Metatropolis by John Scalzi (ed)

Author:John Scalzi (ed) [Scalzi, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780765327109
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2009-07-20T04:00:00+00:00

SCARLET. In Russian, the word for “red” was the same as the word for “beautiful,” as Taras has more than once reminded her. Another reason Cadie had been only too eager to leave her name behind. Not just because it was also his name, but because he had managed to ruin the part that wasn’t.

Shearer paused to pull a cane out of the stand beside the door, and then gestured Cadie and Homer after her as she led them down the short hall toward the back of the ratty little house. As she followed past the rear rooms of the house, Cadie made herself breathe evenly and calmly, and keep her hand from knotting around the butterfly knife in her pocket. She didn’t need any more dents in her hand.

Cadie asked, “So, do you live here? In this house? It’s a sort of safe house?”

She thought of terrorist cells, pallets on tile floors six to a room.

Homer shrugged. “Who lives anywhere, anymore? We’re digital nomads.” When he patted the omni on his belt, his tags jingled. “Where my data is, that’s my home. Stuff is just stuff. Almost anything can be replaced, or rented.”

A lesson Cadie had learned hard and well. When it’s time to run, you run, and don’t worry about your suitcase. Still she said, “You’ve given me a lot of ammunition. It makes me wonder how you’re lying to me.”

She wasn’t sure why she gave them that. Frustration. The urge to provoke. The hope that if she made Shearer and Homer angry, one of them would let something slip past the facade.

Whatever response she anticipated, it wasn’t that Shearer would snicker behind her hand. “Honestly,” Shearer said, as if speaking to a ridiculous ten year old, “What do you expect anyone could do to us? Confiscate our goods? We don’t own any. Send us to jail? We’re not doing anything illegal, short of a little trespassing, although I suppose they could legislate against us. But if that happens, we just move on. We’re pioneers, Miss Grange. We’re leaving your stratified society behind and building something new.”

Shearer shifted her weight entirely to her crutch on the left side, and with her other hand threw open the door at the end of the hall. Wet, warm air and green light enveloped Cadie, as if that door led into a jungle. She half-expected birdsong.

Shearer ushered her forward. Framed in the door, Cadie stopped short, one foot still raised. Slowly, she put it down. The walls of what must have once been the master bedroom had been torn off, the spaces between the framing replaced with heavy billows of translucent plastic and glass walls constructed of a mosaic of car windows fixed together with lathing and caulk. Just within those stood tall racks, reaching from floor to ceiling, that looked as if they had been assembled from old car bumpers.

The racks were full of tanks, and the tanks were full of plants. Tomatoes, cucumbers, gourds, melons. Things Cadie didn’t at first glance recognize.

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