Hopscotch Read Online Free Page A

a Swan, aren't you? Raised by the Splinter monks?”
    Garth was astonished. “How—how did you know that?”
    The man just smiled. “I run the Bureau of Tracing and Locations.”
    Garth thought of Daragon, but couldn't believe this powerful man would recognize the name of a relatively new recruit.
    “Sir, we really must get back to the hovercar,” the BTL officer persisted.
    Chief Ob set the chalk sketch back down. For a moment, Garth hoped the man would buy something, but instead Ob met the artist's eyes. “You need a lot more practice, but keep at it. Don't give up, like I did.” He strolled away, the two Beetles trying to hurry him along.
    Garth looked at his work, viewing it objectively. Of course he'd had no training, no focus, but he did have a burning desire to create. He could learn.
    He plunged into his work with a greater vehemence than ever before.

4
    Eduard lay on his narrow bed, cocooned in damp sheets, his pores seeping a feverish sweat from someone else's illness. All alone, he shuddered, pulling up the blanketfilm. He hadn't expected the symptoms to be this bad when he'd sold his services, but he would get through it. He would survive. After all, he had agreed to this.
    He had already spent four days in a stranger's body, enduring a miserable round of the flu just so some businessman wouldn't miss his stockholders' meetings. Unglamorous, maybe, but it was one way to make a living without going to work every day.
    He squeezed his puffy blue eyes shut, seeing technicolor explosions behind his lids, throbbing in time with the pounding in his head. He clutched the middle-aged potbelly as his intestines knotted up, then swung off the bed and lumbered toward the bathroom.
    He could have hurried faster in his own young physique, but this guy had trouble just moving about, and the flu didn't make it any easier. If the man who owned this body had kept himself healthier, he might not have been so susceptible to getting sick in the first place.
    The man was a busy executive, with more credits in his account than he could spend. Such an important person couldn't afford to be laid up for days. He had board meetings to attend, fund-raisers to throw, decisions to make. After only one day of the flu, the exec had become desperate.
    So he'd hired Eduard, who would be sick
for
him.
    For an exorbitant fee, Eduard agreed to inhabit the exec's body until he recovered. In return, the exec lived in the young man's body, doing his business as usual. His wife probably didn't mind him coming home to her in a virile physique, either. . . .
    In the exec's ailing body, Eduard staggered into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. The cheeks and skin felt oily, soft from the extra fat padding his jowls. He looked in the mirror and saw a stranger staring back at him.
    It was only pain and physical discomfort, after all. With the amount of money he'd get paid for this, Eduard wouldn't have to work a real job for weeks, perhaps even months, if he scrimped. He loved the freedom and independence. He could endure it. No problem.
    Eduard's stomach clenched, and he vomited into the sink. Holding himself and shaking to get over the wave of nausea, he splashed more water, rinsed the facilities, then lumbered back to bed, breathing shallowly.
    Only a few more days, then he could be back to normal once more. It was just a minor nuisance, hardly worse than a bad cold. He took another full dose of medications, waited for them to take effect.
    He slumped onto the sheets, tossing and turning feverishly for hours as this weak body struggled to fight off the illness. Eduard muttered to himself, all alone in the small, stifling room—glad it wasn't his day to meet at Club Masquerade, since he didn't want to see Teresa or Garth like this.
    Even after drinking copious electrolyte-enriched fluids, he vomited twice more that night, then eventually fell into a deep sleep. By morning the fever had broken.
    He showered twice, trying to overcome the