Chapter 10: Noise

I asked him in the morning, with a mug in each of my hands.

"What is Link live?"

Peter looked up from the bed.

His hair stuck up, and his eyes were sleepy and warm.

For one second he looked at me with something I could not name.

"Telemetry," he said. "The array sends its status to my phone. Battery, temperature, how hard the processor is working."

"Live?"

"It's how I tune you without making you come in."

It was a good answer.

I had written half the telemetry spec myself, years ago, on a napkin in a diner.

It sounded exactly like my own idea.

"Fine," I said. "I'll read the log on Sunday."

"Do," he said, and took his coffee, and kissed my wrist.

The Foundation's concert was on Thursday.

It was held in a glittering hall at Lincoln Center, with four hundred donors and a full orchestra.

Tobias had told every newspaper in the city that his wife would attend.

He wanted a photograph of me in the front row, in the red dress.

My hand would be pressed to the stage to feel the vibrations.

He had practiced that line for a week.

I wore the dress.

He fastened my necklace in the car.

Geneva sat across from us with her knees together, in a navy gown that someone must have bought her.

"Everyone's going to love you tonight," Tobias said, slow and huge, to me.

I nodded and smiled.

In the front row he put my hand on the rail of the stage.

"Feel this," he mouthed, with a little tender frown, for the cameras. "The music."

I felt it.

The first piece began, and the strings went into my bones.

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