Page 55 (1/1)
"I don’t think you’d have bothered callingto take the next step" Her voice turned serious, all the a step for you, Sal Certain lines can’t be uncrossed; certain et you lost Do you understand that?"
"No What lines? What maps? It doesn’t make any sense at all"
"I can understand why you’d feel that way; thank you for not lying to me And as for that nice boyfriend of yours, Dr Ki him with you if you like If you think he’d like to coo more easily if there’s someone who can translate for you, and you’ll believe hiivesomehow, like she was the only one who had any say in what I did with ivesickness and I left hi him," I said
"Good I’ll see you soon, Sal Be careful Don’t trust SymboGen"
"Look, whoever you are--"
The sound of dead air--the absence of sound--fro I was only talking to myself I hit redial, but I knew even as I did it that there was no point The call rang straight to an unfor to identify it So did the call after that
The third call was cut off with the rapid beeping whine of a disconnected nu to wasn’t on the other end any to direct me--and even more questions than I’d started out with And my hair et
Somehow, the worst part of it all was that this was still better than yesterday My standards for living a nor a young couple get a leash onto one of our poodle --a rather unfortunate Ger, since he was so excited by the prospect of going for a walk that his entire body was vibrating We get a lot of poodleto Nathan, before the Intestinal Bodyguard there was a huge delut of poodles crossed with just about anything else Once the i" craze died off, and the shelters got flooded The first few generations died a long time before I ca tih our doors
As Iabout how ht to control an environment that didn’t want to be controlled First we enic as we possibly could and, when that just s worse, we created artificial infections to make ourselves healthier So as the "worse" that cae to our personal environot the dog leashed and escorted the potential adopters out the door while I went into the back to start getting the kittens ready for their visitors The day dissolved froencies One of the dogs got loose and had to be retrieved; one of the kittens was handled too roughly and threw up all over its littere--and kitten--cleanup With one thing leading to another, it was quitting time before I realized that I hadn’t called Nathan yet
"I think I have dog food inher hands in the sink behind the desk "Is there a medical term for that? One that can, perhaps, be used to excuse ood excuse for being absent yet," I said apologetically I slipped on ht, Will?"
"At least you can remember when you’re supposed to co focused on his screen "Although if you want to keep co to coh to do around here to keep us all busy until the end of time"
"So hire someone else; don’t take it all out on Sal," said Tasha
"Out of what budget?" Will asked
Sadly, he was right The shelter had two full-time employees, Will and Tasha; one part-tiroup of volunteers who came in on the weekends to help with the increased foot traffic There was also a janitorial crew that visited the office once a week to take care of the really heavy cleaning That was it Every penny the shelterthe anihts on, and the doors open Pet ownership had increased since the advent of the implants, but all that really meant was that animal abandonment and abuse were also on the rise Sos
The bell over the door jingled as someone came inside I turned, ready to tell whoever it was that ere closed but they could co across my face
Nathan s hiht, and probably got out of bed before I did "I thought I’d coe to keep our plans yesterday"