Page 75 of A Better World

“All kinds of things happen. It’s a party. A celebration.”

“What about the black ribbons?”

The librarian put the pamphlet down, away from Linda, like Linda’d lost her pamphlet privileges. “They’re just decoration.”

Linda felt a panic in her chest. A feeling of something wrong. “That’s it?”

“Mostly. We prefer not to spoil it for new people. It’s best you experience it firsthand.”

This woman looked normal and sane. Then again, everyone there looked normal and sane. So maybe appearances weren’t the salient feature. “Everyone keeps telling me that I’ll love it,” Linda said.

The woman relented, perhaps remembering that Linda wasn’t accustomed to this place. “It must be so hard. I spent my whole life here, and I still have questions. I mean, a smelly bird? They make fun of us in Palo Alto… But it really is just for fun.”

Linda waited, hoping she’d say more.

“There’s a VIP room for people with golden tickets.”

“Yeah?”

“But only a handful of people have access.”

“What happens in there?” Linda asked.

She raised her brows, grinned innocently, like they were talking of nothing of consequence. “How would I know? My final review isn’t for three years.”

Back home that night, she found Russell in his office.

“Did the EPA ever testify against Omnium?” she asked.

This second court case was coming up. He was more stressed about it than he’d been about the last one. His typically neat workspace was surrounded by empty mugs, tea bags staining random papers, and crinkled-up snack bags. This was not unusual for most people in the throes of a deadline, but for Russell, it was shocking.

“This again? We’ve always testified in its favor,” he answered, his eyes blinking and bleary from overuse. “The data always backed it up.”

She told him aboutthe blight, its concurrence with the first Omnium mill. She asked him again about Ireland’s settlement, for trillions. “Could you get me a file on that—the republic’s stated case? Because the Omnium-processing plant there was one of the biggest in the world.”

Russell rubbed his red eyes. Mumbled without looking at her. “I can’t get somebody else’s case. Who does she think I am?”

“Russell? Are you okay?”

He let out a breath. “Yeah.”

“You don’t seem okay. What’s going on with this case? Can I help?”

He shook his head. “I should never have let you see the numbers last time. It’s not allowed.”

“Right. But they don’t have to know. Come to bed and get back fresh in the morning? You could use the break.”

He blinked a few times, like his eyes were too tired to focus. “Listen, I know you loved Fielding, but I checked. Chlorine isn’t ever involved in Omnium waste processing. Ireland’s suit was fraudulent. They were bankrupt, we were low-hanging fruit. Omnium’s the only reason krill and tuna and whales are still alive—the only reason the ocean’s still spitting oxygen.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. I get it. But I’m so tired, Linda.” She saw that he was. If she thought on it, he’d been tired for as long as she’d known him.

She came over to his desk. He shut his laptop so she wouldn’t see. “What can I do?”

“Nothing. I just need to get through this.”

And then the next thing, and the next, she thought. “It’s late. Come upstairs. It’ll all still be here in the morning.”

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