BACKTRACKER by Milo Fowler (e book reader txt) 📕

so well." She began to nibble at his ear, gently atfirst, then biting, pulling. "You and me," she said around her teeth,grinning at him as she tugged. "SYNCorp and The Pearl, literally in bedtogether. The NewCity Power Couple."

"Where did you hear that?" He glared at her.

His ear slipped from her grasp. "It's been on the Link forweeks." She shrugged her bare shoulders, white and smooth. Her skin wasperfect, youthful. Hard to believe she was in her sixties or seventies—exactage to be determined. The wonders of modern gene therapy. "I guess thecat's out of the bag, Baby. How long did you think we could keep our littletrysts a secret? Big Brother sees all and hears all. It was only a matter oftime."

He looked away.

She pinched his cheek. "I say we use it."

"Conflict of interest? How could we ever use that to ouradvantage?"

He sat up, leaving her arm to withdraw in his absence. He swunghis legs over the side of the massive bed and hung his head, staring at thefeatureless carpet. Her fingers traced the muscles of his back.

"There's no conflict that I can see. We're the new royalty. Gavin Lennoxand Ashland Solomon—king and queen of NewCity."

"I doubt ourduly elected governors would ever go for that,"he muttered. "They'll have us assassinated in our sleep."

"Why do you have to be so negative? I'm talking about ourplace in this town. You've said it yourself. What we have here is special. Itworks. The Revival, right? Shouldn't be long before emissaries from theother Provinces start showing up and asking about the secrets to our success.Like King Solomon of old, and the Queen of Sheba."

They're already here. Kuan Ti and Yeng Zhu. Buthe doubted they were anything close to what they claimed to be.

"Reeves had a couple with him tonight," he saidabsently.

"A couple of what?" She rose onto her elbow.

"Wise men from the East." He smiled. "We held alengthy debate of sorts regarding your synthetics. Whether or not they havesouls."

Do I? Is it damned?

"Well, what was the verdict?"

His thick shoulders rose and fell. "Want a drink?" Hestood without waiting for a response and stretched for a moment. Then he leftthe room with long strides, his gaze set straight ahead.

"Whatever," she murmured in his wake. The sheets slippedbeneath her as she rolled over to bury her face in the pillow. Within moments,she would be sound asleep.

The hallway was dark, silent, the rooms empty on each side.Beneath the carpet, the floor vibrated almost imperceptibly, the onlyindication that not everyone in The Pearl had gone to bed. On the contrary, theSYNs in the BigBand, on the dance floor, at the tables, and standing in lineoutside waiting to be let in were as awake as ever, fully prepared to party theentire night away, far into the wee hours of morning and beyond, until theduties of their day jobs beckoned. Then, after their work shifts,they would return with a full day's worth of credit to spend, and the cyclewould resume.

Conflict of interest, indeed. Ashland Solomon's SYNCorp providedthe workforce of NewCity. The Pearl of the great and powerful Gavin Lennoxprovided a place for them to spend eight hours of income on a single nightof frolicking and feeling human. The Power Couple hadshared the same bed for years now. Their economic interests had done the samefrom the start.

The Link's gossip-mongers had probably guessed it all along, thathe and Ashland were more than mutually beneficial—and successful—entrepreneurs.Unseen eyes had noticed her limousine pull up beside The Pearl late at night topark in the shadows, seen her duck inside the alley door surrounded bygenetically engineered muscle, watched as she'd placed her hand on the sensorgrate next to a door marked PRIVATE.

Is nothing private anymore?

He entered the spacious common room of the penthouse and stopped,his bare toes sinking into the carpet. His eyes turned toward the panoramicwindow and the light outside, the life. It drew his steps with a magnetism hecouldn't resist.

He watched them: The tuxedos. The white dresses with bits of crystal thatcaught the light and flashed as they swept across the dance floor. The waiters,the George models. Here and there, a Sally. No humans to be seen. They'd allgone home for the night, left The Pearl to its nocturnal residents who had noneed for sleep.

Good for me. In hismind, Lennox saw the credits scroll faster than he could read them. Most of itspent already. Unfortunate.

The beheaded mandroid left in the middle of the street would haveto be replaced. Alpha Geminorum had cornered the market long ago on suchrefurbished killing machines from the war and insisted on raising the priceevery year. Ashland had tried to convince him to hire synthetics forsecurity—it would be less expensive, she said, and they would be easilyreplaceable at no extra cost. But he knew better. Sure, the mandroids were expensive,but he didn't have to pay them a single credit for their services. And howoften had he needed to replace one, anyway? They'd been virtuallyindestructible. Until now.

Two in the alley, heads struck from theirshoulders by a flying albino.

He squeezed his temples. No, that was in a different reality. Anentirely separate cash flow. Three mandroids needed replacing at The Pit, andthree more here at The Pearl. Coincidence? Gavin Lennox knew better. Therewas no such thing. Only reflections.

The boy was over there now, in that world's version of this veryroom. Kuan the holy man was with him. George had been told to leave them thereuntil Lennox decided what to do with them. Question them? Torture them? Killthem? So many options.

Here, he had learned the man's name. The boy's protector,who shot up The Pearl and abducted Yeng the holy man. Yeng had managed toescape and go to the police, who contacted Lennox as soon as they'd finishedtaking the monk's statement. Harold Muldoon, they said. That's who they wereafter. Manhunt in progress. Updates forthcoming.

Harold Muldoon, retired private investigator. Former policelackey, now a recluse. The years had taken their toll on him, by all accounts.

Muldoon had dropped off the map, and Lennox was never sorry to seehis kind go the way of the dinosaur. By their very nature,