Read Online City on Fire (Metropolitan 2) by Walter Jon Williams - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Walter Jon Williams
Tags: Science-Fiction, Science Fantasy, cyberpunk, epic fantasy, Myth, constantine, aiah, plasm, secondary world
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is already in place. Aiah concentrates and builds an anima, a telepresent plasm body, a focus for the sensorium that she can move from place to place, and then she floats the anima out into the hallway outside.
A door opens in the suite to the anima-Aiah’s right, just past the bronze barrier, and a man steps out. He is a military officer, middle-aged, uniformed, with a briefcase in one hand. He frowns intently, as if his face had been trained to that expression by long years of practice. Straight-backed, he marches down the corridor, passing right through Aiah’s invisible anima. Aiah feels an illusory tingle in her insubstantial nerves.
The man marches on. Aiah drifts slowly down the corridor, tries to listen to what her sensorium is telling her. Only three of the twelve suites within her compartment of the Palace seem to have anyone in them at present, flares of warmth and life floating in Aiah’s perceptions. She takes a deep breath, exhales, lets the Palace speak to her, whisper in her ectomorphic ear . . . and then her breath is taken away by a surge of sexual desire that sets her nerves alight.
It originates on the floor below hers. Two people are tangled together in a moment of passion so intense that, once Aiah has opened herself to it, it floods her senses. Her mouth goes dry. For a moment she hesitates, indecisive, uncertain whether she should permit herself to pursue this path, and then she floats downward, passing through floor and wall, and finds the two lovers on their bed.
They are both soldiers, both young men. Uniforms and weapons are stacked neatly on chairs, ready to be donned at the end of their interlude. A bundle of keys sits on a table. Aiah doubts that either one of them is authorized to be here.
The ferocity and certainty of their passion sends a pang through Aiah’s nerves. Her heart is racing. She finds herself wanting to join them, to fling herself onto the bed in a sweaty knot of limbs and furious delight.
Voyeurism, she knows, is one of the privileges of the mage. No one, unless they’re hiding in a room sheathed with bronze, is immune to this kind of observation. She has no way of knowing if her own private moments have been observed in this way. The odds are against it— she can’t conceive of anyone with access to that much plasm ever being that interested in her— but there’s no way of knowing for certain.
Watching the soldiers, she realizes, is only making her conscious of her own
loneliness....
Aiah draws herself away from the scene, dissolves her anima, allows her sensorium to fade into her own natural perceptions. She thumbs the switch on the t-grip and the plasm ebbs from her awareness, leaving her alone in her silent room, aware of the rapid throb of her heart, the warmth and arousal that flush her tissues, the fiery pangs of lust that burn in her groin.
She closes her eyes. An image of the two soldiers seems seared onto her retinas. Loneliness clamps cold fingers on her throat.
She dips a hand between her legs and, in a few urgent moments, relieves herself of her burden of desire.
Aiah draws her legs up into the chair, hugs her knees, lets her breath and heartbeat return to normal. The scent of brewing coffee floats past her nostrils. She has a whole day ahead of her, a long list of things to do.
She wishes she had someone to talk to.
CHAPTER THREE
Aiah is well into her list of requisitions, and the rest— access to certain files, the precise methods by which she will recruit her talent— is not entirely up to her. She is trying to reach Constantine to schedule a meeting, but he’s persistently unavailable.
There is a knock on her receptionist’s door, and there is no receptionist to answer. She rises from her desk, anticipating workers come to fix her window, and instead her skin crawls at the sight of a pair of the twisted, small figures with black goggle eyes and moist salamander flesh.
“I am Adaveth,” one says. “Do you remember
A door opens in the suite to the anima-Aiah’s right, just past the bronze barrier, and a man steps out. He is a military officer, middle-aged, uniformed, with a briefcase in one hand. He frowns intently, as if his face had been trained to that expression by long years of practice. Straight-backed, he marches down the corridor, passing right through Aiah’s invisible anima. Aiah feels an illusory tingle in her insubstantial nerves.
The man marches on. Aiah drifts slowly down the corridor, tries to listen to what her sensorium is telling her. Only three of the twelve suites within her compartment of the Palace seem to have anyone in them at present, flares of warmth and life floating in Aiah’s perceptions. She takes a deep breath, exhales, lets the Palace speak to her, whisper in her ectomorphic ear . . . and then her breath is taken away by a surge of sexual desire that sets her nerves alight.
It originates on the floor below hers. Two people are tangled together in a moment of passion so intense that, once Aiah has opened herself to it, it floods her senses. Her mouth goes dry. For a moment she hesitates, indecisive, uncertain whether she should permit herself to pursue this path, and then she floats downward, passing through floor and wall, and finds the two lovers on their bed.
They are both soldiers, both young men. Uniforms and weapons are stacked neatly on chairs, ready to be donned at the end of their interlude. A bundle of keys sits on a table. Aiah doubts that either one of them is authorized to be here.
The ferocity and certainty of their passion sends a pang through Aiah’s nerves. Her heart is racing. She finds herself wanting to join them, to fling herself onto the bed in a sweaty knot of limbs and furious delight.
Voyeurism, she knows, is one of the privileges of the mage. No one, unless they’re hiding in a room sheathed with bronze, is immune to this kind of observation. She has no way of knowing if her own private moments have been observed in this way. The odds are against it— she can’t conceive of anyone with access to that much plasm ever being that interested in her— but there’s no way of knowing for certain.
Watching the soldiers, she realizes, is only making her conscious of her own
loneliness....
Aiah draws herself away from the scene, dissolves her anima, allows her sensorium to fade into her own natural perceptions. She thumbs the switch on the t-grip and the plasm ebbs from her awareness, leaving her alone in her silent room, aware of the rapid throb of her heart, the warmth and arousal that flush her tissues, the fiery pangs of lust that burn in her groin.
She closes her eyes. An image of the two soldiers seems seared onto her retinas. Loneliness clamps cold fingers on her throat.
She dips a hand between her legs and, in a few urgent moments, relieves herself of her burden of desire.
Aiah draws her legs up into the chair, hugs her knees, lets her breath and heartbeat return to normal. The scent of brewing coffee floats past her nostrils. She has a whole day ahead of her, a long list of things to do.
She wishes she had someone to talk to.
CHAPTER THREE
Aiah is well into her list of requisitions, and the rest— access to certain files, the precise methods by which she will recruit her talent— is not entirely up to her. She is trying to reach Constantine to schedule a meeting, but he’s persistently unavailable.
There is a knock on her receptionist’s door, and there is no receptionist to answer. She rises from her desk, anticipating workers come to fix her window, and instead her skin crawls at the sight of a pair of the twisted, small figures with black goggle eyes and moist salamander flesh.
“I am Adaveth,” one says. “Do you remember
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