Keeping It Real Read Free Page A

nodded, satisfied. 'I'll go and get him.'
    'It's okay, I'll go,' Lila said, stepping around her. As Jolene looked puzzled she added, 'Our offices sent
    you a ring, which you gave him to wear. It's connected to our private network through secure branches
    not connected to the Otopia Tree. I could find him in the middle of a Bears game at Alton Park. Not that
    he'd be caughtdead there.' She hesitated butJolene didn'tsmile atthis efficient sidestepping of Otopia's
    global internet. Instead the woman's nervousness returned.
    'I really wish this wasn'tnecessary Ms Black,' she said, 'I hope you don'ttake these threats as lightly
    as you speak of them.'
    'I don't,' Lila said. She regretted her tone as she walked away. Showing some small weakness in front
    of Jolene would have gained her more sympathy. Now the woman was faintly antagonised by her.
    The hall gave way to several corridors and stairways . Lila went up to the second floor and through a
    maze of meandering ways to where a room the size of her entire apartment looked out through a glass
    wall to the ocean, giving a superb view . She couldn't see anybody in it, only a set of pale sofas, a
    seemingly random assortment of plants in pots, and a coat laid over a straight-backed chair. Very faintly
    from somewhere she could hear Stevie Wonder singing 'Blame ItOn The Sun'. Otherwise the house was
    silent.
    She walked to where her augmented and automated senses told her Zal was. The Doublesafe ring was
    on the chair, beside the coat. Lila glanced at it with annoyance, verging on anger, but curbed the feeling
    quickly and concentrated instead on the beauty of the coat. Itwas elvish-made, of tightly woven raw silk,
    sparely decorated with magical sigils thatwere so old they no longer bore any scent or colour of their
    own. The coathad been bleached by the sun. Only the inside showed its once true shade of crimson.
    The outside was a dull reddish clay, worn to white in places.
    Lila touched the hem of one sleeve as she looked around more carefully. The fabric softened between
    her fingers and she let it go quickly, only then realising the fact that the feeling that was nibbling away at
    her insides was fear. She hadn't seen anything elvish since the day she was lastcompletely human. She
    had gone to some lengths to avoid hearing Zal and his band, or any other elvish sound. She would
    have been contentnever to know anything of them ever again. She was glad of the processor that filtered
    her dreams . She did not want to meet the near-immortal she was charged to preserve with her brief life.
    She didn't want to touch his coat.
    It was at this momentthatthe fineness of her hearing became more highly attuned. Itwas notStevie
    singing his old song. It was somebody preternaturally quiet who was standing in the shadows, not more
    than a body's length from her. It was Zal.
    Lila made herself turn very slowly, lest she look surprised . Her heart almost burst beneath the control
    of her Al-self's attemptto regulate it. 'There you are,' she said lightly. 'I'm Lila Black, your bodyguard.'
    And she realised as soon as she spoke that she had foolishly given her real name, not the pretend name
    of the identity she had been meant to assume .
    The flare of her anger fizzed with a curious tang like the citrus twistin a sparkling drink as she
    acknowledged her mistake . Oh wait, thatcouldn'thave been the zing of wild magic, could it? Couldn't
    have been the onset of a Game? Elves, humans and Games were notorious . . . the idea chilled her, but it
    was too late now. No, it was too faint. It couldn't be anything more than her imagination.
    Zal had stopped singing as she noticed him standing there in plain view. He was exactly her heightso
    they stood eye to eye as her anger stung her. She thought he looked slightly surprised but Lila couldn't
    think straight . She was dismayed athow unprepared she was . Itwasn'this looks or his rock star status thatmade her feel sick with nervous tension. It was the sense