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Below are the first two scenes of Spark & Flame. Chapter 1 Sparks cracked through the empty music room. Blue-white flashes, blazing and violent, picked up music sheets in a gust and snapped against the drum symbols sending them clamoring. At the center of the whirlwind, Riza Ashland knelt, gripping the sides of her head and muttering the steps her papi taught her. Not now. Please, she could not surge now. “Dirt. Rock. Cement. Brick. Steel.” She repeated, each seal within her mind building up, up and willing the power behind them. Another spark escaped, sending her curly black hair flying forward. “Come on.” Fingers pressed on her temples, she rolled out the growing pulse, pulse, pulse. “Dirt. Rock. Cement. Brick. Steel.” The pressure had been happening all morning. Nothing she hadn’t dealt with before, which was the only reason she didn’t mention anything to papi. Or why she didn’t opt for a sick day. But this was… Another steadying breath, the pressure subsided. Energy coursed through her, veins pumping and glowing under her skin, visible at the cuffs of her green school blazer. She flexed her fists once, twice, and they disappeared back to the normal olive. Sheets fluttered down, scattering on the ground at her knees where she’d buckled from the sharp flick of pain. “Great.” Quickly, she gathered up all the sheets, taking her own music and stacked the rest on her teacher’s desk on her way out. Rushing out, she nearly stumbling over the legs of a student seated on the floor, throwing an apology over her shoulder as she sped down the hall to the auditorium. Thankfully, she was always the first to arrive, the stage empty and her cello sitting, waiting to draw her into a peaceful melody. Resting the cherry wood bodice against the Franklin Station High School crest of a golden lion on her chest, the tightness in her neck eased. The dull ache in her head, numbed away. Necessary and welcome respite to the day. Especially with how today was going. Her hand drifted down, pulling the necklace until the lavender baroque pearl emerged out of the neck of her shirt. She stroked the smooth surface, then re-hid the pendant before picking up her bow. With her eyes closed, she embraced the cello and laid her fingers down on the fingerboard in a gentle caress. Familiar cold metal kissed her fingertips with a zap as she began to move them and glide the bow across the strands. Low at first, then building to a peak, the Saint-Saens “The Swan” solo notes began to vibrate around her. Music bellowed and echoed against the walls of the empty room, but Riza’s mind was quiet. In the black expanse, her seals groaned slightly at the crashing energy trapped behind but held strong. Good. Stay there. She turned the page, her bow sliding smoothly— pulse, pulse, pulse. No…not again. The bow clamored on the stage floor, Riza rolled her fingers over her temples, trying to ease the pressure gnashing at her skull, right as the auditorium doors clanged open. “First one, again?” Theo Whitaker said casually, hopping onto the stage with his violin in hand. Like all the junior boys in their grade, he wore a green blazer with white piping and the FHS crest stitched to the chest, white button down, navy blue tie and slacks. Unlike all the other boys in their grade, not many kept it as pristine all day, or looked quite as handsome, a fact many girls noticed, not that he was bothered by it. He slung his blazer over the back of the chair before sitting, his dark brown almost black wavy hair and fair skin glistened underneath the stage lights when he bent to grab her bow. “Thanks. I just thought I’d get some extra practice in for the winter concert.” She frowned. “Not that it’s helping. The acoustics are better when it’s empty so I can hear all the notes I don’t hit just right.” And fighting down energy surges wasn’t exactly helping her focus either. He looked at her with those serious deep set dark blue eyes that made him look older than seventeen. With a gruff laugh, “out of everyone here, you, Olivia and I are probably the only ones that don’t need extra practice.” “Humble.” She shook her head. “That’s because we practice, T. Not all of us can be natural born musicians and geniuses like you.” Olivia Kinley said with a quick wink and toss of her long brown pony tail in his direction as she walked passed them. Her navy blue skirt with green and gold checkering, the same one Riza wore only a few inches shorter, sashayed behind her in unison with her hair. “Music wasn’t my first choice but I appreciate the symmetry between music and math. Everything is calculated. Playing the violin wasn’t a natural born skill like math was, but it was easier for me than most. Plus, it looks good for pre-med. Steady hands.” “Uh-huh.” She laughed, the sound cheery, easy. “I think you just proved my point.” Sitting in the chair beside Riza’s she looked at her and said, “And I don’t blame you Riza. We have to keep up with the master over there.” She kept smiling and Riza tried to match that easy vibe, but looked away, pressing her eyes shut to equalize a stubbornly persistent jab coursing through her brain. “Are you going to try out for the Juilliard apprenticeship?” Riza titled her head to the side, scrunching