Conics Unfortunately: 59

Somehow, in the year-plus-several-months that Ellipse had spent incognito, as well as in the years before that, a plan had been born. In a daze, Ellipse traipsed up into the Ink, not paying attention to her surroundings beyond the layout of the walls. She pulled Tejal’s spare wheelchair out without even paying attention to its fine welding and sturdy axles, and rolled it to the dock floor, still lost in thought.

How had she not known the depth of this plan? Ellipse would not call herself unobservant, and sure, her older sibling had been acting funny before she was sent away, but judging by this Mi Na Park’s messages, everything had been in the works for at least two years before that awful first day on the earthling fold monitor. And now, things were even more complicated.

As Tejal clambered into the chair, Ellipse looked up at the ceiling, worrying her brow and biting her lips. She wished the boys had already managed to put a network of pinpoint generators in place. Then she would not have been slapped with an influx of messages from Earth; she would have just gotten all of them as they were sent.

“You doing okay?” Tejal asked. He looked up at her, one eyebrow piqued in concern. “You’ve been weird since we landed.”

“It has been like two minutes,” Ellipse fired back, only halfway feeling up to a bickering match.

“It’s been at least fifteen. You spent a long time just hanging out on the ship.”

Okay, he had a point. Shrugging, Ellipse trudged back into the Conics’s cargo hold to pick up their duffle bags, and then toward the great garage door that lead to the rest of the station. She punched the big red ‘open door’ button and hunched over to wait while the door rolled up. The boys joined her, and she noticed with a twinge of embarrassment that they were quietly looking at her, as if they expected her to explain her behavior right away.

She pinched her lips together and glanced at her watch. “You two have a meeting with an earthling think tank, right? What time in Eastern Daylight is that scheduled for?”

Tejal fidgeted with the tablet in his lap, and Mouthbot resumed translating.

“Well,” Focci started, “we break atmosphere at about, oh, eight in the morning? I am not the best with your time notation, but I believe that is fairly early.”

“Yep,” Ellipse replied.

“And then we make it to New York City at about nine. We will drop everything off at the hotel, see if there are any local messages from our crews, and then Tejal and I are meeting with Wellspring Incorporated over an eleven-thirty lunch at a fancy restaurant in… how do you say it? The center island.”

“Manhattan,” Tejal supplied in English, which was not helpful. He tapped on the tablet a few more times and picked up where Focci left off. “After that, we’ll have about an hour to get to Queens, wherever that is, and then we’ll meet the representatives from Inter-Tech.”

Focci flopped forwards, through the now-opened garage door, and peered down the long hallway. “Court is out at five in the evening, so we will go to say hello, and then all three of us will have dinner.”

Adjusting the duffle bags so that the handles stretched around her shoulders, Ellipse followed after Focci, and Tejal rolled along at her side.

“The judge will decide the fines on the second day we are planetside, right?” she asked, glancing around at the ISS’s interior. It was decorated in the newest earthling architectural trend, which Ellipse heard was something like an Arts and Crafts revival. Intricate, geometric details were carved into the cement walls, and every surface had been painted or plated in color. Straight lines of white shot down the hall, creating a perfect one-point perspective.

Ellipse had been under the impression that decoration was not the main focus of Arts and Crafts, but she liked the colors. Small windows in the floor, placed in long rows and columns, provided a long panorama of the starry sky outside the station, and Ellipse allowed herself to get lost in staring, watching as her feet floated over empty space.

They reached the planetside shuttle wing too soon. The boys headed for a gate that already had a line of people snaking out into the walkway, and Ellipse trudged after them, legs feeling heavier the closer she got to that gate. It was like the artificial gravity had increased only for her.

“What should I do while you two are at your meetings?” she asked, careful to keep her voice neutral. “I do not think I should join you; I cannot contribute anything.” She took a small step forward to keep with the slug-like line, and watched as a tall earthling with green hair stepped in line behind her.

Focci looked up at her, and his gills fluttered slowly, in that I-do-not-think-you-know-what-you-are-doing way that they sometimes did when Ellipse flew the ship too fast, but he kept quiet.

Tejal bit his lip. “You’ve never been to Earth before, right? I say if you don’t want to come with us, you should take the chance to explore a bit. New York is a big place. There’s a lot to see.”

Humming in thought, Ellipse glanced at her watch again. Randi’s friend might have mentioned being based in New York. They could meet up somewhere famous like the Met or Central Park, and Ellipse could do touristy things while bullying Mi Na Park into explaining the boatload of messages that had bombarded Ellipse’s watch when she entered Earth’s orbit.

When the line scootched forward again, Ellipse stayed in place, allowing the boys to get in front of her completely. She stretched her mouth into a thin line and brought up both hands to tap out a reply on her watch. Her message was short—just a time and a place—but hopefully Mi Na Park would be there. Ellipse took another step forward, and her gaze blurred. Her stomach sloshed and twisted, warning her of what her answer implied. About what her interactions with the boys and their machine and Spec Corp implied.

She was involved in big things, probably had been from the start. And she was finally going to act like it.