PULP & POPCORN

Page 67
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There was a noticeable difference in the humidity, the quality of the light, the very
taste of the air. We'd gone much further than crosstown. I found I'd already mastered how
to take a breath just before the jump to minimize that crushed-lung sensation, so I
recovered quickly. Keeping up with Commander Future, who was already walking quickly,
seemed important. "Where are we?" I asked. Looking around, it appeared to be an upscale
neighborhood, but the architecture was unfamiliar.
"London. Notting Hill." I stopped a moment when he said it, startled, then hurried
to catch up. He was already climbing the front steps of a four-story house. "This is why
we're here." He stopped me halfway up the steps, one arm out. "Can you hear it?"
I listened to the street sounds you'd expect in a late afternoon posh neighborhood
but nothing else. "No. What am I supposed to be hearing?"
"Get closer," he said, moving his arm. He walked up the last few steps and pressed
his ear flat against the door. Motioned for me to do the same. It sounded like a waterfall
inside.
I stepped back. The sound was so wrong, so out of place, that it triggered a basic
fight-or-flight in me. "What is that?"
He grabbed the front doorknob, which suddenly lit up from the inside, scanning him
for identification before it opened with a click. "Infinity. Let's have a look."
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The foyer of the house featured an open plan, straight up, all four floors. Windows
everywhere, letting in as much light as possible. Striking, but ordinary in fashion, it must
have been a wonderful place for a family. It looked like no family had lived in the house for
a while, though, with no furniture or photos or indications of normal life.
A desk sat in the middle of the foyer, and at the desk, a tall whip-thin man with a
grin like a radiator grill and a pointed chin that, taken with his shock of surfer blonde-white
hair, made him look like an exclamation point. He was typing onto the surface of his
antique overused oak barge of a desk, which I thought odd until I got a look at the touchscreen
embedded there.