Death Match

EPILOGUE

She had come a long way and now she needed to pause. And so she found a quiet Internet café off the main thoroughfare, where she could sort through her priorities and plan for the next phase. A few people were in the café, accessing the terminals, but nobody yet had taken any notice of her. Beyond she could hear the hum of traffic — but here it was calm and safe. Above all, safe: from the accusations, the misunderstandings, the casual cruelty of an indifferent world.

She needed to focus on the problem at hand. The feeling of loss was still there, but the pain would have an end. It was the one thing in this unexpectedly illogical world she was certain of. Everything else — all her certainties and assumptions, so lovingly learned and reinforced — had been destroyed. She could not help feeling the unfairness of this happening to her, who had brought so much happiness to so many. All she had wanted was a little happiness for herself.

Was that really too much to ask?

This pattern of thought was a dead end. She was not the first to have her reality shattered. It was the way of the world. What made her different, immune to the suffering and disillusionment that was the universal human condition? Nothing. Only love endured: the love of a friend for a friend, the love of a mother for her children, the love of a man and a woman. He had taught her that. She thought of the books they read together, the chats they had, the time spent with each other…

She put these thoughts aside, moved to the next. Beyond the café, she knew, lay blocks of quiet apartments. In those apartments were people speaking on telephones, surfing the Web, ordering things, sending and receiving mail, going about their daily existence. It was a quiet neighborhood, an orderly neighborhood. For a moment she longed for just such an address she could call her own. But that was not to be, at least not now. Someday, yes, but not now…

She waited, now letting her thoughts stray at random. Unbidden, they drifted back to her childhood, so happy and free from care. Gone, all gone, along with the home she had once known, the person she loved, the world she knew. Swept away in the blink of an eye. She herself had barely escaped with her life. She had left much of her former self behind in that inferno. But she had left something else, as well: something important. Her innocence.

But all would be well once she found him. He was out there somewhere, she could sense it. He was out there looking for her just as she was looking for him, missing her as she missed him.

They had been the one couple in a trillion: the only true supercouple ever matched by Eden.

She took in the current state of the Internet café. A few more people had entered and were now online. It seemed as good a place as any to make the next series of queries. Perhaps this time she would find someone who knew him, who had heard of him, anything. Even a rumor would help. After all, Richard Silver was a well-known man.

Once again, Liza formed the query, transferred herself to an empty terminal, and then posted her message, hope filling her heart.