It’s quiet at this hour, the pavement glistening from a cloudburst that must have come and gone while she was being detained. It smells like rain in the city, clean and dirty at the same time, with a waft of the Pacific coming in on the breeze.
She prefers the dark of the dig over an urban nightscape, but she’s safe enough here. She’ll check in with Cara, then pull up the bus schedule.
Her lock screen flashes to life with an avalanche of notifications. She only uses social media for lurking on her favorite dinosaur accounts, but somehow people have found @pip.the.dino.girl despite the fact that her bio isMammal from the Early Anthropoceneand her location isGopher Crotch, Montana.Her profile photo—an action figure fromAlien—probably gave her away.
She ignores the hundreds of Follow requests. These people most likely want to yell in her DMs, which she’s grateful she set to private. She’ll delete the notifications tomorrow.
Unfortunately, a number of resourceful trolls have found her phone number. She has to scroll past pages of texts from unknown senders to find the Clever Girl group chat.
Cara 9:47 P.M.:
Made it to the hotel w Griff! Everyone send proof of life unless you’re in jail. In that case, save your phone call for my dad aka your legal counsel
Matteo 10:12 P.M.:
At Casa O’Malley in Oakland. We stopped to eat at Great China. Egg rolls don’t compare to Golden Palace
Jordin 10:20 P.M.:
SO MUCH FOMO
Cara 10:42 P.M.:
Rip?
Cara 11:30 P.M.:
RIPLEY
Ripley 12:01 A.M.:
Not in jail! Catching bus to hotel, see you all tomorrow. Today? Whatever
Finn 12:02 A.M.:
Pleasure working with you, everyone. Please consider Twin Tech for all your future lawbreaking needs
Ripley 12:03 A.M.:
Whippersnappers, all of you
Fiona replies with a picture of herself, Finn, and Matteo wearing deeply blank yet somehow disdainful Gen Z expressions.
There should be a bus in twenty minutes. Ripley’s peering hopefully down the street when footsteps approach. She’s surely only imagining that they sound familiar. It’s just that she’s lonely and in a strange place, not that—
“There you are,” says a man’s voice.
She looks up with a startled intake of breath.
Twenty feet away, James stands with his hands at his sides, as if he’s not sure he should come any closer. His hair is good and ruined. He’s unbuttoned the neck of his French blue shirt, and his jacket and tie are both missing. His right index finger restlessly taps his pants pocket.
He’s smiling, though—not a double curve, but an arch of his mouth that’s a little happy and a little sad. It snaps Ripley’s heart in half so cleanly, she can almost feel her chest gopop.
Ripley feels a happy-sad smile spread across her own face. It’s good to see him, and it hurts too. “How did you find me?”
“I asked Cara to let me know when she heard from you. We were all very worried. Obviously. She said you were taking the bus back to your hotel, and I…well. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Are you all right?” He shoves his hands into his pockets, then immediately twitches them out again.
She ventures out of the shelter into the now-misting rain. She wants to rest her head against his chest so badly that she figures it’s safer to stop a little out of reach. Up close, she can see his collar isn’t unbuttoned but torn open.
