The Mnemosyne Gamble- Chapter Seven: What is Left Unfinished Shall Be Repeated

Rhynar's return was a well-received one. In her absence, she had apparently gained a bit of notoriety among her peers at the lodging building, and she found herself enjoying the attention far more than she would have expected. It was a welcome feeling—one she hadn't realized she'd needed.

Therefore, when Gent informed her that she'd made the Task Well Done award roster, Rhynar couldn't help smiling to herself. Naturally, the first person she called was her mother. Marguerite, who was as supportive as ever, though unfortunately half a world away on her trip. It was a shame, especially when Rhynar learned the award came with a plus-one.

She hadn't expected that. The ceremony was hardly exclusive. It was one of those enormous corporate affairs where dozens of people were recognized in succession, their names announced while a rotating list of accomplishments appeared behind them. Still, an invitation was an invitation, and apparently Central North believed every recipient deserved someone in the audience to be proud of them.

Rhynar offered the seat to her father. She told herself it was an empty gesture. Emory probably wouldn't come. He had never been particularly interested in accolades for his daughter, and Rhynar wasn't sure she wanted him there anyway. But there was a small, superficial part of her that wanted him to see it. She wanted him to sit in that enormous auditorium and watch her name appear on the screen. She wanted him to see that she had managed to make something of herself after all. That she was a success. She hated herself a little for wanting that. There was another reason she had been thinking about family lately, though it was harder to admit. Rollo.

Ever since learning more about the nano-transfusion technology, Rhynar had found herself returning to what she knew about his treatment. The niobium coating made the technology incompatible with human tissue. There was no way around that. She knew it now, and knowing it had created a peculiar guilt in her, a helplessness from being unable to protect Rollo from getting caught up in his own bad judgment. More than once, she considered looking Rollo up. Each time, she stopped herself. She couldn't decide if it would be more harm than good to reconnect with her former partner.

When Emory finally responded to the invitation, it was to indirectly tell her he declined. Then, almost as if that settled the matter, he sent Rollo in his place, without asking. Rhynar hadn't prepared herself for the possibility of actually seeing Rollo. She found herself looking toward the audience several times before her category was called, wondering if he was lurking and whether he could see her from where she was if he were.

At the convention center, Rhynar sat alone while the other recipients sipped drinks at their tables with friends and family. She had waited outside for Rollo for as long as she possibly could, watching for him until staying any longer would have meant risking missing the ceremony herself. The evening breeze had rewarded her patience by turning her carefully styled hair frizzy. Now, inside, she fidgeted with the little sand charm on her fob, rolling it between her fingers to calm herself. She was increasingly worried that she might have a panic attack when they called her name.

Rollo standing her up certainly wasn't helping. Neither was her father's decision to decline her invitation. Had she known Rollo wasn't coming, she would have invited someone from her orientation group. She wasn't particularly close to any of them yet, but having a familiar face in the audience would have been better than glancing toward an empty chair. Instead, she'd kept the place open for Rollo until it was too late to offer it to anyone else.

It was one of those moments when Rhynar didn't need anyone to solve a problem for her. She didn't need advice or reassurance or some grand gesture. She needed someone to show up for her as she had for them. The truth sank in slowly, then all at once, like a knife driven into her gut.

She hadn't time to dwell on it, though, because she heard her name being called just as she was slouching over her hors d'oeuvres in despair. Rhynar held her breath and stood up quickly. She walked onto the stage, accepted the award, smiled when she was supposed to smile, and faced the audience long enough for the requisite acknowledgment. Then she returned to her table and sat back down. The chair beside her was still empty. Rollo never came. Rhynar wouldn't discover why until afterward.

There had been a medical emergency. He had come all the way out for her ceremony only to miss the ceremony itself. Rhynar didn't know which emotion deserved priority. She was furious with Emory for sending him. The invitation had been for her father, not a substitute. It had been an empty gesture, yes, but it had been her empty gesture to make. At the same time, she couldn't bring herself to be angry with Rollo. Mostly, she felt sad.

Gent found her before she had entirely sorted through any of it. She was messaging Rollo from her fob when he approached her and, in his usual sing-song tone, said, "I've got something for you," he said. Rhynar, looking up at him, asked. "Another what?" Gent clarified, "A job." That got her attention.

