Machine Man

CHAPTER NINE

My immediate problem was figuring out how to persuade the Contours to take me where I wanted to go, i.e. to meet Lola Banks. Because I had serious doubts about my ability to control these legs. They had run me through traffic and over a truck and now deposited me at some random place I’d never been before. Then I realized I was being stupid, because I was outside a cafe, and inside it, sipping coffee, was Lola.

My heart jumped, and so did my legs. “No!” I said. This was a nice cafe, with wrought iron furniture and a deep green awning and people in suits munching focaccia; I didn’t want to crash in there and embarrass myself. But the legs were unstoppable. It was all I could do to duck beneath the doorway, and then I was inside. Heads turned toward me. Eyes widened. Pasta hung suspended from forks. I looked like a vagrant, you may recall. Plus I was six-foot-six, and had titanium hooves. This was exactly what I didn’t want. Lola turned toward me.

Her hair was in a pony-tail, and seemed resentful about that. She wore a long dress, a yellow one. It billowed unexpectedly in the chest and shoulders, but gripped her like death under the arms, as if designed for a person with very different specs. Like maybe a chimpanzee. But Lola’s face was radiant with joy, as if nothing mattered except that I was here, and I grinned, because I felt the same way.

39.