Stealing Worlds by Schroeder Karl

Author:Schroeder, Karl
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2019-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Bill offers to send a car around, and names a high-end French restaurant downtown. She’d been anticipating such a problem—the place is right in the heart of the surveillance zone, there’s no way The White Rose can get her in and out of there—and knows what to say. “I have meetings right before and after our lunch,” she emails. “Would it be an inconvenience if I met you near where I have to be?” She names a midrange, but not disreputable, place that The White Rose has declared safe for now.

“No problem,” he replies. And just like that, it’s happening.

Maybe Bill’s car would have been a better idea, she thinks the next day as she heads out on the Not in Service bus. Sura was terribly anxious when she boarded, which is silly because she really has nothing to lose by meeting Bill. Compass is along on an errand of her own, and should be a reassuring presence, but the rest of the vehicle is packed with drag queens and a visiting troupe of opera singers who just toured Not in Service. Just another sign that Oneota’s fame has gotten out of control, but the singers bother no one, talking in low-key, mid-Atlantic accents. Then the drag queens discover who they are. The queens proceed to serenade the dignified men and women of the arts with cacophonous and off-key rap. To everybody’s surprise the professionals are thrilled, reply in kind, and it turns into a contest to see who can be ruder.

Compass has been curled up next to Sura, a little bundle of potential, and suddenly she bounces to her feet and strides into the center of the group. She’s morphed into some sort of mad impresario and starts conducting. By the time Sura gets off the bus, she’s got everybody on board doing a debased version of Wagner’s Lohengrin in which bodily functions play a large role:

Heil deiner fahrt! (Everybody bends over and grunts)

Heil deinen kommen! (As one, they give an orgasmic sigh)

Sura staggers to the curb, anxiety gone but her mind empty of all strategies. She simply walks into the restaurant, spots Bill Duchene the billionaire sitting alone at a table, and strolls over. “Hi!”

He grins. “You’re looking good. The frames treating you well?”

“Actually, they are.”

“They must be, if you’ve got to fit me in between meetings.”

She’d been building an elaborate backstory to explain why they’re eating here, but now, in the moment, it all seems ridiculous. This is Bill. She’s followed him like a lost child through the games, she feels she knows him. They’ve thrown up together, so fuck it.

“I’m living in Oneota because it’s camera-free,” she says. “Remember when you didn’t want to go to the police, and neither did I? I’ve got my reasons to want to avoid the surveillance state.”

He crosses his arms. “Yet you insist you’re not hiding from the law.” He’s all cleaned up today and in a very well-fitted suit. She’s wearing a new dress that did come from a surveilled shop, but that she picked out by avatar rather than in person.

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