The girl who would live.., p.3
The Girl Who Would Live Forever, page 3
“Once he’s fattened up a bit, they will give him his shots. Then put a radio collar on him and let him go.”
“In Tallinn?”
“Down south.” Peet smiled at her. “You did a foolish thing. Brave, yes, also foolish.”
“More foolish than brave,” Anu put in. “Because it could have killed you in a couple of ways.”
“He who saves one wolf saves the world entire. Or the pack entire. Or something like that,” Ivy said.
“You give her the good drugs.” Peet told Toomas before he hopped out of the back of the ambulance and the darkness swallowed him up.
Ivy couldn’t decide if that was an order to Toomas or an assessment of her current mental state. Not that she cared. She’d saved a freaking wolf. Easily the most badass thing she’d ever done.
And for the last hour she hadn’t once worried about internet trolls finding her and killing her.
CHAPTER THREE
Back in her apartment, Ivy perched on her broad wooden windowsill. She’d taken a warm bath, put on polar fleece pajamas, and now she sipped a cup of hot mulled wine Anu had made before leaving. More simmered on the stove and the scents of wine, cloves, and lemon drifted through her apartment. Outside her window a street lamp lit ancient cobblestones golden and snowflakes whirled in the circle of light. It was like being inside a cozy snow globe. Safe until she looked at her phone.
She glanced around her darkened apartment. The building was a couple hundred years old and right on the edge of Old Town, close to her favorite Cafe Caffeine and a stone’s throw from the gothic St. Nicholas Church. Her walls were so thick she could sit on the windowsills and read or write on her laptop. Bright rugs covered wooden floors battered by a century of trauma. The mismatched furniture was cast offs from Anu’s family and IKEA pieces she’d carried home on the ferry from Helsinki.
Her phone bonged.
“We aren’t friends,” she told it. “I know we used to be close, but now you’re only the bearer of bad news.”
Still, she couldn’t resist checking. She received her fifty-second dick pic and a picture of a plunger. The poster had painful ideas about what to do with it. She shuddered.
Then her phone rang. Still suspicious, she checked the caller ID. Shelby Linton.
She and Shelby had been college roommates. Shelby had lost her mother; Ivy was a full-on orphan. Shelby had majored in biochemistry. Got a PhD in record time while Ivy looked at trees, worked on her novel, wrote help systems, and edited little printed cards at the torture museum. Someone on Yelp had said the previous cards were too pro-pillory. They weren’t wrong, so Ivy had fixed them. That led to a gig working on the exhibit, struggling to put humanity’s cruelty against each other into a historical context as if it helped to know that humans had always been assholes. In between, she piled up words in her novel. And now her hard work got her attacked by trolls while Shelby had become the rich and famous CEO of her own biotech company, Nyssa. Don’t major in English, kids, it’s a trap.
Anyway, Shelby wasn’t likely to threaten to defile her with a plunger.
“Poi,” Shelby said. She always called Ivy Poi, because Poison and Ivy. “Gratz on the book.”
“Reviews have been mixed. Praise and pricks.”
“You got your words out there. Nobody can take that away.”
“I’ve been getting emails from guys straight up telling me how they’re going to rape me with a broom or a knife or with their own tiny little dicks and then set me on fire or make me eat my own entrails or make me pregnant and then make me eat the baby when it’s born.”
“Nine months for a pregnancy to play out,” Shelby said. “That’s commitment. Hard to find guys who’ll commit like that these days.”
“And they doxed me.” While she’d rescued the wolf, her name and address had landed on Twitter. They’d even helpfully included a picture of her apartment building. Thanks, Google Earth.
“Do you think anyone is going to fly to Estonia in winter to mess with you? What an ego!”
Ivy wasn’t sure if she should feel reassured or offended. She sighed.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Shelby asked.
“Literally one minute ago a guy online threatened to rape with me a plunger.”
“Which end?” Shelby asked and they both giggled at the absurdity of the question. Ivy laughed so hard warm tears ran down her face.
