Read Online Kaleidocide by Dave Swavely - Free Book Online

stayed at the door, his eyes sweeping the room in a machinelike, measured cycle.
    â€œAre you Angelee?” he asked from behind her. (She was changing Chris’s diaper.) She looked back over her shoulder, and then did a double take because he was so good-looking and well-dressed—unlike anyone else she had seen at that place, including the staff. His voice was tinged with a slight accent, which someone later said was English. She didn’t know about that, but she did know that it immediately struck her as dignified, kind, and even sexy. Maybe she was projecting a feeling back on her memory of the moment, but thinking of it now, it seemed that right away she knew that he was unlike any other person she had ever met. This was one of the special people, the ones who seemed so unreal when you saw them on TV.
    â€œMommy!” Chris had blurted out, and jerked her out of the seemingly eternal moment. The boy was old enough to be bothered by lying there with his diaper off, but unfortunately not old enough to be completely out of diapers yet. Angelee turned back to the little boy and finished with him, wondering if she should have said “Wait a minute” or “Excuse me” or something to the man, and wondering if he would still be there when she turned back around. While doing this, she briefly glanced up at some of her “bedmates” nearby, and noticed them staring past her at the man. Valya, a young Eurasian girl with only one eye, was moving a bandaged hand up and down in a futile attempt to beautify her greasy, matted hair.
    Finally, after what seemed like another eternity, Angelee turned around to face the man. She stayed seated, clasped her hands down between her knees, and grew painfully aware of how unkempt she was. Why couldn’t this have been shower day?
    â€œAngelee?” he said in that heavenly voice. “Are you the wife of Peter Kim?”
    Maybe it was the rush of odd emotions provoked by this unexpected visitor, or maybe it was because she had not heard a reference to her husband in a while, but she lost it. She began sobbing uncontrollably, her shoulders wrenching forward as though they were trying to touch each other. But she did happen to manage a nod or two in the midst of her blubbering and dabbing at her face with the bottom of her shirt.
    When he was sure that she had nodded, the dark-haired angel sat down beside her on the cot and put his arm around her. The shudders of grief were now joined by euphoric waves of pleasure, which seemed to spread through her body from where his arm was touching her. This was the first time a man had touched her since Peter died, a fact that provoked more sobs and delayed her further from any kind of rational interaction with the man. But he just sat with her, squeezed her shoulder now and then, and waited for her to come out of it.
    â€œSorry. Very sorry,” she eventually got out, but then jumped in her seat when she looked up and saw the Chinese giant, blocking half the light as he towered over them. He had left his post by the door, glided through the beds with surprising ease—since he seemed too big for some of the spaces between them—and was now holding out a tissue for her.
    â€œThank you,” she said as she took it. The bald, brown monstrosity just nodded slightly, then made his way back to the door, scanning the room the whole time. As she wiped her nose, she looked again at the handsome man, who had now taken his arm off her and twisted sideways so he could see her better.
    He chuckled, waving his finger toward the back of his head and said, “He has a bit of a leak from his upper cranial port.” His mild amusement seemed to fade as he realized she had no idea what he was talking about. “The tissues,” he added with a more serious expression. “That’s why he carries tissues.” He pointed to the one she was holding, and then grinned again. “We can engineer a cybernetic