Free The Miranda Contract by Ben Langdon Page B

of the steps, his face sweating under the lights. He gestured to her and she stepped down, her hands still in her pockets.
    “The pyrotechnics will be housed here,” he said, waving to a raised section either side of a runway. “And along here. Insurance was a nightmare, but we’ve got the flare guns for the girls.”
    Miranda hadn’t wanted the fire routine, but management had insisted. Said it was a tribute to Jakarta. Christie passed her a stylized ray-gun and she hefted it in her hands, testing its weight. She hadn’t ever handled a real gun, but it felt lighter than it should have.
    “Do I get to shoot one?” she asked, striking a slow-motion pose, aiming the gun at the invisible crowd.
    “God no,” Christie said, taking it away from her. “Can you imagine the costs if you got hurt? Leave it to the rest of us, princess.”
    Miranda frowned as he stashed the gun along with the others in the box. Everything about the Australian show was beginning to look like her swan song. Christie hardly met her eyes, probably knowing she was finished.
    The party that night was a last chance to hold on to her career. Sully knew it, although he wouldn’t admit it. Christie certainly knew it too. The Human Tour was coming to a close, and Miranda wasn’t sure what she would be doing after the final act.
    A part of her wanted to slip back into obscurity.
    She could ride her bikes in the mountains, kick up mud and camp for a week with her dad. She could fold everything back where it came from and go back to Riverside.
    Miranda shifted her eyes back to the seating as posters unfurled along columns at each of the levels. Her frozen-smile face stared back at her from the promotional photographs: so confident, her stars aligned.

Chapter 9
    Dan
    D an found it difficult to take his eyes off the electric billboard advertising The Human Tour. It featured a carousel of images meant to capture the freakishness of ubers with extreme close-ups of fangs and feathered appendages, flaming hair and cracking fireworks. He stood outside in the rain for a long time. If he went inside he was selling out. If he left the assignment he was inviting trouble Alsana-style.
    The billboard glowed above him, wiping the images away with large letters spelling out Miranda’s name. The crowds behind him exploded into cheers and shouts. The two suited gatekeepers at the door looked at him with impassive faces. Most of the guests had already arrived.
    “Are you in or out?” asked one of the men in suits.
    “I think I’m in,” Dan said and stepped forward, raising his hand so the security band was visible. The man scanned it and nodded him through.
    There was no sign of Brody at the party, but everyone was talking about her. Some of the guests were wearing prosthetic freak chic . One woman stood with impressive iridescent wings spread out behind her, while two men played at being conjoined twins. Dan ignored them but wondered briefly how his grandfather would feel about regular people pretending to be ubers. Waiters moved in and around the crowds with thin glasses of champagne, and expensive food plated up on silver trays. The drinks seemed more decorated than the sparse black décor around them and the music system was state of the art. Dan recognized a handful of the guests from television but most were just regular people in party clothes.
    “Are you lost?” a girl asked him. “Or just wearing a puppy dog face?”
    She was skinny and had a pixie face with sparkling almond-shaped eyes and a turned up nose. Her hair was short and sculpted and her body was sheathed in a dark green dress. She carried a slender glass of champagne and studied him with a deliberate glint in her eye.
    “This is just my normal face, I’m afraid.”
    “Hardly normal.”
    Dan blushed and wondered how things had slipped from being an unobtrusive observer to being the one studied. The girl handed him the glass and he took it with a smile of thanks. She lifted her arm and without