The Forgetting Curve (Memento Nora) by Angie Smibert Page A

panicky looks from passersby, most of whom had hustled away quickly.
    He rolled the window back up. “If we could get higher…”
    I pointed to the MLK pedestrian bridge that overlooks downtown and joins it with the West End neighborhood, where I live. “You might treat a girl to coffee on the way.”
    “I’ll even throw in some cake.” Aiden tapped on the privacy screen between us and the driver. We rolled through a drive-thru, and then Aiden told the driver where to go. It took some convincing, but the driver finally let us out at the bridge; he probably parked around the corner to keep an eye on us.
    “You know,” Aiden said as he swept the cantenna over the skyline. “War walking doesn’t have the same romantic appeal as war driving.”
    This must be some usage of the word romantic that I’m not familiar with. But coffee and red velvet cake—Aiden’s idea—and watching the city rush by, wasn’t such a bad thing.
    Aiden put down the cantenna after one last sweep and sat beside me to sip his coffee.
    “How long have you known Winter?” he asked after he inhaled a slice of cake.
    “Since seventh grade. She’d just moved to the neighborhood.” You could see Winter’s grandfather’s house from here. It was the only one with an obstacle course in the back. “She was different. I like different.” We’d bonded over our distaste for physical exertion in gym glass.
    “Winter didn’t exactly fit in at her old school, either.”
    “Did you? Fit in, that is?” I asked.
    “Winter got the brains; I got the charm. And I do get by on my looks.” He smiled cheesily. It wasn’t the multiple kilowatt Prince Charming smile he’d tried on me before. More of a parody of it. That was progress.
    “How’s that working for you?” I sipped my caramel latte.
    “Eh. Not so much lately.” Aiden snorted. He began telling me about this guy at work who seemed to have his number, too. “He thinks I’m some rich kid poser.”
    I didn’t say a thing.
    Aiden shrugged it off, but I could see it was getting under his skin. Not too many people pierced that Prince Charming armor of his.
    A familiar crackle came out of the mobile he had hooked up to the antenna.
    “Was that it?” I asked as Aiden scrambled for his mobile.
    “There’s a signal—actually a couple—but no ’cast.” He scowled at his mobile. “It’s coming from down there.” He pointed toward a football field-sized yard of junk by the railroad tracks.
    We sauntered casually over the pedestrian bridge before his driver noticed and then ran in the direction of the signal.
    I knew where we were going.

21.0
     

THROUGH THE FUSELAGE
     
    AIDEN
     
    A freight train clattered by behind us as we stood at the entrance to the scrapyard. A bakery truck was parked down the block, and a rocket fuselage blocked the gate.
    “This is where all the stuff from the science and transportation museums ended up,” Velvet explained. “It’s scrap now.”
    “It’s a solid mass of junk. Rocket parts. Train cars. Old cars. Some sort of telescope thing. A section of a radio tower.” I’d climbed partway up the cyclone fence to see above the rocket. “Winter would love this place.”
    “How do you think I know about it? I’m not Junkyard Girl.” She crawled up the fence and stood on the fuselage. “Do you see a hatch?”
    No. I hadn’t quite pegged what girl Velvet was. Maybe that’s why I liked her.
    “A hatch?” she repeated. Then she stepped around me and opened a door in the rocket body that I hadn’t seen.
    How’d I miss that?
    I jumped in after her. We hung a left in the partial darkness and crouch-walked a few dozen meters through the nose of the rocket. We emerged blinking into an open space, surrounded on two sides by walls of junk. At the far end was a white-domed building that looked like a mini-observatory.
    “Are you new here?” a lanky girl in glasses asked. She’d magically appeared in front of us.
    “Yes, we are.” I extended my hand