My aunt and uncle will kill me when they find out I’ve left. The compound, they remind me daily, is the only place we’re safe.
I set out early, planning to be back before they realize their oldest niece is gone. It’s only eight miles to our house, and I’m in good shape.
“Relax, Nana. It’ll be fine.” Lili crossed two fingers behind her back, blowing a frizzy curl out of her face. It would be fine. It must be fine. Or she’d never escape the greasy walls of their tiny spaceship-turned-food-truck. There’s got to be more to life than noodle bowls.
“Ya,” her grandmother muttered.
I pulled the handcuffs from my belt and turned to the drug dealer, whom my partner held at gun point. The guy had somewhere in the area of twenty-seven arms and depending on what family he was from might have another—usually with a gun—hiding up one of his noses. I groaned.
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No one entered the Forest unless they were unwilling, arrogant, suicidal, or mad, but desperation would make a mother do many things.
At the edge of the moisture-net field, Ever crouched with her infant son, Spear, wrapped in her cloak.
Behind her lay the base where the Taa and Marzr warred.
“Now, Vanguards, go forth!”
That was the last human voice Vincent had heard. Well, other than his own; he’d been talking to himself for a few days. Or… weeks? He wasn’t sure. the twin suns of Vita Centauri muddled his sense of time.
“If only the others were here.” He shook his head
Today was my birthday, which meant waking up early to lock my windows and doors. I’d already powered down Ynette, and my cell-glasses rested on the charger. The lenses flashed red, green, then yellow—voice mails, text messages and vid chats.
Oh my. The birthday wishes were starting early.
By Carlos Candela Terry I wake facedown on the cool titanium floor, my vision blurred and my mind shrouded in fog. My jaw cracks with stiffness. Iaclite’s fiery, blue light shines through the portside window and bathes dust particles in a teal hue; they hover like a swarm of lifeless fireflies. I struggle to my
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When the elders told Jaakko to bring back evidence he’d gone as far into the wastelands as anyone had ever traveled, he hadn’t expected this. He’d envisioned discovering an ice succulent like his father had before him—a notable accomplishment which would allow him to vote with the elders and might even get Adda’s attention
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Nila tipped back her head and let the crushed rocks spill into her mouth. Wind cut past their tent, and she clamped her hand over the cup to keep the dust inside from escaping.
“I suppose you drank it all.” Vo wiped dirt from his face with his upper arm.
I lurched awake, the dream still scrabbling at my heart.
Not just a dream.
It was real, happening or about to happen. It was all I could do not to call my sister, but I knew she’d insist, as always, that nothing could catch her.
Nothing could, of course. As speedsters went, Hannah could outrun them all.
The crisp slip of paper scratches my palm, leaving a stinging cut. These words say I’ve won. That I’m almost guaranteed a shot at being Immortalized.
My mother has been smiling at me so long it’s almost become a grimace.
“You… You entered me in the lottery?”
The water sparkled green at the far end of the Northwest Coast, a beautifully masked death trap. At least it was a break from the witch hunt playing on all the holocubes in town.
Toby kicked a rock and made sure to stay high on the jetty, well away from the water.
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