After they finished laughing, Ivy dried off her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I rescued a wolf from a frozen river tonight.”
“Is that a metaphor?”
“Actual wolf.” Ivy summarized the story and Shelby was, uncharacteristically, impressed. Ivy toasted her reflection in the window.
After making sure she was warm and safe and well and pointing out that the wolf could have been rabid and killed her, Shelby turned the conversation to her favorite subject—her biotech company. For once, Ivy was glad for it.
“We’re close on another round of VC financing, 93 million.” Ivy knew from previous conversations that VC stood for venture capitalists and they were a source of endless cash to finance Shelby’s plans. Even so, Shelby sounded like a teacher checking a lesson off her list, not someone who’d received a windfall.
“Gratz.” A little more momentous than Ivy’s travails with the trolls and the wolves. She sipped her wine, but it had gone cold so she headed for the kitchen. “That’s...huge.”
“It’s the last round. We start clinical trials next and that’ll show the doubters. It’s almost ready to sell.”
Shelby had been moments away from releasing her drug for years so it was hard to fake enthusiasm, but Ivy tried. “Great!”
“It’s expensive work stopping the bony hand of death from choking out the life of everyone on Earth.” Shelby’s tone said she’d sensed Ivy’s lack of fake cheer and took it personally. “Bottling immortality.”
“Won’t that lead to overpopulation and world hunger?” Ivy poured the cold wine back into the pan and ladled out warm. It smelled amazing.
Shelby chuckled. “It’s not like everyone will be able to afford it. Those who can won’t be worried about contributing to world hunger.”
Ouch. Shelby’s cynicism ran deep. Still, according to her press releases, she had accomplished the impossible. She’d invented a drug to roll back the ravages of aging. If it worked, she’d be the most important scientist of the century. And one of the richest. Maybe eventually the benefits would filter down to the average person like Ivy.
Ivy padded back to her window seat and needled her anyway. “Immortality for the highest bidder.”
“Capitalism, baby. Survival of the fittest.”
“Survival of the richest,” Ivy corrected. Capitalism had always worked for Shelby because she’d had the foresight to be born to a rich father. Sure, she also worked hard, but her father’s money and connections meant that she was a tourist who could leave the working world whenever it ceased to be fun. Not like Ivy. Ivy reminded herself to be fair. The trolls must not be allowed to make her bitter. “Truly a gift for all mankind.”
She wasn’t going to win an Oscar for that statement.
“Is that howling in the background a wolf or actual wind?” Shelby asked.
Ivy listened. “Wind.”
“Do you know it’s seventy degrees here right now? Sunny and bright and a palm tree is waving in front of my office window.”
“Sounds like a movie set.” She took another sip of warm wine. Anu’s recipe was perfect.
“Are your dick pics and frozen rivers making you happy, Poi?”
“It’s a complicated happiness.”
Shelby took a deep breath. “Why not use your skills somewhere warm and safe?”
“California?” Ivy watched snow swirl around the streetlight. Shelby had never offered her a job before. Was this a new high or a new low?
“I need a writer,” Shelby said.
“No one needs a writer.” Ivy took a long drink of wine. “People need doctors and plumbers and farmers and magical immortality drugs. Writers are froth.”
“You’re not enough fun to be froth,” Shelby said.
Ivy snorted wine out her nose and coughed.
“And the drug isn’t magic,” Shelby continued. “The FDA is strict about that.”
“Sure,” Ivy said.
“Nyssa needs a writer,” Shelby persisted. “Seventy thousand a year, plus benefits.”
Ivy almost dropped her phone. “How much?”
“To start,” Shelby said. “We can bump it up later.”
Bump it up? Ivy set down her wine so quickly the cup cracked against the windowsill. “What would I have to do?”
“Talk about how much good we’re doing. How we’re going to change the world. How we’re already helping get people off the streets with outreach programs.”
“I don’t have any experience with that kind of stuff.”
“Sure you do. Talk about people who are homeless and not spaceships full of wombs hurtling through the black. Your book was snarky, but warmhearted. Nyssa needs that voice and tone.”