Central North needed an attaché and community outreach representative assigned to the unincorporated territory. It would mean dealing directly with the communities there, acting as a liaison between them and Central North, handling disputes before they became larger problems, and spending considerably less time behind a desk. Rhynar knew the position. Tully had wanted it.

That realization took most of the excitement out of the offer. For a moment, Rhynar considered telling her everything. She could tell Tully about the offer, about the guilt she felt accepting something Tully had wanted, about all the ways she worried she had benefited from circumstances that had hurt someone else. She could confess until there was nothing left sitting heavily inside her.

But what would that accomplish? Tully would be hurt. Rhynar would feel better. That wasn't honesty. Or, at least, it wasn't the kind of honesty Rhynar wanted to congratulate herself for.

Some confessions were just another way of asking the injured person to carry the guilt for you. So Rhynar kept hers.

And she accepted the job. Not because she thought she deserved it more than Tully. Not because receiving an award had suddenly convinced her that Central North had recognized some extraordinary quality in her. She accepted because she had spent enough of her life waiting for things to become unbearable before permitting herself to change them.

At her old company, she had built a life she hated one compromise at a time. She had stayed where she was useful, done what was expected, and mistaken endurance for discipline until the rut beneath her feet had become so deep she could no longer see over its edges. She had come to Central North and, almost without noticing, begun constructing the same life again. Rhynar looked at the award in her hands. Perhaps recognition wasn't proof that she was on the right path. Perhaps it only meant she had become very good at walking it. This time, she decided to turn.

By the time the exchange was complete, Rollo had messaged Rhynar back. She went to see Rollo straight away. She had known there had been a medical emergency. She had not understood what his condition was until she saw him.

He was in his hotel room, propped up on pillows. He looked more grey than he used to. There were dark circles under his eyes. The most noticeable change to him was that the weight in his body had shifted. His cheeks were droopier, while his muscular body was sunken in appearance. He was still the same man she had known for so long, only it was as if that man had washed away and the most fragmented bits of the person he was had been assembled onto what remained.

Rhynar sat beside him in a chair she pulled up from the desk. He asked nothing about her, nor apologized for the confusion. Instead, Rollo went into great detail about his health struggles since he had last seen her. He explained that coming to Central North hadn't only been about seeing her receive the award. According to him, he had wanted to see her, certainly, but he'd also wanted to see whether the healthcare here was any better than what was available in the Midwestern Dominion.

"I've exhausted everything there," he said. Rhynar looked him over. "Everything?" She was aware he likely had chronic post-nanotransfusion inflammatory syndrome, which was the most common negative outcome among nano-transfusion recipients and the ultimate reason it was originally pulled from production. Rollo turned away as he answered, "Everything they'll give me." She sighed as he spoke, seeming utterly dejected.

Rhynar was unsure as to why Rollo was acting so defeated. The nano-transfusion had been mostly reversed. As far as Rhynar understood it, the physical damage from that single treatment shouldn't have left him in the condition he described. The worst of the effects could be managed, and that was typically reserved for those who had used the treatments for years. Rollo disagreed vehemently. He insisted something inside him had changed and never changed back.

"I'm worse than I was before it," he told her. "A lot worse." Rhynar didn't argue. She remembered what she'd learned about the niobium and its incompatibility with human tissue, and the knowledge still produced a sick little turn in her stomach. But she also wondered how much of Rollo's suffering was physical and how much had accumulated around it.

He had been sick for so long. He spoke about his body as if it had betrayed him, about doctors as if they had abandoned him, and about the future as if it were something steadily closing rather than opening. Rhynar wondered if he was depressed. She kept the thought to herself. Whatever the cause, his misery was real. So she stayed.

They talked through most of the night. Rhynar deliberately kept the conversation light whenever she could. She told him about Central North, about people she worked with, about strange things she'd encountered since moving. Whenever Rollo drifted back toward hospitals or treatments, she gently steered him elsewhere. Eventually, without thinking much of it, she mentioned Providence Park.

