Archon's Queen by Cox Matthew S

Author:Cox, Matthew S. [Cox, Matthew S.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781620076385
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press
Published: 2015-08-09T07:00:00+00:00

ine Clifton Hill sat amid a strip of residences that had been rebuilt a few centuries ago, soon after the war. Constructed in an archaic style, the buildings held ten accommodations stacked vertically, each the size of a one-story house. Advertised as ‘full-floor flats,’ they were the purview of the not quite wealthy.

Induced trees sprouted through the footpath, their trunks twisted in an artistic manner through decorative iron grillwork. Branches fluttered in the incessant wind. Rain still came, but it had fallen off to a weak drizzle her new coat shrugged off. Bundled in it, Anna felt like a different person from the one who existed only a night ago. No one so much as offered her a second glance; she looked like she belonged. Her no longer bare midriff gave her warmth, and the presence of underclothes embraced her with long lost dignity.

She had become a Proper overnight.

For many blocks in all directions, patches of pale orange light flickered in the gloom of the approaching storm, a dozen-dozen pictures of Faye in hologram, mounted to any vertical surface someone could find. Little devices the size of a thumbnail projected the vision of a black-haired porcelain doll to the world, smiling in a pose for a class portrait. She looks so different with her hair blue.

Faye Taylor, 13, missing daughter. Last seen two weeks ago. AF851.185CC.9185F.FFBDD. Reward if found. Ͼ100,000.

That was likely her father’s code; like posting one’s name, address, phone number, resume, and bank account number, an invitation to every cyberspace criminal in the world to come sniff you out.

The man must be nuts to post his PID in the open like that, daft or desperate.

Anna stood by one such hologram, staring into the virtual eyes flickering with windblown debris. The ghostly face looked as innocent on the outside as Faye did on the inside, devoid of blue hair and attitude.

A tiny grey car squeaked past her in the street and came to a halt at the adjacent building. From it, a middle-aged lumpy man emerged in a brown sweater and grey slacks. He squinted into the wind, his eyes receding into a face pasty and puffy. Anna recognized him from Faye’s nightmares: Mr. Bell, the man who had stuck his hand where it did not belong.

Anna thought back to the Crossman in the alley and shifted her stance at the remembered touch, the sensation of a cold finger where she did not want it. Latent anger swirled as she stared at the nervous potbellied man leaning through the open door to gather things from the car. He seemed to feel the malice in her stare and looked around like a mouse sensing the eagle before the dive; with each second, his motions picked up speed.

Her gaze shifted to the warm glow in the windows of number nine Clifton Hill, trying to guess which floor the girl lived on, which floor still held the people Mr. Bell tortured by his continued existence.

She drew her coat tight against a building gust of wind, which knocked one of the man’s parcels to the ground.

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