Getting Back Read Online Free PDF

because sweat made him clean. He dreamed of running so far that someday he would reach an edge, an ending, and a new beginning, but he never did. The city just went on and on and at the end of the longest runs- when he was bent, heaving, his droplets of perspiration striking to make stars on the pavement- he was always where he had begun: in the grid, the community, the perfect inescapable world of United Corporations. Breathless, wrung out, trapped, alone.
    Then three mornings after his challenge from the cyber underground, she ran by him.
    She wore her dark hair under a cap that day so that in the dimness he thought she was a man at first, given her easy lope and tall confidence. Women usually stuck to the security of the clubs to avoid unfiltered air and urban grit and the sullen stares of the drug-dazed groundlings who lay listless in the shadows. This woman did not. At first Daniel used her passing simply as an incentive to quicken his own pace, keeping up but hanging back fifty feet. Only slowly did the details of the runner's gait and figure make him realize he was following a female. He was intrigued but concerned. She was not just outside, but alone- and thus courting risk that couldn't be calculated, danger that couldn't be calibrated. In a world of ever-improving safety, longer lives, and cradle-to-grave security, what rare dangers remained created in ordinary people an ever-rising anxiety. Life had become a series of guarantees, and to abandon actuarial certainty for the sake of an outside run seemed brazen. Because of that he was intrigued. Who would take such a risk? He followed her, the beat of their footsteps making a synchronous echo against the enclosing steel and glass, studying the nape of her neck and willing her to turn around. She ignored him.
    The woman took a bridge across the concrete chute of a dry river and on past the rust of decaying freight yards. Daniel had never come this way. Weeds had rooted in the cinders of the tracks and he noticed white and yellow blossoms on their stalks, a sign of life's tenacity. She darted across a spray of broken glass, ducked through a gap in the fence, and jogged by the rust-reddened wall of a warehouse. She trespassed where whim took her, as if boundaries were something to be ignored. She ran across an overpass, through a wilted square of park, and down an avenue of gray and chipped apartment blocks. Then she abruptly stopped.
    "Why are you following me?"
    Daniel pulled up panting. She hardly seemed winded. Her face was slightly flushed and the exercise had put a sheen to it, he saw, her skin caramel, her eyes large, luminous, and dark. Her figure was formless beneath loose clothing but her face was quite arresting: not just pretty but intelligent, with a stamp of character, or at least self-assurance. High cheekbones, a sensuous mouth. A knockout, really. She looked at him curiously, wary, watchful. He swallowed, using his forearm to wipe his brow of sweat.
    "I was worried," he tried to explain, not really certain what the explanation was himself.
    "Worried?"
    "About you."
    "Do I know you?"
    "No… No, of course not. I just rarely see other runners, and a woman…"
    "So?"
    "Just that you might meet someone…"
    "The only other person out here is you."
    He raised his hands to show they were empty. "I just…"
    "Are you some kind of pervert?"
    "No! No. But you should be careful…"
    "Do you think I can't take care of myself?"
    He smiled at that. "I get the feeling you can."
    She seemed slightly mollified. "You shouldn't follow people. Not women. It's frightening." Her look flickered away a moment, distracted by a thought, and then came back boldly. She didn't seem very frightened.
    They were silent, eyeing each other.
    "Look, I apologize if I made you uncomfortable. My name is Daniel. I saw you and I was intrigued. Women don't run alone at this time. It might be dangerous to be outside."
    "It's mentally dangerous to stay inside."
    He paused. Daniel felt the same