Read The Border Part Five for Free Online Page B

over her shoulder to make sure that all the other mourners had gone in the other direction. Finally, she turned back to him. “I just didn’t think I’d see you here.”
    “I got sentimental last night while I was in bed,” he replied, taking the cigarette from his mouth and flicking some ash toward a nearby grave.
    She frowned. “What?”
    “Never mind. You’re right, I shouldn’t have come.”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “Why did you come?” he asked.
    “I…” She paused, keenly aware that she didn’t really have an answer. “I just felt like I should.”
    “Like some great force was drawing you here?”
    “No.” She paused again. “Well, yeah. Maybe.”
    “The lure of the universe,” he continued.
    “The what?”
    “Never mind. This is why I usually avoid emotional occasions. I get inspired to try saying meaningful things, and then all this garbage just comes from my mouth.” He dropped the cigarette and crushed it with his heel, before turning to walk away. “You’re on shift tonight, aren’t you? Seeya in the office.”
    “Wait!” she called after him. “Do you want to go and get a coffee or something?”
    He stopped again, before turning to her with a puzzled expression.
    ***
    “So they’ll bring it over?”
    She nodded. “This is a diner.”
    “So they’ll bring the coffee right to us?”
    She nodded.
    “And all we have to do is pay for it?”
    “What’s wrong? You’re acting like you’ve never been to a diner before.”
    He muttered something under his breath, while looking around at the other diners in distant booths.
    “I just can’t believe she’s gone,” Katie continued. “I mean, I know she and I weren’t, like, super friends or anything like that, but I was getting to know her and it’s like I think we were getting on pretty well. You know when you meet someone and even though you aren’t friends yet, you know you will be friends if you just keep at it?” She paused. “It was like that with me and Hayley.”
    “The waitress is coming,” he said stiffly. “Do we have to talk to her or thank her?”
    Katie frowned as the waitress set two cups of coffee on the table between them.
    “You really don’t get out much, do you?” she asked finally, once the waitress was gone.
    Simon shook his head, with a slight twitch on his left cheek.
    “Sorry,” she added, unable to stifle a faint laugh, “but you just seems so uncomfortable. It’s like you’ve beamed down from some other planet and now you’re trying to work out how to interact with other people.”
    He smiled. “I promise I’m not from another planet.”
    “So what’s your life like?” she continued. “Just sitting at that desk all day, keeping the Border under control, and then… What do you do in your spare time?”
    “I don’t really have any spare time,” he replied, lifting his coffee to his lips for a sip but then realizing it was too hot. “I work. That’s what I do.”
    “Down at the Border?”
    He nodded.
    “Do you ever… I mean, do you ever go down there as a customer?”
    He allowed himself the start of a laugh. “Are you kidding?”
    “Isn’t it tempting?”
    “No. No, it’s not tempting.”
    “So how did you get the job, anyway?”
    “I don’t want to discuss specifics,” he replied, trying once again to sip from his coffee but, again, finding that it was too hot. “What is this, like a billion degrees?”
    “How many levels down does it go?”
    At this, he froze, seemingly a little cautious.
    “There’s more than three, right?” she continued. “Each one more hardcore than the last?”
    He looked around, as if to check that no-one was listening, before turning back to her and nodding.
    “Five?”
    “Katie…”
    “Six?”
    He paused. “There are the right number of levels for a club of the Border’s size,” he said finally, evasively. “Any more than that, I don’t think you need to know.”
    “I want to go further down.”
    “Absolutely