Proxy by Alex London

Author:Alex London
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780399257766
Publisher: Philomel
Published: 2013-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

[27]

THE OLD MAN SERVED them some flavored soda to calm their nerves. It tasted like dirt to Knox.

“Fresh berries,” Mr. Baram explained.

“Like, organic?” Knox shuddered to think of it. He set the mug down.

Organic.

The word conjured up disease and poverty, the riot of jungles and the desolation of deserts. City life was designed, organized, clean, and controlled. Knox loved that about it. It was completely human. Nature produced nothing but death, disease, and destruction. He didn’t like the idea of putting it inside his body.

Marie watched Knox set his cup down and grunted. She took a loud sip, Knox was sure, just to make him mad.

Mr. Baram eased himself back onto a stool across from the three of them and looked at Syd sadly. Knox wondered why his father would want a man like this dead. The old man couldn’t be any kind of threat to the SecuriTech empire. His shop was filled with junk. It was a nasty, squat little building in a stinking street in the slums.

“I really don’t understand,” said Syd. He sounded so much more fragile than he had before, so much younger. “Why do they want me dead? I didn’t do anything.”

“No, you didn’t.” Mr. Baram sucked his teeth and turned to look Knox up and down. “So, this is your patron? He doesn’t look like much.”

“He’s not,” said Syd, without looking at Knox.

“I am actually a—” Knox started to object, but he glanced at one of the holos on the wall that showed a crowd gathered in front of the building. Men, woman, children, many of them armed, some of them desperate, and all of them poor, loitered about, watching the building. Knox figured he should stay on Mr. Baram’s good side. The old man was his only protection. Patrons did not belong down here. He shut his mouth.

“It is an amazing thing that you’ve brought him here,” Mr. Baram told Syd. “Enough to restore an old man’s faith. I see the hand of destiny in it.”

“Not this mystical stuff again,” Syd objected.

“Oh no,” said Mr. Baram. “Nothing mystical about destiny. Destiny is just the inevitable result of choice, from the choices that came before us to the choices we make. They are a river that can only flow in one direction.”

“You’re talking some deep craziness now,” said Syd. “And we don’t have time for it. Knox’s father wants both of us dead.”

“I wasn’t honest with you this afternoon, Sydney.” Mr. Baram took his glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt. “I suspected something like this was coming. I did my best to make arrangements quickly, but I fear I wasn’t quick enough.”

“What? What did you suspect? What kind of arrangements?” Syd thought back to the previous afternoon, to Mr. Baram’s worried cigarette in the alley, his blathering on about the Holy Land and goat herders and whatever.

“To get you to the Rebooters,” Mr. Baram said. “Where you belong.”

“I’m not a revolutionary,” Syd said.

“I suppose not,” Mr. Baram said. “But your father was.”

Syd shook his head.

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