Rollo became interested immediately. "You went there?" She nodded. "Yes." He sat up for the first time since they had been together. He hadn't even sat up to greet her when she came in. He eagerly asked, "And you used it?" Rhynar hesitated. "I stood where you're supposed to stand." Rollo, nearly interrupting her with anticipation, asked, "What did you send back to yourself?" Rhynar shrugged. "I don't know that I sent anything." Rollo pressed her, "But you went." She was feeling uneasy with the way the conversation was going, so she gave a quick, "Yes." Rollo hurried with his next question, "And then you moved here." Rhynar already disliked where this was going. Rollo sat back. He crossed his arms behind his head, as if he had made a dramatic but satisfying decision, and commanded, "You have to take me."

Rhynar blurted out. "Absolutely not." At the very thought of doing anything more with Rollo. He protested. "Why?" She snorted. "Because Providence Park is in the unincorporated territory." Rollo, still standing by his proclamation, said, "So?" Rhynar didn't know where to begin to explain the differences in doing basic tasks in that part of the world compared to what they were used to. "So, unincorporated is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It's unregulated. Parts of it can be dangerous, transportation is unreliable, and getting there is considerably easier when your body isn't actively trying to kill you."

This did not deter Rollo, who wiped his face as if preparing for his photo to be taken just then. "I can walk." Rhynar looked him up and down as he lay on the bed. She skeptically asked, "How far?" Rollo paused. She insisted he answer. "Rollo." He frowned at his own admission. "Short distances." Rhynar wanted details. "How short?" He shrugged. "I don't measure them." She looked at him as objectively as possible, wondering if he had it in him to even attempt such a journey.

Rollo must have guessed what she was stuck on as he sighed. "If I push myself too hard, I get migraines." Rhynar repeated, "Migraines." He winced. "Yes." She was not satisfied; she wanted details to understand what he was asking of her. "The kind where you take something and complain for an hour, or the kind where you're incapacitated?" He didn't answer quickly enough. Rhynar folded her arms. "We're not going."

Rollo retorted, "You went." She threw her hands in the air. "I can walk." Rollo mocked her gesture as he claimed, "So can I." Rhynar tore down his argument with, "You just described walking as a migraine delivery system." That earned the faintest smile from him, which Rhynar considered a victory. It didn't last. "Rhynar, it worked for you." The certainty in his voice unsettled her more than his enthusiasm had. "What worked?" She was genuinely confused. "Providence Park," Rollo stated with conviction. Rhynar shook her head. "No. I went to Providence Park. Things happened afterward. Those are different statements."

"You wanted your life to change."

"Most people want their lives to change."

"And then yours did."

"My life was already changing."

"You moved to Central North."

"Because I accepted a job."

"Why did you accept it?"

Rhynar opened her mouth, then stopped.

Rollo looked almost triumphant.

"You sent it back," he said.

"Sent what back?"

"The thought. The decision. Whatever made you finally leave. You went to Providence Park and sent the idea back to yourself."

Rhynar shook her head. "That's not how causality works."

"How do you know?"

"Because the decision that caused me to go to Providence Park can't also have been caused by me going to Providence Park."

"Why not?"

"Because then which one happened first?"

"Does one have to?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Rhynar glared at him. She had forgotten how irritating Rollo could be when he became convinced of something. He leaned back, exhausted from an argument that had required almost no physical exertion. "You went there because something in you wanted a different life. You sent that thought backward. Then you made the choices that gave you one."

"Or," Rhynar said, "I wanted a different life, went to a place that promised people they could send memories backward, and then eventually made choices consistent with something I already wanted."

"That's awfully convenient."

"That's causality."

"That's your interpretation."

"No. Causality isn't an interpretation."

Rollo smiled weakly. "You sound nervous."

"I'm not nervous."

"You are."

Rhynar looked away. What bothered her wasn't that his theory made sense. It didn't.

The effect couldn't reach backward and manufacture its own cause without creating the very problem Providence Park's advocates always danced around. Rollo was drawing a line between two events because he desperately wanted the line to exist.

She understood why.

If Providence Park had worked for her, then perhaps it could work for him.

Perhaps somewhere behind him was a moment when his life could still have gone differently. A treatment he could have refused. A decision he could have reconsidered. A warning he could have given himself before the nano-transfusion ever entered his body.

Rhynar could see the hope taking shape in him. That was what frightened her.