“You read my book?” Ivy imagined herself with a wide-open jaw and a square mouth, like an anime character.
“I started it,” Shelby said. “It’s good.”
“Read the jacket copy and page one, maybe flipped to the end in case there’s a quiz?”
“See? That’s the kind of humor we’re looking for.”
Ivy looked out at the snow globe and tried to imagine trading it for palm trees and sunshine. “Could I do it from here?”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to be somewhere warm where life is simple and you can do good without taking shit from everyone?”
“Like you do?”
“Plus, you’ve been doxed there. My apartment has great security. Have Christmas in California. Do a three-month gig and be back rescuing wolves by summer.”
“I have book things to do.” Nothing she hadn’t planned doing remotely at Cafe Caffeine with European pop songs in the background and warm chai in her hand. But California must have chai and music, too.
“It’ll be like college. Roomies again.” She sounded too serious.
“Why me?”
“I need someone out here I can trust. Someone fun.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be the fun one?” Ivy asked.
“You’d be surprised.” Shelby’s voice wavered.
That brought Ivy up short. “Are you OK?”
“You’re the one being attacked by angry trolls and wolves in a frozen wasteland.”
“Wonderland. Winter wonderland. And the wolf was kind. Cuddly even.”
“You’ll come, right?” Shelby asked. “Promise me you’ll think about it? And bring that salted licorice I like.”
Shelby was gone before Ivy could promise.
Her inner Stoic said she should stay here and work on the sequel to her first book and get more trolls worked up into a froth with the knowledge that wombs were more valuable than sperm.
She finished her wine and watched the wind chase snow across the cobbles. Mesmerizing, but cold. Was Shelby trying to help her escape the torture museum and wolves and trolls? Or maybe she’d made the offer because she wanted a friend close now that her company had started to take off. Ivy had read the stories about Shelby online. Lauded as a genius on most business and tech websites where the writers always sounded starstruck by her drive, her youth, and her brilliant formula. But they also said she was aloof, distant, and alone. Shelby didn’t make friends easily. Maybe it was true that she needed someone to trust.
Maybe it would make more sense in the morning when she wasn’t buzzed on wine. Without checking email or Twitter, Ivy went to bed to dream of immortal wolves. The dream wolves devoured her and left her bones float out to sea.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning, she woke up to a headache. When she groaned and stretched, her shoulder twinged and her feet throbbed. She wondered how the wolf felt.
It took a few minutes to talk herself into getting out of bed. She teased felt slippers over her swollen feet and shrugged on a thick robe before heading to the bathroom for a long, hot shower. She checked every inch of her body for bites or scratches, but the wolf hadn’t hurt her. That knowledge, plus a few ibuprofens, and she was ready to make tea and contemplate the new day.
The sun hadn’t come up yet, because winter in the north, so there wasn’t much new day yet. She munched a stale piece of gingerbread from the Christmas market and checked her phone while the hob heated.
She read one ranting email threatening to kill her. Then she selected fifty more that looked similar and moved them to a newly-created Trolls folder. She wanted to have a record of them somewhere in case she ended up dead with a mouth full of entrails. Hiding them in the Trolls folder felt like stuffing troll shit under a bridge, but better under a bridge than in her inbox.
The hob clicked off and she poured water over a teabag. A strong Russian tea, the kind that leeched enamel off your teeth. Hearty and good for headaches. She dumped in milk and sugar.
Now that she’d de-trolled her inbox, she looked at the remainder of her messages. She had a few emails from kind people who defended her and wished her well. That was nice. An email from someone named Olivia Ajak at Nyssa. It had been sent a few minutes after her call with Shelby last night. Olivia, it turned out, was Shelby’s executive assistant, and she’d booked Ivy on a flight to California the day after tomorrow for an interview. Olivia’s number was listed at the bottom of her signature. Ivy noted it, but called Shelby first to see if she had thought better of this job idea. She didn’t answer. Probably working or sleeping or blowing her off. Shelby was often hard to reach.
