The Mutant Prime Read Free Page A

normal.”
    Above the bubbling silvery foam, the image of a small woman formed. She was pink, naked, standing on a seashell, hands modestly clasped over her privates. Her dark hair was pulled back into a chaste bun. A banner ran from her left shoulder across her breast, to her waist. Blinking yellow neon letters spelled out the name ANNE VERLAND . The woman’s eyes flashed from gray to gold as her skin flickered back and forth between pink and green.
    Narlydda laughed and clapped her hands. “Very good. I think maybe you should be the artist. And I see you’ve been boning up on your art history. Botticelli would be amused.”
    “I’m glad somebody would be.”
    “Don’t sulk,” she said. “It’s boring. What difference does it make if I’ve got a computerized alter ego? I paid a year’s income for that simulacrum, and Anne Verland has been worth every credit. Half the art critics from Metro L.A. to Gdansk think Anne Verland is Narlydda anyway. And that software’s so clever, sometimes even I believe it.”
    She stretched like a cat in the sun, took a long step, and leaped into the air, tumbling above Skerry’s head up toward the arched skylights in a series of complicated, graceful arabesques. Still airborne, she performed an extended backward somersault and came to rest in midair, floating on her back above the sparkling pool. Tiny seahorses, winking orange and green, floated up to meet her.
    “Terrific,” Skerry said sourly. “I know somebody at Ringling Brothers/Sony who could use another telekinetic trapeze artist. And then you won’t have to hide behind a pink-faced computer program. Or skin dye.”
    “No thanks. I prefer to work with a net.”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of. But this Emory Foundation commission is big—really big. You may not be able to hide anymore.”
    “Then I’ll run instead.”
    “I’m not kidding, Narlydda!” Skerry’s eyes flashed golden fire. “Dammit, you know how I feel about you. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. But it’s time to decide where your loyalties lie and who you are.” He reached for his clothing.
    Gods, she thought, he could be tiresome. She took a deep breath. “You’re probably right. May I decide over tea?” Even as she said it, she regretted the words. She’d merely intended to nettle, but she’d overshot and now Skerry looked furious.
    Silently, he pulled on a bright purple tunic, leggings, boots. Then he turned to her. “You probably need a little more time than that,” he said. His tone was deceptively light. “And you’d probably prefer to spend it alone. Well, fine, Lydda. Take all the time you need. Take your whole bloody life.” He strode away from her toward the door.
    “Come back when you’ve calmed down,” she called after him. “I promise to decide by then.”
    But her words fell heavily on empty air as the front door shut behind him.
    The newsroom hummed like a hive of insects. Curious, horrified insects. The noise broke through Melanie Ryton’s concentration. She looked up from the latest facts on orbital factories to see half of the newsroom staff gathered around the mobile scanner in the center of the room. Everybody from glamorous, bald-headed Nesse, the anchorwoman of the evening news, to Ray Goldfield, the stringy-haired part-time intern, was staring at the amber mech and its wraparound screen.
    Something’s up, she thought. Something bad. Maybe San Diego finally had the 7.6 they’ve been expecting and fell off into the sea. I thought the ground felt wobbly this morning.
    She slipped into her red boots and joined the crowd.
    Disaster on Moonstation, a message tape announced in yellow letters. The casualty figures scrolled in: Fifty dead in subsidiary Moonstation explosion after Dome C cracks. Moonstation administrator dead. Sabotage a possibility …
    Randall Camphill, executive editor and producer, strode out of his glass-walled office. His short salt-and-pepper hair glinted. So did the diamond stud in his right