Shattered Sky by Neal Shusterman

Author:Neal Shusterman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

THE HATCHET-FACED DEALER HAD left the upper concession level, and they did not spot him on the lower levels either. He could have taken off his mask and vanished into the crowd, but somehow Winston doubted that.

“The guy was dog crap on bad news,” Drew reminded him. “Why are we looking for him?”

Winston chose not to answer that. Instead he asked, “Are you familiar with fractal theory?”

“No, but I’m sure you are.”

“Only what I’ve read.” Of course, they both knew the library locked in Winston’s head had grown rather extensive. “The theory says that the smallest particle of something is just a smaller version of the whole.”

“You lost me.”

“A boulder on a mountain will, on some very basic level, contain the pattern of the entire mountain inside it. The way an acorn holds the pattern of the oak. The way every living cell contains the pattern of the whole organism.”

“DNA.”

“Right. But what if it doesn’t stop there? What if the organism is the blueprint for the species? And what if the species is the blueprint for the cosmos?”

Drew laughed the idea away. “Winston, I don’t doubt that you see yourself when you look at the stars.”

With the fourth quarter winding down, and their masked marauder nowhere in sight, they headed out into the parking lot.

“All I’m saying,” Winston continued, “is that if a star can be alive, and its death be the birth of six souls here on earth, what else might be alive out there? How much bigger is the picture?”

“And what does all this have to do with a ballpark pusher?”

Winston slowed as they neared their car. “I think we’re about to find out.”

Drew turned and caught sight of it, too. The elusive drug dealer sat on the hood of their car. The parking lot lighting cast a dark shadow of the rubber hatchet across one side of his face. Half in shadows, the mask was even more menacing.

Drew grabbed Winston’s arm. “I don’t like this. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“He’s on our car,” Winston reminded him. “Where are we going to go?” The hatchet man watched them, his face like a portrait that always held one’s gaze. They stopped a good five yards from the car.

“Leaving so soon?” the dealer said.

“Looking for you,” Winston answered, reigning back his own fear. “We were wondering what you had to offer. And what it might cost.”

“It just so happens I’m running a special today,” the dealer said. “Crystal Nova. Powerful stuff. Just a small piece of it is guaranteed to grow hair on your chest—and just about everywhere else, for that matter.”

Winston took a step closer to the car. “Take off the mask.”

The “dealer” slowly reached up, and peeled off the latex mask to reveal the sickly face of a Hualapai Indian nowhere near as beautiful as it had been a year before. The voice had lost its musical timbre, but the face was unmistakable. It was Okoya.

Winston should have warned Drew, for now Drew’s fear spiked suddenly. “Oh, crap—I thought Dillon took care of that thing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.