Emergence Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Soviet Union could ask. “This is America, Dad. You can never have too much sex or too much money.”
    “If you ask me, your wife is the reason why you don't have enough of either.”
    I glared at him. “ Don't bring up my wife.”
    “I am simply saying you could have married someone other than a princess.”
    “No, I couldn't have.” I took a bite of my cheap-ass salad.
    My marriage to Lisa had been chosen purely as a pragmatic measure. When you could read people's minds, you knew exactly what they wanted and what they needed to be happy. I'd chosen her from about a thousand other women because I wanted a relationship purely based on sex, money, and no emotional commitments. I wanted someone who was hot, wouldn't care where the money came from, and wasn't interested in kids. So, of course, I fell in love with her and we were discussing kids. Lisa was still hot, yet even that was starting to matter less and less. I’d even stopped scanning her mind.
    “I won't bring it up again.” Mihailo sighed. “I'm going to need four thousand for the job.”
    I stared at him. “Four thousand? I'm already making nothing off this because of the repairs.”
    “A reasonable price for a man's life,” Mihailo said.
    “For ten minutes’ work?” I said, instantly regretting it.
    “I meant yours.” Mihailo narrowed his gaze.
    I sighed. “Fine.”
    “You're always bragging about how much money you make,” Mihailo said, holding out his coffee to be filled by a blue-skinned waitress with a clubbed tail named Grace. “What happened? Don't tell me the Powers Crash either, you don't invest.”
    I sighed. “No, but I spend. I made six figures last year, and the year before that, but all of that's gone now. Tied up in the house, the flat screen, the game-systems, gifts for Lisa, the cars—”
    “A proper criminal then. What do you give your mistress?”
    I stared at him. “I'm not like that.”
    “No judgements from the mercenary,” Mihailo said, frowning. “But pay the tab, give me the money, and say hello to the Mechanic for me. I'm sure you'll be able to work something out.”
    I stared at him, then sighed. It seemed everyone knew about that little tidbit. Lisa had found out only last month, and she hadn’t been taking it well. I’d need to get something really nice for her to make it up.
    “Yeah, sure.”
    #
    Eastside Motor Hills was a collection of strip clubs, liquor stores, pawn shops, drug dens, vacant lots, abandoned strip malls, shuttered business, boarded homes, and porn distributors. Its residents were folks too poor to move out, hoodlums, hookers, homeless, and, of course, chimerics who didn’t fit into normal society. Case in point, a chick with four arms in a faux-leather mini-skirt, torn fishnets, and tiger-striped bikini top stood on the corner. She tossed her cigarette on the sidewalk and gave me an inquiring look through heavy-lidded eyes clumped with a literal handful of mascara.
    I shook my head. “No, thanks. Uh, not tonight.” I kept walking, hands in my jacket pockets.
    “Suit yourself,” she scoffed as I walked on.
    I crossed Warren Harding Avenue, looking up at a billboard advertising some vague product featuring a glamorous pop star. I had to wonder about the beauty standards imposed by norms. I mean, the hooker had extra limbs, sure, but she was still not bad looking, considering the life she led. Probably could make a fortune at sci-fi conventions. I started to wonder what it would feel like with a woman with four hands when my attention was called back by a homeless drunk ahead of me. The tattered mess staggered out of a vacant lot and commenced vomiting on the corner of a building.
    Ah, home.
    I'd actually grown up in Northtown, an even worse district of the city at one time. It reached its natural conclusion when the populace was forced into Eastside and Southpointe before they bulldozed practically everything to the ground. I was about thirteen then. The spot where I'd grown up was