Zeke crouched in the shadows of the forest, hesitant to cross the open space ahead. A half-deck of faceless, card-like automatons ran past, all wearing the emblem of the Queen of Hearts. He checked the locator Director Alice had given him, grimacing and giving it a couple of good whacks. Yes, the Cheshire Cat
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“Oh, dear! You simply don’t understand! If you let this girl roam free, the crime spree will never end. I fear for my life.”
Officer Luddick released a long sigh as he tried to maintain a neutral expression. He despised when anthropomorphic creatures came into the precinct. Last week, a wild-haired man-cub with his
“Alice, dear… you really are too much for the real world to handle.” The Red Queen’s smile flickered to life in the darkness, much like the Cheshire Cat’s. She emerged from behind a gnarled Tumtum tree with a scarlet lantern held aloft. The fairy inside chittered angrily as it thrashed at the bars, and
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“Have you found it yet?”
I wince as the prince’s voice shrieks in my ear and adjust the earbud’s volume. “We just arrived, Your Highness. I will keep you apprised of our status.”
“Stop killing Time, Alice,” Topper says from my left as he returns the tin of teleporting cookies to his pocket for
There’s an old adage that dogs are a man’s best friend. Leave it to humans to gloss over the fact that we cats are the literal guardians keeping their species alive.
“Dinah?” my girl Alice called to me as she lounged in the garden grass. As far as humans went, she wasn’t the worst.
“I wasn’t always a soldier, Leroy,” Alice growled as she piloted her hundred-foot-tall, gear-powered, British Mark VII Mecha, overlooking the coast of Praia do Guincho, Portugal.
“Oh?” the young French lieutenant remarked through the AM radio system as he sat in the adjacent American-made Ford T1919 Mecha.
“I grew up a proper Victorian girl
Alice was feeling quite irritated with the world when she opened the front door and discovered a folded square of paper addressed to her upon the step. The message it contained looked like gobbledygook until she remembered she’d seen this sort of thing before. Holding it up to the mirror in the hall, she
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The Queen of Hearts stepped over Alice’s corpse, her long, crimson cape trailing across the body. Any true Superior wore a cape, of course. The Queen had written that law herself—partly to prove that, despite Alice’s claims, the girl’s DNA held no potential for Superior gifting.
Beneath the Queen’s boots, the engines of Hearts
“Ahchoo!” Alice’s blonde hair bounced as her head jerked forward.
“Goodness, Alice.” Her sister, Lorina, raised her eyebrows. “God bless you, but remember to cover your mouth when you sneeze. Even when a lady has a cold, she never draws attention to herself.”
“Excuse me,” Alice said stuffily. Yawning, she settled back
Alice had one goal for her final session: to beat her high score.
Dayora Night smiled winningly. Alice crossed her arms.
Game on, Alice thought.
“Tell me more about this Wonderland of yours.”
Alice raised an eyebrow. “It’s not my Wonderland. I daresay the Queen of Hearts would order my head on a platter
The voices in the workroom rise until they carry out into the rest of the house, shattering my unpleasant dream.
“I never wanted it out on the market!” Father says, with more anger than he’s had energy for in a long time. “It’s not stable. Not finished!”
“There was nothing you could do
Alice slipped her helmet over her close-cropped hair and took the shuttle’s controls. When she was younger, she’d tinkered with the helmet, adding a holographic program to alter size perception, virtual reality games, and other novelties, all operated by her wrist comm. If only the helmet possessed a feature that could rescue her from
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