Strange Flesh by Michael Olson

Author:Michael Olson [Olson, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thrillers, Hacker Noir, Cyberpunk
ISBN: 9781451627589
Google: Tueo3iidFlEC
Amazon: 1451627580
Goodreads: 12639667
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2012-04-02T12:00:00+00:00

Frustrated, I step outside for a cigarette. The team seems quite lackadaisical about the legal basis of our partnership. Garriott, who has the very distant relationship with money found in real droid-druids, I can understand. But for someone as meticulous as Xan, this attitude doesn’t make sense.

As I light up, I see Olya had the same idea. She’s at the front of the alley talking softly into her cell but adding spiky emphasis with her freshly rolled cigarette. She observes my arrival and rings off.

From playing Billy’s game, perhaps I’ve absorbed an “everything is connected” paranoid perspective that makes me stroll up beside her and ask, “So is it Exotica?”

Olya doesn’t look at me. But from my oblique angle I notice her eyes flare slightly and her lips compress by a fraction. What am I seeing? The chagrin of learning that someone has guessed your closely held secrets? Or is she betraying some actual anxiety about the state of her enterprise? Maybe she’s entertaining second thoughts about hooking up with a shady pornographer while Billy’s stalking her over the death of her lover.

I can’t decide in the bare instant before she’s again mastered her apex predator insouciance. She takes a long drag and exhales leisurely. “So maybe you think you have ESP now?”

“Is it?”

“Zhimbo, I know the, ah, ‘tenacity’ is a very good quality for programmer. But, milyi, do not act like badger with me.”

“Just how much do you know about the company, Olya? Are you sure they’re the right people to be getting in bed with?”

“You think I’m not careful? You think I am a promiscuous woman, Zhames?”

“Well I have to question that, if you’re proposing that we deal with this company. I understand that they know how to market. I understand they have distribution channels. I’m sure you understand how expensive it’s going to be to tool up Chinese factories to make such a complex device. But did you know that your hot date is getting sued by the IRS? That their working capital has been frozen by a court order?”

She grabs my belt buckle and drags me close to her. “Eh, you listen to me now. I have not proposed anything. You are making bullshit assumption about what goes on here. How is it you know so much about this Exotica company? Are you a fan, Zhimbo? This is strange, that with all their interesting material, you take the financials to bed. Why is that, James? Why are you researching this company, when we’ve never discussed it?”

“Look—”

“No, you look. I know you want to find out what’s happening. But this is my party. You come late but want to start telling the tune. You think I will sell our daughter to the first man who wiggle his dick at her? When I find Ginger a husband, he will be rich, respectable, and committed. He will put a kingdom at her feet.”

“First of all, she doesn’t have feet. And you think Bill Gates and Nelson Mandela are going to serve on the board?”

“Don’t be stupid.

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