Free Canvas Skies (Reliance on Citizens Makes Us Great!) by S. L. Wallace Page B

year of weekly
“board meetings.” And although we talked about many things, Brody
did not mention Aimee again.
    Each morning, after he left for work,
Eberhardt and Aimee picked me up, and we all went to work at the
gallery. We'd been helping her prepare for Art Fantastique's grand
opening.
    That first afternoon, Guy brought us lunch.
It seemed like Aimee had something on her mind, but when I asked
her about it, she looked at Eberhardt and said it was nothing that
couldn't wait. I knew better than to push. Whatever it was, she
would bring it up in her own time.
    The next day, Guy as Richard, took me out to
lunch alone. And the next. That was the first day our photo made
the front page of the tabloids with the headline, Love at Last? The
article related some of the information Guy had asked Raquelle to
plant about me, such as that I'd recently moved to Tkaron from
Vanover, a large metropolitan center on the west coast.
    Every afternoon, I took some time to sleep
while Aimee worked at the shop. I woke each evening when she
returned home. Her dinner was my breakfast. Then I returned to
Brody's to begin another night of vigilance.
    On my fourth night on the job, our
conversation centered around the tabloid article and photo.
    “You're from Vanover?” Brody asked.
    “No, I was born and raised in Tkaron.”
    “How are you going to convince people? What
if they do an interview?”
    I shook my head. “I don't know, I guess I
haven't really thought about that.”
    “But you think of everything! Maybe you
should ask Guy to take you on vacation. Then you could familiarize
yourself with Vanover.”
    “Maybe...or I could just ask Raquelle for
some current information about the city.”
    “Raquelle?”
    “Uh...” I'd slipped up. I'd begun to trust
Brody, but Raquelle hadn't, and I needed to respect her wishes.
“She's just a friend who's good at finding out about things.” It
was lame, but Brody let it go.
    “It helps to know people.”
    I smiled. “It certainly does. Favorites?” I
asked, and he nodded.
    We'd begun a word game in which we took
turns asking each other about favorite colors, foods, songs and so
on. The game had evolved to include more open ended questions such
as, “Describe the neighborhood where you grew up.” It helped to
pass the time each night until Brody fell asleep.
    I'd learned a lot about him. Until he became
the CEO of CalTech, he'd never been extremely wealthy. This had
kept Brody relatively safe. His family wasn't wealthy enough to be
a threat, yet they were definitely above Working Class. Because of
this, Brody didn't take his social status for granted. However,
he'd also never become accustomed to the cutthroat attitude it took
to stay at the top, and that caused him a great deal of
anxiety.
    That night, after Brody fell asleep, I once
again thought about the Divide and wondered how I could help narrow
the gap. A slight noise brought me to the present. Someone was at
the door. I sensed it even before the latch slid out of the strike
plate.
    I slid off of the sofa and crouched in the
darkness. My fingers curled tightly around the sliver hilt of my
dagger; my muscles tensed. The door silently swung open, and the
shadow of a large muscular man entered the living room. He held a
piece of paper next to the keypad and was just about to punch in
the code when he noticed the thumbplate.
    “Shit!” he said out loud. He crumpled the
paper and threw it to the ground.
    I leaped toward him. With no hesitation, the
intruder drew his gun, turned and fired. I reeled back. As I
grunted and crashed to the ground, Brody called out in alarm. I
pulled back and released my dagger just as the lights came on,
blinding us all. The man staggered and fell against the wall.
    I held up my hand and motioned for Brody to
stay back. The alarm began to blare, surely waking every tenant in
the building. The intruder was injured but still upright against
the wall, his gun trained right between my eyes.
    “Keira.” He only