Justice, page 23
Someone tumbled down the slide, a familiar figure who landed on his feet.
‘Well, this is a fine mess you’ve got us in, M.’
It was Jones!
‘Jones! You’ve got to stop doing that!’
He smiled and threw his arms around her, squeezing hard. ‘I apologize for the surprise, but this place is swarming with Fulbrights. Lucky you found your father’s panic room.’
‘It wasn’t luck,’ said M. She took a deep breath. ‘Are my friends … are they going to be all right?’
‘What’s most important is that you escape,’ he said. He pressed down upon a beam of wood and the rear wall slid open. ‘There’s an escape pod back there. It will take you to safety.’
‘Wait,’ argued M. ‘I’m not going to escape! I can’t leave my friends up there. I can’t let Doe steal their lives.’
‘Right now, you don’t have a choice,’ said Jones. ‘M, I’m sorry to do this, but I’m pulling rank. There’s far too much at stake. We need to get you out of here.’
‘But what about me, don’t I have a say in this?’ asked M. But looking into Jones’s eyes, she knew the answer already. She didn’t.
‘I love you like a daughter,’ he said and hugged her tightly. She was so confused that she didn’t know whether to hug him back or shove him away.
‘I love you, too, Jones,’ said M. ‘Mom has the moon rock.’
‘That’s good,’ he said flatly.
‘And Cal Fence stole a copy of the Mutus Liber,’ she said.
‘That’s better,’ he said.
‘And I have the …’ But before she could finish, a Fulbright agent came crashing down the slide. Judging by his shredded gloves, he was the same Fulbright who had held M in the library. Jones lunged forward, but the Fulbright Magblasted him up and against the ceiling — hard. Jones went limp and crashed back down to the floor. A pool of blood formed around his head.
‘No!’ cried M. The intruder stepped over Jones’s life-less body and walked toward her. He held a finger to his wire-laced lips. Then he charged his Magblast and aimed it squarely at M.
M shook her head and flicked out her sword from her programmable matter again. The blast was furious and just missed her. Swiftly and instinctively she slashed downward, lopping off the Fulbright’s weapon. Blood spattered as his four fingers fell to the floor, writhing like worms in the sun. Still, he didn’t miss a beat. He brought a heavy punch down on M’s right shoulder. Using the strength and momentum of his attack, she spun around on her heel and let her sword follow its natural path. The Fulbright couldn’t block in time, and she felt the sickening resistance as the sword struck true. By the time she’d completed her spin and faced him again, he was already lying on the ground, his breathing labored.
‘Who are you?! Who are you?!’ was all M could scream, but the Fulbright didn’t move. With her sword aloft, she knelt down to pull off his mask.
But with a cackle, the Fulbright plunged a syringe into her neck. M stumbled backward, kicking him in the face, and pulled the needle out. ‘What was that? What did you …’
The room shifted like a carnival ride. Quickly she grabbed the yearbook from the desk and turned back to see the carnage in the room. Jones wasn’t moving and neither was the Fulbright.
M stumbled backward and fell, barely making it into the escape pod, which looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. It sat at the mouth of a dark tunnel, which shushed with a continuous blast of cold air.
‘You can’t stop me, Wild!’ she screamed. ‘I’m going to find you and put an end to this once and for all!’
Then her head went woozy with a headache that made it feel like her very brain were being rewired. She couldn’t remember what she was shouting about or why. Memories that were solid and true one moment faded away the next. Her father, her mother, the Lawless School, the Fulbright Academy, they all started to disappear. And as the pod closed, M felt her body drift away, too, light as air and flying soundlessly away toward a brave, new nowhere.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It takes one person to dream a story. It takes many more people to build that story into a book. Then even more to make a trilogy. We are not alone.
First, I want to thank you for reading this book. Thanks for supporting M on her mysterious journey. Then I have to thank everyone at Piccadilly Press for believing in this story.
Josh, Tracey Adams and Alice Williams also deserve a standing ovation for being terrific innovagents.
Thanks to my friends, Geoffrey Todd, Ganesh, and Timmy G, who are always up for adventure and really bad movies. Christopher Michlig, Sam Shaw, Ben Barnett, Pete Swanson, Paul, and Kirsten, who helped me through my own fish-out-of-water story way back when.
Mom and Dad will always have my love for their never-ending support for my creativity and because they are two of the most amazing people I know.
Thanks and congrats to my brother, Matt, and his wife, Ashley, for being in love.
To my daughter, Wren, thanks for listening to so many of my stories. Even the bad ones. There were a lot of bad ones.
To my son, Dez, thanks for laughing. Keep laughing. It makes the world go round.
And to Adrienne, thanks for laughing at all my bad stories. And making me better.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeffrey Salane grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, but moved north to study in Massachusetts and New York City. After spending many years playing in bands, he now works as an editor and author.
The suspect was last seen in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife and kids. He has not been convicted of any crimes … yet. The author can prove his innocence at
www.jeffreysalane.com
Also available:
LAWLESS
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2015
by Piccadilly Press
Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AT
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
First published in the USA by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.
Text copyright © Jeffrey Salane, 2015
Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Nancy Stahl
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978–1–84812–354–0
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Piccadilly Press is part of the Bonnier Publishing Group
www.bonnierpublishing.com
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Jeffrey Salane, Justice