her nose. “Mmm. Maybe. Are you?” Olivia raised her hand, fingers crossed. “Maybe we’ll be sharing chairs together again.” “I don’t know.” She flipped the music sheets back to the start. “It’s extremely competitive and I haven’t soloed before.” “So? You’re insanely good!” Riza’s eyes must have widened so much Olivia smiled. “You are. I’m kind of jealous. Anyway, soloing isn’t that big a deal. I really hope that’s not what’s keeping you from auditioning. The whole imagine them naked thing is crap. I like to just pretend I’m in my room. Don’t let fear win.” Sparks lashed against the seals. What Riza saw was chaos. Twisted metal. What she heard was screaming. Riza breathed, the energy settling again. “I wish it were that simple.” “Sure it is.” Olivia nudged her with an elbow. “Don’t make me drag you there.” “She will.” Theo chimed. The two of them laughed and the surging lulled to a quiet rumble. They weren’t friends, by any means, only exchanging a few words during rehearsal, or occasionally when they passed each other in the hall or when Riza ate at Alexi diner where Olivia worked with her mother. Olivia kept her own circle of friends from student council, girls from the cheer squad, and guys from the soccer team. And their only other connection was Max. Seeing Olivia with her friends, images of chatting, laughing with them came alive. Pulse, pulse, pulse. Fast, hard punches to the head and twisting in her gut made her hunch over. Jesus that was bad. Quickly she tried to straighten but now her stomach was cramping too. “You okay?” Theo said quickly looking at her then back to his violin as he adjusted the knobs. “Mhmm.” She shook off the ache, pulling herself upright. “Fine. Just a headache.” “This concert is a headache. Between my college prep tutoring, student council, and the science club, I’m lucky if I get a couple hours to practice during the week.” He bent forward, looking at Olivia. “Maybe our VP can get over her power trip and spare me from the pep rally stuff this week?” “No way! I need all the bodies I can get. If I can get enough practice for my solo, on top of Vice President responsibilities and dance, then so can you.” “Aren’t there rally girls lining up to cheer for my brother to help you?” “Nice try.” Olivia gave him an amused wink. Fine, long fingers worked expertly adjusting the knobs while picking at the strands. Serene, just as the swan in her piece, her delicate ivory face with a misting of freckles over her nose almost appeared like white feathers against the deep cherry of the cello. There was a reason she was one of the prettiest girls in the class. No wonder Max had dated her. Riza focused herself on adjusting her cello, ignoring that thought, while she willed whatever the hell was going on with her electricity to quiet the hell down behind the seals. Another clang. The auditorium doors swung open as more students flooded in, swarming to their seats and Mrs. Williams, her long loose brown and peppered white braid swinging back and forth behind her, large bag probably full of music books, in tow. Standing below the stage with her arms crossed, Mrs. Williams frowned. “Okay everyone, take your seats. I know it’s after school, we’re all tired, but we need focus.” She motioned to someone in the front row to take the music books from her and hand them out. “Make sure you’re on passage four of Saint-Saens.” Then, lower and sounding dissatisfied, “for those of you who were paying attention last rehearsal, that would be the tortoise piece.” It took a few more minutes, but the orchestra settled into a unified and clamorous melody, that shook against the walls, rattling the room awake. Though the name suggested a lumbering and slow piece, it was lively and quick, a complete parody to its title. And far too loud for her right now. Throughout it, Olivia and Theo played to detailed precision, not missing a single note. Pulse. Pulse. “Ah.” Her bow slipped, screeching the next note. Theo eyed her. “What’s with her today? Is she sick?” Riza’s hand froze. Pulse. Pulse. A spark sizzling in her hand— The music died off, people turning to see what the hell caused that. It was her, rather her cello, slipping and nearly crashing into Theo. No, no, no. He hadn’t been talking. That was his mind. But if that was the case then her seals— “Reez?” Theo said, concern lining his brow, mouth. He was gripping onto the neck of her instrument, guiding it back on the stand. “Something’s wrong.” “Are you okay?” “What’s up back there?” Mrs. Williams called over, both hands on her hips. “I need to—” She stood, grabbing her bag, dropping the music sheets, notebooks, and scrambled to pick them up. Theo knelt, grabbing a handful. Snatching them, he jerked back. She hadn’t meant that but she was surging, she had to be and he was too close. Everyone was.“Thanks. I’m just, uh, I think it’s a bad migraine. I need to go.” Olivia said something like feel better but she didn’t turn to say thank you or even apologize to Mrs. Williams, rushing out behind the stage exit door.

