Keeping It Real by Justina Robson Read Free Book Online Page B

me! Who were you expecting? The Lone
    Ranger?'
    'It's notwhatitlooks like,' Poppy sniffed, frowning and crying atthe same time. She didn'twantto meetLila's gaze and added without any conviction, 'Let me go. You're hurting me.'
    Lila tightened her hold and brandished the knife in her other hand. 'What's this for? And who was
    that?'
    'Oww! Please!' She plucked atLila's fingers. 'Itwas nothing really. It wasn't going to hurt anybody.
    It's a magical weapon, you see? It was charmed to put him to sleep so that he couldn't go on the tour and
    they wouldn'tbe able to get him. It wouldn't have really hurt him. Now you've spoiled everything.'
    Lila let her go. 'I've never heard anything so stupid.'
    Poppy rubbed her arm and looked around but nobody had yet come running. 'Please,' she said quietly,
    'Can'twe forget it? Just between us. Don't tell him. Please, Lila. There's nobody else. Just the two of us.
    It was her and me. We're the only ones in on it.'
    'Who was your friend?' Now Lila could feel a trickle of blood on her skin. She felt unreasonably,
    unexpectedly tired.
    'Nobody.'
    'Consider yourself under arrest.'
    'All right, all right!' Poppy rubbed her face and stamped her foot in pique. 'It was his cousin. Okay? His
    cousin from Alfheim. She doesn't want him dead either - only one of his family that doesn't . You'd better
    leave her out of it, please, Lila, she's only twelve . ' The faery looked atLila with desperate, beseeching
    eyes.
    'Twelve!'
    'Please, Lila.' Poppy was floating two feetover the floor with anxiety. Her hands were together,
    begging.
    Lila was suddenly too exhausted to move. Even her anger wasn't enough to keep her awake. 'Poppy,'
    she managed to say, slurring her words. 'Help me.' And then she fell over, her eyes closing of their own
    accord, and she knew no more.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Itwas sunny. The sky was blue with streaks of high cloud. The warm air was full of the sound of
    splashing and the smell of freshwater and seawater alike. Lila was awake but could barely open her eyes.
    She was lying down on some padded kind of flat couch, and couldn't move. She could feel her body, but
    only the human parts. The robotics were utterly dead. There was no reaction to her thoughts to summon
    it to life. She struggled to make a connection, wishing she could rouse it as effortlessly as itroused her but
    she realised thatthe power was out. What she could feel was heavy, the way she felt during the worst
    attack of 'flu she'd ever had. The only reason she could see anything was because one of her eyelids was
    slightly open. The blinding glare hurt because the apertures on her irises were set wide-open, where
    they'd been when the sleep charm had taken effect. There was nothing she could do. A tear formed and
    ran down her temple . Compared to the clinic it wasn't so bad though. And miraculously there had been
    no dreams. Water was running nearby.
    After a minute or two she gathered thatshe was lying on a sun lounger beside the large, unevenly
    shaped swimming pool at the front of the house, notfar from where itwas fed by streamwater from a
    little forest cascade. The light was very warm but the air was full of the forest cool, so it was still early in
    the morning, perhaps before seven. Lila tried moving, nothing happened.
    As the minutes passed she became able to sense more, through whatremained of her human organs. It
    began to dawn on her with a creeping, stomach-churning horror that she could feel the breeze blowing a
    light, flappy fabric againsther skin. Ittold her she was wearing a robe with very possibly nothing
    underneath it. No, surely a swimsuit? Or something. But that hardly mattered. The bare fact of her
    cyborg change, which she had wished to hide completely until some unspecified future of confidence and
    acceptability, when she mightbe able to reveal itto someone trusted, was on full show . Shame and fear
    flooded her, but even they could not make her move. Only her breath-ing and her heart were active