Romani Armada Read Online Free PDF Page A

souped-up metabolism and years ahead of me to conquer the world?”
    Mariana looked awkward for perhaps the first time since Deonne had stepped into the room. “Well, you do, um, stride everywhere.”
    Deonne took two long steps back over to the desk. She leaned over it, so that her face was mere inches away from Mariana’s. “It’s my business to know people. When I take on a project, I find out as much as I can about the people I will be working with. After that meeting in Nayara’s office a few weeks ago – you must remember it, because you were there – the one you attended when you told me about your neural net group and how you deconstructed the survey with the CERN City mainframe?”
    Mariana’s brow lifted just enough to tell Deonne the woman remembered the meeting.
    “I made a point of finding out about you,” Deonne told her. “Do you know what I discovered?”
    Mariana licked her lips. “Nothing illegal and probably nothing exciting.”
    “Not from your perspective, perhaps. It all depends on the spin.” She shook her head. “If you tell another living soul what I’m about to tell you, I swear I will pummel you to death with my boots—while I’m wearing them and I will enjoy doing it. Clear?”
    Mariana nodded, her eyes locked on Deonne’s.
    “I discovered that you were born only the year before me,” Deonne said and watched as Mariana’s eyes widened, then widened more and her mouth opened. She could almost see the thoughts writing themselves in Mariana’s mind as she stepped away from the desk and back to the door.
    Mariana’s gaze travelled up and down Deonne’s body in a frankly assessing glance.
    “You see?” Deonne told her. “Appearance is everything. Even you judged me by my appearance and got it wrong. Appearance has been highly valued for centuries and it isn’t about to lose its worth any time soon.” Deonne opened the door and stepped through into the mild spring sunshine and shut it.
    Her anger was gone.
    Now she was left with nothing but sheer boredom to get her through yet another day in the twenty-first century. “Crap,” she murmured.
    She thought of Justin and tried to dismiss the thought. Thinking of Justin only made her feel lonely and sad and miserable.
    What was he doing? She couldn’t even make an educated guess, because there was no parallel time frame for her to reference. The one time she had tried to explain her loneliness to him by asking him what he did while she was stuck in history, Justin had used Relativity theories to explain that to her, he was in all times and all places at once, for any time period he had ever lived through or was ever going to be in, so at any one time for her, he was doing everything , including making love to her, in all the times they had been together.
    So, while she was stuck in history, he was still with her.
    It was a romantic sentiment, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She just wanted to go home.
     

Chapter Three
    Chronologic Touring Inc. – Sydney Office—2264 A.D.: Justin took a step out of his office. “Who the bloody hell has been screwing with my stuff?” he roared.
    Three other heads emerged from offices and silent cones, all agents, before disappearing again. The support staff working in the pit all glanced up briefly, then went back to what they were doing.
    “It wasn’t a rhetorical bloody question!” he shouted.
    No one looked up this time.
    Rosa hurried around the corner from the reception area, a sort-of smile on her face. “Justin, I think I can explain, if you want to just step back into your office...?” She glanced over her shoulder toward the pit.
    He looked her over, wondering why, of all the people that might come running when he yelled, Rosalinda the human receptionist was the one that appeared. Curious, he stepped aside and let her move into his office first. He followed her in and shut the door. “So, what’s going on?” he demanded. “I get back from Canada and look at this