Solaris Rising 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

came when the eco-war would be over and we could dispense with our toxic cell phones and tablets. We even recognized that the war might never be over.
    Now the compound holds fewer than a hundred die-hards. Many of the buildings are boarded-up. The radio station still works, and in prison I managed to hear a few of Wayne’s careful, chicken-hearted broadcasts on Washington state’s one public channel. The news channels, of course, are state-dominated ever since the Rescue that put the United States under military rule. What was supposed to be rescued was the economy, but of course it hadn’t been, except for those who already had enough. They just ended up with more.
    A woman comes toward us from the closest ramshackle building. She walks with the swaying waddle of the heavily pregnant, and she is very young. Her gaze on Wayne is soft and adoring. Her gaze on me holds no sexual jealousy – he must not have told her of our history together. Probably wise. It no longer matters, although once my passion for him flamed just as strong as both our passions for justice.
    “This is Tara,” Wayne says, putting an arm around her. “Tara, Catie Jaworski.”
    “Welcome,” she says, and I hear the fear in her voice, and below fear, the hostility. So she is brighter than she looks. She knows that I could threaten her precarious security. And I will.
    “Hi,” I say. And to Wayne, “Let’s get to work.”
     
     
    “D ADDY, IT HURTS !”
    “I know it does, Catie. I know. But the operation was a success and you’re fine now. The pain is just the stitches.”
    He stands beside my hospital bed, holding my hand. I am furious at him. “It hurt worse before and you weren’t even here!”
    “I came as soon as I could. I had to come from the other side of the world, pumpkin.”
    “I don’t care! I hate you!”
    The nurse, a scrawny old woman in stupid clothes with teddy bears on them, smiles at Daddy. “They always want more parent than they can get, Dr. Jaworski.”
    “Shut up!” I say. I hate the nurse, too.
    “Caitlin, apologize,” Daddy says.
    “I’m sorry,” I say, but I don’t mean it. I don’t mean that I hate Daddy, either. I know he was on the other side of the world, doing important work in physics. Everybody knows who Daddy is, and everybody knows about the new thing he invented, the clear energy walls to keep bad people from hurting little girls. It’s wonderful and important, but I wanted him here when my appendix broke. Before that, I didn’t even know I had an appendix. He never told me.
    Daddy says to the nurse, “Can’t she have more pain killers?”
    “Her chart says absolutely not,” the nurse said. “Her atypical allergies –”
    “Never mind,” Daddy says, in his important voice. “You can go.”
    The nurse looks startled, then frowns, then goes. Daddy sits in a chair beside my bed, still holding my hand. “Pumpkin, I know something better than painkillers.”
    “What?”
    “It’s a game that makes everything stop hurting. Close your eyes. Now think of a place where you were really, really happy... Are you thinking of one?”
    “Yes.” I think about being in the car with him, back when he sometimes had time to take me to school. Talking with him, laughing with him, the smells of leather and aftershave... me so happy I thought something in me would burst. Not, though, my appendix.
    “Picture that happy place in your mind, Catie. Are you doing it? Good. Now picture even more of it. More of all the good things.”
    More. I saw the car driving on and on for the whole day, not just the morning. With a picnic basket. More talking, more laughing. More Daddy.
    And it worked. I forgot that I hurt, and Daddy sat there holding my hand until his cell phone rang and he had to go. He didn’t visit me in the hospital again.
     
     
    W AYNE AND I have it out that night. Tara has gone to bed, and the welcoming party held for me is over. I’d sized up the ‘eco-terrorists’ gathered in the