
Mariah nods solemnly. "I remember," she said and she peered up on the bed at Tommie, who really did almost look like they were sleeping. They even had a little hand-sewn stuffed tiger tucked into their arm.
"Is that
Hobbes?" Mariah asked. "Tommie told me about Hobbes. They said their, um, biss-a-bella made him for their papa. No, wait, their dad?"
"
Bisabuela," Tia Charley corrected. "But yeah, Abuela Espinoza made him for my big brother and he passed Hobbes down to me, and then when I was quarantining in France with Alain and Oliver, Mom and Dad sent him in a box to San Diego so that Tommie could have him as a friend too."
"It must be hard for your family," Leigh said, softly, from just behind Mariah. "Seeing them here like that."
Tia Charley's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but then Leigh said, hurried, "I'd just started with Mariah before, well, you know."
Tia Charley's shoulders slumped and she looked away. "Yeah. The accident. God, some days I wonder…"
But then she doesn't finish what she's saying. She just sighs and shakes her head. "There's no changing any of it now. Just-- I'm sorry. You're here for people too, aren't you? I should let you go see them."
"My usual party," Leigh explains, awkwardly. "Our next-door neighbor, her cousin, and her cousin's roommate. I was supposed to meet with them later, after you guys were done with the Q&A session and I'd given Mariah back to Mr Thibault."
"Oh hell," said Tia Charley. "That's--
god, that's awful. I'm so sorry. Well, they won't be able to listen, but you can tell them that we're going to get the--" (here she said a word that Mariah didn't know but sounded terribly rude) "--that did this if it's the last thing we do."
Leigh let out a shaky laugh. "Yeah," she said. "I can do that."
Leigh wouldn't tell Mariah what the word Tia Charley had said meant, which Mariah thought was terribly unfair. But grown-ups were like that sometimes –even the best grown-ups, like Leigh.
After Tommie's room, they visited Nick's room--which already had crayon drawings on the walls, which Mariah guessed probably came from the baby sister he told Mariah he had back home in Chicago--and Frank's, which was probably the nicest room in the hospital, even nicer than Tommie's. And then they visited Jamie's and that's when Leigh starts crying.
"It's okay," Mariah said, reaching up to squeeze Leigh's hand. "I know it looks scary to see her like that, but she's gonna be all right. She's on
Mundus, Leigh. Bad stuff doesn't happen there. Not in the way it happens
here."
That only just made Leigh cry harder.
"She's having
fun," Mariah insisted. "She's playing futbol and going on adventures and having fun with Frank and Nick. And I know we can't be there to have fun with them and I know you miss them, but we can have fun here on Earth too. Please, Leigh.
Please stop crying."
There was a cough from the doorway, the kind grown-ups make when they want to interrupt you, but know it would be rude to, so they make a noise that they can pretend isn't on purpose, and Leigh and Mariah
both looked to the doorway where there was a DARPA man standing.
(He was wearing sunglasses and a suit, so Mariah was pretty sure he was a DARPA man. Most of the ones that weren't doctors or scientists either dressed like that or in a military uniform.)
"Miss Owens?" he asked, almost awkwardly for a DARPA man. "Do you remember that email we sent you? We're about to have that meeting?"
Leigh gave a sharp little nod and wiped her eyes with her sleeves. "Right," she said, still a little sniffly. "I remember. Ah, what should I do with Mariah? Is there someone who can watch her during it… or should I bring her with…?"
The DARPA man barely spared a glance at her. "She's just one kid, right? We've got some junior agents who can watch her."
The special meeting was in an entirely different part of the hospital and they had to pass by a bunch of the really full rooms to get to it. They even ended up picking up someone else from one of those, a grown-up boy about Leigh's age with curly red hair who was holding the hand of someone in one of the beds when they found him.
"Sorry, Jake," the red-haired grown-up boy said, softly, "but I really have to go with them now. But I'm going to rescue you--I
promise."
Mariah stood on her tippy-toes, but she couldn't really get a good look at the person in the bed. So she sighed and followed along with the DARPA man and Leigh and the red-haired grown-up boy until they reached the conference room.
The room felt full, even if it wasn't as crowded as the rest of the hospital. There were maybe two dozen people in there that weren't DARPA people or people who worked with Mariah's papa. And most of
those people were people Mariah hadn't met yet.
Well, except for two of them. "Mr Alain!" she cried out, dashing forward in their direction. "Mr Oliver! Are you gonna be doing the secret meeting?"
Mr Alain crouched down by her. He wasn't wearing a white coat, so he probably wasn't here to be a doctor today. "Hello, Mariah. Did you come here with Leigh?"
She smiles and nods. "Uh-
huh. Did you come with Tia Charley and Mr Oliver?"
"I
did."
Mr Oliver, who was very old and very grey, leaned on his cane. "Surely you won't be part of the mission, my dear. I know for a fact that
someone isn't allowed to play AWO until she's thirteen."
"What mission?" Mariah asked curiously.
It was at that point that the DARPA man caught up with her. "
Please don't bother our volunteers," he chided.
"They're not volunteers," Mariah argued. "They're
friends."
"She's my partner's co-worker's daughter," Mr Alain explained to the DARPA man. "I've known her practically since she was born."
"Be that as it may," the DARPA man said, "she can't stay in this meeting. Come on, Mariah. I've got friends I'd like you to meet."
