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God, she really shouldn’t have drunk all that wine last night.
“I know you are,” she said.
Diego smiled and kissed her on the forehead. How could this man be a killer?
And then the electricity went out.
The darkness was sudden and absolute. Eliana sat straight up, blinking, terrified at the idea that her eyes could be open and still she could see nothing.
“Diego?” she called out, her heart pounding.
“I’m here.” And he was, his voice close to her ear, just as it had been on Last Night. “Nothing to worry about. We’re inside. Worse comes to worst, we’ll drag out your emergency parka. Those things are always big enough to share.”
“I don’t have one! It wasn’t in the apartment when I moved in.”
Diego put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close. In the stifling darkness she could feel him and smell him, the hardness of his shoulder and that musky sweet scent of his aftershave. She buried her face into his sweater. After a while, her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. It wasn’t pitch-black. A faint, silvery light came in through the window, and it seemed to shift around like liquid. Eliana could make out the shapes of her apartment: her couch, her chair, Diego. She snuggled up closer to him.
Voices shouted curses outside on the street. Somewhere on her floor a door slammed.
“We’re safe,” Diego muttered against the top of her head. “I locked the door when I came in.”
“Yeah, yeah.” That little bit of gangster’s paranoia. It was reassuring to see it came in useful.
Eliana wasn’t sure how long the lights stayed out. It felt longer than the blackout on Last Night, but her apartment stayed warm. She leaned against Diego and listened to his heart beating (fast, it was beating fast). Neither of them spoke. She watched the weird light move across the floor.
And then there was a sound like an enormous car starting up, and the light in the window brightened and brightened until it was clear the dome lights were back on, only at twilight levels. A moment later, the lights inside Eliana’s apartment switched on again, and the coils on the radiator glowed red.
“Oh, thank God,” Eliana said.
Diego was already at the door to the balcony, peering out at the street. “Ten minutes,” he said. “That’s the longest it’s been out since—” He snapped the blinds shut and turned back around to face her. “You need to buy another parka,” he said.
Eliana didn’t answer, just curled her legs up to her chest. He was right. The emergency parkas had been a staple of her childhood—she remembered the set hanging in her closet at home, and the cheap metallic ones they kept at the school. But it wasn’t something she’d ever thought about now that she was on her own.
“I’ll get one for you,” Diego said. “If cost’s the problem.”
“It’s fine,” Eliana said distractedly. She thought about the old steam-powered generators installed on every street corner. The city had sworn they’d been reactivated after Last Night for backup, and Eliana had even seen the steam puffing out of the exhaust pipes when she’d walked home. She shivered. Diego glanced at her, then walked over to the radiator and turned it up. Then he switched on the radio. A tango orchestra blared out of the set station, but he spun the dial until he came to a news program.
“Repeat, the problem has been resolved. As of right now we are assuming the possibility of involvement by the Antarctican Freedom Fighters—”
Diego snorted. “Please,” he said. “They need to stop bullshitting us.”
“You don’t think it’s the AFF?”
“Do you?” Diego slid back down into the couch beside her. “Why the hell would they want to turn off the power?”
“So we could all truly live in Antarctica. Build ice houses and hunt seals and all that.”
Diego laughed. “No one’s ever lived outside a dome in Antarctica. They’re in for a nasty surprise.”
“Don’t tell Essie that.”
“Essie’ll give up Independence the minute she realizes she has to give up her space heater.”
They laughed together, and Eliana’s nerves soothed a little. Diego was right; it didn’t make any sense for the AFF to want to turn off the power. The Independents all claimed the power troubles were the inevitable result of producing energy for the mainland—that the atomic power plants had created a draw on the steam power ru
The man on the radio was still going on about the AFF, though. “Oh, turn him off,” Eliana said. “He’s not saying anything useful.”
“You’re right.” Diego hopped up, turned the dial back to music. “This shit happens when the equipment’s old enough. Nothing lasts forever, you know. Bet the drones are on their way over now.”
She almost told him not to lie to her, but then she realized, watching him fiddle with the dial, the electricity-powered transmission of the singer’s soft voice filling the room, that was exactly what she wanted him to do.
At least right now. At least as far as the electricity was concerned.
He joined her on the couch, and they stayed like that for a while, pressing close to each other. And although the dome lights never brightened to their earlier intensity that day, they didn’t go out again either.
For right now, that was enough.
CHAPTER TEN
SOFIA
Sofia sat waiting in the dining room of the Florencia, but there was no dancing girl this time. The Florencia was closed down for the afternoon. Cabrera did that sometimes, so he could eat a steak without distraction or interruption. She could see the remains of his meal sitting at a table in the center of the room, although she had arrived after he’d finished.
She was alone, no Luciano or Inéz, because she wasn’t here to do the reprogramming. Cabrera had called the telephone at the amusement park’s operations room earlier. Sofia’s payment was in.
She quaked with excitement.
One of Cabrera’s bodyguards appeared at her table. She could smell the powder in his gun and the spice in his aftershave.
“Hello, Diego,” she said.
“Cabrera’s ready for you.”
“Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that.” She stood up, gathering her handbag and her coat. Diego walked side by side with her through the dining room and down the hallway. He didn’t say anything—he never said anything. Some deep-rooted part of her wondered why, wondered how she had displeased him.
She hated that part of herself.
They walked to Cabrera’s office, where Sebastian was waiting outside the door. He nodded at Diego, then pushed the door open.
The office was dim but tidy. A row of filing cabinets stood along the back wall; a painting of a horse hung between the two windows.
And a record player waited in the corner, music lilting softly in the background.
Sofia stopped.
“Music,” she said. “We had a deal, Mr. Cabrera.”
Cabrera leaned back in his big leather chair and smiled. “I swore to never play anything from before 1936,” he said, “and this little number was released last year.”
Sofia didn’t move from the doorway.
“Relax,” he said. “If we’re going to work together, you’re going to need to learn to enjoy music.”
Sofia knew that she would never enjoy music.
“Come, sit, sit.” Cabrera snapped his fingers in Sebastian’s direction. Sebastian nodded and disappeared down the hall. Sofia watched him go, then turned back to Cabrera. The music whispered on, rubbing her nerves raw.
“I sent him to fetch your payment. It’ll take a few moments. I didn’t want to bring it off the ship just yet.” Cabrera made his face look solemn. “I do have some bad news, I’m afraid.”