New America Read Online Free PDF Page B

worried—”
    I ended the call.
     
    ☼
     
    I
paced back and forth, numb, furious. I couldn’t believe it. Maureen had
abandoned me. She had really done it. I felt as though I’d just caught her
cheating on me—times ten. Because this didn’t merely mean we were through, our
marriage of fifteen years over. It meant I was here, on my own, forever .
    I ran my hands over my face,
pressed my palms into my eyes, and told myself to calm down. I was
overreacting. I might never have planned to miniaturize on my own, but that
didn’t make the fact I had a disaster. There were millions of single people in
New America. Why was it any worse to be single here than in the old world? It
wasn’t. The perks were still the same. I had a house, food, water, security,
whatever I wanted. None of that had changed.
    And she said she’d think
about it, hadn’t she? Maureen might still come after all, when she started to
miss me, when I told her how great it was here, she might change her mind…
    I went to the backyard to get
some fresh air. It was overcast, the clouds low and heavy, and I suspected it
would storm soon. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
    “Bob-o!”
    I opened my eyes. Steve was
in his yard, cleaning his bar-b-que. He came to the fence. “Shit, buddy,” he
said. “What the hell happening to you?”
    I explained.
    He whistled loud and long and
rested his forearms on the headrail of the fence. “How did he get in?”
    “A window in the living
room.”
    “I never heard of nobody
taking a house off the grid like that. Any idea what he was after? After all,
everything’s free in New America…”
    “He threatened me,” I said.
    “Say what?”
    “He told me I shouldn’t have
come here.”
    “To NLA?”
    “NLA. New America. Whatever.”
    Steve scratched his chin. “Sheesh,
Bob. You only been here all of one day, and you’re already the most exciting
New Person I know.”
    “You were in the army,
right?” I said.
    “Yeah…?” he said cautiously.
    “You think you can find me
plans for a gun?”
    Steve immediately shook his
head. “Even if I could, which I can’t, you don’t want to go down that route.
You get busted with a firearm here, you get to spend the next little while
finding out what the inside of a new prison looks like.”
    “Maybe you’re right. Maybe
I’ll print a bat or something…”
    “A bat? You going to walk
around town carrying a bat? Man—you really think this guy’s coming back for you?”
    “I have no idea. But I may as
well be ready in case he does.”
    “Hold on there, buddy. I know
something I can print you. Won’t be a sec.”
    Steve went inside and came
out again carrying a red umbrella.
    “Much better than a bat,” I
said sardonically.
    “I saw it in an old movie
once. Watch this.” He gripped the umbrella how you might a rifle and aimed at
the patio table. One of the glasses on the tablet exploded into countless
pieces.
     “Fires rubber
bullets—perfectly legal,” Steve said proudly. “There’re two buttons. Bottom one
opens the canopy like a normal umbrella, top one fires the bullets.”
    He passed the
umbrella-cum-gun to me. I studied it thoughtfully.
    “You know it doesn’t rain in
New America, right?” I said.
    “Tell anyone who cares it’s a
sunshade. You burn easy. Now—you know what you really have to do, don’t you?”
    “Go to the cops?”
    “Damn right.”
    “They’re androids.”
    “They’re still cops.”
    “Maybe…”
    “Maybe my ass. They got so
many eyes in the sky they know when you fart, even if they won’t admit that.
They could track your mystery man right back to his house.”
    He was right, I realized.
    I nodded.
    “So you want a ride to the
nearest station or something?”
    “Thanks,” I said, “but I
think I’ll walk. I have nothing better to do.”
    “Suit yourself, Bob-o. But
keep that umbrella handy, and take care now, you hear?”
    Back inside my house, out of
sight of Steve, I slumped against the