Can you keep a secret?
For the launch of my latest banned book, STORM, I am doing something that I’ve never done before: I am releasing a series of deleted scenes. Scenes that are cannon, that did happen, and that simply didn’t fit on the page. What follows here is an exclusive first look at one of my very favorites--a scene in which Erin’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Arbitor, run into some trouble on their journey out west, in their to attempt to bring Erin back home.
So why am I doing this, you ask? Why am I publishing this deleted moment?
Perhaps it is just one more way to stick it to DOME. As if a third Swipe novel weren’t enough to ruffle their feathers, now I’m insisting on sprinkling it with bonus material too. Take that, Chancellor Cylis! How do you like me now?
But no. That’s not the only reason. That’s not all.
Because the truth is, it’s my hope that the scene you are about to read will inform the story of STORM, will complement it, will add to it and enhance it once all is said and done.
Because one way or another, a storm is coming. And it threatens everything we’ve ever fought for, all this time. And the more we know before it hits, the better.
Because right now, we Markless need all the help we can get.
Yours,
Evan Angler
The magnetrain arrived on time. It pulled into the Sierra City train station, right at the western edge of the Rocky Mountains, where a few dozen PODs were waiting and where more were landing all the time. One by one, they took group after group of the train’s disembarking passengers to their respective Sierra destinations, arcing into the distance like golf balls out of some great, giant’s driving range.
Mr. Arbitor and Dr. Arbitor stepped off the station’s platform and through what felt to them like a physical wall of heat. In direct sunlight, breathing itself practically burned at the nostrils, and Mr. Arbitor fanned himself impatiently as he and his wife made their way toward the POD line.
“No wonder no one lives here,” Dr. Arbitor said, earning herself a scowl from a passing Sierranite. “What?” she asked him. To her eyes, the panorama ahead looked more like a landfill than a city. The PODs lobbing toward it might as well have been test missiles—there was nothing on the other end of their arcs to ruin.
“Hot, ugly, and forgotten,” Mr. Arbitor said. “Nowhere’s better if you’re looking to outrun DOME.”
Dr. Arbitor nodded, but her husband had spoken too soon. Halfway across the station’s POD lot, a team of Department officers were headed their way.
“Company,” Joan whispered, and Charles stopped short.
“They traced our Markscans,” he said. “They’ve been waiting for us ever since we boarded, three thousand miles away.”
“We haven’t broken any laws,” Joan said. “It wasn’t illegal for me to leave work. It’s not illegal to travel...”
Charles had to laugh “Joan,” he said. “We’re here to bring back and harbor a cyber terrorist. Just because Erin’s our daughter...”
Dr. Arbitor gasped a little when he said it, as though she’d suddenly remembered she was holding a rattle snake.
“Come on,” Charles said, and he took his wife’s hand. She shot him a look of surprise and a touch of anger when he did; it was the first time he’d taken Joan’s hand in over a year. “Sorry,” he said. “But whatever you do...stay with me.”
And with that, Charles ducked left, weaving into the crowd that funneled toward the PODs. All around him, travelers pushed and glared as he pulled Joan onward through the dense, unstructured line.
“Where do you think you’re going?” someone called, but it wasn’t an officer. Charles shrugged at the man. He just kept right on walking.
When the Arbitors got to the front of the line, they saw a young Marked couple boarding the next POD out, along with two older men waiting to hop on after them. Charles pushed right past the men, taking, with Joan, the next two seats available.
“Hey, what gives?” the older man said, and in his anger he reached out to grab Mr. Arbitor and pull him back out of the POD and into the line.
All the while, DOME encroached. The four officers were working their way through the crowd now, flashing badges and moving fast.
For a moment, Charles was sure a fight would break out. And after that...he had no idea.
So this is how the Dust always felt, Charles thought fleetingly. His heart raced an awful rhythm as he tried to break free...and as DOME closed in on all sides.
