“Don’t worry,” Ben whispered to himself. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
He crept down the path beside his childhood home, breathing a heady, floral scent into his lungs. He stopped under an arbor covered with the red blooms of a climbing rose.
The backyard was packed. Dozens of relatives and friends gathered
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The signal was weak but unmistakable: the rebel waypoint. They had made it!
Staggering through thick forest undergrowth, Sam and Tony picked up their pace as much as Sam’s mangled leg would allow. Even though Tony helped support Sam’s weight, every step sent a spear of pain shooting up his hastily bandaged leg,
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he flower, if indeed it could be called a flower, looked like nothing on Earth.
Iris squinted at the purplish inkblot staining the vast green landscape of her garden shrubbery. It seemed to have bloomed overnight in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable hedgerow.
Without her glasses to aid her, Iris struggled
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You have something special in you. A weapon no Komainu can wield. Father’s words echoed in Koji’s mind.
Sitting on the dojo floor, he glanced back, drinking in the beauty revealed through the glass wall. The black sea of space teamed with countless stars. Somewhere out there, a month’s journey from this space station,
Sandra watched the passenger ship enter Delphi’s atmosphere like a shooting star. In the morning, she would leave with it, and her future would end.
She leaned against the windowsill and looked down at her luggage. Five bags. I don’t need keepsakes. Memories will be enough. They’ll have to be.
Run.
The pull made Noyer strain against her ankle cuff. The purple bruising beneath it twinged comfortingly.
She was safe. The ocean couldn’t drown her yet, so she listened to its thrum through the story of an old stormer.
“It was a glorious city, and they broke it,” he was saying.
I jolted awake, throwing the sheets off me as a familiar prickle crept across the back of my neck. Not again.
My bedside clock glowed.
2:00 AM.
I sucked in a shaky breath and let it out, then tapped the homing button strapped to my wrist. Hopefully, the Control Team would find me
Commander Tri’eek’s ship was self-destructing.
Bianca muttered Earth English curses under her breath as she ran through the Argo’s gigantic ventilation shafts, holding a gargantuan stolen ring of shiny, black electrical tape around her waist like a life ring. She had spent three precious hours tracing the problem to the engine maintenance room.
What Susan noticed first was the purse.
Susan always noticed them. She prided herself on having the most unique purse at any event. She had learned early that if she didn’t want to be known as Susan The Deaf Girl, she had to be memorable in some other way.
Theresa plopped into a chair and plugged her ears; she couldn’t help herself. But it made no difference. The sound came from within.
A hand squeezed her shoulder. Her husband, Malcolm, studied her, his forehead wrinkled with concern. “The ringing’s back?”
“Yeah.”
“You could go see another doctor—”
“No.”
The doorbell jingles. I stuff my nanocell into my khaki pocket and paste on my customer-service smile. The doors slide shut behind a woman and two men. “Welcome to the Nanotech Center!” I say.
My smile wavers at their dark clothing. They match the descriptions of the Sound, the infamous gang—
The City Hall walls are made entirely of glass. The sun pierces through, warming my back.
It would be a beautiful day if not for the two security guards pointing tasers at my face.
City Hall’s hustle lurches into slow motion. The second hand on the clock could race a snail,
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