Tearing her gaze away from the visage of the most powerful man in New Ionia, Zada said, “Do you remember, at Dalrymple, the fountain in the central atrium—”
“When we dyed the water?” said Daphne, smiling. “Which time?”
Zada shook her head. “Oh, worse than that. I was thinking about the spring you stole about a pound of, oh, what’s the word I’m thinking of? It’s like a gen-mod seaweed—”
“Ah, yes,” said Daphne, leaning back onto her free elbow. Even in the cramped space, she somehow managed to lounge. “Cold-set agar, it’s called. Did you know they used to get something like it from boiling animal bones?”
“No,” said Zada. Raising livestock mostly wasn’t practical in New Ionia. The thought of boiling bones sounded scandalously occult. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” said Daphne. “Gelatin, they called it. That’s why we call it Jell-O. As in, ‘My gods, Daphne sure was brave and daring during the Great Jell-O Heist.’”
“I was talking about after the heist, though,” Zada pressed. “The deployment. Mixing all that agar into the fountain-water until the whole fountain was shooting out this clear, chunky gel—”
Daphne laughed. “Oh, I’d forgotten that one!”
“Lucky you,” said Zada. “Because the sound of dozens of streams of thick fountain-water Jell-O splurting out of the water feature and glopping into the even thicker fountain-water Jell-O below it will haunt me until the day I die.”
“It didn’t fill you with inspiration for your next triple cello piece?” asked Daphne, tilting her head to one side. It was toodark under the desk to see her clearly, but Zada could make out the rough outline of Daphne’s silhouette, hear the soft fabric rustle, imagine that collarbone, still bared because Daphne had opted to go without an ascot.
Zada tapped her fingertips against the ground in 7/4 time. “Sure. Call it ‘The Absolute Worst Noise I’ve Ever Heard in E Minor.’”
“Minor?” Daphne protested. “Not a major key, to celebrate the incredible fruits of our triumph?”
“I shudder to think what kind of fruit that would be,” said Zada. “Do they make an apple that sounds like farts when you bite into it?”
“Don’t give the gen-modders any ideas.” Daphne laughed. “They’d do it just for the challenge.”
“Now I’m thinking about the time in Advanced Editing when you convinced Venetia you’d spliced together the genes to make invisible mice.”
“You still can’t prove I didn’t.”
“Oh, are the invisible mice with us right now?” asked Zada, somehow fully prepared and yet still surprised when Daphne reached over to the nape of Zada’s neck and tapped her fingertips on the sensitive skin there like little scampering feet. Zada jumped, banging her head on the underside of the desk. She bit off a yelp.
“Are you okay?” said Daphne. “You know, you seem awfully on edge these days. I don’t remember you half so tense back at school.”
How do you remember me?Zada couldn’t ask, but she wanted to, badly.
“I think it’s the other way around,” Zada said instead. “I wasalways unusually relaxed around you when we were friends. I’ve had a year to wind myself back up.”
“Oh,” Daphne said. She sounded sincerely surprised. “I didn’t know that.”
“How would you?” said Zada. “You never saw me when you weren’t there.”
“True. But after five years together at school, I really thought I knew you.” This was said so quietly that Zada had to strain to hear it.
“Daphne, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said Daphne gruffly. “It was a year ago. It’s not like you signed a contract with me. It isn’t as if we said”—and here her voice dropped and took on a polished quality—“I take you to be my best friend forever and ever, till death do us part.”
“I thought you would be fine,” Zada said. “You had other friends.”
“I was fine and I do have other friends.”
“Well,” said Zada. “I know I’ve said it before, but I really am sorry. I handled that badly, and that wasn’t fair to you.”
“Oh, don’t tell me all that,” Daphne said, waving a hand. “It’s so much easier to stay angry with the version of you that lives in my head.”
“I have to say, she sounds like a real piece of work,” Zada said, and Daphne let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “I realize usually when people say sorry, they mean ‘forgive me’ but you don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
