After the room-service bot had left, we cracked the beers and pulled chairs out onto the porch.
“You sure you want to know this?” I asked.
He tipped his bottle at me. “Sure as shootin’,” he said.
“I don’t want refresh because it would mean losing the last year,” I said.
He nodded. “By which you mean ‘my last year,’” he said. “Right?”
I nodded and drank.
“I thought it might be like that. Julius, you are many things, but hard to figure out you are not. I have something to say that might help you make the decision. If you want to hear it, that is.”
What could he have to say? “Sure,” I said. “Sure.” In my mind, I was on a shuttle headed for orbit, away from all of this.
“I had you killed,” he said. “Debra asked me to, and I set it up. You were right all along.”
The shuttle exploded in silent, slow moving space, and I spun away from it. I opened and shut my mouth.