REBELRY- YA Science Fiction, American Royals meets Divergent Opening chapter - introduces main character, setting, tone, inciting incident CHAPTER 1 Summoned “. . . though we have toiled and emerged from the War victorious, now our labor truly begins. Today we grant our oppressors an amnesty they have not earned. We shall not exact vengeance, but they will learn to follow and serve. With wisdom, mercy, and compassion, we will build a magnificent world and show our oppressors that we can create paradise on Earth. And so, let it be shouted in every street, the Age of Man is no more. For I proclaim to you, the Age of Woman has begun!” Excerpt from General Roxana Darieos’ address to the Women’s Coalition Army New York City ruins, 22 August 2124 Dust from the pages of the twenty-second century chronicles tickled my nose. Its thick cover, warped by time, felt rough to my fingertips. As I soaked up our founding mother’s words, just knowing I was breaking rules made me giddy. Not that I went out of my way to read censored books, but my history tutor never shared these firsthand accounts of the Magnificent Revolution, and it could help me with my Grad Exam. As I read, I stretched myself long on the sofa like a cat, one foot landing up on the sofa’s back and the other resting on the seat cushion. Midnight pressed chilly on our French door that led to the east wing patio, but here in the library it was toasty. The fireplace radiated warmth with a sweet cedar scent. The fire crackled, and its sparks reflected in the bay window’s dark glass. Being cozy and safe inside with my nose buried in a book, while outside the air grew frigid, was a special sort of wonderful. And this book—whoa. I reread the passage and gasped. But this part couldn’t be true. Was this why the book was censored? “Ryver?” I called out. “Is it true that some women stood against the Revolution?” Across the room, the desk-high titanium hub spooled into active mode. Blue lights ticked up its sides, and the luminescent nectoliquid fountained from its crystal basin, swishing into a floating azure sphere. The sphere vibrated when the Ryver spoke in her deep motherly voice. “What a curious question, Miss Xandra.” “That’s weird, right?” “There is no historical record of any female opposition before, during or after the Magnificent Revolution. It did not happen.” “Then why would it be written here?” “Written where? Are you reading one of the censored books from your grandmother’s collection?” “Umm, I’m not sure?” I lied. “It’s not like Gamma’s books have big red stamps across their covers to indicate which ones I’m not supposed to read.” “I will have to send a note to the Governor.” I lifted my head and pleaded over the sofa’s arm. “Please, don’t. Do you really want to distract Mother when she’s at the Summit? Anyway, it’s for my studies. The Grad Exam is only three months away. It’ll be here before I know it, and history’s a huge chunk of it.” “Checking now on your latest performance chart.” Oh, Mother God. I dropped my head on the sofa’s cushion and buried my eyes under a pillow to escape. Its tassels made my nose itch. Sometimes I wished we had a basic Ryver hub that only spit out info, instead of a criterion hub with its Wisdom and Nurture built-ins. “As I suspected,” the Ryver said, “among sixteen-year-old girls you are rated at the ninety-eighth percentile in history studies.” Which meant I still had two percent to go. I pressed the pillow around my ears, trying to shut out the Ryver’s lecture. “If you’re concerned about your Graduation Examination, might I suggest that instead of focusing on your strongest subject, you may wish to shift your focus to your weakest—oratory. Most of the girls in your level have already completed the public speaking requirement.” The mere suggestion sent a chill through me. I shoved the pillow under my head. “I have three whole months until the exam. Plenty of time.” I tucked my nose back into the book. “If you’re experiencing anxiety about the speech . . .” The room went silent. I lowered the book to my belly. Weird. The Ryver never stopped in mid-sentence. BEHH-BEHH-BEEEEEE blared throughout the chamber. I jerked up. The emergency alert. My book hit the floor with a thunk as I rushed to the bay window and yanked the drapes closed, then hid behind a wing chair. In the case of imminent danger, it was protocol for the security team to flood our estate lawns with light, but it was still dark outside. “Ryver, what’s going on?” I started my breathing exercises. Breathe in-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four. “A guest has arrived at the estate, Miss Xandra. Madam Qiu is bringing her to you now.” I blew out my breath in a gust, and my shoulders dropped. “Since when is a guest an emergency?” Madam Qiu was Mother’s closest aid and protected the family like a Doberman. Normally, she’d educate uninvited guests to make an appointment during office hours. Not fire off an emergency alert and usher them into the family’s private wing in the middle of the night. “Your guest is an officer with the Arbiter Corp,” the Ryver replied. My back went rigid. “What?” I said too loudly. Now the alert made sense. And with Mother away, I had to greet guests. My stomach twisted into a painful knot. “Please tell me there’s time to run up to my quarters to change.” “I’m afraid not. They will be here any minute.” A noise came out of my throat that sounded like a half-throttled whinny. I spun back to the window to use it as a mirror. My leggers had a big stain on them, my shirt was from my brother’s closet, and when did my hair tie fall out? The Arbiter Corp would not be impressed with messiness or boyswear. I combed through my long brown tangles with my fingers. