Tomorrow’s World (29 page)

“I won't need any love stories about noble, courteous heroes, Travis; I'll have you.”

“Maybe I better pack six or seven just in case.”

That earned me a smile and broke the awkwardness.

Paula didn't take a last look around before leaving, but she did hesitate in the doorway and go back for something from her desk, as I'd done. She tried to hide the object, like I had, but it was too big for her hand to conceal. It was a cube with lots of tiny multicolored squares, like on Olden Days Rubik's puzzle but infinitely more difficult to master. As if unable to make up her mind about something, she stood perfectly still for much longer than I'd ever seen a Number do before—they usually know exactly what to do in any given situation. Then she put the logic puzzle back in the desk and walked over to the bookcase. She knelt down and her slender fingers unerringly found what she was looking for.

I thought she'd never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment, kneeling in front of the bookcase of love stories from a lost world. The crush that had turned into a fondness turned into something else, something I'd only experienced once in my life and thought I'd never feel again. I felt it as a tightness in my chest, a lightness in my stomach and a weakness in my knees. Watching Paula take her chosen book from the shelf I wished she'd opted for the logic puzzle instead, because that would have added to the feeling I'd had outside the jetport that maybe the differences between us were too great to overcome, no matter how much time we'd had together. It would have made the knowledge that in all likelihood I'd soon have to watch this woman die just a little bit easier to bear.

“So you were joking about not needing a book with a noble hero in it,” I said.

“It's not a love story, Ben, and it's not for me, it's a present for you.”

She handed me the book and my eyes blurred when I saw what it was: John Steinbeck's
Burning Bright,
a song of praise for the human spirit.

“Oh, Paula,” I said, and took her in my arms. I rocked her from side to side, glad she couldn't see my face because there were tears streaming down it. From the small movements of her shoulders I knew she was crying, too. I think she was maybe crying for the same reason as me—helpless frustration that something was happening between us and we'd never know how beautiful it could have been.

One thing led to another and…

Let's just say that if the Paretos had come for us in the next four hours, none of the positions they'd have found us in included any that would have left us able to defend ourselves.

The first hour was about desperation and need; about time running out and having to make the most of every moment; about fear of what we were facing, and the need to hold someone so we didn't face it alone. It was about pent-up desire and the need to release it with someone. And only a little of it was about love. It was an hour of raking nails and clutching hands and breathlessness, of pleading and pleasure that came close to pain because it was sought and given with such urgency.

The next two hours were about recovering; a time with her arm draped across my chest, the smoothness of the inside of one of her thighs lying across mine.

The last hour was about discovering: stroking and caressing and tracing with fingertip; touching and being touched, and being moved without moving; coming together and drawing apart over and over again, and always coming together one more time than we drew apart. It was a time of whispers spoken and listened to and understood; of wordless moans that said more than the whispers, some of them hers and some mine and some so much a single sound they couldn't be separated.

That last hour was about love, and at the end of it Paula asked, “Do I still seem like one of
them?”

And I said, “No, you seem like a part of me.”

A
FTERWARD—ONCE WE'D MAXED OUT OUR CREDIT
cards and filled our daypacks in the imaginatively named Food Store—we headed to the canteen. The afterglow of loving meant our Last Supper felt more like a honeymooners' late breakfast. Paula kept giving me knowing smiles accompanied by the hint of a blush, and her feet playfully sought out my legs and teased me almost as much as her expression.

I ended up doing lots of swallowing even when there wasn't any food in my mouth.

The fact we were sitting across from each other, that we were so obviously
together,
drew disapproving looks from other tables. Everybody knows Names and Numbers sometimes get it on, but public displays of cross-genetic affection are literally frowned upon. Knowing we had an audience, I couldn't resist spearing a synthesized vege-stick with my fork and offering it to Paula.

She threw her head back and laughed in a way I'd never heard a Number laugh before. More heads turned, but I don't think Paula was caring about the disapproving looks any more than I was. I'm sure she realized, as I did, that this was the only chance we'd ever get to act like carefree lovers.

And then, inevitably, the mood turned somber. The canteen was emptying and it was time for us to leave, too. The sobering thing was that we didn't have the prospect of a relaxing night in comfort and security ahead of us like everyone else did. The chances were we'd never have another night like that again.

“The news'll be on soon,” I said.

Paula nodded, all trace of laughter gone from her eyes.

“Where do you want to watch it?” I asked.

“Your place is closest.”

We didn't say anything as we climbed the stairs. Halfway up the second flight we heard a distant roar in the sky.

The Niagara Falls jetliner.

We raced to the next landing like a couple of children. From the small stairwell window we watched the lights grow in the sky and listened to the roar get louder, and nothing had ever looked or sounded so good.

“Just because the jetliner came back there's no saying its passengers did,” Paula said, but she wasn't quite able to keep her voice emotionless.

“I feel like running down to the jetport to see if the Adams Family and the Faradays are there,” I said.

“I know what you mean, but it'd be simpler to watch the news,” Paula said.

So we did.

Every minute that passed without mention of a Niagara mishap raised my hopes a little higher.

Which made it all the more crushing when, right at the end of the broadcast, the newsreader said, “It is with great regret that we report a tragic accident which has claimed the lives of four valued citizens.”

I felt like the ground had opened up beneath my feet and I was falling into a bottomless pit. My heart thumped as if it was trying to shatter my ribs, and the blood was pounding so loud in my head that I barely heard the newsreader. It was as though the words were coming from a lot further away than the wallscreen.

“The good luck of a lottery win turned to the ultimate misfortune for four day-trippers to Niagara Falls when they plunged to their death after a viewing platform gave way. Dr Heather Adams and her husband Jonny, also a doctor—”

Paula switched off the screen.

