Hiromi was fascinatedby the scale and sprawl of the Mortons, by our durability, so unlike her own family’s.
One afternoon, on the sweltering black tar roof of her studio, she told me about her parents’ car accident: the furniture repossessed, the house foreclosed. Too young to be alone, too old for new parents, she started taking apart her old toys and making new ones.
I found myself grateful to Garrett for telling me so little about her. He’d let me discover her on my own, the way an ordinary would.
I taught Hiromi to throw Peter’s knife, rubbing down her muscles after each session, learning everything about her body. But the machines were always her focus. She wiped out her savings to buy a factory-built arm, fast enough to propel Ziggy into a block of wood at thirty feet.
We spent long, exquisite afternoons tuning it, finding the right distance-to-target for each of fifteen speed settings—the whirr of its joints, the taste of her skin, thethockof the knife striking home.
But perfect summers always end.
I came downfrom my room one morning to find Garrett and Arabella at the dining table.
At one end sat Grandmother Elizabeth. Her knitting bag lay in the chair beside her. She was at work on a child’s cap, her metal needles sliding carefully along the rows, removing the stitches one by one.
When I bowed to her, she didn’t respond.
“Coffee?” Arabella asked me.
“Yes, thank you.”
Arabella turned away to contemplate the knobs and switches of Garrett’s gleaming coffee maker. He sat uncomfortably as she poked and prodded the machine.
She never made her own coffee.
I wondered if I’d done something wrong, but then saw Grandmother’s battered leather suitcase in the corner—she was just passing through.
Her needles kept moving, the little cap disappearing row by row. I tried to see the flaw she was trying to reach, but every stitch looked perfect.
As Arabella set a cup in front of me, the surface of the coffee was trembling.
“It’s time for a progress report, Jessica.”
“Yes.” I took a sip—too bitter, even for me. “Since I quit working at the gallery, Hiromi and I spend most days together. Most nights too.”
“Congratulations,” Arabella said. “Has she told you anything useful about Lyon?”
“She speaks of him as little as possible.”
Arabella looked at Garrett, her nerves spilling over. “I told you!”
“Let it unfold. He’ll make the first move.”
She shook her head. “The first move? We’ve bugged him, hacked his financials, threatened him with blackmail. None of it worked. Andthisis supposed to make him talk to us?”
Garrett smiled. “Jealousy is slow but certain.”
“It’s time to be direct. I’ll make an appointment and explain things from his couch. Tell him exactly who and what we are.”
“Cult leaders,” Garrett said with a laugh. “Famously inclined to share power.”
“It’s worked before.”
“The Morton glamour won’t impress this one, Arabella. He already has a large, strange family—patients, acolytes, broken people who hang on his every word.”
Arabella threw up her hands. “If we can’t incorporate him, we should just kill him! Then take his clients.”
“We only need to put a crack in his ego,” Garrett said, turning to the end of the table. “We have what he doesn’t.”
