Discord's Apple

“An economic market of a billion and a half consumers can’t be wrong, I guess.”

“You know my mom died in the Seattle bombing.”

“Yeah, I know, Evie.” Background static on the connection filled the pause. “You’re not the only one who feels that way. Protests are going on in Seattle and New York. They’re about to turn them into riots. The National Guard’s being called up.”

“Shit.” The architects of history, the generals and game-players, were at it again.

Another pause. Then, “How are we going to spin this in the book?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know who the bad guys are anymore, Bruce. We could miss the deadline. Delay the publication, see how this is going to play out. Or we could zap the team to another planet and pretend like none of this is happening.”

“I think I’d like to get zapped along with them. Paula isn’t going to be happy.” Paula was their editor, the one responsible for harnessing their creative energy and packaging it into the final product.

Evie gave a huff. “What good is being the creators of the country’s bestselling comic title if we don’t get any

clout? Paula can deal with it.”

“Roger, Captain. You sound like crap, by the way.”

“I fell asleep on the sofa.”

“Right. What was the last thing you wrote before you fell asleep?”

The file was still on-screen, autosaved and everything. She read him back the last few lines. The last few interesting ones, anyway. What she’d produced last night looked abysmal by the light of day.

“Shit,” he said. “Tracker goes rogue. I like it. This could work.”

“It wasn’t really what I intended.”

“Hey, don’t argue. Just run with it.”

“Right.”

“Go take a shower. Get some coffee. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“You, too, Bruce. Hey, Bruce?”

“Yeah?”

“Does it even matter anymore?”

“What do you mean?”

“The comic. Why are we even talking about it? The world’s going to hell, my father’s dying—why am I still sitting down at my laptop?”

She could hear his breathing over the connection. He was tired; he’d been making himself sound cheerfully irate to hide it.

Then he said, “What choice do we have? It’s what we do. Otherwise we’d have to curl up in a ball and go crazy.”

She chuckled. Keep on going. It was all they could do.

“Thanks for calling.”

“I’m just worried about you.”

As she clicked off, her father came into the room, freshly showered, hair still damp, tucking his shirt into his jeans. He grabbed his coat off the chair he’d put it on, like he was actually planning on going somewhere.

“Dad?” She rose and followed him to the kitchen. Mab trotted along with them.