Read Paradigm (9781909490406) for Free Online Page B

head. He’d had enough of their company already. From the direction of the group a buzz of whooping and general excitement leaked out into the night and, more than anything else, he just wanted to be alone and get himself together. He resisted the temptation to put the man directly in his place and gestured towards the shelter.
    â€˜I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘I’m going to wait for a while.’ He pointed to the FreeScreen terminal. ‘I need to do some research—missed my chance while we were down there.’
    The man opened his mouth to protest then closed it again. He looked at Carter carefully.
    â€˜As you choose,’ he shrugged and then nodded in an offhand manner, folding into the group that were beginning to leave. They half-skipped, half-ran together in the direction of the Community, whooping and cheering. From what Carter knew of where he was, the centre was about an hour’s walk south.
    He watched as the group split, joining together again in smaller clumps as their heads bobbed off into the distance. He could still hear their conversation, high spirited and punctuated with chirrups of excitement, but it wasn’t long before the chattering dissipated to a whisper in the moonlight. Within five minutes they were completely out of sight and all he could hear was silence. His relief was palpable.
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    A s the clouds cleared , just for a moment, there was a moon. A papery globe that winked through the night air once before it disappeared again. In the darkness he didn’t recognise the location of the drop-off point but it was just short of the central track—that much was obvious. The glow of the Community hummed gently to the south west, the edges of the barricade glinting with an edge of danger to the north.
    The long single main road that bisected the community with its arterial spurs jutting sideways from the central track wound its way through to the Community like a ribbon. He checked through his pockets for his identity card and felt its pulse gently reverberating into life. It was slightly warm; hard plastic but warm. The light of an empty Transporter loomed in the distance. He checked the screen: one was due from the south to take any stragglers back with it into the safety of the Community and to their new homes.
    His new home was probably less than a ten-minute walk from where he had lived before with his grandfather and fifteen minutes from the Community Academy. He wondered if his grandfather was still alive, still reachable. But more, he wondered about the hazy words his assistant had said. He had a recollection of something strange that had happened before he had left, but his mind felt gluey and unclear until a thick ball of ice from the sky caught the edge of his temple.
    It was then that the rain really started—great, heavy curtains of water that cut through the night cloud. He darted the few steps towards the safety of the shelter as the ice fell around him. And then suddenly, before he could scan the screen, through the rain, there was something else. The snap of a twig, the rustle of a branch—something that caught his attention so acutely, he could feel it breathing. There was someone watching him. Through the falling darkness he craned his eyes until he could see it through the torrents: a figure somewhere in the clump of trees on the other side of the road. It was small—a girl. And she was waving to him.
    â€˜Carter! Carter Warren! I need to talk to you.’ He blinked through the rain and squinted; it was definitely a young girl, with long silver-blonde hair. She lifted her arms, wildly flailing in Carter’s direction from the other side of the track.
    â€˜Carter!’
    â€˜How do you know I am here?’ Carter whispered. With the rain and the voice came dizziness, and two chunky ice balls to the cheek knocked him to one side of the shelter, his legs sinking downwards before the light of the oncoming