The Eidolon Read Online Free PDF Page A

then stood for a moment looking up at the sky. The rain washed down in sheets.
     
     
    I CLIMBED THE stairwell, passing the door of Jenny and Arthur Randle, who were bawling at each other, again. Why the hell don’t they just give it up? Put it down to experience, move on, go their own separate ways and give the rest of us a break. On the second floor, a small pot of violet pansies sat by the red doorway – Cora’s idea; she’d painted it herself. I entered the flat, took off my coat and tossed it onto the chair next to the table with the lamp and the photograph of Cora and me on some Munro. We’d set the camera on a rock and rushed back to pose in time for the shot, giving us a slightly manic look, with Cora’s dark red hair whipping across her face and me with a crazed, half-fixed smile that made me look like the Joker . The almond-shaped face and messy, slightly spiky sandy coloured hair haven’t changed much, but my eyes have. Laughter lines, they call them, but the laughter seeped away without me noticing.
    I made myself an extra strong mug of black coffee and walked into the living room where Cora had concealed the tear in the brown couch with a blue rug. White candles of different sizes stood in the unused fireplace. Cora would light them every night when she came home. The place reeked of incense. She’d taken to burning it when she meditated, and even my clothes were beginning to stink of the stuff, to the point where Chris accused me of being a dopehead. Reminders of her time in India decorated the room: a large wall tapestry, faded rugs on the bare floorboards, a Buddha on the bookcase, squeezed between my books on climbing and her books on philosophy, Taoism and other weird stuff. My contribution to our home was the laptop on the wooden desk in front of the long, thin window – which rattled whenever the wind picked up – and the stack of journals on the floor; last night’s empty beer can sat on top of it. I sat down at the desk and checked for phone messages while the laptop booted up.
    Two messages. The first, the man from the garage. “Hi Robert, it’s Alf Barlow here. ’Fraid it’s not good news with the bike – the frame’s cracked the whole way through. If I could weld it together, I would, but it wouldn’t hold. It’s a death trap. It’d be cheaper to buy a new bike. Anyway, eh, give me a call when you get this.”
    Great.
    The second, Danny’s voice. “Robert, can you take your snow shovel? I can’t find mine. Think we’ll be okay with one between us. Only four weeks to go!”
    Four weeks till Tibet and he’s already packing. Only four weeks.
    I opened my inbox. The first message didn’t help. It was a knock-back from the Journal of Physics about my recent submission.
    Unfortunately, we feel that your research needs to be further forward before it justifies publication in this journal. However we would welcome a resubmission when you have validated your results.
    Well, that’s not happening now, is it? What a fucking day .
    Things got worse. The next email was from the lab, untitled. Maybe some kind of explanation. All the text said was ‘Update’. I clicked open the attachment as the phone rang.
    “Robert, is that you?” It was Chris.
    “Yeah, I’m just logging...”
    “Don’t open it!”
    “What?”
    “The email from the lab – don’t open it!”
    Too late. The screen flashed and flickered as fleeting programs and documents and files haemorrhaged down some invisible plughole. I dropped the phone. “No...” I punched into the settings and found the remote access enabled, and not listening to commands to turn it off.
    “Shit!” The chair toppled over behind me as I shot to my feet. I pressed and held the power key, but not before the curser blinked, having completed its task. I picked up the phone.
    “Robert?”
    “This happen to you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Could you trace it?”
    “No, it’s fixed the boot sector and overwritten the files. They got my backup,