The DARPA man's friends were pretty boring, Mariah thought. They had given her a pen and a notepad to doodle on, but otherwise the three of them just wanted to stand around and talk about boring grown-up things, like China.
They didn't seem to like China very much.
"So it was definitely China, I'm thinking," one of them said. Mariah had forgotten his name already.
"I don't know," said another one, memorable only because she was a girl. "Dr Durante seems pretty sure this
is industrial espionage? Especially since we ruled out that domestic terrorist group that sent them those letters. I mean, I get the temptation to say China, I
do, and I wouldn't be surprised if Beijing's kicking themselves for not thinking of it first, but given how close Project Ulysses was to launch…"
"Durante's emotionally compromised," the first one said dismissively. "We all know she is. And of all the people to blame… look, I can admit that Sterling had the
most to lose to Project Ulysses, but she's forgetting that she's not the
only one whose nephew got caught in the attack."
The third of them, who'd been mostly quiet until then, snorted, "If Durante's so sure it's not China, maybe she ought to look to her own people. I've read the files on OWTB's founding members and she's the only one who
hasn't had charges pressed against her."
Mariah set down her paper and pen and got up from her chair.
The first one laughed. "Oh
right," he said. "I read those too. Didn't Julian Thibault have the third biggest botnet in--"
"
DON'T YOU DARE SAY MEAN THINGS ABOUT MY PAPA!" Mariah screamed and she shoved
hard.
Mariah was in
trouble. Almost-got-arrested trouble. Didn't-get-arrested-only-because- she-was-a-kid-and-there-were-witnesses-and-it-would-look-bad trouble.
Leigh had to leave the secret meeting early because of her. And now Mariah wasn't allowed to visit the hospital for a
month--and the DARPA man said she was lucky she wasn't banned for
life.
"I
had to do it," she told Leigh on the ride home. "He was saying bad things about Papa. Wouldn't you do the same if it were
your papa?"
Leigh was quiet as she took the car back onto the freeway. Then, "If it was someone I loved as much as you love your Papa…"
"Exactly," Mariah said with a decisive nod. "I had to." She was quiet for a moment, then, "Are you gonna go on the secret mission? The one the meeting was about?"
Leigh was quiet for even longer that time, until after they'd already gotten off the freeway again.
"I don't know," she said finally. "I want to rescue my friends, I really do--but if I go, there's no guarantee I'll come back and I'll be leaving you and your Papa alone for who knows how long."
"Oh," Mariah said. Then, after thinking about it, "Does that mean you're going to Mundus after them?"
Leigh's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I signed a non-disclosure agreement."
"If you're going to Mundus, I want to go
too!"
"
No!" said Leigh, fiercely, and she pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car, so she could turn around and look Mariah dead in the eye. "Are you
kidding? I just
said there's no guarantee I'll come back and you're not even legally old enough to
play AWO. Why in the world do you think we'd let you--"
"Because your best friends are
stuck," Mariah said, "and so's Tia Charley's family and so's a lot of people and my oldest friends aren't
talking to me and everyone's sad and crying and I'm gonna go to Mundus
anyway, Papa
promised I could, so who cares if I do it early if I can help people out?"
"
I would care," Leigh said stubbornly. "So would your papa. Losing you would
devastate him."
Oh.
Mariah hadn't thought about that.
"I guess he'd be pretty sad and scared if I weren't around," Mariah admitted. "But I'd be sad if
you weren't with me either."
Leigh took a deep breath and let it out.
"I know," she said. "I know."
Papa got up at his usual time that night, which was just in time to eat supper. After supper, just before bed, Mariah showed him the picture she'd drawn of herself and Leigh's Pixie Warlock, Beatrix Monarch, in the Never-neverglades.
"We're rescuing Leigh's friends," Mariah explained.
Papa hugged her
really tightly after that, so tight that she thought he wasn't going to let go. But he did, and then he helped her get Little Delvar's tail out from where it had been trapped between the bed and the wall.
Papa
always knew where to find Delvar's tail when Mariah lost it. Always always.
Papa helped her by putting up her picture on the wall, right next to the last one she'd shown Nick and Frank and Jamie, of her riding through space on a starship--
(Frank had laughed and ruffled her hair. "OWTS Leg Win? What did they win?")
--and then he scooped her up and tucked her under the covers and kissed her forehead and little Delvar's when Mariah asked him to and then he left on the nightlight because she asked him to do that
too.
Mariah scrunched down under her covers and looked at her pictures in the soft, dim light of her nightlight and sighed softly to herself.
"Someday," she whispered, "I really
will go to Mundus."
With many thanks to
@Nerdorama for beta-reading this and sorting out my tenses. Let me know if there's any questions about what's going on back on Earth! Talia or I may choose to answer them or we may just smile enigmatically. (But yes, the highly strung, scream-y guy from the first interlude is the one that actually has a flesh and blood kid. Things work out funny that way.)
ETA: Mariah's on the autism spectrum, which I realize now might be a good thing to note, but she wouldn't think about her diagnosis in the narration and I couldn't figure out how to otherwise hint at it. And as a neurodivergent person myself, I hadn't realized I should mention until someone else off-thread brought up that she didn't read like a usual ten-year-old.
(Also this is still I/O.)
ETA 2: I slightly amended Mariah's internal narrative during breakfast to indicate her fifth grade class is part of an SDC, hopefully so it would be clearer she's ND.
