Read Online Hidden in Sight by Julie E. Czerneda - Free Book Online

Cristoffen obeyed his own command, then steepled his fingers as the other Human hesitated. “Come. Sit. What harm can it do?”
    Inside a wall, their watcher tensed. What harm, Zoltan Duda? If you plan to betray Esen or Paul? He had the answer ready, strapped to his hip.

4: Kitchen Afternoon; Home Evening
    ALTHOUGH Paul was exceptionally good at abusing the truth when the need arose—a skill honed by life with me, as he never failed to mention—that didn’t mean he enjoyed it. I knew he’d come back from spreading the latest essential untruths around the office somewhat, well, bent.
    There was no other word for it. The Human hated lying, which was why he preferred the gray areas that approached the line but didn’t quite cross it: distraction, misdirection, confusion, and outright exaggeration. Whenever backed into the necessity—again, something he usually ascribed to me, which technically wasn’t always true either—he’d grow quiet for a significant while afterward. It wasn’t melancholy. It was as if Paul felt the need to remember who he really was, to return to his proper shape.
    A not-unfamiliar feeling to a web-being, but the bent version of my friend was lousy company. And, to be honest, I felt some small guilt in the matter.
    Which was why I was taking steps to hurry the unbending process before Paul arrived home. I wasn’t much of a cook in any form, a lack I couldn’t very well blame on my web-self’s appetite for living matter. Ansky and my other web-kin would delve into assimilated memory, take over Ersh’s kitchen for days, and create the most fabulous meals on a regular basis. Meals I’d enjoy, without doubt, but ones I found ridiculously time-consuming. Not to mention they’d make me wait for hours before allowing me to taste anything, then insist I clean up.
    Now that I was Senior Assimilator of my own Web, I took full advantage of civilized conveniences such as synthesizers and restaurants. Not to mention delivery.
    Paul liked to, as he put it, putter in the kitchen. He wasn’t a great chef either, but every so often I’d hear him rise unreasonably early and start opening cupboards. I’d try burrowing my head deeper into the fragrant syntha-grass of my box, but it was hopeless. Not only did Paul make no effort whatsoever to be quiet, but I’d learned what such behavior meant. He’d be preparing more food than the two of us could possibly consume in a day, a clear signal he expected company. The Human had an instinct for when our peace was in jeopardy. Not that I minded visits; I just preferred more notice than an ovenful of delectable biscuits I was supposed to share.
    Tonight, however, I was the one poking my paws into cupboards and drawers to assemble what I needed as cook. Between additions to my collection, I eyed the oven. It eyed me back, looking as innocent as any appliance could look that was capable of reducing a juicy piece of meat to crisped carbon without warning.
    Not that I was working with anything so appetizing. No, what lay on the countertop was a bag of rock-hard noodles—the sort no restaurant would serve—and a swollen tube of a yellow-orange substance claimed by the lurid label to have once been cheese. From a mammal’s milk.
    I had my doubts.
    Those didn’t stop me from pouring the entire bag of noodles into the pot of boiling water, and setting the lurid tube close enough to warm and soften.
    The next ingredient was harder to locate. Paul tended to hide his snacks, as if I’d eat them when he wasn’t looking. There might have been one or two instances in which his suspicions were justified—after all, discovering fudge when one was looking for cleanser made it very difficult to remember the finer points of ownership—but this time I was impatient with his secrecy. Fortunately, my present nostrils were more than up to the task of locating an opened bag of pickle