Louise was still wondering why Jillian thought she was the brave one. She didn’t feel brave. Her heart jumped in her chest every time she hit redial. The only thing she’d done all morning was listen to busy signals. Jillian seemed fearless, leaping into the air, doing flips and cartwheels, sparring verbally with Mr. Noble while trading lines with Elle.
Did Jillian really think she was the one that led the way? Louise always thought of Jillian as the one who led. It was because Jillian wanted to be a movie director that they did the videos.
Distracted, she wasn’t prepared for the phone to actually ring and then be answered before it rang a second time.
“Dr. Shenske’s residence; can I help you?” a man’s voice snapped over the speaker. “Hello? Anyone there? Oh, freaking hell, stupid phones!”
“Hello? I’m here!” Louise cried before he could hang up. She dropped her voice to a lower, more adult pitch. She should have brought Tesla to act as a filter. “I–I need to talk to Lain Shenske.”
“Dr. Shenske is busy at the moment. She’s supervising loading the van with botanical specimens. There was a big twenty-car pileup on I-279, so the van is way behind schedule. It will be at least two hours until she can come to the phone. I’m fielding all calls from Earth.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Richard Hill. I’m a post-doc from Cornell; I’m doing research for Dr. Karen Purcell. I’m helping out now, but I’m going have to fly shortly if I want to go back to Earth today. Startup waits for no man.”
“I really need to talk to her. This is an emergency. Life and death.”
“Oh, geez, you interns are all the same. You’re the third to call this morning. Suck it up and learn how to deal with standard procedures. There’s no cutting corners in field research paperwork.” And he hung up on her.
Louise stared at the phone, dismayed. Should she call back? Try to explain before he hung up on her again? No, the man would hang up as soon as he recognized her voice. She should hook Tesla into the loop and use his filters to disguise her voice. Actually, she could get Tesla to do the calling and have him loop her into the conversation only if he actually got through to a human.
So the day went. The telephone number was busy every time Louise tried, except for one time when the connection went through and she heard someone shouting in the distance. “Watch! Watch! Don’t yank out the leads or the spell will collapse!” a woman cried and then they were disconnected.
Louise eyed the phone. If Pittsburgh was on Earth, how were they casting spells? Did Lain have a magic generator, too? Did this mean Lain knew Kensbock? Did Lain know where the M.I.T. student was?
“We have time for one more run. Can we give it a go?” Mr. Noble called.
Louise had been working on lighting and music to go with the action as she endlessly failed to talk to Lain. She waited until everyone was in their places and then dimmed all the lights except the nursery’s nightlights. She was aware that Mr. Noble and Mr. Howe had come to bracket her as she stood on a stool and worked the control boards. There were half a dozen monitors on the system. There were cameras that showed the audience and what was onstage. There was the screen that showed the programming for the lift-line robotic operators. The controls for the Tinker Bell projector. The sound mixing display. And her phone, cycling through dial, busy signal, disconnection.
This would be the worst possible moment for the phone call to actually go through.
Trying to ignore her phone, she cued in the gleaming figure inside a ball of light that represented Tinker Bell. She zoomed the gleaming circle about the nursery, leaving a contrail of glittering motes.
“Oh wow,” Mr. Noble breathed. “That is cool. I’ve never seen that before. What are you using?”
“A holographic pinpoint projector.” Louise moved the light about as “Tinker Bell” searched for Peter Pan’s lost shadow.
“Where’d you get it?” Mr. Noble whispered.
“I made it,” she admitted since Mr. Howe was standing right there. “I recorded a silhouette of my Barbie doll using stop-action for the wings’ flapping and then looped it.”
“Oh! Really?” It was impossible to judge if his whispered question was just surprise or disbelief.
“This is a school for the gifted, Mr. Noble,” Mr. Howe said.
Onstage, the window opened and Jillian peered in, impossibly high and half upside-down. Then she flew in and landed in a crouch. She was just in T-shirt and jeans, but she’d mussed her hair so she looked half feral.
“Tinker Bell,” Jillian gave a stage whisper as she slinked across the nursery like something wild. “Tink, are you there?”
“You two are scary good,” Mr. Noble whispered.
