Omega Point Read Free Page B

long as a wet Wednesday. Teeth glinted in the moonlight. A tiny Roman centurion's helmet sat atop a blockish head. A damp, heavy smell hit Richards like a billiard ball in a sock.
      "A bear," said Richards, savouring the cocktail of mild surprise and terror his new body furnished him with.
      "Damn right," said the bear. It jabbed a dagger-long claw at Richards' face. "By all rights I should eat you, sunshine."
      "I'd rather you didn't," said Richards.
      The bear didn't. "It's your lucky day. No devouring of prisoners," it said. "Regulations."
      "Oh, good," said Richards.
      "But hey!" The bear smiled a forest of teeth and held up a claw. "I can do this." The bear punched him full in the face, and Richards found the stars the sky was missing.

CHAPTER 3
    Where's Waldo?
     
    "No. Absolutely not." Chures pushed his chair back from the conference table and stood. He leaned forward, pressing his fingertips onto the table's active glass surface.
      "The decision's been made, Agent Chures," Deputy Director Sobieski, his perfect eugene face hard, stressed the title. "Klein has all the relevant clearances, and a valid freelance license. His partner's in the Reality Realms right now. Klein is qualified and invested. Surely you can see he's a good choice."
      The others in the room watched in silence: Veronique Valdaire with her phone Chloe on the table in front of her, a fat Texan called Milton with USNA Homeland Security – the big guns, at least so far as human influence went – a fastidiouslooking VIA agent who'd introduced himself as Swan, Henson, a stout man in military fatigues from USNA Landwar, and a beefy-looking Boer, a UN attaché who was too important to have offered his name. There were a handful of others round the table, but Otto could tell the spectators from the players easily enough. The ones who didn't matter wore the fixed expressions of people who did not wish to get involved in Chures' argument.
      "We have plenty of qualified people of our own," said Chures.
      "We do. And Klein here took out a whole squad of them without too much trouble," said Sobieksi, "while he was saving your ass, if I recall. And which of them has a resumé like this?" Sobieski tapped at the table. The area in front of Chures sprang into life, 2D and holo files opening up on the table and above it, detailing Otto's career as a soldier and security consultant. Chures didn't look at it.
      "Sobieski…"
      "It's Assistant Director today, in here, Chures," the eugene warned.
      Chures gritted his teeth. He did not care to be put in his place. " Assistant Director Sobieski. He's too close to the Fives."
      "That's another reason he's in, and that is not our call. The Three Uncle Sams and the machines in the UN have swung it. The Director agrees. The numbers want him on board, so he's staying."
      "Since when did we do what the machines say? It's one of them we're supposed to be bringing down. The VIA works on equal partnership terms between man and machine." He looked around the table. "It did when I signed my life away. Has something changed?"
      Sobieski leaned forward. "Yes, it has, and that's all the more reason for the numbers to want all this resolved quickly. We're all on the same side, in this and all other matters. Don't forget that, Chures."
      Chures stood his ground. "Sobieski, let me take my own team, my own men…"
      "Assistant Director, Chures, Assistant Director." Sobieski sighed. "Chures, sit down."
      Chures kept his grey eyes fixed on Otto as he sank into his chair. The wounds were healing. Wounds inflicted on him by his doppelgänger, an advanced cybernetic android intended to replace him under the direction of k52, others taken at the hands of men in grey, mercenaries of some kind, as he'd scoured the southwest of the old US for Valdaire.
      His olive-brown skin was marred with yellow and purple bruising, and a geckro membrane bandage covered his neck where the remains of his