Rollo wasn't evaluating evidence. He was searching for evidence of something he had already decided he needed to be true. And Rhynar didn't know whether taking that hope away from him would be an act of kindness or cruelty. Rhynar researched Providence Park again. This time, she did it properly.

She read everything she could find about the park, the surrounding territory, and the theories behind transmitting memories into the past. None of it made her feel particularly confident about Rollo's plan. If anything, the more she read, the more convinced she became that Providence Park's reputation rested on people finding significance after the fact and working backward from there.

She also researched the emergency pods.

Those concerned her for considerably more practical reasons. The unincorporated territory had once been dotted with emergency infrastructure, much of it installed before the region had become what it was now. Ownership records were inconsistent. Maintenance records were worse. Rhynar remembered seeing at least one pod during her previous trip, and knowing that Rollo could become incapacitated if he overexerted himself made its condition suddenly important.

By the time she finished her research, she hadn't convinced herself that taking Rollo was a good idea. She had convinced herself that letting him go alone was worse. He was going to Providence Park. With her or without her. Rhynar preferred with.

Gent complicated matters further when he followed up with her about the new position.

When Rhynar mentioned that she might need to travel into the unincorporated territory sooner than expected, she anticipated resistance. Instead, Gent treated the trip as an opportunity.

Central North wanted better information about the farms operating beyond its jurisdiction. Some might be interested in supplying Central North directly. Others might be willing to enter longer-term contracts if anyone bothered to find out what they produced, what they needed, and whether they were interested in selling at all. In other words, Rhynar could take Rollo to Providence Park and call it work. Gent even gave the trip his blessing. Then he started making calls.

Corporate became involved. The emergency pods Rhynar had asked about became an infrastructure question. Their operational status needed to be verified, as did the ownership of the land and equipment associated with them. If Central North intended to send an employee into the territory with any regularity, somebody wanted to know exactly which emergency systems she could legally and practically rely upon. By the time everything was arranged, Rhynar and Rollo had been assigned an off-road vehicle.

Rhynar dissociated at it for a moment longer than necessary. Things were moving too quickly. Only recently, she had been wondering whether she should accept the position at all. Now Central North was coordinating with corporate based on questions she had raised, giving her transportation, and sending her into the territory to collect information that might determine future contracts. There was no department waiting for her to join.

She was, apparently, building one. Rhynar had always imagined that moving up would involve someone above her explaining what came next. Instead, she had been handed a vehicle and a general objective. For the first time in her career, she had the uncomfortable sensation that she was leading from the front. She blamed Rollo.

Not fairly, perhaps, but privately and with considerable enthusiasm. If he hadn't appeared, she wouldn't be going back to Providence Park. If she weren't going back to Providence Park, she wouldn't have mentioned the emergency pods. If she hadn't mentioned the emergency pods, Gent wouldn't have turned her personal problem into a corporate expedition. It was astonishing how efficiently Rollo could bring trouble into her life while looking too ill to carry his own luggage.

Once they crossed into the unincorporated territory, Rhynar wasted no time.

She drove directly to the emergency pod she remembered from her previous journey, photographed and documented its condition, recorded its location and identifying information, and sent everything back to Central North. That, at least, felt satisfyingly concrete.

One objective completed. Then came Rollo's. Providence Park looked much as Rhynar remembered it. Rollo stared at it as though he had arrived somewhere sacred. Rhynar let him have the moment.

She walked with him through the grounds, explained what she remembered, and eventually brought him to the place where visitors were supposed to stand to send a memory—or a thought, or a warning, depending on which version of the theory one believed—backward through their own lives. Rollo took his place. Rhynar waited. Nothing happened. Which was precisely what she had expected. Rollo apparently had not. After several minutes, he looked at her. "How do I know?"

"Know what?"

"That it worked."

"You don't." He frowned.

Rhynar had warned him about this. "You stand there," she said. "You concentrate on whatever you're trying to send, and that's it."

"That's what you did?"

"More or less."

"And you didn't feel anything?"

"I fell asleep." Rollo stared at her. "That wasn't part of the process," Rhynar added. "I was tired." He turned his attention back to the stone beneath his feet. Rhynar waited again. Rollo closed his eyes. More time passed.

