Blood Zero Sky Read Online Free PDF

would be to let lazy and greedy people leach off Company profits and mess up the bottom line. With a repossession, the Company gets paid back the money they’ve loaned out, and the worker gets to atone for his or her lapse in productivity. It’s a perfect trade. Problem and solution.
    So why is my heart racing? Why do I feel like I’m about to throw up?
    I pace for a moment longer. The feeling has almost passed when I notice something under Dagny’s chair and pick it up. It’s one of her shoes, a charcoal-colored N-Splash Pump, fall collection, the one with the ivory heel. Not a bad shoe—for a mid-credit-level tie-girl like Dagny. I drop it in the trash as I head out of the room. After all, she won’t be needing it any time soon.
    Walking briskly down the hall, I’m feeling much better, as if throwing out that shoe got rid of whatever was causing my discomfort. And why not? I have nothing to be upset about. HR will send me a replacement employee automatically within two weeks. There are people all over the world who would love to step into a glamorous, mid-credit-level job like Dagny’s. And people get repossessed every day.
    The real question is, what should I have for lunch, baked ziti at N-Roma or stir-fry at N-Orient Café?
    ~~~
    I return here over and over again, to this long-ago place.
    A breeze cuts the night, breathing into the white sails, filling them. The air is warm across my face. The only sounds are the slight rustle of the jib and the whisper of the hull through the water. Dad’s cigar smoke smells sweet, comforting. If he’s still smoking, that means I must only be—what? Nine? Ten years old?
    He sits, one lax hand on the boat’s oversized steering wheel, the other gripping his cell phone—this is before introduction of the ICs. His voice is deep and gravelly, but there’s something comforting in its sonorous rumble.
    “Jimmy, mark my words. The shareholders mean nothing. They’ll follow us wherever we lead them. The merger is happening. . . . No, like I said, I’ll be back in the office on Wednesday. You’re going to take care of this. You’re the one with the golden tongue, buddy. . . . What? You’re goddamned right—or, G. D. right, I mean. And you can tell Yao I’ll be back on Wednesday, not a minute sooner. I’m teaching May to sail. . . . Of course she can sail; she’s my daughter! She’s a goddamned conquistador!”
    The dark shape of his body turns toward me for a second, then back.
    “My shrink said I should spend some quality time with her. I told him, ‘Bullshit, my little girl is doing fine—more than fine—she’s going to be the goddamn—er, G. D. president of the Company. She’s going to own us all one of these days!’ But here I am anyway, and here I’ll stay until Wednesday. You tell them if they don’t like it they can go piss up a rope. Now stop bugging me before I run us into a damned rock. . . . Okay, buddy. Cheers.”
    He shuts off his phone, takes a puff of his cigar. I lean over the edge of the stern—Dad won’t let me say “back,” it has to be “stern”—and stare into the black water. The sky above and the foam below are tinged with pink—Dad says no matter how far we sail, we’ll never quite escape the stain of city lights.
    There!
    I gasp. Below the foam, there’s something amazing in the wake. A magical green light shines among the churning bubbles.
    Of course, I’ll later learn that this is just phosphorescence caused by a type of plankton or something that glows when it gets stirred up, but today, and for years to come, I’ll truly, fervently believe that this is proof of magic. I’m on a path marked by magic, and if I look closely enough, I’ll be able to see it all around me. Pointing down to the radiant froth, breathless, I turn to my father—but he speaks before I get a chance.
    “May,” he says through cigar-clenching teeth, “grab the wheel so I can take a leak.”
    Awed by this new responsibility, I jump up, dodging