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to make my nose daintier or russet eyes less dull. And where were my shoes? Skidding through the chamber in socks, I checked the study table and Ryver hub, and along the shelves lining the walls, then circled back to the sofa by the fire. Ah ha. As I reached for my loafers tucked under our tea table, a high-pitched ping signaled that someone had entered the library’s archway. I popped up, slapping a smile on my face, with a shoe on one foot and the other held behind my back. Madam Qiu entered first, eyeing my hair and shoeless foot. I shot her a helpless shrug, then cranked up my smile for our guest. A tall woman in a cobalt blue uniform with gold buttons and shiny boots strode into our library holding the most erect posture I’d ever seen. Her hair was spun into a tight twist, not a wisp out of place. The woman’s magnolia-scented perfume bit into my nose with its tart bouquet. Her male guard cast a mountainous shadow. Madam Qiu’s gentle Pacifican accent and quilted overrobe masked her steely reserves. She displayed a soft smile and offered a gracious nod of her head, as if guests stopped by every midnight. “Miss Xandra, may I present Lieutenant Noma from Cyprus.” I tightened my smile. “Oh. Whoa, hey, all that way?” Cyprus? That made no sense. “Um.” I cleared my throat and tried to mimic Qiu’s gracious nod. “How do you do?” The lieutenant scanned me from tangles to toes. Her nostrils flared a fraction. Then she pulled out a silver scroll-tube with a hard wax seal. I hesitated to touch it. Clinging to my smile, I popped on my second loafer. “Lieutenant Noma, was it? Sorry, there must be a mix-up. Mother is at the Leadership Summit. In Cyprus. Where you came from?” “You are Miss Xandra Fallow?” the lieutenant said. “Of the East Atlantic Fallows?” “Yes?” The lieutenant thrust the tube at me. I accepted it gingerly and broke the seal. A slip of paper tumbled out. Paper? But paper was reserved for the highest degree of secrecy. 10 Matrona 2496 To Miss Xandra Fallow, by order of Her Serene Luminance. You will present yourself at Palace Darieos for a private audience with the Arbitrix Iliana Darieos. A slipjet is waiting at Providence City Skygrid Center to transport you to Cyprus. You are to leave immediately. Goosebumps spread across the back of my neck. Officially, as arbiter of the Grand Council, the Arbitrix served as the builder of consensus over the domains’ queens. But everyone understood that Arbitrix Iliana ruled the world. I passed the paper to Qiu before swinging back to the officer. “What’s going on?” Lieutenant Noma’s diction was crisp. “You’ve been summoned to meet the Arbitrix.” “Thanks for spelling that out. That was helpful.” I clamped my lips shut. Whoops. I pulled my smile back on. “Do you, maybe, have any idea why?” “It is not my duty to know,” she replied. Turning from the unhelpful titan, I huddled with Qiu, “Does Mother know about this?” “The Governor has been unavailable tonight,” she whispered. “She’s missing?” My heart thumped faster. Qiu rested a warm hand on my arm. “She’s been called into several ad hoc meetings this Summit. I expect it’s more of that.” I spun back to the lieutenant. “Did something bad happen to my mother?” “Last I saw, Governor Kalliope was as healthy as a tiger.” I blew out a long exhale. Okay. But I’d never met such a rude officer. Why the bad attitude? The guard cleared his throat. When Lieutenant Noma looked over to signal orders to him, a Divina Matrem pendant popped out of her collar. Oh. Its beveled diamond shape that contained a revolving number four symbolized the Temple of the Divine Mother. This Noma was a Femenina, a member of my mother’s opposing political party. “You’ve ten minutes to gather presentable attire,” the lieutenant said. “The journey will take an hour. Bring whatever personnel are needed to prepare you.” Madam Qiu propelled me through the archway and across the grand foyer while firing orders into her ryvulet—a device inserted behind the jaw that connected her to the Ryver. Mother’s adorners were coming along. Qiu too. But someone had to stop this dreadful mistake. The Arbitrix didn’t want me. The one time I’d met her it didn’t end well. I looked back toward the library where my Arbiter Corp escorts waited. They should be flying out of the archway any second, the lieutenant howling that it was all cancelled because the message belonged to a different girl. Any second now. Any second. The archway remained empty. I whimpered. Oh, no. I couldn’t go to Palace Darieos. They’d expect a governor’s daughter, and especially the heir-elect, to have mastered a strong posture and commanding voice by my age. I couldn’t even walk into a room of strangers without panic—I gasped. No-no-no. The Leadership Summit was still in session. “Qiu, how many people attend the Summit?” Qiu tugged me up the staircase. “Delegates include the global assembly of queens, governors, Sapphic ministers, ambassadors, and mayors. Also, their teams, a few husbands—” “A big crowd you’re saying? Like really, really big.” I dragged my feet on the stairs. Qiu slipped a supportive squeeze into her iron grip. “You’ll be fine, Miss Xandra.” But my heart was beating way too fast. Breathe in two-three-four. Mother God, someone was going to look awfully foolish when this mistake was sorted. Please don’t let it be me.