Eventually Rhynar checked the time. "Rollo."

"Wait."

"For what?"

"I don't know."

"That's going to make determining when it arrives difficult." He ignored her. Rhynar wandered a short distance away, then came back. Rollo was still standing there.

"How long are you planning to do this?"

"Until I'm sure."

"You already did it."

"But I don't know that."

"You'll never know that."

Rollo opened his eyes. "There should be something."

"Why?"

"A feeling. A memory. Something that tells me I reached myself."

"Your past self."

"You know what I mean." Unfortunately, she did. Rollo wasn't satisfied with performing the supposed transmission. He wanted confirmation. He wanted the universe to acknowledge receipt. "I need to know I warned myself," he said. "About the nano-transfusion."

"About the worst mistake of my life."

Rhynar went quiet. She knew what he meant. She also knew enough about Rollo's life to think he was wrong. Somewhere in the world was a daughter he had abandoned. Rollo seldom spoke about her. When Rhynar had tried to raise the subject in the past, he had shut the conversation down so thoroughly that eventually she had stopped trying.

Yet here he stood, desperate to reach backward through time and prevent the greatest mistake of his life, and the mistake he had chosen was something that had happened to him.

Not something he had done to someone else. Rhynar felt a flare of irritation. She suppressed it.

This wasn't why they had come. Rollo was sick. He was frightened. He believed the nano-transfusion had destroyed his health, and perhaps Rhynar was wrong about how much of his decline was physical. She couldn't crawl inside his body and measure his suffering for herself. But she knew his daughter existed. She knew he had left her. And she knew he refused to talk about it.

Rollo closed his eyes again. Rhynar watched him, trying desperately to warn an earlier version of himself about the worst decision he believed he had ever made. For the first time, she wondered whether Providence Park's greatest flaw wasn't that it couldn't send anything into the past. Perhaps it was that, even if it could, people would still have to decide which of their mistakes were worth correcting.

Rollo delayed their return by a day. Then another. By the end of the second day, Rhynar's patience had worn thin enough that she stopped pretending they were negotiating. "We're leaving tomorrow." Rollo, stretched out across the emblem at Providence Park, opened one eye. "You can." She was tired of him entirely. She stood firm. "No. We can." Rollo was in denial, though. "I need more time." Rhynar had wasted enough of her years on him already; she was not about to waste another day on his foolishness.

She finally saw Rollo for what he was, an overgrown child expecting answers to present themselves to him without realizing every fact had to be earned. She stomped, "You've had more time." Rollo wavered around a bit before he mumbled, "I haven't felt anything yet."

Rhynar looked down at him. "You're lying on a rock." No matter what she pointed out as obvious to poke holes in his logic, he came back with something else instead of seeing the picture she was trying to paint for him. "It's an emblem."

She felt herself getting more frustrated with him as her tone became less light with every exchange. "It's a rock with an emblem carved into it." Rollo must have noticed her attitude. He took a deep breath as he explained himself. "Something happened when you slept here." She didn't want to give him false hope. She felt sorry for him. She wanted to warn him, but had failed so many times before. "I got sun in my face." Rollo let his shoulders down. She knew he needed this, even though it was a dead end for them both. "You don't know that was all." She wanted him to see what was there and not chase this delusion anymore. "I know it happens most mornings." Rollo closed his eyes again, turning away from her.

His new theory seemed to be that if he repeated Rhynar's experience precisely enough, eventually Providence Park would reward him with the same result. Every day, he returned to the emblem. He lay down in the same place where Rhynar had accidentally fallen asleep and waited for an epiphany. None came. This did not discourage him.

Instead, Rollo treated the absence of revelation as evidence that he needed to keep trying.

Rhynar had work waiting for her at Central North. The photographs and documentation she had already sent back had generated questions. Gent wanted follow-up information. Corporate wanted clarification about the emergency infrastructure. What had begun as an accommodation for Rollo had somehow become the opening expedition of Rhynar's new position.

She couldn't spend indefinitely watching a grown man lie on a stone waiting for causality to surrender. "Tomorrow morning," she said. "I'm taking the car back." Rollo sat up. "What about me?" She was annoyed that he only ever seemed to care for his own agenda, but never the repercussions his plans had on her life. She tried to level with him all the same. "I would prefer that you were inside it." Yet, Rollo remained as difficult as ever. "And if I'm not?" Rhynar shrugged. "Then you'll have to figure something out." For once, Rollo seemed to understand that she meant it. Later, he offered a compromise.

