Noumenon. Marina Lostetter J.

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СКАЧАТЬ doesn’t mean you couldn’t go along for the ride. Get things started in the right direction.”

      “But it does mean I’ll never know.” He pushed his ale away. “I’ll never know why LQ Pyx is the way it is, one way or the other.”

      “So, you’re a glass-half-empty man?” McCloud tapped his fingertips against the beer glass.

      Reggie shrugged. “Maybe I am.”

      “Here’s something I think glass-half-empty people always fail to consider.” He paused.

      Reggie pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

      With a flick of his wrist, McCloud had the beer in his hand. In the next moment he poured it down Reggie’s front.

      “Ah!” Reggie sprang up, trying to jump away from the liquid that had already soaked through to his skin. “What the hell?”

      McCloud laughed. “It’s not the empty that leaves an impression, is it?” He offered Reggie his handkerchief, but Reggie declined—he knew where it had been. Instead he held his shirt out from his chest, glancing around for help, but none was coming. McCloud continued. “Life’s not about missed opportunities, Mr. Straifer. It’s about the moments that drench us to the bone and leave us sopping with experience.” He pointed to the back of the pub. “Restroom’s that way, I believe.”

      “There are three dry cleaners in this sector of town,” chimed C.

      McCloud was crazy.

      But that didn’t mean he was wrong.

      In the months of waiting that followed, after he and the professor had returned to the States, Reggie spent a long time contemplating soggy Dockers as a metaphor for life. But he was a scientist, not a poet. Math was his thing—he’d never had much use for metaphors.

      He got the gist, though.

      Reggie was precariously balanced on a wobbly footstool, hanging his recently framed doctoral certificate, when his phone rang. He answered using his implants. When he heard who was on the other end, and why they were calling, he dropped the diploma. Glass shattered. The fragments formed a distinct blast pattern out across his wood-laminate flooring.

      “They awarded me what? My proposal … my project? Are you sure? There’s no mistake? Yes, yes, that’s me. Oh my god. I can’t—I mean, thank you. Thank you!”

      After twenty-four weeks, the panel—composed of thousands of professionals from nearly one hundred nations—had voted. Another week and the votes were tallied. The top twelve proposals, one to match each of the twelve convoys, had been chosen.

      And his had claimed a spot. They were going to his star.

      They were going to LQ Pyx.

      Without picking up the glass he dashed for the coat closet and pulled out his jacket. Two more steps brought him to his apartment door, and he was already on the phone before it latched shut behind him.

      It was time for a party. The kind of party he hadn’t thrown since his undergraduate days.

      “C, send a message to the troops: we’re going in!”

      Even PhDs know how to get good and snockered.

      “Come on. Come on, it’s fun.” Reggie entwined his fingers with a young woman’s as he led her out into the night. With his free hand he toyed with the neck of his beer bottle, and his feet took stumbling, giddy steps through the grass. Behind them the party continued to roar.

      One of Reggie’s friends, Miguel, rented a house in the hills not far from campus, and Miguel had agreed to host the shindig. “It’s like your coming-out party,” he said, slapping Reggie on the back. “You know, like they have in the south when girls get their periods.”

      “That’s not what a coming-out party is for,” Reggie said. To be fair, he hadn’t a clue what it was for, but it couldn’t be that. Regardless, he let his friends go around telling everyone he was “coming out.” Somehow they’d found a way to turn the get-together into a celebration and a ribbing all at once.

      Light streamed into the backyard, and music with a heavy bass beat still rocked Reggie’s insides though they’d left the speakers far behind.

      With him was a dark-featured young woman, her hair as wavy and body as curvy as any Grecian goddess’—Abigail, she’d said her name was.

      Abigail. He liked how that sounded. He liked how her hand felt in his.

      He just wasn’t quite sure how her hand had actually found its way into his …

      The party was full of people Reggie didn’t know. Friends of friends, relatives of friends, walk-ins who’d come to investigate the noise and mooch some munchies. Abby—wait, no, she said not to call her that—Abigail was a cousin of a friend’s friend, getting her masters in English.

      “What do you study?” she’d asked.

      Oh. Right. Reggie had immediately grabbed her hand and led her out the back door. “I’ll show you.”

      Through the flimsy wire gate, up a steep incline (pausing so she could remove her shoes), around a little rocky outcrop, and they were at the top of a tall hill. The flat little college town spread out below them, and the wonderfully wide sky stretched out above.

      “Lie down,” he said, waving at a comfortable stretch of grass.

      She crossed her arms and gave him a skeptical raise of one eyebrow. “Yeah, right.”

      He was crestfallen, until he realized how he sounded. “Oh my god, no! I’m sorry—not like—sorry—no, look. Like this.” A little tipsy, his flop onto the ground was less than graceful. He stretched out his arms and shivered, as though he’d tucked himself into a comfortable bed. “You can’t see the stars from there,” he said when she leaned over him, hands on her hips.

      Apparently deciding Reggie had no evil intentions, she shrugged and sat down beside him. She craned her neck back, trying to take it all in.

      “This!” he said, reaching upward. “This is what I study.”

      “The stars?”

      “Yes. I’m an astrophysicist.” His tongue stumbled over the ysicist.

      “Oh. It’s your party. Congrats. A Planet United Mission is a big deal.”

      Reggie was half sure she was teasing. Big deal? he thought. Big deal? It’s the biggest deal in the history of big deals.

      It was also a big responsibility. But he didn’t want to think about that right now. Responsibility was not party-talk.

      “Noumenon is gonna be the greatest mission ever.” He’d meant to say something a little more profound, but his brain was floating in a beer haze. He reached for his drink, but couldn’t find the bottle. He’d set it down somewhere between here and the house.

      “Noumenon?” СКАЧАТЬ