Paradigm Read Free Page A

unarmed.”
    “So this kind of thing happens to you a lot?”
    “It’s what I do.”
    “Sam,” he said, smiling.
    “What?”
    “My name. Sam Cooper.”
    “Why should I care what your name is?”
    “I think we might meet again.”
    “I doubt it.” She got onto the bike and started it up.
    “But if we did, what would I call you?”
    The girl let the bike roll forward to where Sam was leaning against the wall. She stared at him and Sam noticed a swirling tattoo on her left temple.
    “Alma,” she said. “Alma Kaahu of the Makahua. But we won’t meet again.”
    She revved the bike and shot away, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust. Sam walked back to the car.
    “Who was that?” asked Nathan, a bag of groceries in one hand.
    “No one. A Hakadun.”
    “A Hakadun? You’re joking! I thought they were all dead.”
    “So did I, but apparently not.”
    “Did she have the tattoo?”
    “Yep.”
    “Cool.”
    “Her name is Alma.”
    “You got her name?”
    “Sure.”
    “Oh, man…not again.”
    Chapter 2

    “D o you realize how much that gas cost?”
    They were sitting in the flickering light of a small campfire beneath a ragged ironwood tree surrounded by dense bushes of stunted manzanita. It was some way off the road, but Sam didn’t believe in taking chances, so the GTO was parked close to the largest clump of manzanita and covered in a dark green tarp.
    He sighed and tried to ignore Nathan. He didn’t like thinking about money or barter, preferring to meander through life with more of a “something-will-turn-up” approach.
    Nathan, on the other hand, thought about little else.
    “I said—”
    “I heard you.”
    He was lying on his back, staring at the night sky and gnawing on the last bit of the rabbit (or whatever it was—something with pretty big ears, anyway) that they’d had for dinner. The air was cool after the heat of the day and he really, really didn’t want to talk about the car.
    Nathan wasn’t about to be put off so easily. He was squinting at his account book and adding up columns of figures. Sam hated that book.
    “If I convert the stuff we traded to actual cash money, then...”
    “I don’t want to know.”
    “But—”
    He rolled over and glared at Nathan.
    “I don’t want to know because there’s nothing we can do about it. It costs what it costs. It’s not like we can go somewhere else.”
    “Yes, I get that, but—”
    “Look,” Sam rolled back and threw the rabbit bone into the fire, “There’s supposed to be one of those big warehouse stores off the I-99 about a hundred miles west. We’ll swing by there tomorrow and see if we can get you some more stock.”
    “A warehouse store?” If Nathan was trying to keep the contempt out of his voice, he failed utterly. “Sam, those places were picked clean years ago.”
    “You never know. Maybe they forgot about this one.”
    Nathan exhaled slowly, like a parent whose child has just failed math for the third time.
    “There’s no future in this, Sam, not any more. Most of the good stuff is long gone, and even when you can get it people don’t want it no more.”
    “Whoa,” Sam rolled over again and stared at Nathan. “Is this a moment of clarity?”
    “No one uses it. No one has time to make fancy sandwiches and blended fruit drinks, or whatever the heck that glass thing is supposed to do.”
    “That’s why I said you should concentrate on the pocket generators. Everyone wants those.”
    Nathan sighed. “I’d still need to get the parts.”
    Sam stared at him. He’d never seen him like this, Nathan was always so relentlessly upbeat. For Sam, things were about the doom and gloom more often than not, but for Nathan there was always a brighter tomorrow.
    “We could go and look, though. At the warehouse, I mean. You never know.”
    Nathan shrugged.
    “Maybe.” He closed his accounts book and looked at Sam. “Or maybe we could get some light bulbs.”
    “Light bulbs?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And where do you