Free Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant by J. Gregory Keyes Page A

tickets turned and hurried off, preoccupied. She didn’t see him at all, but he caught a vague whiff of-fear? He glanced after her. He knew her, he was certain, he just couldn’t quite place the face. Something about the hair wasn’t right, and the eyes.
    He felt a little catch in his throat, an acrid taste on his tongue. It was Lara Brazg. A rogue. A Blip. The raid had been in the UIN. He pictured those who had escaped, radiating outward, rats fleeing a sinking ship, searching for another place to hide. Brazg had been there after all, and gotten away. And now here she was, hurrying off to catch a train. He didn’t hesitate for an instant. It all seemed so clear, what he should do. The next person was done, and he stepped up to the window.
    “Five for Geneva, please,” he said and at the same time, lightly, glyphed the image of Brazg at the woman.
    She didn’t seem to notice anything unusual - probably because Brazg had been there so recently - but the information bounced right out of the ticket seller’s surface thoughts. Paris. Brazg’s ticket was for Paris.
    “And one for Paris,” AI finished.
    He passed her his card. This would nearly clean out his meager allowance, but what better way to spend it? At the restaurant, he paused for an instant, wondering if he should tell them, but no. Brett, at least, might want to go along-or more likely would call the Corps. That didn’t fit Al’s version of the immediate future. So he smiled and put the tickets on the table.
    “We got you a sandwich,” Julia said, a little too brightly.
    “Thanks. Just let me go wash up.”
    But he went straight past the washroom, hoping there was a rear door and finding it. He went out and jogged quickly back to the station. There, he used the few credits left in his chit to buy a black over shirt and pulled it on, hiding his academy garb. Then he was off to catch the train to Paris. He felt a peculiar humming in his blood, a sort of fierce joy that washed through his disappointments like a cold, cleansing stream. He was on the hunt.

Chapter 3
    Al watched the farmland of Bourgogne whip by, startled by the quality and quantity of green, intrigued by the small hamlets with their ancient churches, by the antique feel of the landscape. A hundred years ago - three hundred years ago, if he had taken this same train ride, how different would it have been? It made him feel smaller. His own history began and ended with Teeptown.
    His biological parents had died in a terrorist bombing, and he had never known them. His earliest memories were of the creche. For Al, Teeptown was like an album of memories; any route he took through it jogged constant reminders of his childhood and the lessons he had leamed. He still flushed with shame when he passed the steps where he’d betrayed Brett - that place haunted him.
    Crossing the sidewalk between the old cadre dorms and the Minor Academy never failed to remind him of that terrible and wonderful day when the Grins revealed themselves.
    The statue of William Karges held new significance each time he saw it, as did the parade ground, the quads. His personal story was a thread in die tapestry of Psi Corps history. But out here, he felt unraveled, a strand drifting on an ocean of time. A million years of normal history a landscape that held no clear meaning for him, a huge book written in a foreign tongue. He found he did not entirely dislike the feeling. It was fright ending, but it was a challenge, as well.
    He found Lara Brazg the old-fashioned way, by walking up the train until he spotted her. She sat pressed against the glass like a fish in an aquarium, seemingly oblivious to the interior of the train. Al was not deceived; even with his blocks as tight and subtle as they could be, he sensed that she was watching quite carefully through the eyes of those around her.
    He passed on through the car at a measured pace, trailing a faint hopefully “normal” - feeling that he was in search of an unoccupied