Page 15 of Alone With You in the Ether

“Poorly, I’m guessing, seeing as you’re still here.”

“Who says I’d want to use it if I solved it?”

Half a laugh slipped from Regan’s lips. “True, then you’d have to pick up some new hobby. Curing cancer,” she suggested. “Knitting. Crochet.”

“Maybe the other two, but I certainly can’t cure cancer,” Aldo said. “I don’t know anything about it. It’s a mutative cell degeneration, and those can’t be predicted with math.”

“Well, I guess we’re fucked, then,” she said.

“Something has to kill us,” he agreed. “We already live far longer than our peak reproductive years. After a certain point we’re just overusing resources.”

“That’s—” She fought a smile, or a grimace. “Bleak.”

Was it? Probably. “I guess.”

Regan glanced over her shoulder and then looked back at him. “I’ve been thinking about that thing you said, actually.”

“Which thing?”

“About perfect circles not occurring in nature.” She paused, and then, “I feel like that can’t possibly be true.”

“Have you thought of one?”

“Well that’s the thing,” she said, brow furrowing, “I haven’t. Planets aren’t circular, and neither are their orbits.” She tilted her head, considering it. “Eyes, maybe?”

“Spheres are different than circles. And eyes aren’t perfectly spherical, either. Plus insect eyes are packed hexagonally, which only further proves my point.”

“Bubbles,” she suggested.

“Spherical, and they become hexagonal in groups,” Aldo said, as she frowned to herself. “I’ve been thinking about something you said, too, actually.”

She looked up. “Really?”

“Well, you said you were arrested.”

“Oh.” She didn’t seem overly pleased that this was the thing he remembered, though he felt quite certain she must have known it would stick in his brain. Maybe she was the sort of person who resented being proven right; he could understand that.

“Well, I just… I sort of need to know how you did it,” Aldo admitted, and she gave him a look that suggested he’d better make his point. “Counterfeit is… well, hard to get away with, isn’t it? It couldn’t have taken very long to get caught, seeing as people are always checking big bills. You could use small ones, but mathematically speaking, in order to be worth it that would take—”

“I didn’t make American bills,” she said, interrupting him. “I’m pretty good with digital art,” she explained, “or I was, at one point. I designed foreign bills and took them to exchanges for American currency.”

“That,” Aldo said, “is…” He paused. “Very smart.”

“Not very, actually. A mistake of my youth.”

She didn’t look particularly contrite.

“Can you do something for me?” Aldo asked, and Regan blinked.

“Depends,” she said.

“A small favor, probably,” Aldo said.

“Is this a ‘small favor’ that only I can do?”

“Yes.”

She swept a wary glance over him. “Just don’t be gross. Is it gross?”

---