But Joan had seen enough. And she was through waiting for results. In one strong motion, she held the glass vial of Project Trumpet test results straight out at arms length, wielding it like she might a knife or a gun.
“Do you see this?” Joan said. “This is a bio-weapon. I drop this right now—and everyone in this magnetrain lot is dead inside of two months. Do you hear me? Do you see it?” She shook the vial as she asked the last of her questions. The protein sloshed around inside.
The man let go of Charles before she’d even finished. The crowd outside the POD backed away with a sudden, panicked recoil. The young couple sitting behind the Arbitors shrank into their seats; the boy in the couple, twenty-something and baby-faced, squealed in horror.
DOME was running now, through the last few circles of the crowd, straight for the POD. Straight for the Arbitors.
“Much obliged,” Charles said. And he closed the POD doors. And he jabbed at the mapscreen in front of him for the farthest destination on the grid.
***
“So, where to?” Joan joked to the couple sitting behind her. They were crying now, having no idea at all what to do about the hijackers in front of them. Their POD careened through the air. They had about forty-five seconds until landing. And at that point, Joan knew, DOME would land too. And she and her husband would be back to square one.
“We have to lose them,” Mr. Arbitor said, pounding with his fists at the dashboard in front of him.
“How?” Joan asked. “This isn’t a plane. You can’t fly it.”
Charles shook his head. “On the contrary. This thing uses compressed air jets for landing and take off. That means it has course correction. And that means we can course correct it.”
Several more punches to the board in front of him, and Charles had exposed the circuitry underneath. Immediately, the advertisement displaying all around them—a happy jingle listing the intense whitening benefits of NanoGum Pearl—shut off with a crackle. Through the glass, all four passengers could suddenly see the sky, flying at them with a terrible certitude. The couple in back screamed and shrieked, but it did little to phase Charles. “Red wire, blue wire...connects to the yellow...” He mumbled fast as he twisted and pulled...and another ten seconds later—just as the POD had crested in its arc and begun its descent—Charles had successfully hotwired the air jets.
“Hold on,” he told everyone, and for the first time ever in a public taxi ride, a PopHopper POD changed course, swerving hard to the left.
Even Joan was yelling now. All four passenger’s stomachs were up in their throats. The POD fall hard toward the earth, spinning wildly from the force of the lopsided air jet, like a giant, deadly curveball. Above them and far to the right, the DOME POD flew helplessly off into the distance.
“This thing’ll still land, right?” Joan yelled, dizzier and more certain of imminent death than she’d ever been.
“I think so,” Charles said. “If I remembered to reconnect the green wire, that is...”
But seconds later, the POD did land. It was rough, landing sideways and bouncing several times before rolling inelegantly to a stop...but it landed all the same. Charles hadn’t forgotten the green wire.
The POD door opened automatically, and the computer voice said something pleasant about having a nice day and being sure to “Hop again soon!” Charles, Joan, and the couple behind them all staggered out of the glass ball and fell immediately to the ground.
“Where in the world did you learn to do that?” Joan asked.
“DOME,” Charles said. “I took a night course on hijacking a few years back. Most agents do. There isn’t a vehicle in this Union I can’t work with. I’m sure the guys following us could’ve done it too...if only they’d seen it coming.
“If there’s one thing the dust taught me this fall...it’s to never underestimate your opponents.”
Joan laughed. Euphoric relief flooded her brain.
But it was several minutes before any of the four of them were done throwing up.
Buy Links:
Amazon│Barnes & Noble
About the Author
Evan lives without the Mark, evading DOME and writing in the shadows of Beacon.
Swipe is his first book. But if anyone asks, you know nothing about it, and you didn't hear anything from him. Don't make eye contact if you see him. Don't call his name out loud. He's in enough trouble already.
And so are you, if you've read his book.
Website│Goodreads│Twitter│Facebook
***GIVEAWAY***
Print books 1-3 in the Swipe series, US only.
<a id="rc-2348b9103" class="rafl" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/2348b9103/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway</a>