THE INFINITE MATTER OF KAT WATBURN T.E. Bean Twenty-Two Minutes Before ထ Eight days ago, space and time were things to be relied upon. Universally speaking. Now I sat perched in a far-flung cave halfway up a near-vertical ravine, huddled with my boyfriend, Som, in a fading pocket of light as the sun moved behind a mountain, drawing angles of golden polygons among the sacred ruins before us. Fingers entwined, our backs propped against a monolithic altar, we clocked the morning half-light climbing the empty sky: a fuse igniting life in the crystals embedded within a stone temple. The entire planet plugged into one dazzling circuit. By putting myself at risk, I was putting us all at risk. And despite that being mere minutes away, I couldn’t help but laugh while assessing the chip on my left big toe. Cornflower blue. The woman attending the counter at Walgreens had said the color—royal blue with a purple undertone—would highlight the flick of violet in my hazel eyes, make my toes look fun. Other women had fun toes. I’d never had fun toes. I wanted fun toes. And considering how much not fun my feet had been through this past week, the nail polish had held up reasonably well. I’d have to let the cosmetician know…if I ever made it back to California. In the wake of June 10, Som and I had lived in continental drift for eight days—not quite having fled home but certainly having left in a hurry. And as our beatnik trail followed the sun below a line of distant horizon, we’d watched the thin veil of reality flutter, as if caught by a breeze, right before infinity, bit by bit, came crashing through. Like a tiny tear in the universe slowly pulling everything toward us. My name is Kat Watburn, and eight days ago my brother, Jay, dragged me to a sound bath meditation. But it’s only now that I can admit: on some level, I always knew it would come to this. Chapter One June 10 Eight Days Before ထ I shook the bottle of to-be-applied nail polish. It was early June, and flip-flop season was in full effect. “Does everyone wear bathing suits?” I asked. “There’s no actual bath involved,” Jay groan-laughed. “There’s no water. A sound bath is a figurative bath. We’re bathed in vibrations of sound, which have a healing effect on the link between our astral being and our physical body. I like to think of it as nutrition for the umbilical cord connecting me to my soul.” I threw Som a withering look, then leveled a stare at my brother and smiled a slow smile, blinked a slow blink. “So if I severed your soul’s umbilical cord, would that constitute metaphysical abortion?” I had no intention of going that night. In our late teens Jay had dabbled in the world of transcendental meditation; then, at some point during my university years, he’d joined a group called The League of Consciousness Explorers. These days, when he wasn’t on tour with his band, Billion Watt Burn, he met them at various locations around Joshua Tree for the purpose of doing something that looked, to me, an awful lot like doing nothing. There seemed, to be generous, no actual point. That’s not to say I was opposed to meditation. I wasn’t. It was more, I think, that I’d just gotten used to saying no to it. When we were children, our family moved often—three different countries by my eleventh year. Jay had been my peer-group continuity and I his. Though he was nearly a year older than me (and diametrically contrary in most ways), we’d always been close. Best friends. Forever bound, we turned and twisted in unison, each tied in opposition to the other like a double helix. I was accustomed to setting boundaries with the free-form way he’d leap headfirst into whatever wavy-gravy flower-child trope crossed his path. Over time, saying no to my brother had become an involuntary twitch. A reaction to stimuli, not unlike how tweezing my left eyebrow always made me sneeze. You see, I’d spent a lifetime respecting Jay’s limits—butterscotch, sleeping with his head facing north, board games with Pop-o-Matic domes. But my limits—hitchhiking, polyamorous self-help gurus with non-ironic ZZ Top beards, all people who said The Man and/or did fist-bump hand explosions—Jay felt very much at ease trampling all over. Always had. Because of that, and as much as I loved and embraced the alternately mystical and overripe affectations of his manifest-destiny-hippie-rock-star swagger, I’d long ago learned that if I didn’t occasionally show him some resistance, I risked finding myself sleeping in a barley field outside Fresno, hoping (and failing) to bear witness to the formation of a crop circle. Just a little something I knew from personal experience. From my scholarly perspective (and with that wood tick night terror in mind), meditation looked to be less enjoyable than passing a kidney stone—but with considerably fewer benefits to my physiological well-being. A celebrated therapeutic tool founded on a lack of self-criticism, meditation’s achievements (undiagnosable in any