Weight of the Heart (Bruna Husky Book 2) by Rosa Montero Read Free Book Online

Omaá that spoke like a parrot; a helpless, affectionate, squash-nosed extraterrestrial or bicho that had become fashionable on Earth. Bruna had inherited him from an earlier case and had become fond of him, although she was irritated by his pigheadedness and his goatlike propensity to eat anything that could be chewed, the source of his nickname, greedy-guts. The rep felt a stab of guilt. She had left Bartolo with Yiannis before her trip to Zone Zero, and she still hadn’t picked him up. The old archivist always ended up burdened with her mistakes. On top of that the man had been severely affected by the news that the girl was going to die, and even more so by the fact that there was a cure but only for people who could afford it. A few teardrops had rolled down his cheeks when she’d told him before his antidepression pump kicked in. Bruna also found the therapeutic discrimination immoral, but being a rep who had little more than three years of life left, she couldn’t take the girl’s brief future too much to heart.
    The headache had almost disappeared; a certain dullness was all that remained. Bruna took a steam shower, which was much shorter than she would have liked because her water ration had almost run out. She’d have to stop off at the supermarket to buy a new card and some more bottles of wine. She put on some shorts and a Climatex T-shirt, which supposedly protected against both the heat and the cold, although Bruna had her doubts about the truth of this promotional assertion. But the clothes were comfortable and attractive with their bright zigzags of color. Yiannis’s hologram had arrived about an hour earlier; she checked her list of calls and saw that she had received four more from the archivist. He must be desperate. She grabbed a cup of instant coffee, shook it to heat it, and started to drink it as she headed out of her apartment. She raced down the stairs, not bothering to wait for the slow, battered elevators. When she reached the front entrance, she ran into her neighbor with multiple chemical sensitivity. Fate was always nasty like that: the greater the hurry, the more numerous the obstacles. The man was trying to leave the building inside his protective plastic bubble. It wasn’t a very good bubble; it looked old and resealed in various spots, and the guy had to hold the air-purifying compressor that inflated the bubble in his hand. So he was moving very slowly, no doubt terrified at the possibility that his protective bubble might tear and he’d find himself exposed to some environmental pollution that could kill him. Over the past few decades MCS had worsened; widespread and ongoing contact with artificial substances, omnipresent in daily life, seemed to be driving the human immune system mad. Interestingly, replicants didn’t suffer from it, for reasons that were not at all clear. Perhaps it was because their life span was so short; maybe more exposure to the chemical poisons was required. Three years, ten months, and ten days. At least Bruna’s death sentence was good for something.
    The MCS neighbor finally managed to negotiate the gap in the door, and the way became clear. Bruna started to run. Yiannis’s new apartment, into which he’d just moved, was only two blocks away, so close that walking quickly barely reduced the amount of time it took to get there, but the rep liked to use her muscles, feel their elasticity and obedient response under her skin, enjoy the power of her athletic body. So she ran happily for about a minute and arrived at Yiannis’s building. It was a nineteenth-century building—Yiannis had archaic tastes—and the apartment was considerably smaller than the one he’d had before, so the furniture and his immeasurable collection of junk, including an infuriating quantity of paper books, filled the rooms. Yiannis opened the door, flashing a toothy smile. He’d already had his amygdala boost.
    “Lucky you’ve arrived, Bruna. We’re in an absurd situation,