Achilles choice

He grew tired of waiting for a response. “We don’t know each other, but we will both be Linked now. Special people we are.” He grinned infectiously, and she thought of Sean, lost love, left a world away. “Perhaps we could spend some time..

Her smile was broken from overuse. She said, “I think we both need rest.”

It sounded stupid; small wonder if he didn’t take the hint. “Soon. We are both staying at the MGM Grand Hotel?”

The car had stopped for a traffic light. Jillian opened the car door and stepped out. To the astonished Bulgarian she said, “Later. Sorry.”

She just couldn’t face any more faces.

The traffic was moving again. She wove her way to the curb in a blare of horns, stepping on bumpers, vaulting over hoods, swinging across anoverhead rail. She was too tired to word-dance with a man on the make; but not too tired for fellrunning in traffic.

Did she have to go to the MGM Grand? Her luggage would be going there, and she’d need a phone to get a reservation elsewhere. She would regret her rudeness later. Send him flowers? Ask him to dinner and apologize? She might need Jorge as an ally. She looked about her for a subway entrance.

The old concrete had taken on a thousand different shades. Time and travelers had worn ruts in the floor. The shops, gates, ticket dispensers, and barber booths varied from sparkling new through venerable to decrepit. The lighting was uneven; one could imagine muggers in the shadows.

Parts of H. P. Lovecraft’s “Dream Quest” had been filmed in these ancient tunnels, ten years before Jillian was born. Those were the scenes where Carter lived among the ghouls.

Jillian used her credit disk to summon food from a noodle dispenser. She ate while she unraveled the maps on the walls. These days she seemed to be hungry all the time.

She wanted platform 28, an L car. Just get her luggage, find another hotel, and go.

It was deep in the bowels of the earth, down an escalator that seemed to run all the way to Hell. New York’s subways had a bad old reputation. Charles

Bronson and Bernhard Goetz no longer sprinted up and down the escalators — .. but their prey, the muggers, were gone too, and Jillian Shomer could break any ancient mugger in four pieces without working up a hunger.

The platform was occupied. A little girl held her mother’s hand. The girl was maybe eight years old and small for her age, all in pleated cotton print. She had long red hair that might never have been cut at all, falling past her shoulders in a scarlet cascade. She looked at Jillian for three minutes, while a score more of passengers gathered and avoided each other’s eyes. Finally the little girl screwed up her courage.

‘Scuse me,” she said politely. “Aren’t you Jill Shomer?”

Jillian smiled, and gave a small nod. The girl’s mother glanced sideways a little, gave a quick, nervous smile, and stared straight ahead.

A gleaming silver tube six cars long emerged from the tunnel with a silent puff of air. Four cars were marked as L’s.

The little redhead’s eyes never moved from Jillian’s. “I saw you on the vid,” she said worshipfully. “When I grow up, I’m going to be an Olympian! I want to be just like you.”

Jillian’s smile drooped.

The cars opened. The girl’s mother dragged her toward a front car. The redhead waved frantically. Jilhan turned to find a less crowded car, and locked eyes with a tall, wiry man with square-cut brown hair and a florid complexion.

Sean!

Sean Vorhaus gaped. Then he waved, pointed, and half ran for the last L car. -

Jillian followed, already becoming irritated. He could have waited! These cars came through every fifteen minutes. How did he know they both wanted a local? And what was he doing here, and why hadn’t he told her? Oh, maybe there was a message waiting for her at the blasted MGM Grand-There were six people in the car, with seats for at least twenty. Weird. A moment ago it was as crowded as the others. Sean must be at the back. She’d thought he was at the back-The doors had closed.

These little airtight cylinders were in use worldwide. They ran on independent motors and switched back and forth from train to train, from locals to gravity-assisted cross-continental vacuum tubes to tunnels that ran beneath the oceans-and they were too small to hide in. Where was Sean?

She’d missed him somehow, and the other six passengers were staring at her. She sat down next to an old Hispanic woman. Now only a chubby late-teen in loose creased pants, white shirt, and a vest sweater was still looking at her. She waited for the 38th Street platform.

The train hummed along in near silence. The dim light fluttered a little when the car reached its first switch point. The train slowed. The cars decoupled, and rearranged with cars from other lines, clicking back together and heading down new lines.

There was an odd bulge in the boy’s sweater, like a small left breast. The kid was soft, undermuscled, overpadded. His eyes flicked toward her every few moments. Wearily she thought, Again?