substantive way) had—by finding its way onto smartphone apps—ballooned into a billion-dollar pile of overhyped group psychosis. Like any obedient cult member, Jay had casually tried to indoctrinate me for years. And it had been easy to refute him. My one-off shot at hot yoga had, after all, ended in barf. But everything changed when Som and I moved to Joshua Tree for the summer. It was then Jay decided mine was a balloon in need of popping. “I say this with love, Kat. Left unchecked, your life-force trends toward anemic.” “I can only imagine what that would look like said without love.” Yeah, my life-force was not anemic. That was just Jay being Jay—dramatic with a splash of narcissism, espousing his state-of-flow, hive-mind drivel. The truth was, I was the happiest, most centered I’d been in years. “What’s so wrong about me that I need meditation?” I asked. Jay pulled a long face and spoke out one side of his mouth. “It’d be more expedient to ask what’s so right about you that you don’t need meditation.” “Bit harsh.” Som stole the words from me. “I don—” he started, but Jay waved him off with a rakish grin. “Seriously, Kat, it’ll be fun. And good for you to elevate your vibrational frequency. To seek a higher plane where all is great.” “Jaaay…” I rolled my eyes at his bohemian rhetoric. “Everything can’t be great. If everything were great, nothing would be great, because everything great would seem mediocre without everything normal, bland, and shitty contrasting it.” “You’re only solidifying my case,” he said. “Why does my perceived state of being—my frequency—even interest you?” I sang the word and made air quotes, abandoning the bottle of nail polish when an alert on my phone caught my eye—that one thing that can make any girl squeal and blush with elation: a new paper by Toshimi Tanaka on twin-prime conjecture that promised to establish a pattern exceeding the known threshold of 388,342 digits, extending into perpetuity. As a mathematician, I was intrigued, eager to dive straight in. After plucking my phone from my hand and swatting me away, Jay read the alert, sighed like he was blowing out a candle, then stepped between Som and me, wrapping an arm around each of us. “I only wish for everyone I love to vibrate at my level? C’mon, Kat, the three of us, we’ll go together.” Som scratched his stubble. “I’d love to try a sound bath.” To Som: “Then the two of you should go, flourish in harmony with the clouds.” To Jay: “I’ll stay here alone, enchanted by my earthbound involvements.” “There are synergizing benefits to attending as a trio,” Jay said. He tightened his grip and squeezed my shoulder, his bluster picking up steam. “The Triad. Trinomials. A triptych. You know, the harmony of balanced coefficients, base three power—and all that.” I drew back enough to lock eyes with Jay. Among his stratagem, a system of tools to be brandished like bottle-rockets, employing half-baked algebra to compel me was a lever he only pulled occasionally. Which spoke to how determined he was. “And if I were to agree to your sound bath, what’s next?” I flung his arm away and broke free. “Walking on hot coals? Creative movement classes? How about ear candling? Oh, hey—let’s chain ourselves to a tree!” I was getting worked up. “I know how this ends with you, Jay: it never ends! It’s best to break the chain right now.” “The chain keeps us together, little sister.” “I’m not your little—” “She’s a quarter inch taller than you; he’s ten and a half months older than you—we’ll call it a draw,” Som said with a smile. The three of us had been in close quarters for nearly a week: Som and I outside the rhythm of UCLA, Jay between band commitments. Back in LA, the two of them had bonded, become fast friends; now, living with us in the Yucca Valley ranch house where Jay and I had grown up, Som had slid into our sibling power-dynamic, grabbing the conversational wheel and pulling us away from the ditch, as required. “This is Jay’s last night,” Som said. “Oh, come on. They’re playing, like, three shows—” “Four shows,” Jay said. “I’ll be gone ten days.” “A ten-day tour celebrating your greatness is hardly cause for a guilt-laden farewell.” When Jay interlaced his fingers in appraisal of my armor, I curled my lip and glared at him. “Maybe I already have plans tonight?” I gestured toward my phone and the assertion of twin prime’s ice-wall breakthrough. “Math is insensate,” Jay said. “Live life lighter.” “Is that your counterargument, or are you quoting Pottery Barn throw pillows at me?” Jay’s mouth pressed closed; Som considered his sneakers; I pushed a fistful of golden-brown waves out of my face. No one spoke for several seconds. “I won fair and square, Kat,” Jay finally said, changing tack. “It was so long ago I barely remember what the bet was about.” “Your failing memory does not negate the terms of our contract.” I rocked back on my heels. “And you’re willing to submit me to forced meditation?” “Yes.” My brother was in peak aesthetic: bell bottom jeans and a tie-dyed shirt with the words THINK BELIEVE ATTRACT RECEIVE in descending order down the front. The wash of colors picked up a glimmer from the prismatic bracelet a fan threw to him on stage at Red Rocks when his band opened for some big legacy act waging a short-lived