Read Online Second Paradigm by Peter J. Wacks - Free Book Online Page A

today. Meet my new friend, Chris.” He gestured toward his guest.
    “Yeah?” Roberta reached for a different spot under the counter and pulled out two bowls, ladling some of the stew from a hot pot behind her. “Looks like he’s got cash. Where did you pick him up?”
    “The hospital,” Rat smirked. “He just got out of a coma.”
    “Yeah, whatever. It’ll be a hundred bucks, high roller.”
    Chris paid. “What is this stuff, anyway?” he asked her, eyeing it suspiciously. It was gray and chunky, and he couldn’t smell any discernable odor. He ladled up a spoonful. The taste surprised him. Everything in this future seemed like it was faded and broken, lifeless. But the stew exploded over his tongue. It was slightly spicy with rich flavors twining together. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted.
    She leaned close to him, over the bar. “Between you and me, honey, you don’t want to know what’s in it.”
    Rat and Chris ate in silence after that.
    As they left the restaurant, Rat took a side street out of the market and led Chris through a maze of garbage and rubble. Occasionally they had to step over small groups of sleeping people, huddled together for the shared body warmth. Massive pipes ran up the sides of the buildings, turning the rain to steam with a sizzle where it fell on them.
    “We’re almost there,” he said to Chris over his shoulder as he climbed a pile of greasy cardboard made soft by the rain, which had diminished into a fine drizzle. He slipped and tumbled down the far side, out of Chris’s view. Chris heard a string of cursing through the rattling, wet cough. He clambered up and over the pile in time to see Rat climb sluggishly to his feet and make a feeble attempt at brushing the mud from his plastic garbage bag.
    “Here you are, boss!” Rat did a little dance, like a pageant queen presenting a prize on a game show, as he gestured down the street he had tumbled into.
    Halfway down the block Chris saw it, “The Rangley Hotel.” The buildings were lower here, and Chris saw a few people milling around. They had a distinctly different look to them than the ‘Ped Mall’ crowd. These people were less glitzy and glamorous. The way they kept their heads down spoke of locals trying to get on with their business, rather than flashy kids out looking for a good time.
    There were even a few trees growing on the corners of the intersections on either side, though only sparse brown leaves still clung to the stunted branches. Another thing that spoke of the urban instead of the high-rise corporate world was that there were no abandoned cars in the street. Though the few cars parked on the street did not look like they were in particularly good repair, they did look operational.
    Rat pointed down the street the other direction. “See that big, pointy tower?”
    Chris saw it: a massive silver spike, about a mile down the street, which rose what looked to be hundreds of stories high. Chris was awed. That isn’t possible. That building must stand near a mile high. Someone must have engineered high impact, low weight building materials while I slept.
    The street they stood on ran toward the obelisk, and seemed to be a thoroughfare for the aerial cars that zoomed a few hundred feet overhead. The way they swerved and moved, passing both above and below, Chris imagined that there must be some sort of advanced artificial intelligence driving them. Either that or humanity’s reflexes had improved quite a bit in the past forty years.
    “This is Cherry Lane. Go that way—the shop you’re looking for is on this street right under that spike.”
    “What’s the spike?” Chris had trouble keeping the awe out of his voice. “It’s huge.”
    “That, boss, is the GeoCorp District Administration Building. The D.A.B.” Rat stopped the mock bravado and moved in close, his eyes shifting about. “Don’t trust them.”
    “Why not?” Chris asked, suspicion surging through him. Who is this guy?