(eng) Nancy Kress by Steal Across The Sky

Author:Steal Across The Sky [Sky, Steal Across The]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN LOOKED as closely guarded as the U.S. Mint. Cops in full battle gear guarded the entrance, holding back a crowd getting tired of the slow funneling through metal-and-explosive detectors. On one side of the building a moving LCD displayed a two-story-high image of Camilla O’Kane, waving and smiling. Soledad’s coat, which had seemed warm enough during the February day, was inadequate now that the sun had gone down. She wrapped both arms around herself and stamped her feet. Somewhere behind her in line was Fengmo.

Who were all these people? An old woman, even less warmly clad than Soledad, looking grim and muttering to herself. A middle-aged man laughing with his teenage son. Two young girls in ridiculously high heels— please don’t let them be more members of the Why Wait? Society. A pair of heavyset men in sheepskin jackets and baseball caps with beer logos. What did they all want from Cam?

What did Soledad want from Cam?

A pop-up ad leaped from the sidewalk, triggered by her body heat. The holo was a beautiful woman who winked, swigged from a can of Coke, and disappeared in a shimmer of silent sparkles.

“Excuse me, miss, you dropped this.”

Soledad turned around. A man about her own age stood holding out a black glove. He was gorgeous, a blue-eyed and blond Viking unaccountably transported to gritty Seventh Avenue. Probably an actor; anybody in Manhattan who looked like that turned out to be an actor. She didn’t recognize him, but that meant nothing; she went to the theater only when Fengmo dragged her.

“I’m sorry, it’s not mine,” she said, looking longingly at the glove. It looked warm. One glove would be better than none.

He leaned conspiratorially toward her. “Well, take it anyway. Everybody else around us already has gloves, and your knuckles are turning blue.”

She glanced up sharply. Why did he want her to take the glove? Did he know who she was? The plastic surgeon had altered her nose and chin, and a makeup artist had tweezed her brows, dyed her hair, and taught her to change her skin tone. To Soledad, the image in the mirror was a stranger, but to somebody with a better eye than hers… Was the glove poisoned or somehow rigged electronically?

Fengmo had made her paranoid.

“No, thanks.”

He shrugged. “Whatever. I hope you enjoy the lecture.”

“You, too.” “Enjoy” was hardly the right word for something you hated to attend but couldn’t stay away from. She tried to think of something else to say, something to keep his shining masculine beauty beside her a little longer, but he’d already turned away.

All at once, two lines over, she saw Carl Lewis. He stared straight at her. When she glared back, he raised his hand to his mouth, made it into a megaphone, and pointed at Soledad.

She turned her back on him and approached the first checkpoint to the theater.

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