The Curve of The Earth Read Online Free Page A

Metrozone, and then as they walked along the cracked tarmac paths deeper into the cemetery, the death dates got more and more recent.
    Even the designs of the memorials marked an evolution of sorts: varied and effusive early on, to more uniform, utilitarian later, until almost all variation had been weeded out and a simple narrow rectangular slab became the norm. Name, date of birth, and the day they died. That was all.
    They were passing by row upon row marked with May 2024. Petrovitch’s eyelid twitched as he remembered.
    Those ended, and after a few more serried ranks, a vast field of November dates, same year.
    It took a while to get to walk by those.
    Finally, Petrovitch headed down one of the rows, off the path, disturbing the ragged grasses that were growing unchecked between the upright stones. It looked more or less a random choice, but he knew exactly where he was going.
    Six graves down, there was a black marker engraved in faded kanji, with the dates in Roman numerals. He stopped in front of it and worried at his lip for a few moments.
    Newcomen watched from a respectful distance, hands clasped behind his back.
    “You’re probably thinking this is the first normal thing you’ve seen me do,” said Petrovitch.
    “I, uh, I wouldn’t want to intrude, sir.”
    “Stop calling me sir. I’m not sure you mean it, and I really, really don’t like it.” He knelt down in the wet grass and pulled a long-bladed knife from inside his coat. He gripped a handful of green leaf blades and hacked at their base. “We’re going to have to come to some sort of working relationship, Newcomen. Like I said, I don’t know why they sent you, out of all the people they had available. Personally, I don’t think you were chosen for any other quality but your ignorance. The less you know, the less information I can tear from your still-living flesh. That makes you a victim in someone else’s game, but unfortunately for you, it won’t stop me from ruthlessly exploiting any and every advantage that’s presented to me. I’m going to apologise in advance for that.”
    He worked his way across the grave plot, holding and cutting the grass.
    “You said he was a friend,” said Newcomen, nodding at the stone.
    “She. She was a friend. Body cremated, ashes interred right here, half a world away from where she was born. She was twenty-two when she died.” Petrovitch straightened up, his left hand stained green. “I brought you out here deliberately, to see this almost-anonymous grave, because I wanted to show you what your countrymen are capable of. Sure, we can drive by the site of the Metrozone’s very own Ground Zero, but I can make my point better out here.”
    He dug into his pockets again and came up with a steel lighterand a small flat candle in a foil container. He trod down the grass next to the headstone, and placed the candle in his bootprint.
    “This is where Sonja Oshicora ended up. I don’t know if they’ve told you about her, or if you’ve bothered to look for yourself. It was a decade and another life ago for me. You were still in high school in Columbus and probably too busy being a jock to pay any attention to what was happening here. Maybe you remember the nuke and Mackensie resigning, but not necessarily the reasons why.”
    Petrovitch bent down and flicked the lid of the lighter. He stroked the wheel with his thumb and fire flickered, yellow and trembling. Eventually, the candle wick caught, turned black, and glowed with its own fragile flame. He crouched down and watched the wax melt and turn clear.
    “She was my friend. Accidentally so, but my friend all the same. She ran the Freezone – the first one, here – and this is where she died.”
    “That’s, uh,” said Newcomen.
    “Shut up and let me talk. I’m trying to warn you. You’ll probably think I’m the Antichrist by the time I’ve finished with you, the very embodiment of evil. The problem you have is that the worst acts against you have