Accidental Creatures Read Online Free PDF

And you live in Detroit, where most of the plants are. I bet you could get a job diving without even using Dr. Martin’s influence.”
    “He wouldn’t like it. He probably wants me to do something more, you know, cerebral.”
    “But the point is not what he wants, it’s what you want.”
    “I don’t -”
    “Know what you want. I know. So don’t look at it as a career, look at it as a stepping stone.”
    Helix thought about it. Actually, it had a certain appeal. Of course the drawback was that she’d have to be around people, but Night Hag was right, she needed to get over that, too. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life in this apartment, living off the generosity of a man who had already given her more than anyone could expect. Helix imagined herself floating in a great vat of growth medium, swimming through the viscous liquid, scooping out impurities and gently harvesting sheets of living polymer. It was dangerous work. Tales of vatsickness were detailed and grotesque, but it was practically the only unskilled labor you could get paid for, these days, and if she just did it for a little while, until she figured out what she wanted to do with herself, then she’d probably be okay. Vatsickness mostly struck people who’d been diving for ten years or more. “But you know,” she said, giving voice to her fears, “I don’t like people to see me.”
    “I know. But you shouldn’t care. There’s nothing wrong with you. That bad time you had, before, when you were younger, that was kids, Helix. Grown people aren’t that bad, and besides, fuck them. You have to live your life.”
    “You’re probably right,” she said with more conviction than she felt, “I’ve got to go now.” Helix switched off her holotransceiver and paced the living room floor, absently scratching her ribs. She went into her bedroom, threw herself onto her unmade bed and stared at the ceiling. She was bored, she realized, bored and itchy, her skin acting up again like it did when she got this way. Maybe she should go to school, as Hector suggested, but the thought of sitting in a classroom made her blood run cold. Besides, there was nothing she really wanted to do. She took the tax law seminars because Hector had suggested it, and she felt she owed him something. He had been more than kind to her, opening his home to her, becoming her father. She could never repay that, but she could, at least, refrain from being a burden to him for the rest of her life. She got up, went into the bathroom and started running a bath, but the rushing water was not what she wanted either. She turned off the taps and wandered into the living room again, switched on the holotransceiver again, but this time she opened Hector's directory, instead of her own. She accessed his personal records, called up the adoption files, and opened her birth certificate. The document hung in the air roughly two feet from her face. She was born at 10:19 AM on March 12, 2022, in Harper Hospital. Her biological parents were Mabel and Owen Harvey. Of course she'd heard the story. Hector had told her. She was the child of vatdivers. But Owen had died in an industrial accident while Mabel was pregnant, and economic necessity had forced her to give up her daughter. Helix knew all about that, but somehow, it didn’t answer the question of who she was. That was when she left. She switched off the transceiver, took Hector’s coat from the hook by the door, and went out.
    oOo
    By afternoon, the weather had soured, and Chango, who had dallied the sunshine away at the Russell and in Palmer Field, found herself driving her old Chevy down to the hectic, gaudy streets of Greektown, where she parked under an overpass to protect the eternally top-down convertible from the rain. She stood under the awning of a pachinco parlor, studying the street from beneath the rim of her second-hand biopolymer rain hat. It was bad weather for scanning, but she was out of cash, and Mavi had just yesterday