We Are Legion (We Are Bob) Book 2: Chapter 75: Reunion

Howard

January 2216

HIP 14101

Wow, and I thought the stage-fright was bad last ti. I’d been staring at the inside of the cargo door for what felt like forever. By this ti, Bridget would have given up and gone to bed.

I checked the ti. Three seconds elapsed. Oh, for—

With a feeling akin to resignation, I ordered the door to open, and walked out of the cargo bay.

Bridget stood on her porch, waiting. She gave a smile and a small, aborted wave as I turned in her direction. I walked toward the patio, cataloguing all the sensations I was receiving from Manny—the cool evening breeze, the slight unevenness of the front walkway, the brush of my clothing as I moved. And the disappearance of every inch of distance as I approached her. Like falling down a gravity well.

Finally, after a million years or so, I walked up the two wooden steps, stopped in front of her, and held out my hands. She took them and said, “You’re looking good, Howard.”

I smiled—I’d checked in the mirror a few dozen tis, and the smile looked normal—and replied, “It’s nice to see you again.” Bridget would be 57 by now, physically. She’d stopped dyeing her hair and was showing her natural gray. She had crow’s feet around her eyes, and an incipient double-chin.

I quite literally couldn’t have cared less.