Selling Out by Justina Robson

Author:Justina Robson
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Science fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9780575082038
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2008-09-11T22:52:28.265000+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lila?

She knew it was Tath, and Tath never used her name, so it was important.

She took her head out of her hands and savagely wiped her face on the backs of them. The synthetic skin felt a bit rubbery suddenly, and too cold. “Fuck,” she said and cast about for anything to dry her eyes on, but aside from ripping a few leaves off the nearest ornamental bush there was nothing. She yanked up her military vest and used the hem. “What?”

Little feet with claws on pattered on the bench next to her. It was a green imp, larger and fatter than the one she was used to and it looked at her with a contemplative greed. “Piss off,” she said, but it only sidled closer and reached out towards her with a clammy paw.

There was a pain in her ear and she felt Thingamajig suddenly explode, his voice shrill with atavistic, possessive passion, “Get off my . . .”

The green imp exploded. Bits of it splattered across the bench, the floor, and the pretty flowers. Lila looked at the gun that had assembled itself over her right hand and gently relaxed the fingers. The gun took itself apart and placed itself back into storage in her forearm. Her skin molded itself over the metal and carbon surfaces. It looked like putty. She curled her lip and flexed her fingers.

There was, she felt, a stunned silence from her shoulder, where a light weight swayed gently. “I want to be alone,” she said.

“Yeah,” the imp said. “I know. I was gonna go get you a pack of wetwipes. Be right back. Shops are all open late . . .” It hopped down and scampered over the balcony rail hastily, soon lost to sight in the growing dusk.

“Don’t bother,” Lila said to the empty space. She slid sideways, away from the worst of the mess, and then looked at her hands again. She made guns. She made grenade launchers. She made fists with spikes and fists with razors. She made hands that were almost but not quite right.

Lila.

“I know,” she said. “Tell me something, Tath.”

The elf waited. She could feel his attention all on her, for the first time, a cautious, careful attention. She thought that was a very bad sign. But she didn’t need it.

“Do you really hate me?”

There was a pause. No.

“Oh,” Lila said, lightly, she felt, considering. A fragment of imp slid down her face like a piece of wet cake. She brushed it away absently and flicked it to the ground. “Then it must be me.”

Lila . . .

“Not now,” she said. “There’s a good boy.”

But the elf was unwinding. She felt his spirit body unfold and spread with liquid slowness through her chest, her guts, and into her limbs. He left her head alone but he could still hear her. Thanks to the metal elementals fused into her once-mundane prosthetics he could even reach through them without being nullified by the anti-aetheric properties of electromagnetic fields. It had been a long time since he had done anything but crouch inside her and hide.

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