Grey by Jon Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page B

to speed, and then kicked in, I was agreeably pushed into the seat. Although I was stylistically against speed, I couldn't help but feel a surge of adrenaline and allowed myself to enjoy it because I was heading toward her.
    From the outside, my car was shaped like a giant teardrop with the fat end forward and the back slowly tapering down to a needlepoint. The metal skin was covered with millions of little fibers that felt velvety when it was still, but vibrated at high frequency when the car was in motion. It had something to do with aerodynamics, but I wasn't sure. Dozens of skinny tires protruded below and made the whole thing look like a fat centipede. Mine, like the other RiverGroup Loop cars, was painted the company orange and blue, and on the stabilizing fins, like the dorsal fins on a fish, were the logos of the company, products, and those of our strategic partners.
    Soon we were on the Loop nearing full speed. The white road and the orange guard walls on either side were a blur, but the distant mountaintops passed in stately fashion. We had left the city and were traveling through the slubs, where millions of tiny orange and yellow houses and small square buildings covered the landscape like so many bits of sand. A few of the taller and steeper mountaintops were bare, or unicorned with a transmission tower. All around, in the valleys, the air was thick with a grayish haze.
    "Four point three," announced the driver.
    Releasing myself from the safety seat, I stepped back to the bathroom and leaned over the toilet. Nothing came up, but I wished I could have vomited what was supposed to make me part of my family—whatever nurture, or dna. Finally, I stood, unhappy that I couldn't rid myself of my lineage so easily. At the duralumin sink, I splashed water on my face then studied myself in the mirror. First I closed my left eye and lamented the pinkish tone of my cheeks and ears, which made me appear bothered and anxious. But when I closed my right, and the flush faded away, I felt I looked stronger and in control. This black and white version was the real me—the me beneath the hues.
    Once I got back to my seat, I checked the camera views of the road flying past us. They were clear, but just in case, I asked the driver, "Anyone following us?"
    "Negative, sir," was the answer through the intercom.
    "Nothing?" I asked, surprised.
    "Negative."
    Maybe this was all it took. Maybe Father finally heard and understood. Years ago, he had finally accepted that I would no longer be the dancer he wanted me to be. Maybe today he understood that I could not and would not date Elle. And maybe he saw that our only course of action was reconciliation with mkg.
    The rust-colored mountains gave way to flatter and flatter vistas covered with a crazy quilt of house developments, shopping malls, sweat shops, all interspersed with fields of corn. In the distance, a cloud of greenish vapor tinted the horizon.
    At night, much of the slubs were black, but a few dots of electric light or bonfires mirrored the dozen stars in the sky. During the day, it was ugly, limitless, flat, and dull. Worse, it made me feel insignificant.
    I wished Joelene were with me. She would surely applaud my daring. Several times lately, she had congratulated me on puzzles solved and initiatives taken, but this was the boldest yet.
    The car began to slow, but we hadn't even come to the Gulf Coast yet. I glanced at the red emergency stop button, with its big white E, at the front of the cabin, as if I had accidentally pushed it, but of course, I hadn't. "Driver," I said, "what's the matter?" A second later, Ken Goh's blue and orange painted face filled the screen.
    "I know you just had a terrible ordeal," he said, "and I feel very very bad for you, but your father and the company are under tremendous pressure right now." His eyes, nostrils, and mouth were outlined in dark blue, the rest was orange so that he looked like a tangerine skull. "He is trying. He really really