Machine Man (serial)

Page 41.

Lola rose from the table. She offered me her hand, and I took it. As the Contours raised me back to my full height, her eyes held mine. Sunlight bounced off a building across the street and played across her cheeks; the stray hairs that had escaped her pony-tail glowed orange. I felt my heart lifting out of my body. That’s how it felt: like I was leaving my physical body, becoming weightless and untouchable.

A hard shard of light skipped across Lola’s face, a reflection. I turned, because I by now I’d heard the motor, and recognized it. A white van jumped the kerb and began to disgorge Better Future security personnel.

“I think—” I said, but that was all I managed before they burst into the cafe, and people began to scream and overturn tables. Carl yelled at me to let go of that woman, right now, and then things started to go bad.

41.