Hex by Rhiannon Lassiter Read Free Book Online

said dryly and Kez realized with relief that they were reconciled again.
    â€œWhen did I check out?” he asked, studying the lines of type.
    â€œTomorrow,” Raven told him. “When we move into our apartment.”
    â€œAnd where is this apartment?” Wraith asked, his voice impassive.
    â€œThe Belgravia Complex.” Raven shrugged. “It’s full of media people, null-brainers, and phoneys. But I guess we can stand it for a while.”
    â€œElectric!” Kez said under his breath. He had decided that, whatever the risk, he wasn’t about to get separated from his newfound companions just yet.

3
STRANGE MATTERS
    Raven and Kez moved into the Belgravia Complex the next afternoon in style. Wraith had gone to find the Countess, unwilling to participate in arranging for an apartment, an action he hadn’t condoned, so they went ahead without him. The apartment Raven had rented at an astronomical price was luxurious in the extreme, and the furnishings that arrived in a huge transit a few minutes after their flitter pulled up outside the complex were equally so. According to Raven, the apartment had originally been fitted out in pale pastels but, unbeknownst to Wraith, she had ordered decorators to refit it according to her specifications.
    As the people from the furnishing company moved their new possessions into the apartment, Kez began to get quite a comprehensive idea of what Raven’s preferences were. Apparently she favored dark colors, particularly deep crimson and russet-brown. She also liked loud music. Technicians were rewiring the apartment’s music system to accommodate the industrial-strength megawatt speakers Raven had requested, and the first thing she did when the furnishings were moved in was to call up a music company and order what sounded like half their listings. Kez hadn’t heard of any of it, but when the lasdisks began to stack up in the lounge, he privately decided it was ganger-style music. Some was relatively recent, jetrock and acidtechno, but there were reissues from way back in the late twentieth century with the most dismal and depressing lyrics he had ever heard.
    â€œIt’s fin de siècle music,” Raven told him, when he protested. “It’s got realism. Those musicians saw the deluge coming and they weren’t afraid to say so, when the politicians were too scared to admit it.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Kez asked, straining to be heard over the crashing backbeats of the sound system.
    â€œThe technological age,” Raven replied, turning the music down a fraction in consideration for his ringing ears. “The loss of history in the march of progress. How do you think the genetics experiments came about? Throughout the whole of the twenty-first century, scientists tried to improve people to bring them into line with the new technology. Science took over the world—that’s how come London shot three kilometers into the sky.” She laughed, as she flipped through the assortment of disks. “The only reason it isn’t even higher was that the cities slowed down a bit after the crash of New York; and they’d reached five kilometers before the supports gave way.”
    â€œCould that happen here?” Kez asked, alarmed for the first time in his life about the city’s stability.
    â€œNo chance.” Raven grinned at his expression. “New alloys, new building techniques. Terrorists tried to blow up LA in 2314 and couldn’t do any more than smash a few bridges. The skyrises are here to stay.”
    Raven wasn’t really in a mood for conversation and Kez could only stand so much of the thumping music. Leaving her to play with the system, he went out to explore the complex, armed with the fake IDs that had arrived by registered courier as they moved in. With an account balance of 800 credits Kez was ready to sample some of Belgravia’s much vaunted facilities.
    The