The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

of—the kind of treatment—well, you know,
fuck
it.”
    And he was gone.
    I rolled out of bed.
    I watched the sun come up over the agricultural coops to the east, the great corporate collective farms, our bulwark against famine. A dusting of snow had collected in the fields, sparkling white between empty cornrows.
    Later I drove to Annali’s apartment, knocked on her door.
    We hadn’t dated for more than a year, but we were still friendly when we met in the coffee room or the cafeteria. She took a slightly maternal interest in me these days—inquiring after my health, as if she expected something to go terribly wrong sooner or later. (Maybe that day had come, though I was still healthy as a horse.)
    But she was startled when she opened the door and saw me. Startled and obviously dismayed.
    She knew I’d been fired. Maybe she knew more than that.
    Which was why I had come here: on the off chance that she could help make sense of what had happened.
    “Scotty,” she said, “hey, you should have called first.”
    “You’re busy?” She didn’t look busy. She was wearing loose culottes and a faded yellow shirt. Cleaning the kitchen, maybe.
    “I’m going out in a few minutes. I’d ask you in, but I have to get dressed and all that. What are you doing here?”
    She was, I realized, actually
afraid
of me—or of being seen with me.
    “Scott?” She looked up and down the corridor. “Are you in trouble?”
    “Why would I be in trouble, Annali?”
    “Well—I heard about you being fired.”
    “How long ago?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “How long have you known I was going to be fired?”
    “You mean, was it general knowledge? No, Scott. God, that would be humiliating. No. Of course, you hear rumors—”
    “What kind of rumors?”
    She frowned and chewed her lip. That was a new habit. “The kind of work Campion-Miller does, they don’t need trouble with the government.”
    “The fuck does that have to do with me?”
    “You know, you don’t have to shout.”
    “Annali—trouble with the
government
?”
    “The thing I heard is that some people were asking about you. Like government people.”
    “Police?”
    “No—are you in trouble with the police? No, just people in suits. Maybe IRS, I don’t know.”
    “That doesn’t make sense.”
    “It’s just people talking, Scott. It could all be bullshit. Really, I don’t know why they fired you. It’s just that CM, they depend on keeping all their permits in order. All that tech stuff they ship overseas. If somebody comes in asking questions about you, it could endanger everybody.”
    “Annali, I’m not a security risk.”
    “I know, Scott.” She knew nothing of the sort. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Honestly, I’m sure it’s all bullshit. But I really do have to get dressed.” She began to ease the door shut. “Next time, phone me, for God’s sake!”
    She lived on the second floor of a little three-story brick building in the old part of Edina. Apartment 203. I stared at the number on the door for a while. Twenty and three.
    I never saw Annali Kincaid again. Occasionally I wonder what sort of life she led. How she fared during the long hard years.
    I didn’t tell Janice that I had lost my job. Not that I was still trying to prove anything to Janice. To myself, maybe. To Kaitlin, almost certainly.
    Not that Kait cared what I did for a living. At ten, Kait still perceived adult business as opaque and uninteresting. She knew only that I “went to work” and that I earned enough money to make me a respectable if not wealthy member of the grownup world. And that was fine. I liked that occasional reflection of myself in Kait’s eyes: Stable. Predictable. Even boring.
    But not disappointing.
    Certainly not dangerous.
    I didn’t want Kait (or Janice or even Whit) to know I’d been fired… at least not immediately, not until I had something to add to the story. If not a happy ending, then at least a second chapter, a what-comes-next…
    It came