Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh Page B

the kind of rich where I can afford to revive you. Not even if I sold everything I owned.”
    She hadn’t realized how much hope she was harboring until it was dashed. A black despair overtook her and swelled until even the room seemed to darken. “Please. You have to get me out of here.”
    “Mira, I can’t. We’re talking millions and millions of dollars.” He whispered the amount, as if it were too obscene to say aloud.
    She wanted to cry, but no tears would come, her chest wouldn’t respond. She was left with nothing to express the rising panic she felt except a gargling sound in the back of her throat. “I can’t stand this. I can’t be here any longer.” She looked at Lycan, who looked away, ashamed. “You have to get me out of here.
Please.
” She was blowing it, driving Lycan away with her hysteria. She knew that, but the words poured out anyway.
    Lycan covered his face with his hands again. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I did a terrible thing, raising your hopes.” He let his hands drop. “It’s just that I was so
lonely
.”
    The women here must all be kind to him, must hang on his every word in the hope that he’d choose them and free themfrom their long sleep. Where else would a man like Lycan get that sort of attention?
    “But now I see how selfish I’ve been. I’m disgusting.” He swallowed thickly, shook his head. “Do you know, I’ve tried half a dozen social-anxiety stabilizers? But they all make my depression worse.” He laughed humorlessly. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? There’s always a catch, always a cost that’s too steep.”
    The self-hatred in his tone, the flatness in his eyes, shocked her. It was as if he’d suddenly undergone a complete personality change. He’d been coming to this place to escape the man he was in the real world, she realized. He was dropping the pretense now, and he would never be able to face her again.
    “I’d miss you terribly if you stopped visiting me,” she said. The truth was if Lycan didn’t visit, Mira would be incapable of missing anyone. No one else was visiting, or likely to stumble upon her among the army of bridesicles lined shoulder-to-shoulder in boxes in this endless mausoleum.
    Lycan wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I’m sorry, Mira. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done.”
    “Lycan, please—” was all she could get out as he reached above her.

16
Rob
    It was stupid, but Rob found himself hurrying to get to Winter’s crèche. For months he’d been rehearsing follow-ups to their previous conversation—new, more upbeat lines of conversation. Mostly, though, he’d agonized over the months that had passed since he last visited her. Pressure had been building in his chest from the moment he made his promise, and this visit would release that pressure. Or some of it, at least.
    He understood that Winter was beyond time, beyond impatience as she waited for an opportunity to live for a few minutes. What concerned him was that someone else had waked her since his last visit. If so, she would have asked this visitor how long she’d been dead, and when she heard it had been months, she’d assume Rob had lied, that he told her what she wanted to hear and slunk off to enjoy his life. He didn’t want her to think that, even for five minutes.
    On the other hand, he had no idea what they were going to say to each other. That part made him nervous, which waswhy he’d been rehearsing possible things to say while he’d plucked color-coded bits of technology from century-old husks for the past four months.
    The seat was waiting for him, as usual. Squeezing his hands together, he waited while the crèche rolled out of the wall.
    Winter’s eyes fluttered open. The timer began to roll. It was unfair that the timer began as soon as Winter was conscious; it would be fifteen or twenty seconds before she was lucid. He would pay about five hundred dollars during that time.
    “You came back,” Winter said.
    “Of course. I