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"What then?"

He steps down from the jet Three steps that separate his world fro to look into her eyes, but now they’re hidden in shadow "Risa, I care about you as much as I ever did You know that"

"Care about me?"

"Love you, okay? I love you" The words don’t come easy for Connor They wouldn’t come at all if they weren’t true, so that’s how he knows they are He does love her deeply--that’s not the problem And the wheelchair isn’t the proble the Graveyard

"You don’t behave like a boy when he’s in love"

"Maybe because I’ time now"

She thinks about that, and quietly says, "Then show me how you feel the way a e hangs heavy in the air For aher out of the chair and carrying her into his jet, all the way to his roo for her the man he claims to be

But Risa will not be carried Under any circumstances Ever And he wonders if maybe this is not entirely his fault Maybe she’s partially to blame for this invisible rift between thes, he reaches forith his own hand, pushes the hair back fro her a powerful kiss He puts the whole weight of their relationship and all their built-up frustration into that single superheroic kiss It should be enough to say everything he can’tbut when he pulls away, he feels her tears on his cheek, and she says:

"If you wanted me with you, you would have built a ramp"

- - -

Back inside, Connor lies on his bed in the dark, the ry Not at Risa, because she’s right It would have been nothing to build a ramp to his jet He could have done it in half a day

But what if he had?

What if Risa really could be with him in every possible way--and what if the shark on his arm truly did have a mind of its own? Roland attacked her--he tried to force hi at that damned shark when he did it She said it didn’t bother her, but it bothers Connor enough to keep hiht Because what if when they were alone together, in the heat of that passionate moment they both wanted--what if he lost control? What if that hand held her too tight, tugged her too hard--what if it hit her, and hit her again, and again, and wouldn’t stop? And how could he ever truly be there with her if all he could think about were all the things that arht do?

Better not to let it happen

Better to make sure she’s never that close

So you don’t build a ramp You don’t visit her in her jet, and when you do have physical contact, it’s out in the open where it’s safe And when she rolls away fro whatever she wants to think, because that’s better than ad to her that you’re too weak to feel safe with your own arm Then, alone in the dark of a private jet, you sainst a wall until your knuckles are raw and bloody, but you don’t care, because even though you can feel the pain, you know they’re not your knuckles at all

10 - Starkey

Starkey spends his days working his particular brand of ic tricks take practice, patience, and very careful ht of hand For more than a month he has not betrayed his ambitions To have done so would havethe Whollies, studying the alliances, the friendships, and the power structure--and at last, through careful planning, Starkey has inserted hiain Connor’s favor without hi-terhest echelon of the Graveyard, and although it’s only food service, it keeps him in direct contact with all seven hundred kids He has s that previously ht of as suspicious, but now co one of the Holy of Whollies

One afternoon Starkey wanders innocently into the Com-Bom, the Graveyard’s computer and communications center, which Hayden runs Its radio equipned to pull in and decode eneh now the eneiven time it’s manned by half a dozen Whollies, who have been handpicked by Hayden for their coeek everyone ood at taking credit for other people’s work I think I get it froers as he climbed the corporate ladder" Hayden studies Starkey for awrong?"

"No," Hayden says "I was just wondering if you’re thinking of stealingfood service for a while, but it would help me to knohat your intentions are"

"I just want to kno stuff works around here, that’s all"

"Oh," says Hayden, "you’re one of those" Starkey doesn’t knohat kind of "those" he’s talking about, but he doesn’t care as long as Hayden tells him what he wants to know

"I have an ethnically diverse tea around the room "Tad is Japanese, Hailey is umber, Jeevan is Indian--and Esme is half-Hispanic I think her other half must be extraterrestrial, because she’s too damn smart to be all huets back to work cracking coded co side by side with Lizbeth, who’s Jewish, and guess what? They’re in love"

"Bite h to make it clear that it’s true

Hayden points out the various ra from e-mails to phone conversations It can warn us if the Juvey-cops are up to soinally developed to fight terrorism, but isn’t it nice to knoe can now use it for civilian purposes?"