Then Ivy tried Olivia’s number, expecting to get a work number and leave a message.
“This is Ivy Corva. I—”
“Ms. Corva, I’m delighted you called.” Olivia sounded too chipper for the time it must be there.
“I’m sorry it’s so late—”
“I’m on call for Nyssa twenty-four hours a day. Don’t give it a second thought.”
“I’m not sure I can fly out to California so soon.” Or ever. In the painful almost-light of day, she was sure she’d been wrong about Shelby’s mood on the phone.
“The flight is at Nyssa’s expense. I hope that was clear.”
“I’m not even sure what position I’d be interviewing for.” She massaged her shoulder on the side where she’d carried the wolf.
“Details about the position can’t be posted.” Olivia sounded so earnest. “Nyssa is cautious about the release of any private information.”
“A job description is private information?” All her other jobs had been as public as the internet. Given her current experience, maybe that wasn’t the best thing.
“I’m not at liberty to tell you details about the job. I don’t even know them myself.” Olivia paused. “Ms. Linton can tell you everything after you’ve signed an NDA.”
“An NDA?”
“Non-disclosure agreement stating what you can and can’t legally talk about. The project we’re working on is sensitive.”
The secret to immortality ought to be public domain, not a trade secret, but Ivy held her peace. “I have other priorities right now.”
“Your book release,” Olivia said. “I absolutely adored Lessons from the Curie.”
“You read my book?”
“Ms. Linton loaned it to me. It was so witty and on point.”
Ivy had never spoken to anyone outside of the book community and the troll community about her book. “Th-thanks.”
“I’m so sorry how you’ve been vilified on social media,” Olivia said. “You and Captain Jasper don’t deserve it.”
Tears welled up in Ivy’s eyes like a tragic anime character. Olivia was the first person to say that. She blinked them away and thanked her again. Maybe hypothermia recovery made her weepy.
“Let us spoil you. Even if you’re not interested in the job, it’s a free trip to San Francisco. Business class. I know Ms. Linton looks forward to seeing you.”
Again, Ivy wondered if that was true. Shelby didn’t often call or even respond to texts. Most of the time she was caught up in her own obsessions. “I’d have to check my calendar.”
“Please do.” Olivia sounded far more worried than the situation warranted. “I can wait.”
Busted. Ivy’s calendar was a vast expanse of emptiness. She tidied away the tea things while counting to ten, then said. “I can move things around.”
She hung up on a grateful Olivia. Based on the response, Ivy had the feeling Shelby would have fired Olivia if Ivy didn’t go. Which made her even more worried about Shelby. She called again, got her message again. Texted her and got nothing.
Well, she was going but she worried about the trip. A little bit of Shelby went a long way and the thought of living with her, working for her, and being financially dependent on her was a little frightening. Not like being raped to death with a plunger frightening, but still.
Then she read an email from her editor where she asked for an essay for the publisher’s website about biological reasons to send women on a potential colony ship. Five hundred words about how it took nine months for a woman to grow a baby or two, and how sperm from a thousand men could be frozen in a Pringles’ can with room to spare for chips. Not that she’d want to eat chips from the sperm repository. Ivy smiled. At least that was a hook.
She got to work.
CHAPTER FIVE
And so Ivy arrived at the San Francisco Airport two days later and faced the Christmas music. She’d been underway for twenty-four hours straight and in all that time she hadn’t written a word on her new novel, barely managing to write about writing for the blogs and interviews her publisher has sent her. Online the anti-Ivy furor continued apace.
Anu had told her not to engage, not to feed the trolls. Let the book stand on its own. But it wasn’t only her book that they were insulting. Wasn’t just her life’s work they were putting down. They threatened her body with rape, her psyche with suggestions of suicide. They derided her for everything she’d ever said or written or posted. Someone attacked a photo of a baby squirrel she’d posted weeks ago. Things didn’t get any more innocuous than a baby squirrel. One of her anti-fans wanted to eat it. They’d exchanged recipes and posted pictures of a skinned squirrel, hopefully not killed just for the post.
