Soulminder

Soulminder by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Soulminder by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online
Authors: Timothy Zahn
stepping forward to help him unfasten the mike from his coat. “ Nightline was the last one on your schedule.”
    “ Your schedule, you mean,” Sommer reminded him wearily. “None of this was my idea, if you recall.”
    The other smiled. “You should have thought of that before you became famous,” he joked. “Anyway, the morning programs start at six—”
    “Do me a favor and tell them I died overnight, will you?” Sommer told him, digging his knuckles into his eyes. “Death by overexposure, or something.”
    The manager chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, Doctor—everyone’s got enough of you on file to cover half a dozen programs if they have to. Not to mention a hundred people standing in line to comment on your discovery. You have a car here?”
    Sommer shook his head. “I left it back at the hospital. Probably got fifteen parking tickets on it by now.”
    “No problem.” The other caught the eye of one of the security guards, beckoned him over. “Blake, Dr. Sommer needs a ride home. Make sure he gets there all right, and fend off any late-night vultures and paparazzi, okay?”
    “Sure, Mr. Hardin,” the guard said genially. “My car’s out front, Dr. Sommer.”
    Sommer swallowed as the other led the way through the maze of cameras and cables and lights. The thought that reporters and commando photographers might be lurking in wait for him at all hours was one that hadn’t occurred to him before, and it sent an unpleasant chill down his back. To lose all chance of a private life in a single day—
    No , he told himself firmly. It’s just a temporary notoriety. That’s all. Nothing that’ll last past the end of the month.
    Still, he felt his stomach tensing as he and Blake headed across the lobby toward the big glass doors. No one was visible, but there were lots of places out of view where the paparazzi could be hiding. They stepped out into the cool night air …
    No flashes went off. No one jumped from behind the low shrubs shouting questions.
    “This way, Dr. Sommer,” Blake said, leading the way across the circle drive toward the front parking lot.
    Sommer followed, feeling relief and, paradoxically, a faint stirring of disappointment. He scowled at the latter; he was not—was not —going to be one of those who became addicted to fame—
    He’d reached the middle of the circle drive when, fifty feet away, a pickup truck suddenly lunged away from the curb and headed toward him.
    He paused, feeling his emotions re-mix themselves. So there had been a reporter lying in wait for him …
    And with fatigue and resentment dimming his brain, it was another second before it registered that the truck wasn’t slowing down. Was, in fact, still accelerating.
    Directly toward him.
    He tried to run. But it was far too late for that. Dimly, through the sudden rush of blood in his ears, he could hear Blake’s shouts as the other sprinted back in a futile attempt to help. Could hear the screams of the driver, slurred and angry and obscene.
    Could feel the awful impact as the truck rammed into him, sending him hurling into darkness.
    He seemed to be in a long tunnel, a tunnel that glowed with a dim but uniform light. For a moment he wondered where he was, and then he remembered. The truck, the impact, the darkness.
    And it occurred to him that he was dead.
    Dead.
    For a moment he studied the word, and the concept behind it, waiting for the inevitable emotional reaction to hit him. To his mild surprise, there was none. Apathy, he thought at first, or perhaps a completely mind-numbing despair. But it was obvious that neither label even came close to describing how he felt. It was, he decided, more like a deep and restful peace, one that permeated his being so thoroughly that it filled every corner, leaving no visible edges by which it could be defined or even really noticed without a deliberate effort to do so.
    Ahead—a long way ahead, so it seemed, though he could sense that distance didn’t have much

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