An inkling, a notion, a teaser self promotion

[Sky]

Little teaser from Wind-Scarred that I thought I'd post, since I kinda liked it. Enjoy!


“Ezra James Hawkins. Named for your grandfather and your father, I believe. You've had a rather interesting Founder's Day. Slipping away from home and sneaking up to the space elevator. Flying a glider out of a sector where you had already told DOLT you would be doing it. An admirable display of competence and resourcefulness, by the way. Setting a wormhole through a wormhole and documenting evidence that the world outside is not only inhabitable, but inhabited. Sneaking into and back out of a secret base. Granted, it was mostly empty due to your earlier endeavors but still, quite the accomplishment. Rerouting a wormhole to prevent immediate pursuit and apprehension, thereby forcing an agent to reveal herself to you and leave you in the hands of the more... traditional authorities. Quite the Founder's Day indeed.” He paused to access the table's holographic drives and looked over the images playing there.

Ezra gave what he hoped was a roguish grin. “You should see what I do for Christmas.”

He received a very direct look. From behind the glasses. It must have taken practice. “Mr. Hawkins, while I appreciate the ability to keep one's wit in the face of insurmountable opposition, I happen to know that you spent last Christmas attempting to appear horribly sick so as to avoid a second date with Miss Mitzi Parnasus. I also know that you failed. I heard the crepes were delicious.”

Ezra stopped trying to smile. “Who are you?” he whispered. It was probably only the residual anger from his earlier confrontation that gave him the nerve to ask the question.

“Ah, good, I see we understand each other. It's always nice to meet a young man who can keep up. You may call me Mr. Blair. I have a few questions for you, Ezra. May I call you Ezra?”

“Do I have a choice?” Ezra tried, and failed, to keep the resignation out of his voice.

Mr. Blair, or whatever his name really was, smiled again. “Of course, Ezra, you have all kinds of choices. In fact, that's why I'm here. But first I need to ask you: what do you know about the history of Sanctuary?”

Ezra blinked. He had expected thinly veiled threats, maybe, but if this was a threat it had clearly put on its winter clothing. He answered hesitantly. “Well... much of our history has been written by the Legacy houses. A house is elevated to Legacy status by developing some new and note-worthy technology and keeping it in their genetically encrypted data banks-”

Blair waved his hand dismissively. “No, no, earlier than that Ezra. What do you know about the founding of Sanctuary?”

“Um, the founders were a group of men and women dedicated to science. They stayed out of the Great War and created Sanctuary as a safe haven for mankind to live in peace. Only, after the war, there was no-one left. There was nothing left. They put up the barrier to protect themselves and tried to preserve as much of humanity as they could.”

“That's very good, exactly what they teach in the history classes.”

“But,” Ezra took a deep breath, “but it's not like that anymore. There are people outside. I saw them! Healthy people! The world is healthy again! There's no reason for us to be stuck here, hiding in our city like... like hermits or some kind of-”

“Prisoners?” Mr. Blair gave Ezra a sad little smile and took off his glasses, setting them on the table. His light brown eyes initially seemed unimpressive, much like everything else about the man, but on a second glance Ezra glimpsed a hard, fierce intelligence behind them. “Unfortunately, Ezra, prisoners are exactly what we are. What we've been since the beginning.”

“What do you mean?” Ezra's voice wavered uncertainly.

“There was a war, Ezra. We lost.”

[Jeffrey, Lentarian Fire Thrower]

Sounds interesting! I look forward to reading my sample on my iPad!!