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Freak brain aneurysm. She was doing paperwork at her desk and just dropped dead at forty-five.

Me:

I'm so sorry for your loss, Linus.

Linus:

As Teddy Roosevelt wrote in his diary when his wife and mother died on the same day, within hours of each other: The light has gone out of my life. I'm as okay as I'll ever be, but she was it for me.

Me:

Damn. Wife and mom on the same day? That's fucking brutal.

Linus:

I could not imagine. My Helena and Gunnar were the only reason I was able to keep going. If I’d lost one of them too?

There was no "then" to the "if", but I didn't need it to comprehend.

Linus:

What makes it even more brutal is that she died two days after giving birth to their daughter. He named her Alice Lee, in honor of her mother.

Me:

Oof.

Me:

Not sure it matters, though. Your advice, I mean. I'll be onsite, wherever that is, for the next six months, and she'll be flying you around.

Linus:

You'd be surprised how things work out.

Linus:

We're here.

I looked up from my phone to see that we were pulling up next to a…

Well, I suppose the technical term is "helicopter", but the machine crouched on the tarmac like a giant, murderous black wasp resembled something from science fiction more than my understanding of aviation reality.

“One of your Roth helos?” Tea breathed from the front seat. "Fuck yes."

Linus laughed. "They were undergoing a critical software update when we left, which is why we didn't take one up here. The updates finished this morning, so I had Roth's people ferry one up here and fly the other one back home."

"One of them?" I queried.

Linus grinned. "I have three. I'm kind of a beta tester for Roth's aircraft."

"My uncle works with him," I said. "I've never gotten to meet him, though."

"Well, once you've gotten some experience working for me, you’ll be set up to go to work for your uncle, and you'll get to meet the great Valentine Roth. But spoiler alert, he's every bit as cool and intimidating as you might imagine, and then some."

I blinked. "If you think he's intimidating?"

Linus just shrugged and snorted. “Bah, I'm just some nerd who got a lucky break, kid. Nothing special."