Three surgeries had cleared all the bone
fragments from the orbit of that eye, and she'd kept her sight. Once she
was out of the hospital, she quickly became the best employee Martian
Signal had ever had. She quickly became manager. She quickly undertook
to make several improvements in the daily operations of the store that
increased turnover by 30 percent. She slowly and reluctantly hired her
brother, but his gimpy knee made it hard for him to bend down to
reshelve, and he quickly quit.
Kurt and Natalie hugged, and Lyman formally shook her hand, and then
shook her boss's hand.
It took less than an hour to convince her boss to let them put up their
access point. On the way back, three different people stopped them and
told them how much they liked the article, and swore that the first
thing they'd do when they got home would be to open up their networks
and rename them ParasiteNet.
Lyman handled the thank-you's for this, and Kurt smiled and fiddled with
his PDA and watched the sky, looking for a girl with wings as wide as a
house.
#
I went to the house,
(she said, as he tended the fire, turning the yams in the coals and
stirring the pot in which his fish stew bubbled)
I went to the house,
(she said, resting up from the long flight she'd flown from Toronto to
Craig's distant, warm shores, far away from Kensington Market and
Krishna and Billy and Danny)
I went to the house,
(she said, and Andy worked hard to keep the grin off his face, for he'd
been miserable during her long absence and now he could scarcely contain
his delight)
I went to the house, and there was no one home.
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