The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed
Author:Cameron Reed
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
12
immediate touch
She materialized again. âAlready bought the ticket. What do you need?â
âI wonât say I need anything. I seem to get attacked when I use that word. What I want is to know everything there is to know about whales by noon tomorrow. Biology, history, poetry, folklore, you name it.â
âIs that all?â
âNo. I also want every scrap of information you can dig up on Voskresenye. Go over the interview with a fine-tooth comb and do a search on every word he used, apart from âandâ and âif.â Anything you can dig up on Derzhavin, on the Andersons, especially on Catharine AndersonâI know most of itâs probably on the chip you gave me, but I need to be sure.â
âSounds like a long night. Should I order in pasta or something?â
âIâm sick and tired of makarony,â I said. âWhat are you in the mood forâdim sum or Ethiopian?â
She shrugged. âUp to you. Iâll be eating train food, remember?â
âOh, right,â I said sheepishly. âIn that case, which of those two will make you the least envious if I eat it in front of you?â
She smiled. âIâve never been much for African food. Ironically.â
âIronically,â I echoed. âEthiopian it is.â I was about to touch the videophone when she said, âLet me do it.â I shrugged assent; her eyes unfocused for a second. âDone.â
âThat fast? OK, letâs start withââ
The doorbell rang. My house, unlike my car, does not have weapons hidden in its every crevice, so my first thought was of kitchen knives and cast-iron skillets; my second, of escape routes.
âDonât panic,â Keishi said. âItâs just your food.â
I went to the door and looked through the peephole, cringing a little as I did. It was rumored that the Weavers would use infrared to watch you approach the door, and then, as you squinted to see who it was, fire a bullet through the glass into your eye. The fear was irrational, I knew; they usually gave the Postcops a chance at you first, and the Postcops would consider such a tactic impolite. But the thought made me uncomfortably aware of the shape of my eyes in my head, and their softness. Somehow you think of eyes as being as shallow as almonds, but of course theyâre not; they go back deep, and press against the brainâs gray labyrinths. The feeling persisted as I opened the door on the bored and impatient delivery boy, and made me reluctant to allow his retinal scan.
âI canât give you your food without a scan, tovarishch. Regulations.â He balanced the stack of boxes on his shoulder, obviously prepared to wait.
I submitted my eye to be lasered, and paid all in green out of sheer irritation. âIs that all, or do you want a blood test?â
âSo take it up with management.â
I slammed the door in his face. Punk. âKeishi, do I want to know how you did that?â
âI just found the nearest unit and switched addresses.â
âDidnât your mother ever teach you itâs wrong to steal?â
âSo who stole?â she said. âYou paid for it, didnât you?â
âI guess thatâs true,â I admitted.
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