Waypoint Kangaroo Read Online Free Page B

whole new set of party tricks to my repertoire. I wouldn’t even need to carry a gun. We could just shoot a few bullets into the pocket, and I could later open it back up, rotated and pointed at my target. Wham, bam, thank you, physics.
    Unfortunately, I’m the only one who can train myself to do that. And I have no idea how the pocket actually works. It’s simply a thing I can do, like bending my fingers—and just like I can’t bend my fingers backward, I can’t arbitrarily rotate the pocket. It’s one-eighty or nothing.
    However, Science Division believes they can help me overcome this limitation, and they love thinking up increasingly outrageous methods to expand my mind.
    â€œAre these new ‘scenarios’ going to involve psychotropic compounds or invasive electrodes?” I ask.
    Oliver doesn’t look up. “We can only hope.”
    â€œBoy, it’s great to be home.”
    *   *   *
    I run into Jessica on my way from Oliver’s workshop to Paul’s office. We stop in the corridor, facing each other, and she looks me up and down.
    Jessica Chu, M.D., Ph.D., is the third person in my three-person department, and very scary. Well, she scares me, anyway. She doesn’t actually frown or grimace all the time, but the sum of her thin, angular features is a permanent disapproving look. And her long, slender fingers give the appearance of claws, especially when she’s holding some sharp medical instrument. Her job title is “Surgical and Medical Intervention Practitioner,” which also doesn’t help. I don’t like the idea of anyone “intervening” with my bodily functions.
    â€œWhat’s with the suit?” she asks.
    â€œJob interview,” I say.
    Her face is a mask. “I need to download your med logs.”
    â€œNothing about the tie?” I ask, following her into the exam room. “It depicts an ancient Russian folk tale. Very cultural.”
    â€œTake off your shirt.”
    â€œWhy, do you mean my button-front, Oxford-weave dress garment?” I didn’t spend two hours with a clingy personal shopper to not have someone notice these threads.
    â€œOr I can just use the scissors.” She holds up a pair of trauma shears.
    â€œOkay, okay.”
    I hang my jacket on a wall hook, then sit down on the plastic-covered bench and remove my necktie. I carefully pull the thin end back through the loop holding it together, not wanting to undo the knot. It took me fifteen minutes and an instruction manual to tie the damn thing this morning, and I want to keep it until after I see Paul.
    I’ve barely gotten my shirt unbuttoned when Jessica yanks my left arm up and jams an electrode into my armpit.
    â€œAre we in a hurry? Hey, careful with the merchandise!” She jabs another electrode up under my chin and slaps an interface patch over my left eye. Half my vision disappears as the computer starts downloading sensor logs from my various implants.
    â€œYou’re dehydrated,” she says, studying a display screen.
    â€œHad to use the pocket.” Physiologically, opening the pocket acts like a night of heavy drinking, sucking water out of my body and suppressing certain neurotransmitters. I basically get a hangover afterward. “And I wasn’t sleeping.”
    â€œYou had a water surplus. What happened to the ice?”
    â€œSpilled most of it,” I reply. “You try pulling a frozen brick through a hyperspace shunt while driving a hovercar through the desert.”
    I stare at the side of her head. Jessica hasn’t looked at me once since she started the exam. That’s not normal. Usually, when I get back from a mission, she’s all over me like Martian dust on … well, everything on Mars. There’s a reason they call it “the red planet.” Those fine-grained ferrous particles get into every nook and cranny.
    Similarly, when I report in, Jessica