I kept staring at the blank wall, numbed by the implications of what I'd just heard; trying to come to terms with the fact my life was about to change forever, and that ‘forever' wasn't likely to last longer than a few weeks or months.

Paula had the same adjustment to make but made it much sooner. “There's no point wasting any time, Ben.”

I nodded dumbly.

There was an air of unreality about it all as I followed Paula to the door. I hesitated and took a last look around. It was hard to believe I wouldn't be coming back to the place that had been my home since the academy.

“Ben—” Paula prompted, and with that I turned my back on the apartment and my old life.

I half expected to find a Pareto walking down the corridor or coming out the lift to confront us, but we didn't see anyone as we headed for the stairwell. What we were doing was so drastic that, despite all the evidence, I couldn't help but wonder if we were fleeing from a phantom enemy that was a product of imagination rather than a reflection of reality.

All of that changed when we reached the bottom of the stairs. Any lingering doubts I'd had about whether we were really running for our lives were blown away by the most innocuous of sounds. Paula heard it first, and it stopped her in her tracks, hand poised on the handle of the door to the foyer. She stopped so abruptly I nearly banged into her. I was about to ask what was wrong, but she pressed an upraised forefinger to her lips. She cocked her head, ear to the door, and I did likewise.

I couldn't hear anything except white noise and the hammering of my heart.

Then I heard something else:
click.

A couple of seconds' silence.

Another
click,
slightly louder this time.

A silence lasting exactly as long as the last one.

Click.
Definitely louder than the last time, telling me the source of the sound was getting closer.

Paula made a silent gesture with thumb and index finger. Even before her mimed finger-clicking I knew there was a Number heading toward the door.

It could be an ordinary citizen, I told myself. But then the soft clicking stopped and was followed by a louder, metallic
CLICK-CLICK
from no more than a meter or two away.

A weapon being cocked.

Paula mouthed
‘knockdown,'
and I nodded.

The first
CLICK-CLICK
was followed by a second. There were two people on the other side of the door.

Moving so slowly she wouldn't make a sound, Paula unslung her daypack and placed it on the stair at her back. By the time I'd done likewise Paula had raised a fist in front of my face and was unfolding a finger, initiating a silent countdown. I knew the drill. I'd seen it often enough on Olden Days cop shows, when two partners are getting set to go through a door. The drill hasn't changed since those shows were made, because it can't be improved on.

Paula unfolded another finger.

I drew my knockdown and she drew hers and we both took a deep a breath.

Her third finger went up and so did her right knee and my left.

The soles of our feet slammed into the doors in simultaneously executed front thrust kicks.

The black-clad Pareto standing on the other side of Paula's door couldn't have been more perfectly placed—the edge of the door hit the point of his chin hard enough to knock him off his feet and put his lights out.

I wasn't quite so lucky; the other Pareto was almost out of range of my swinging door, and all the frame made contact with was his knockdown. It dislodged the weapon from his hand, but he recovered his wits before I recovered my kick. Before I knew what was happening his foot was crashing into my hand and my own knockdown was flying through the air.

By the time my knockdown hit the floor the Pareto had stepped forward into a follow-up kick with his other leg, and the foot at the end of it was flying at my chin. I barely managed to step back from a blow that would have broken my jaw and maybe my neck. Avoiding the kick was good, but the fact I tripped over the unconscious Pareto in the process was bad. What was even worse was that I took Paula down with me. The dull thud as my head landed on the fallen Pareto's forearm was followed by a sharp crack as Paula's skull hit the stairway door.

From the corner of my eye I saw Paula blinking and shaking her head, and knew she wasn't seriously hurt.

I turned my attention to the Pareto above me just in time to see him raise his knee and chamber a stamping kick. I rolled away and his heel flashed down past my ear. There was a snap like a crunchy protein bar being broken in two as his foot slammed into the forearm of his fallen partner, right where my head had been resting a fraction of a second earlier.

As the Pareto recovered his kick I used the momentum of my roll to get to my feet, and we squared up to each other with only the fallen assassin's body between us.

The man I was up against might have been the same Pareto who'd mocked me in the gym a few nights earlier when I couldn't keep up with him on the exercise bike. He might have been any one of a hundred Paretos who'd mocked me in a thousand different ways over the years. Whatever, he was looking at me the way you do when you've got someone at your mercy and don't intend showing them any.

I glanced around for a weapon, knowing I needed one to have a fighting chance.

The nearest knockdown was closer to the Pareto than to me. He obviously thought he didn't need it because he was making for me and not the weapon. While I'd stolen a glance at the knockdown, the Pareto had stepped over the body of his fallen partner. Now there was nothing separating us at all.

I'd only squared-up to a Pareto once before, in close-quarter-combat training at the academy. It had been once too often and left me bruised from head to foot for a week—and broken in spirit for a lot longer than that. You couldn't have called it a fight because it barely lasted a dozen seconds and I didn't lay a finger on him. He'd goaded me with the kind of sneer you can't be taught, then suckered me with a feinted punch to the face. When my hands came up, he'd hooked me to the floating rib. As I doubled over he grabbed my nearest hand and in one flowing movement went from wrist lock to elbow lock to shoulder lock—and I went from my feet, to my knees, to flat on my face. If my life had depended on moving a single centimeter I couldn't have done it because each wave of pain from my overloaded joints was more paralyzing than the last.

All of that was going through my mind as the Pareto closed to striking distance. He knew he had the beating of me, and he knew that I knew it. The mockery on his face made that clear. I'd never hated anyone as much as I hated him, and I'd never felt more helpless and afraid. Not a good combination.