reunion. Within a certain subset of the population, Jay was a celebrity. But to me, he was my overconfident sibling whose neo-psychedelia fetish had spiraled out of control. “To scale this summit of wonder,” I said, stepping with caution, “would I have to dress in a flowing robe with love beads? Wear a daisy in my hair?” “Wear a latex catsuit with Bedazzled tube socks and a cowboy hat if you like. Whatever you feel comfortable in. It really doesn’t matter.” Som gave me a look, his mouth hitching up on one side. “Do you own a latex catsuit?” Ignoring the question—though making a note to revisit the topic when we were alone, but not because I was curious (I absolutely was curious)—I let the silence stretch while I held my nose to the wind, scenting for a falter in my brother’s tenacity. When we were kids, Jay wiggled with neophilic energy; a performer in search of his spotlight, an experiential rush, transcendence—preferably all three at once. Try as I had to keep up with his fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants outlook, my deeply pragmatic personality had never contained enough sharp lurches, freefall plummets, and hairpin turns for his liking. Once I’d moved to LA, being geographically elsewhere from my dad and brother for the first time—big personalities that blocked out most of the sun—I’d slipped wholeheartedly into the structure of university. Rules. Ones I could identify and learn. Rules founded on undeniable logic. Rules, where they existed, I’d always been good with. That’s why I’d sought a life of purposeful mathematics in the first place: the order and clarity of formulas, no room for interpretation or error in an equation, terms in black and white, zeros and ones, functions and forms. Of course, a lot had happened in the intervening years—the jagged edges of adolescence sanded down and the latent energy from the past shaken off. Since meeting Som and falling in love, I’d undergone a bit of a pattern reset. I’d made real strides toward not overthinking every tiny decision—reigning in my internal monologue before it formed a caucus, a council of voices and opinions trying to undermine my authority. After considering that, I tamped down my reluctance. Jay was right, meditation might be fun. Relaxing even. Toshimi Tanaka’s paper could wait a few hours. “Fine,” I said slowly, as if I were trying the word on, still working out if external coercion to seek internal mindfulness even made sense. “We’ll go tonight. All three of us. Let’s meditate.” * * *

Hello! Thanks for reading the first scene of The Cleveland Phoenix, a science fiction/adventure manuscript. The chapter below introduces the protagonist, the antagonist, and the primary conflict of the novel, as well as the setting and tone. Chapter 1: Dortollen Licorice Star Year 2722 – Shaula System – Fifteen Years Ago Cassander of Arkan didn’t believe the Vikaanians. The human’s face bunched to one side, skeptical. Watching the time, he raised an eyebrow behind his portable oxygen generator–a black fabric mask cradling a translator insert and a long, clear tube running to a palm-sized box in the pocket of his jacket. The box clicked every few seconds or so, muffled, marking intervals of time as he waited for the Vikaanians to respond. He tapped his forefinger on the communications console. “Moros,” came the Vikaanians through the communications array’s translator, finally. “We told you; we have no such items on board.” Cass sat in the co-captain’s chair of The Cleveland Phoenix, just outside the Shaula system, half a million kilometers from the nearest planet’s outer rings. The Phoenix, a silver, bat-like mishmash of a Dortollen trading vessel, hovered nose-to-nose with the Vikaanians' Illustra, an insectoid, yellow maintenance ship half its size. But there was more to the Illustra than met the eye. And Cass knew it. He inhaled, muting the channel, and turned to the captain’s chair, to the person sitting in it, also human. “What do we think?” he asked through the mask. The mechanical translator insert made his voice gruff, digital. It spilled out a Vikaanian dialect, but his Earth English underneath rang clear. “Do we believe the Vikaanians?” Dangling her legs from the captain’s chair, Cassander’s almost-six-year-old daughter, Iona of Arkan, shook her head. Eyes bright and blue, like sparks of cosmic dust, her response caused a mass of brown curls to bounce around her face--around those eyes. Cass pulled his black mask down, revealing a smirk. It was all for show: The Moros and the mask. A persona. He squinted his deep brown eyes as he leaned towards her and dropped his voice, low. “I don’t believe ‘em either, Baby Blues,” he said, shaking his head in solidarity, then dropping a finger on her nose. She grinned wide, showing off one single new front tooth, and one gap where a tooth was freshly missing. Another oxygen generator rested in the chair next to her. The girl returned to fiddling with a pair of charcoal, grown-up gloves from the seat next to her, smoothing them on. Wiggling her fingers into the oversized lumps of fabric. Cass placed the mask and translator back over his face, then reopened the channel to the Vikaanians, clearing his throat. “The Garton ice mammoth you stole those tusks from would disagree,” Cass