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with Hamil trying to contact her and interrupting her meditations, but who could be
sure?
Rondeau rolled his eyes. “We know where to find Finch. It’s only three hours, and that’s
hardly enough time to beat anybody, even if we knew who to beat. A little patience
won’t kill you. Tell you what, let me lead.”
Marla shrugged, then nodded. Rondeau grinned. “All right, this way. Union Square is a
prime shopping district, from what I hear. Maybe a little too yuppie for us, but hey, look
at it like an anthropological expedition. And if—when—you totally hate that, we can go
over to Yerba Buena Gardens, the Metreon, all kinds of good shit.”
“How do you know so much about this place?” Marla said.
“Hamil gave me some guidebooks and maps before we got on the plane. I read them all
while you were sleeping. Speaking of which, I was surprised that a control freak like
you, no offense, managed to sleep on the plane.”
She shrugged. “I knew I might not be able to sleep tonight, so it seemed prudent. And if
the airplane crashes, I’m dead anyway, so why not relax? Besides, I did have my cloak
in my carry-on. As long as I had a little bit of warning, I could have put it on and saved
myself.”
“Letting me go splat?”
Marla stopped outside Crate & Barrel and peered into the window. “What the hell?” she
muttered. “Kitchen chairs? Wineglasses? I thought it was going to be a warehouse
supply store.”
“And so the disillusionment begins. But seriously—you would’ve saved yourself and let
me die?”
She glared at him. Sometimes he was worse than a boyfriend. “Rondeau, in a situation
where I could save both of us, I would. In a situation where I could save only one of us,
it would be me. And before you get all dramatic on me, about how you’d sacrifice your
life for me and all that shit, you wouldn’t die under the same circumstances. If our plane
crashed, the body you’re wearing would die, and your mind would have to float around
for a while until you found a new body, but that’s all. If you tried to take over my body
I’d spit you out like a watermelon seed, by the way.”
Rondeau raised his hands, wincing. He didn’t like to be reminded of his essential nature.
He could pass for human, and his body was human, but the soul, spirit, ka, or whatever
inside that body was something else again, something even Rondeau himself barely
understood. “Okay. Point taken. Though we don’t know for sure if that’s what would
happen. I took control of this body when it was, what, six years old? And I don’t have
any real memories before that. I don’t know what I am. Even Hamil just says I’m a
‘parasitic psychic entity.’ Maybe when this body dies, I die with it.”