He would ride with her as far as the train station and see her off. Afterward, he said he could walk back to Providence Park himself. Rhynar disliked that plan for several reasons, beginning with the fact that Rollo had spent the previous several days reminding her that walking too far could trigger debilitating migraines. She told him so.

Rollo, as unrelenting as ever, replied, "I'll take my time." But so was Rhynar, as she reminded him, "It's a long way." Rollo folded his arms as if he had come to this conclusion himself. "I'll rest." Rhynar couldn't help herself from feeling, for once, as if their roles had switched. "You came here because you were worried about your health." However, Rollo was still the same prat she had always known him to be, no matter the case. He asserted, "I came here because I wanted to fix it." All it did was put the fact that they were not a couple anymore into the forefront of her thoughts. She no longer had to preserve the relationship. She could finally speak her mind with him. "By giving yourself a migraine in the middle of nowhere?"

He smiled. "I'll be careful." Rhynar didn't believe him. But she had reached the point where she could distinguish between a problem that was hers and one that belonged to Rollo. If he insisted on staying, she couldn't physically drag him back to Central North. So the next morning, they packed the vehicle and left Providence Park. For a while, Rhynar thought the argument was over.

Then Rollo asked, "Can we stop somewhere first?" Rhynar was not in the mood for diversions or detours for this trip. She already had her fill with Tully doing so the last time she was out there. She put her foot down with a harsh, "No." Rollo went on, "The place you stayed that first night." Rhynar glanced at him. "Why?"

"You told me you and Tully hid somewhere." Rollo's question was dancing around something else. Rhynar knew him well enough to sense it. She flatly answered, "We did." In as forthright a manner as Rollo could put it, he admitted, "I want to see it." Not convinced, Rhynar asked, "Why?" Rollo pushed, "I don't know. I'm curious." Rhynar wanted to stay on track. She pointedly said, "That's a terrible reason to miss a train." Rollo begged in his own whiny way, "We have time." Rhynar checked. Annoyingly, they did. She should have said no anyway. Instead, she turned off the road.

The place looked smaller than Rhynar remembered. During that first night with Tully, it had felt isolated and protective, somewhere they could disappear until daylight made traveling safer. Returning in a corporate vehicle made it look considerably less dramatic. "There," Rhynar said after stopping. "You've seen it." Rollo looked around. "This is where you slept?"

"More or less." He nodded thoughtfully.

Then he unfastened his restraint. "What are you doing?"

"I need to relieve myself." Rhynar gestured toward the surrounding landscape. "Congratulations. There's an entire unincorporated territory available." Rollo didn't move. She snapped at him. "Really? You're going to go out the door of the car?" He shifted around uncomfortably and said, "Could you give me some privacy?"

Rhynar glared at him. "I'm not watching." She didn't like his accusation. He pointed, pleading his case. "You're sitting right there." She was too tired for his antics. "I can look the other way." Never before had he been so shy. Now, to see that it was suddenly something he was thrusting upon her was obnoxious. Still, Rollo continued, "Rhynar."

She groaned, opened her door, and stepped outside. "Better?"

"A little farther?" She gave him a look. Rollo gave her one back. Rhynar walked away from the vehicle. "Far enough?" She asked. He squinted his eyes for a moment as if mentally measuring the distance before agreeing. "Yeah." She turned her back. A moment later, she heard the door close. Then the engine changed pitch. Rhynar turned. The vehicle moved.

For one bewildered second, her mind refused to interpret what she was seeing. "Rollo?" The vehicle accelerated. "Rollo!" Rhynar ran after it for several steps before the sheer stupidity of chasing an off-road vehicle on foot became apparent. She stopped. The car continued down the road. Rhynar watched until it disappeared. For several seconds, she stood completely still.

Then she said a word that would not have been appropriate in any Central North community outreach report. He had stolen the car. Not a car. Central North's car. The vehicle corporate had issued to her. Rhynar immediately imagined the paperwork. Then she imagined Gent.

