The Chromosomal Code by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Author:Lawrence Watt-Evans [Watt-Evans, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic, SF
ISBN: 9781619910041
Publisher: self-published
Published: 2012-11-12T12:40:37.373000+00:00

The street blazed with light, from street lamps and signs, neon or otherwise. There was obviously an extensive and active night life in this city; the street was as crowded at what he judged to be mid-evening as he might have expected at noon.

Or perhaps, he told himself, it just seemed that way to him. He hadn't seen a city crowd, either noon or midnight, in more than a decade.

“Hey, Starkman!” called the pilot from behind as he grabbed at Starkman's arm.

Starkman shook him off. “What do you want?” he asked, trying to sound as if he were an ordinary passerby accosted by a stranger.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“I brought you here so you could meet my employer, not to go running off on your own.”

“Maybe that's why you brought me, buddy, but that's not why I came, and I never agreed to meet anybody. I got in your car because it looked like the only way I was going to get away from the fighting, and you didn't put any conditions on it at the time.”

“Where are you going?”

“That's my business, not yours; I can take care of myself.”

The man grabbed Starkman's arm again, and this time refused to be shaken off. Starkman stopped walking and turned to face him.

“Let go of me,” he said, his voice low.

Recognizing the danger implicit in Starkman's tone, the pilot let go.

“I really think you should come back with me,” he said.

“Look, whoever you are, I've had just about enough of being told what to do and where to go. I'm tired of it. A week ago – hell, less than that – I was living happily enough, alone in Pennsylvania, bothering nobody, doing no harm to anyone. Since then I've been kidnapped no less than three times – by those damn zombies and their talking spaceship, by a paranoid guerrilla doctor, and by you. I've been dragged from Pennsylvania to Brazil, a place that I have never wanted to visit, and hauled from spaceport to indoctrination center to revolutionary cell to here. I've had it, do you understand that? I'm not just a piece of meat to be carted around, I'm a free human being! I'll go where I please, when I please. Now, get lost!”

“No, look, Mr. Starkman, please reconsider. I don't want to have to force you – “

“And just how would you force me? I don't see anything that looks like a weapon, and I'm just about your size and probably a lot meaner than you; I don't think it's at all clear you could take me anywhere I didn't want to go. And besides that, weapon or no, look around you.” He gestured at the street lights and signs and the pedestrians strolling beneath them, smiling and laughing and talking and arguing. “If you were to try and drag me and I were to put up a fight, or call for help, what do you think would happen? Do you

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