Relentless

it.”
    Zazu repeated her speech about Shearman being a pioneer in the post-humanity movement.
    “Dad,” Milo said. “The thing is, for some reason, you can’t replay the same moment more than once.”
    “Okay.”
    Zazu finished addressing her grandchild: “You were destined to be the first of a super-race.”
    The weeping hunchback regarded her with bafflement. “But I’m not, Zazu.”
    “That wasn’t Shearman’s fault.”
    “But it wasn’t my fault, Zazu.”
    “At least Shearman made the effort.”
    This time, expecting it, I saw her draw the pistol from under her beautifully tailored jacket.
    She shot the hunchback in the head, and as she turned toward me, Penny and I shot her, oh, maybe twelve times.
    Once more, Zazu collapsed onto the black-granite floor. She blinked at us in disbelief, as if we had done the impossible and killed an immortal.
    Her last words were: “You can’t escape. Twelve thousand of us … in the agency. The work … goes on … without me.”
    We, too, went on without her.
    Penny and I spent a while just staring at Milo, until he became embarrassed, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “See why it would have been so hard to explain when you don’t know the science? It’s a thing you just have to experience.”
    Penny and I spent a while longer staring at each other.
    Finally, she said, “You know, suddenly a teleporting dog doesn’t seem like such a big deal. She’s as cute as ever, and she’s too smart to teleport into the middle of a forest fire or something.”
    My disposable cell phone rang. Only Vivian Norby had the number.
    “Hello?” I said shakily.
    Hud Jacklight rammed back into my world with his trademark insistence: “I’ve been trying all day. To reach you. Big news.”
    “Hud, how did you get this number?”
    “Milo’s baby-sitter. Had to twist her arm. Tough lady.”
    “Hud, I really can’t talk now.”
    “Made a deal. For you, Cubbo.”
    “I’m going to hang up now, Hud.”
    “Wait, wait. Not
The Great Gatsby
.”
    “This again?”
    “
The Old Man and the Sea
. The sequel.”
    Although she could not hear Hud’s side of the conversation, Penny put her gun to my head and said, “Fire him.”
    “That one doesn’t need a sequel, either.”
    “There’s a shark in it.”
    “So what?”
    “Not the old man. He doesn’t come back. The shark. The shark comes back.”
    “Fire him,” Penny warned me.
    I started to laugh.
    “It’ll be the first. A series. Listen to you. You’re so happy. I love happy clients.”
    “I mean it,” Penny told me, her gun still to my head. “Fire him now, Cubby.”
    Hud said,
“Cullen Greenwich Presents. Sequels to Classics
. Big literary thing. You don’t write them. Someone else does. You just put your name on ’em.”
    I was laughing so hard tears streamed down my face.
    “Listen.
Ben-Hur
. The gladiator guy? Reincarnated. As a pro wrestler.”
    I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. I was convulsed.
    “The Call of the Wild
. Jack London piece. This time an alien spaceship. Under the ice. Aliens possess the wolves.”
    Between gales of laughter, I said to Penny, “You … you do it.”
    “Tarzan
. Not raised by apes. Not Africa. Alaska. Raised by polar bears.”
    Nearly hysterical, I passed the phone to Penny.
    She took her gun away from my head, spared my life, and said, “Hud, you’re fired,” and turned off the phone.
    “This place is creepy,” Milo said. “Can we get out of here?”
    I holstered my pistol, lifted him into my arms, and held him tight. The smell of his hair. The smoothness of his boyish cheeks. The fierceness with which he hugged me. I was alive.
    In the garage, we didn’t look in the cargo space of the Hummer. We took our things from the vehicle and walked away from the house.
    “Should we maybe wipe our prints off the steering wheel and stuff?”
    “No point,” I said, the laughter having passed. “Police will never have a chance to investigate. The agency will clean it up.”
    Beyond the house, the sea broke on a beach with a sound like war machines or like the laughter of a crowd, depending on how you chose to hear it.
    The night was cool, the moon was bright, and the stars went on forever.

   The scenery is stunning where we live now, but I will not describe it.
    We reside in a modest house, but beneath it is a secret haven that the Boom family came together to construct.
    On the same property, Vivian Norby has a cottage of her own.
    I am no longer bald, but I do