EdgeOfHuman Read Online Free PDF

rising before it. As they crested the ridge, Sebastian pushed himself higher on the colonel's shoulder, scanning to where the hussar was jumping up and down and pointing. A soft-edged star, bright international orange, radiated from the welfare bundle's impact point.
    "Careful, fellas -- lemme check it out first." The teddy bear had half run, half slid down beside its animated comrade-in-arms; both their sets of miniature legs stamped impatiently on the building's horizontal wall. Colonel Fuzzy emitted a deep tracheal whine as Sebastian dug out the segments of his poker stick and screwed them together. "Don't wanna get anybody hurt, now . . ."
    He extended the chrome bug feeler over the teddy bear's shoulder and prodded the lumpish parcels spilling out of the crumpled container. Couldn't be too careful; the grinchier gov agencies had been seeding the sideways zones with booby traps. A box of nori sheets could go off with a bang, leaving a scavenger sliced to ribbons by razor-edged repub manifestos and five-year plans. The poker stick's tip rooted farther inside the container but tripped no flash circuits.
    "Come on , Sebastian -- " Frustration dance; Squeaker Hussar's broken-off nose, shorter now than the spike on top of his helmet, yearned toward the welfare bundle. Its bright human-doll eyes widened. "We been waiting and waiting -- "
    "All right, all right. You guys get your tiny asses blown up some day, it's not gonna be my fault." He retracted the poker stick, began disassembling and stowing it beside him in the papoose carrier. "Okay, let's go see what we found."
    Luck, in the form of shrink-wrapped D-cells and, even better, Czech war-surplus industrials, the big square kind that would've filled both his hands if he still had the left one. He'd converted both Fuzzy and Squeaker to run on just about anything that packed a charge, when he'd cut himself off from the Tyrell Corporation's supply line. These would do just fine.
    "What else we got?" Sebastian raised himself up on his forearm; the colonel had taken him out of the papoose carrier and laid him on the wall, the better for it to go rooting inside the container. It and the hussar were in there now, tossing out the packs of batteries, Spam cans, chocolate-covered cherries, off-world emigration forms. "You little pixies." He laughed: both Fuzzy and Squeaker had emerged with a chain of freeze-dried Thuringer sausages looped around their necks in a lover's knot. "Quit clowning around, and let's pack up."
    They hauled their booty homeward -- he'd hooked up one of the big Czech batteries to the alligator clips inside Fuzzy's moth-pecked chest, so the teddy bear was strong enough to carry him and help the hussar drag the sledge-bag along behind them. The colonel wasn't cranky now; through its shoulder blades, Sebastian could feel the contented purr of gears and solenoids.

    When Sarah Tyrell had come back from Zurich -- less than a year ago, when the people who now worked for her had come and told her the news -- she had ordered them to seal off the suite, the entire floor, where her uncle had worked and lived. And died. Thus turning it into a little museum, a monument to Eldon Tyrell's memory, a place where the past had been captured and bottled up. And from where the past couldn't escape, couldn't get out and hurt her anymore.
    Now she broke the seal. The elevator creeping up the angled side of the building halted; a disembodied voice spoke. "Access to this sector is denied to all Tyrell Corporation personnel and other individuals. No clearance status is currently available for this sector. Please exit and return to your authorized work area. Corporate security has been notified."
    "It's okay." She spoke aloud, to no one; she was alone in the elevator. "It's me. Override the access protocols." She wasn't sure how much of a voice sample the computers needed to recognize her. "Umm . . . Godiam, fugace e rapido, è il gaudio dell'amore, è un fior che nasce e muore, nè più