Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 02 by Evil Ascending Read Free Book Online Page A

half hidden with the blanket.
    “How old are you, Mickey?”
    Half the blanket slipped back over his left shoulder as his hand came out and displayed all his fingers. Rajani smiled. “Five?”
    The boy nodded emphatically.
    Dorothy reached out and stroked his brown hair, “It’s okay, Mickey. She’s a good person. If she weren’t, Rex woulda bitten her.”
    Rajani smiled reassuringly at Mickey, then glanced around the camp. “The truck has Arizona plates. You’re not that far from your home, are you?”
    Dorothy shook her head. “No, we’re from...”
    “Phlaya,” Mickey shouted. As he did so, he pulled his right hand away from his face. Though she did not need it, the firelight fully illuminated the tangle of teeth in Mickey’s misshapen face. They lined up like warped bowling pins behind one crooked incisor. His upper lip rose up and parted as if curtains on a stage, unable to hide Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    his cleft palate or allow him to close his lips to speak.
    With Mickey’s revelation, Rajani immediately caught Dorothy’s hawklike scrutiny of her reaction. Over and above that, she sensed Mickey’s courage dropping pre-cipitously toward panic if she rejected him as had so many others. She wanted to reach out to him, but she held back for fear the boy might take any motion toward him as aggression.
    She looked at his sister. “Your mother died when Mickey was born?”
    Dorothy nodded. “There was lots of blood. I was seven.
    I’ve taken care of him since then. Dad had a girlfriend who helped for a while, but it’s pretty much just been Mickey and me.” She patted him on the head. “If you didn’t catch it, he said ‘Flagstaff’ in reply to your question.”
    Rajani nodded to Mickey.« Thank you, Mickey, » she sent to him telepathically.
    The boy looked at her, then tugged at his right ear. His sister looked at him with a concerned frown on her face.
    ”Do you have another earache, Mickey? Because of his teeth and all, he had trouble with them. I think he has trouble hearing because of them, too.”
    “I think he’s okay, Dorothy.” Rajani held her hands out to the fire. “No one has gotten medical help for your brother?”
    “Orfey!” Mickey beamed.
    The girl shook her head. “My father signed on as a proxxer for Daizaimoku Corp in Flag when my mom got pregnant with Mickey. Trying to save her ran up some bills, which Daisymuck said they’d cover, but at the expense of care for Mickey. They said if my mom had lived and they had her vote, too, they would have taken care of things. Mickey keeps getting sick, so that uses up what little credit my dad has built up with Daisymuck. Andy talked him into selling me to get the money to fix Mickey, but I knew that wouldn’t happen, so I brought Mickey with me.”
    The girl’s eyes narrowed. “So, what’s your story? Black skin, gold stripes and some really hot eye-mods. You one of them exotic dancers from Vegas or something? Or are you a gangbanger from Eclipse way out of your turf?”

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    Rajani was pretty certain Dorothy was speaking English. She understood the first question and would have gone with it except that she knew nothing about Las Vegas and Dorothy seemed to feel the second explanation was more plausible by the feelings she gave off. “The latter.
    Got tricked into visiting Vegas, then abandoned.”
    Dorothy smiled broadly. “Figured you were from Phoenix. You going back?” Insecurity poured from her as she continued. “We have to go back to Flag now, so we could travel together. Safety in numbers and all.”
    Fenix?“I go to Pah-he-o-e-nicks.”
    Dorothy shrugged. “Whatever, gangslang ain’t my Jones. Flag’s on the way to Phoenix, so you can come with us, ‘kay?” The plea Dorothy managed to keep out of her voice rang off her emotionally like peals from a bell.
    So, Eclipse and Phoenix are