Read Holy Fire for Free Online Page B

the wrist-fans and put them away. She peeled off the gloves into shredded strips and dropped them into a recycler. That had been morethan enough for a first try. If she ever entered Warshaw’s palace again, she’d use top-of-the-line datagloves from work, and some decent spex. Mia felt nauseated. And obscurely disappointed. And deeply cheated. And desolately sad.
    She walked down a crooked aisle among Stuart’s phalanx of machines, breathing hard and trying to clear her head. She walked the length of the barn, down among the new machines. At the far end of the building she turned and headed back. She felt better now. Walking always helped her.
    “Come with me to Europe,” a woman said aloud. Mia stopped.
    “We don’t have time for Europe. Or the money,” a man grumbled. The two of them were sitting together on a blanket on the floor, in an aisle among the machines. The man wore a big padded jacket and dirty leggings and big scuffed boots; he had a pair of glittering spex propped on his forehead. The woman wore a very peculiar garment, a tentlike brown poncho somehow suspender-strapped to a baggy pair of pleated harem pants. They’d been working together at a CAD rig. They’d stripped off their manipulation gauntlets and they were sprawling on their blanket and eating biscuits from a paper bag.
    They looked rather dirty. They were talking too loud. Their faces were strange: unlined, lithe. Their gestures were sharp and abrupt. They seemed very upset about something.
    They were young people.
    “They could spin that polymer in six days in Stuttgart,” said the girl. “Six hours, maybe.”
    “Stuttgart’s not a real answer. At least here we’ve got some connections.”
    “That old man only keeps us here ’cause he likes to watch us play! We need some
vivid
people. People like us. In a place where it’s happening. Not like this museum.”
    “We’ll never get anywhere in Stuttgart. You knowwhat the rents are like in Stuttgart? Anyway, are you saying we’re not vivid? You and me? We gotta be vivid in our own way, on our own ground! It doesn’t mean anything, otherwise.”
    Mia walked past them, pretending not to eavesdrop. They paid her no attention. She sought out Mr. Stuart behind his counter. Stuart was digging with a multitool in the silvery innards of a broken helmet.
    “I’m done, for now,” Mia said.
    “Great,” Stuart said indifferently, tucking a spex monocle into one eye.
    “Tell me about those two young people over there, the ones doing CAD work.”
    Stuart stared at her, his monocle gleaming. “Are you kidding? What business is that of yours?”
    “I’m not asking you what networks they’re accessing,” Mia explained. “I just want to know a little about their personal lives.”
    “Oh, okay, no problem,” Stuart said, relieved. “Those kids are in their twenties. Always got some little project going, you know how it is at that age. No sense of time scale, lots of energy to waste, head in the clouds. They make clothes. Try to.”
    “Really.”
    “Clothes for other kids. She designs them, and he instantiates them. They’re a team. It’s a kid romance. It’s cute.”
    “What are their names?”
    “I never asked.”
    “How do they pay you for the access time?”
    Stuart said nothing. Pointedly.
    “Thanks,” Mia said. She went back to eavesdrop at greater length. The young people were gone. Mia quickly snagged her cashcard from the entranceway. There wasn’t much left on the card, for Stuart’s rates were very cruel to strangers. She hurried out of the building.
    The boy and girl had backpacks slung over their shoulders and were walking uphill toward a bus stop.
    When the bus arrived, Mia climbed aboard behind them. They sat in the back. Mia sat near them, across the aisle. They took no notice of her. Young people didn’t like to notice old people.
    “This town,” the girl announced bitterly, “is boring me to death.”
    “Sure,” the boy said, yawning.
    “I’m