Clade Read Online Free

glass that’s partially retrofitted with skylights and windows of photovoltaic cellulose, yellow with age and the texture of dried aspic. The feeble, bioluminescent sheen of light-emitting bacteria wafts through a few windows, giving the facade a gap-toothed look.
    Maybe this is a corporate front for the black-market pharm Beto rustles for, to lend it some semblance of legitimacy.
    The main double doors are unlocked. Rigo steps into the entry foyer, a hollow, gaping emptiness that sags inward like a collapsed lung the moment the door swings shut behind him. Only the faint outward pressure of light from a zebra pattern of biolum strips on the ceiling and walls keeps him from suffocating. He walks past what was once a receptionist’s desk to another set of doors, locked. Great. Now what?
    A faint insect whine assaults his right ear. He turns toward the flitcam, can’t see it in the dim light. A moment later the door in front of him opens.
    “It’s about time.” Beto, framed in darkness, gestures for Rigo to follow him into the building.
    They step onto big squares of pressed lichenboard laid down on the concrete and tattered carpet. The boards—relatively new—harbor deodorizers, molecular disassemblers, and sterilizing bots. They release a pleasant aroma, a mixture of lavender and clove that barely masks an ammonia-laden undercurrent of urine.
    As Rigo’s eyes adjust, the interior space gradually solidifies, takes shape. “Nice place you got.”
    Overhead, a latticework of aluminum joists and beams support a Rubick array of plastic cubes. Tiny, densely packed rooms, stacked in layers, and accessed by ladders and catwalks. Blankets and foam padding cover the floors of some cubes, creating a colorful patchwork. In other cubes, Rigo can discern the splayed silhouettes of bodies sprawled in midair.
    “Let’s go to my office,” Beto suggests.
    At a ladder tucked between two rows of cubes set on the floor, Beto grips the rails and hauls himself upward. Boots clanking on the steps, Rigo follows him up several levels to a narrow gangway. Looking down, Rigo sees that people have draped blankets, black plastic, or cardboard over the walls, ceilings, and floors of the cubes to create private compartments. Between their footsteps, Rigo hears the metronome plop of water from one of the drip lines feeding the cubes. Tick tick. Steady as a clock.
    “In here,” Beto says. He slides aside a panel to one of the cubes, shuts it behind them.
    An Oriental rug covers the scratched plastic floor. Colorful crepe-paper lanterns dangle from the ceiling, casting an eerie red glow. A wicker-frame papasan occupies one wall, sits across from a foldable desk. The cube butts up against a window in the curtain-glass skin of the building, offering a view to the north of the San Francisco Bay. Every now and then a train streaks by, slithering through the valley like entwined eels that separate and rejoin in a ballet of silver flashes.
    Rigo turns back to the cubicles. They remind him of a laboratory maze, filled with rats. “Who are all these people?”
    “Guests.”
    Rigo settles into the papasan. “Like in a hotel?” Beto ignores his sarcasm. “Something like that. Tourists who have no place else to go for a vacation.”
    “Some vacation.”
    Beto waves a hand, circumspect. He walks behind his desk and eyes Rigo with a jaundiced, predatory gaze. “I need your help, bro.”
    Rigo tenses. Here it comes.
    Beto leans forward, bracing his hands on the front edge of the desk. “I need you to make another delivery.”
    Rigo shakes his head, pushes himself out of the gelbag to leave. “Sorry, man. I already told you. The job for Mama was a onetime deal.” It was a mistake to come. He should have begged off. Listened to his better judgment.
    “Just hear what I got to say,” Beto says. “Don’t be a complete
pendejo
for once. Okay?”
    It never fails. Beto has a way of making him feel like a traitor. Rigo slumps back into the gelbag.