Read Online F Paul Wilson - Sims 04 by Zero (v5.0) - Free Book Online Page B

           She
had to hand it to Patrick. He had an acute ear for nuances and he’d heard
something in that one syllable from David Palmer. He’d been sure it was
significant, and he’d been right.
                 He
threw an arm around her shoulders. “Damn, I wish I could have been there.” He
waved his free hand in the air. “But forget about that. The question now is , how do we capitalize on this?”
                 “For
one thing,” Romy said, “we know the word itself has
meaning. It’s not just part of another word or a phrase.”
                 “If
I’d known that last night I could have saved myself a lot of trouble. I went
through an online dictionary and plugged in every spelling of ‘surge’ I could
think of to see if it might be the first syllable of another word. Got nowhere. Didn’t do any better when I tried every
possible homonym. ‘Surge’ is not a common syllable.”
                 “For
which we should be thankful, I guess. Imagine if he’d said ‘con’?”
                 “Then
we’d be cooked. But ‘surge’ itself doesn’t appear to mean anything.”
                 “It
might if it’s an acronym.”
                 He
stopped walking as if he’d hit an invisible wall. His arm dropped from her
shoulder and she missed it.
                 “An acronym! Of course! And acronyms usually mean
government.” He pressed the heel of his palm against his forehead. “Do you know
how many Washington agencies, departments, sub departments, and
bureaus are designated by acronyms? It’s staggering.”
                 She
looked away, glancing around to see if anyone was watching them. “What makes
you so sure you’ll find it in Washington ? You’ve already traced the chain of
subsidiaries leading to Manassas Ventures offshore. Who knows how far offshore
the chain goes? Maybe it ends in Moscow . Or Beijing .”
                 “You
wouldn’t be trying to discourage me, would you?”
                 “Not
at all, but we’re still a long way from home.”
                 “At
least we’ve got the Internet.”
                 “Right.” He glanced around. “I think I’ll head downtown for
a little point-and-click session on my office computer. Want to come along?”
                 “I’ve
got to get back to OPRR, but we can share a cab.”
                 He
looked into her eyes. “What almost happened the other night at your place?”
                 “We
almost got dosed with Totuus .”
                 “No.
I mean, what was in the cards before we opened the door and found the two
uninvited guests?”
                 Romy held his gaze. She’d grown to like Patrick, even
admire him in some ways, but she didn’t love him. She enjoyed his company and,
even though she knew injecting sex into their relationship might complicate
matters, she’d wanted him that night. But that wasn’t the same as wanting him
every night.
                 “We’ll
never know, will we ,” she said, giving him a warm
smile. “It was a moment, one that might come again.”
                 “Or might not.” His expression soured, leaving him looking
needy.
                 Well,
I have needs too, she thought. Sometimes sex is front and center, but lots of
times something else pushes it down the line.
                 She
knew all too well how she’d let the war on SimGen take
over her life, but the time to press the fight was now. Every day of delay
meant another day of slavery for the sims .
Plenty of time later to play catch up.
                 “It’s
the Masked Marvel, isn’t it,” he said.
                 “Who?”
                 “Zero. You’ve got a thing for him.”
                 “Don’t
be silly. I’ve never even seen his