Free Random Chance and the Paradise that is Earth by Shawn Michel de Montaigne Page A

happened
outside a laboratory. And then boom!—there it was. Mind you, it
took fifty or sixty years, something like that, but it
happened.”
    “So what you’re saying is to give Mia time.
Stop trying so hard. Give her some space. Let her evolve. Is that
it?”
    “To be truthful, son, I don’t know what the
hell I’m saying. But what you said there: that sounds pretty good.
Give that a try.”
    Random smiled.
    ~~*~~
    “I think he’s right, Rand,” said Hewey.
“Give her some time. I was going to suggest that you install the
hardware, get me and Cubey downloaded into it, then fly off for a
bit. Our fuel cells are no more than a day from being fully
charged. We could jet on outta here, and maybe return in a week or
month or something like that, see how she’s doin’.”
    “Where would we go?”
    “Hell, I dunno,” said Hewey, chuckling.
“Ceres? Isn’t it a week or so away? Don’t you got some friends
there?”
    Random nodded. “More like acquaintances.
Tiny Joey’s there. And so is Mike from school. At least the last
time we waved he was. But that was what?—an Earth-year ago?”
    “More like two,” said Hewey. “I’ve still got
the wave.”
    “I suppose we could putts around the caves
…”
    “Here?”
    Random nodded. “We’ve never taken the time
to look at ‘em. Some are supposed to be spectacular. Doesn’t one
even have a bed and breakfast, something like that?”
    “Several do. Vesta City is the only city,
but there are a few caves where what you might call townships have
formed. We should check ‘em out.”
    “A damn shame,” murmured Random.
    “What is?”
    “A bed and breakfast? Some
spectacular cave? Isn’t that what couples do?”
    “I’m sorry, Rand. I was just tryin’ to help
…”
    “I’m not angry with you, Hewey. Sorry for
snapping.”
    “No apology needed, Honchorito. I’d be
frustrated too.”
    “How is Cubey?”
    “You certainly have a way with him,” laughed
Hewey. “He’s fine. An update from Phobos arrived; I thought that
would’ve pulled him out of his Deep Thoughts time, but the update
integrated and nothin’ happened. I guess the notion of
exterminating humanity isn’t such a black and white one as we might
think. I’ll be very interested in hearing what he has to say.”
    “That makes two of us,” said Random.
    ~~*~~
    He buzzed Mia the next morning.
    “Do you still want me to install the
console?”
    She gave a hesitant nod, then a weak and
short-lived smile.
    “I’ll be over in twenty,” he said, and
clicked off.
    ~~*~~
    She greeted him at the airlock. She went to
give him a kiss, but he walked past her. Tony, Sileen, and Chandra
were all seated at the table having breakfast. They offered to feed
him.
    “Got work to do,” he said, holding up the
console. “Thanks anyway.”
    They must have sensed his
dogged demeanor, because they nodded uncomfortably and went back to
eating. He marched down the corridor to The Girl ’s operations room. The door
swished open.
    He expected Mia to follow, but she didn’t.
Half an hour later he was too involved with aligning the console to
the old mainframe’s core to notice her absence. Eventually he heard
footsteps, which stopped outside the door, which he’d kept open. It
had to be her.
    “How’s it coming?” she asked.
    “Just aligning the core backups now,” he
answered. “Maybe another hour of work. The data transfer should
take another half hour; after that the nanopacks can be unlocked
and initialized. Hewey and Cubey can be downloaded after that.”
    “Rand … I don’t know if I want this console
or not.”
    He pushed himself out from under the
mainframe’s large cabinet and sat up.
    “You don’t owe me anything,” he said,
staring up at her. “I told you that. This console will keep you and
the gang much safer. That’s my only concern. Let me do that much,
all right? Please?”
    Tears filled her eyes. She nodded quickly
and left.
    He thought of going after her, but decided
against