Expiration Date Read Online Free Page A

her watch. “The lesson is that an air of mystery is a good thing. I say we head home and forget surprising Clay. No use in seeming desperate.”
    “Hey, let’s face it. We’re not getting any younger.”
    “That doesn’t mean I’m desperate.” Mylisha set a hand on her hip. “Oh no you didn’t … I know you didn’t just roll your eyes at me. Anyway, I say we let Clay make the first move.”
    “You’re just scared.”
    “Since when?”
    Summer wanted to say: since you broke up with Clay, since your younger sister got the UCLA athletic scholarship you wanted and then squandered it on drugs and no-good losers, since you got promoted into Safeway management and stopped dating.
    “Mylisha.” She brushed a coil of hair from her friend’s face. “Years ago I lost my sister and my parents, so I know what it’s like to feel alone and afraid. Please, though, tell me you’re not just trying to avoid the past.”
    “I’m not scared,” Mylisha insisted. “Come on, let’s jet.”

    Asgoth paced the apartment, alone with the old plumbing’s creaks. It’d been like drawing blood to get a place of his own, even one this humble. Dank and mildewed, the space was stained by ceiling leaks and the former occupant’s splatters on the kitchen walls.
    “I cannot fail,” he whispered into the darkness.
    If he did, he would lose his last vestige of hope. He’d be banished—for a third time. An exile, wandering the isolated deserts of his own mind.
    He checked the wall clock, cracked and askew. “Where are you, Monde?”
    In reply the door flung open, and Asgoth darted behind a curtain. Mr. Monde marched in, an angular creature with a long nose and a knife slash of a mouth. Beneath feathered black hair and onyx eyes, he wore a corduroy jacket that softened his angles. Despite the failed project which had separated them years ago, Monde still exuded arrogance like imported cologne.
    “Are you here, A.G.? Are you prepared to join forces again?”
    “You’re late.” Asgoth slid into view. “I guess old habits die hard.”
    “Aren’t you the ever-impertinent one? You summon me, then spit out ridicule.” Monde wagged a finger. “Last time we worked together, it was your insubordination that cost us. Your indulgences attracted unnecessary attention.”
    Asgoth breathed into the man’s face. “Here, the past has no bearing.”
    “You still have the Consortium’s six other members to convince of that.”
    “I’m moving forward. Soon they’ll have no choice but to accept me.”
    “A town this size holds little interest to them.”
    “I know, they’re still capitalizing on Eugene’s moral ambiguities and anarchist sympathies. Since my relocation here, I’ve watched them build fortunes on the sex and drug industries. They’ve infiltrated the campuses and, even more impressively, the fringe religious groups.”
    “While remaining faceless and anonymous, I might add.”
    “We cannot be apprehended, if we seem not to exist.” Asgoth verbalized the axiom which long ago had been pounded into his thinking. He despised it. He was tired of being ignored. He wanted to be seen, to be feared. “Junction City has potential, Monde. I have a secret or two that’ll change the Consortium’s thinking.”
    “They want tangible results.”
    “They will have them … and sooner than they suspect. The Consortium’s strategy is to erode the establishment’s base, but mine’s more straightforward—bring the structure down with one well-placed explosive.”
    “And Junction City’s the place for it?”
    “It’s perfect. It’s so mundane.”
    “So … rural.”
    “Exactly. No one would expect it here.”
    “Are we speaking of a literal bomb?”
    “If one comes in handy,” Asgoth responded. “Though I meant it figuratively. Fear is a weapon unto itself. It could shatter the idyllic pretenses of this town.”
    “Fear.” Mr. Monde widened his eyes, stepped closer, then threw out both arms like a great bird