said, raising both eyebrows. “Black market price right now is one hundred…one-fifty credits per tusk? Let’s see. And the average Garton ice mammoth has…” He turned to his daughter again, holding up five fingers, waving them in the air. She shook her head, revealing all five gloved fingers on one hand, plus another on the second: Six total. “Six tusks,” Cass said into the communications array. The girl nodded. A Garton ice mammoth wasn’t something he had ever encountered alive; they were endangered, elusive. Not that he shied away from the clandestine. But the credits for their tusks were lucrative. And he knew the Vikaanians knew that. Especially when they’d picked up the contraband a few lightyears back, right under the nose of the Mining Magistrate–his boss, for the moment. “What do you want, pirate?” came the Vikaanians’ lagging response. Cass wagged his head side-to-side, not so much a pirate as a privateer. But he let it slide. “Well, that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of six to nine-hundred credits they’ll fetch,” said Cass, the Moros, leaning back in his chair. “It’s worth at least that to stay off the radar of the Magistrate. You wouldn’t want them to know one of their Vikaanian service ships is dealing in illegal commodities.” Silence followed Cassander’s ask. “Or maybe you would?” He shrugged, folding his hands together. “You hold our vessel hostage to extort us?” the Vikaanian asked. Cass snorted. “That’s…that’s a bit dramatic,” he said, reaching over to a bay of green and yellow switches. “You call it extortion; I call it doing you a favor. But you’re welcome to leave any ti-...oh, but your fuel stores are empty. Huh.” The Phoenix’s magnetic fuel decontainment system had done its job, causing the Illustra’s plasma tanks to hemorrhage precious fuel out into space. “How’d that happen?” He finished turning a few switches off and gave his daughter a wink. She winked back, flashing a tooth and a top row of pink gums. “What do you want, Moros?” the Vikaanian asked, growling. Iona climbed out of the captain’s chair, revealing a copper booster seat underneath her. She skipped over to the co-captain’s chair and pulled at her father’s shirtsleeve. Cass turned his head. The girl stood on her tiptoes against the side of his chair and whispered into his ear. He nodded, mouth curling up as her hair tickled his ear. The Moros lifted her into his lap and opened the manifest of the Vikaanians’ ship he’d been hacking into on a holographic display. Iona scrolled through the lines of orange lights and pointed at an item on the list. “Let’s say seven hundred credits and the three kilograms of Dortollen licorice you have in that cargo hold,” Cass said, looking his daughter in the eye. Iona grinned, nodding. An alarm sounded on the sensor array. Cass jumped to the interface to look at the source. He pulled his mask down, furrowing his brow at the ship’s proximity scanner, blinking an angry red. The human’s eyes grew wide. Another ship approached: The Maelstrom. “No, no, no, no–not again,” Cass breathed from outside his mask. “Sir,” said the Phoenix’s computer, Argos. “I see it, Argos,” he said. Cass pulled his daughter off his lap. “Harness up, kiddo.” The five-year-old trotted back to the captain’s chair, climbed in, and pulled on a pint-sized green cloth harness. “Illustra,” he said, reopening the channel, “better make it fast. We’ve got visitors.” “And if we don’t?” asked the Vikaanian ship’s captain. Cass squinted at the time, running a hand through his chestnut hair. Ten solar minutes. “Up to you,” he said, keying coordinates into the gray navigation console’s concave white buttons. “You can hand over the items and we’ll leave you alone. Or we can stick around a little longer and let our new guests see you hobnobbing with The Cleveland Phoenix. I recommend the first option if you’d like to sleep in your own bed again. Ever.” “Sir, the slipstream signature is Communion,” Argos said. “Gathered that, thanks Argos.” The human inhaled, preparing The Phoenix’s slipstream drive for emergency activation. Then, he used both hands to scratch his head and kept his hands on the back of his neck, frozen. Waiting. Either way, he was ready. Quarry or no quarry. “Stand by for transport, Phoenix,” said the Vikaanian ship, at last. Cass exhaled, checking the distance of the incoming Serpens Communion ship. He figured he had ten solar minutes, tops–plenty of time to grab the licorice, the credits, and run. But still. “Congratulations,” Cass said, initiating the external docking gear, “you made the right choice. But shake a tailfeather, Illustra.” The docking port extensions began groaning into place on the outside of the ship. He entered slipstream coordinates on the console in front of him, just to be ready. “Tail…feather?” the Vikaanians asked. The translator sometimes fumbled with Earth English, especially the figurative. “It means hurry up.” The pirate shook his head. He tapped a finger against the console again and looked at his daughter. She saluted her father with two gloved fingers at her temple. Cass returned the salute with a half-smile, but it faded as he eyed the time again. He re-opened the channel. “By the way, Illustra…The Cleveland Phoenix was never here. For both of our sakes.”