After that, she imagined someone in corporate explaining that the value of the missing vehicle would be charged against her compensation. Tully had already taught her exactly how quickly corporate property could become personal debt. "No." Rhynar started walking. She could still go toward the train station. That was the sensible choice. Get somewhere regulated, establish contact with Central North, report the vehicle taken, and let somebody else deal with Rollo.

She checked the time. Even walking at a pace she couldn't maintain indefinitely, she would miss the last train out. Which meant she would spend the night stranded anyway.

Rhynar stopped. Providence Park was in the opposite direction. So was Rollo. And, presumably, so was her car. Her corporate-issued car. Rhynar turned around.

During the previous two days, she had tried sympathy. She had tried patience. She had tried reason. She had accommodated Rollo's obsession because he was sick, frightened, and desperate enough to believe that lying on an emblem could somehow reach backward through his life and save him from himself. She had been understanding. Rollo had rewarded that understanding by stranding her in the unincorporated territory and stealing corporate property entrusted to her.

If Rollo wanted to stay at Providence Park, then Rhynar would go back to Providence Park. She would retrieve the vehicle, find him, and they were going to have it out. At least, that was the plan.

By the time she reached the vehicle, abandoned along the gravel road, most of her anger had burned itself down to exhaustion. Rhynar sat on the hood for a moment, catching her breath, and somewhere in the silence, a thought occurred to her that should have occurred to her much sooner. Rollo had never come looking for her. Not once.

He had never checked on her after she left. Never asked how she was doing, where she had gone, or why she had gone in the first place. The only reason he had eventually come to see her was that her father had reached out to him. Even then, by Rollo's own admission, he had come partly to see whether being with Rhynar might get him better care. And now he had left her alone again.

Stranded, vulnerable, and expected to find her own way out of a mess he had created. It wasn't new. That was what finally struck her. Rollo had done some version of this more times than she cared to count. Somehow, each time, Rhynar had convinced herself that the circumstances were different enough to excuse it.

She looked down the empty road. Rollo knew the way back. He had taken their belongings with him. Whatever he believed about the state of his health, he was still capable of walking, making decisions, and finding his way to the border station if he chose to. He was a grown man. More importantly, he was a grown man Rhynar could not persuade to do anything he had decided against doing.

She had spent years learning that lesson. Why was she still trying to unlearn it? Whether his decision was wise or foolish was beside the point. She couldn't control Rollo. She didn't want to control him. She could tell him what she thought, argue until she lost her voice, drag him halfway down the road if he let her—but in the end, his choices belonged to him. And hers belonged to her.

Rhynar slid off the hood and took out the fob. She pressed the ignition. Nothing. She tried again. The fob answered with a weak, diminished alert from the vehicle, but the engine remained silent. "Oh, come on." Rhynar opened the hood. For several seconds, she simply stared. The engine was gone.

She leaned closer, as though a change in perspective might somehow make an engine appear. It didn't. On closer inspection, the situation was even worse. The vehicle had been stripped for parts. Anything easily removed and worth taking seemed to have been taken. Rhynar straightened and glanced along the road.

Whoever had done it might still be nearby. If they weren't, there was no reason to assume they wouldn't come back for whatever remained. That settled it. She closed the hood. "Fine." The word came out almost peacefully.

She wasn't chasing Rollo. She wasn't salvaging the vehicle. She wasn't spending the night guarding a gutted emergency pod in the middle of nowhere. Rhynar cut her losses and jogged back toward the border station. She arrived in time to catch the first train in the morning.

Before boarding, she documented the location of the abandoned emergency pod and reported the loss of the vehicle. Then she sent one final message to Rollo's family. She told them that he had returned to Providence Park on his own and included the park's location. That was all she could reasonably do.

That was all she was going to do.

Rhynar boarded the train and took a seat by herself. There was no dramatic goodbye. No final argument. No reconciliation, accusation, or promise that someday they would understand each other better. There was only distance growing between them as the train pulled away. And that was the final parting of Rollo and Rhynar. No hurt expression on one another's faces. They knew that was the truest they had ever been with one another.

She sat quietly as the border station disappeared behind her, surprised by how little she felt compelled to say, even to herself. The past could stay where it was. Rhynar was ready to see what came next.