Novel - The Supernaturalist Read Online Free PDF

onto his shoulder. “Let’s go. We can open the other cuff at the warehouse.”
    Cosmo hung there like a side of meat. He could have spoken then, asked a few more questions. But he didn’t, afraid that if he pestered this tall young man, they would decide not to take him wherever it was that they were going. And anywhere was better than the Clarissa Frayne Institute for the Parentally Challenged.
    Cosmo’s brain decided that there was no room for this new feeling of relief and shut him down for repairs.

CHAPTER 2
Spotter
    The smell woke Cosmo. The bitter pungent aroma of a nearby sim-coffee pot had set his nostrils twitching. And even though the smell was not unpleasant, it was too much for his raw senses. Everything made the headache worse. The rasp of material, the light hammering on his eyelids, and now this smell.
    But even worse than the pain was the thirst.
    Cosmo tried to open his mouth, but his lips were dry-gummed together. A frustrated moan escaped through his nose. Footsteps approached across a hard-sounding surface.
    “Okay, bueno ,” said a voice. Female. “Welcome to Abracadabra Street.”
    A wet cloth brushed his lips, breaking the seal. Cosmo opened his mouth, squeezing the material between his teeth. The water tasted like life, trickling down his throat.
    “Easy, not too much.”
    Cosmo opened his eyes a crack, squinting against the glare of sunlight. The girl was ringed by a corona of white light. For a second he thought . . . But no, it was the girl from the roof. The roof?
    “Welcome back. Though the way you’re gonna be feeling for a couple of days, maybe you’d rather be dead.”
    Cosmo remembered it all then. The crash, the climb, the fall. “Ziplock?” croaked Cosmo, his voice alien and distant.
    The girl scratched her forehead, stretching the DNA strand tattooed on her forehead. Cosmo knew that the tattoo was the signature of one of the various Satellite City street gangs. The ink was probably loaded with an isotope that could be tested by a bar scanner. This prevented police infiltration.
    “Ziplock?” she said. “You got the energy for one word, and that’s the word you pick?”
    Cosmo felt a single tear crawl down his cheek. Ziplock had been just about the closest thing he’d had to a friend.
    The girl saw the tear, and made the connection. She winced at her own blunder. “I’m sorry. Ziplock, that was your friend’s name?”
    “Is he . . . ?”
    “Sorry, kid. He was gone when we got there. We left him behind, remember?”
    Cosmo raised his arm. The only thing around his wrist was a bandage.
    “The electricity fused part of the cuff to your skin. Ditto had to peel it off. You were lucky the vein didn’t pop.”
    Cosmo didn’t feel so lucky, and it wasn’t just his wrist.
    “In fact, Ditto had to do quite a bit of work on you. You never would have made it to a hospital, so we had to use whatever was lying around. Your painkiller drip was a bit past the sell-by date, but hey, it didn’t kill you.”
    Mona consulted a wall monitor over Cosmo’s bed. “Ditto glued the Achilles tendon in your left heel and replaced your right kneecap with grown-bone.”
    Cosmo nodded, aghast.
    “We also had to go into your chest and plasti-coat a few of your ribs. I took the staples out this morning. And, of course, I had to shave your head.”
    “What?”
    Mona shrugged. “It was either that or let your brain fall out on the floor. Lucky for you Ditto had a couple of robotix plates lying around. He used one to patch your fractured skull. Those robotix plates are made of the same material used to armor assault tanks. When your skin heals up, Ditto says you’ll be able to head-butt your way through a brick wall.”
    Cosmo remembered something. “Ditto? The little boy.”
    Mona glanced over her shoulder. “Shhh! Don’t call him that. He’s very touchy.” The girl stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Ditto is a Bartoli baby. That “little boy” is twenty-eight years old.”
    Now