Odd Girl Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

town, Imani City, for those who liked a variety of restaurants and clubs, plus several smaller outlying towns and rural farming communities for those who preferred their companionship in smaller doses and were more casual about haute cuisine.
    But even the colony’s relative youth, the constant influx of public money, and the leadership’s good intentions hadn’t prevented a dark underbelly from forming on their new world. There were a couple of districts in Imani where the poor, the frustrated, and the otherwise disenchanted among the populace had developed a habit of gathering to express their grievances. Many of those malcontents already lived there, and as the like-minded were drawn in the more upstanding citizens had found it advisable to go elsewhere. Slums, in everything but name.
    Zumurrud District, where Lorelei had said her sister was hanging out, was naturally one of those garden spots.
    It was probably a good thing, I reflected more than once, that McMicking had given me that carry permit.
    The permit, of course, didn’t extend to the Quadrail station itself. The Spiders didn’t allow weapons into their Tube, either obvious weapons or more subtle items that might easily be combined into instruments of mayhem. All such devices had to be put in lockboxes at the transfer station, which the Spiders would carry across in their own shuttles and subsequently stow in special compartments beneath the train cars where they’d be out of anyone’s reach during the trip.
    Agent of the Spiders though I might be, I still wasn’t exempt from those particular rules. Mostly I wasn’t, anyway So I put my Glock in a lockbox as directed, accepted my claim ticket from the Customs official, and headed through the door into the main part of the transfer station and the shuttle docking stations at the far end.
    Quadrail passengers had the option of either going directly to the Tube and doing their waiting there, or else staying on the transfer station until their trains were called. Since I wasn’t scheduled for any train in particular, I took the first available shuttle across the hundred-kilometer gap. With luck, I could touch base with the Spider stationmaster and use my special pass to book a seat or compartment on the next train for New Tigris.
    With even more luck, Bayta would have gotten my message and be waiting for me.
    For once, luck was indeed with me.
    “I only arrived about two hours ago,” Bayta said as we sat down at a table in one of the outdoor cafes. “I wasn’t sure when you were due in, so when the stationmaster told me you had a data chip waiting I went ahead and picked it up.” She handed me the chip.
    “Thanks,” I said, taking the chip and pulling out my reader, my eyes tracing the lines and contours of her face as I did so. Sometimes it wasn’t until you got something back that you realized just how much you’d missed it.
    To my surprise, and maybe a little to my consternation, I suddenly realized how much I’d missed Bayta. She’d become such a permanent part of my life and my work over the past eleven months that it had felt strange to spend a couple of weeks all alone without her.
    But only because she was my colleague and ally, I told myself firmly. I needed her, and she needed me, in this shadowy war against the Modhri. There’d been a time once when she might have been drifting toward feeling something more than that for me. But that time was past. We were colleagues and allies. Nothing more.
    “You all right?” Bayta asked.
    To my embarrassment, I realized I’d been staring at her. “Just a bit tired,” I said, lowering my eyes to my reader and plugging the chip into the reader’s slot. “First things first. Were you able to figure out where all that coral was going?”
    She shook her head. “As far as the Spiders’ records go, it looks like no crates of their description ever made it to the Cimmal Republic. I’m sorry.”
    “Not your fault,” I assured her, trying not to be