Page 38 of Death of the Author

“That is a weak answer.”

If I were a human, I would have rolled my eyes. “It is a fact. You just don’t like it.”

Ijele paused. Then she said, “Same as it ever was.”

I didn’t know what she meant by this, but the sentiment didn’t feel wrong.

16

Where’s Your Sense of Adventure?

The moment Zelu wheeled into the restaurant, she heard someone shout her name.

The caller was standing up from his seat at a table. He was wearing a navy-blue dress shirt tucked into jeans. Her eyes went right to his long legs and sneakers. She knew he must be wearing the bionic prosthetics under his clothes, but it was impossible to tell! She wheeled up to the table and he held a hand out to shake.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” he said.

“My pleasure, Hugo,” she said. “Thanks for flying in just to see me!”

“Any reason to come to Chicago is a good one, but you’re the best reasonever,” he said with enthusiasm. “I’m such a fan!”

She laughed nervously. “After reading up about you, I have to say, I feel the same way.” She meant it.Oh my God, is this what being starstruck feels like?

Now that she was a known author, and especially because she was a known author in a wheelchair, her status had earned her a few perks. She and her sisters had recently gone to a Kendrick Lamar concert, and she’dgotten to go backstage and meet him. But even then, she’d been pretty chill. Even though she liked his music, he was still just some guy.

Hugo Wagner, on the other hand, was not just some guy. He’d been through some wild shit, and instead of falling into justifiable despair, he’d invented some real-life sci-fi tech! To meet him now was wonderfully intimidating.

He looked at her closely, a slight upward curl to his lips. “I’ve got to ask, Zelu... I did my research on you. You weren’t a science fiction writer.”

“Nope.”

He nodded. “How does it feel to be viewed as one of the greatest of your generation after only your first attempt?”

Zelu crinkled her nose. “What? Is that what people are saying?”

“Yep,” he said simply. “And it’s the truth. I’ve read atonof science fiction, from the Golden Era to thenewGolden Era. You fit right in with the exclusive group of greats.”

She frowned. Maybe he thought flattery was the way to get on her good side, but his words rolled off her like water on a layer of oil. If this was what people were saying, then people were saying it. But it made no sense to her. “I dunno,” she started slowly. “I just wrote my truth in the way I wanted to write it. People vibing with it still surprises me.”

At that moment, a waitress came to place menus at their table and then walked off, no greetings given. Zelu liked her already. They both picked up their menus.

“I read somewhere that you loved to swim,” Hugo said.

Zelu kept her eyes on the menu. “Still do.”

“Right, right, sorry...” He dropped his menu and put his elbows on the table, resting his chin in his hands. “But something you said really struck me. You said you loved swimming in the ocean because it was a reminder that you were part of so much more. And that vastness didn’t make you feel insignificant. It made you feel specific and powerful and... you.”

She’d been pretending to inspect the menu, but now she looked up. She didn’t remember saying something that deeply personal in an interview, but she must have, because it was true.I need to be more careful with the fucking journalists, she thought. The best ones could somehow get her speaking too much from her heart. “Yeah,” she said, feigning indifference. “You don’t fight the ocean. You have to trust it to carry you. And once you do, you can be anything.”

The waitress came back to take their orders. The restaurant specialized in rich and creamy Italian dishes. She ordered the Parmesan spinach gnocchi because she’d never had gnocchi before and had heard so much about it. Hugo and she made small talk until their plates arrived. The gnocchi was disgusting, like balls of fufu in a rich spinachy white sauce. She picked at it. But none of this mattered. Hugo was fascinating. He’d ordered a whole lobster and some creamy rice dish and he’d eaten every bite of it with joy, while talking about how delicious it all was. He also began to tell her about his amazing exos program, though Zelu knew most of these details already from her venture down the YouTube rabbit hole.

“Ask me what you’re thinking,” he eventually said.

She lifted her eyes from the tasteless potato clump she’d been pushing around on her plate. He was watching her intently. “If your program is so successful, why isn’t this tech available to anyone who needs it? Even people who don’t! I mean, can’t the exos make you run faster than humanly possible?”

He tilted his head toward her. “Yeah, actually they can. We’re working something out with the military. Give it a few years.” Then he pursed his lips thoughtfully. “But as far as civilian use and availability, sooooo many hoops to jump through first.” His gaze turned intense, and he spoke the next words with great care. “But we’ll get there. It’s a process. Like writing a novel, I’ll bet.”

She huffed a laugh. “Right. You keep going and going and going. And eventually you get there.”

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