Welcome to Promise City by Greg Cox

Author:Greg Cox
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

APRIL HAD MADE it to Jordan Collier’s office at last.

Be careful what you wish for.

She perched anxiously on the edge of a high-backed Queen Anne chair in the middle of the impressive executive office. The two Peace Officers from City Hall stood to either side of her. Neither had offered her any clue as to what lay in store for her, although her fearful imagination had generated no shortage of dreadful scenarios, up to and including her being “disappeared” for good. She had heard unconfirmed rumors about what happened to 4400s who crossed Collier.

The room was uncomfortably warm compared to the outdoor plaza. Her hat, coat, and mirror shades hung on a rack by the door, but she still felt overdressed for indoors. She sweated beneath her fluffy mohair turtleneck and tight leather pants. Her mouth was as dry as Prohibition. She couldn’t stand the suspense any longer.

“Tie-dye pigeonhole emeritus?” she blurted.

Roughly translated, What do you want with me?

The guards merely snickered in response.

Her maddening inability to speak clearly only made her involuntary confinement here even more excruciating. A frustrated sob burst from her throat. She gnawed nervously at her fingernails. A clock on the wall revealed that she had been held captive for nearly two hours now. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could take this.

Just get it over with, won’t you?

Finally, just as she felt that she was on the verge of a total meltdown, the office door swung open and Jordan Collier strode into the room. He walked over to face her, while his bodyguards closed the door behind him. A lock clicked shut.

April swallowed hard.

“Hello, Ms. Skouris,” Collier addressed her. Speechifying had left his raspy voice even hoarser than usual. He sipped from a plastic water bottle, whose label identified it as having come from the once-polluted Duwamish River delta. Cleansing those toxic waters had been one of the Movement’s earliest triumphs—and a demonstration of all that Collier intended for Promise City. “My apologies for keeping you waiting. I understand that you’ve gone to some effort to see me … despite my warnings to the contrary.”

His tone was stern and unforgiving. April felt as though she had been called into the principal’s office, an experience she was more than familiar with from her school days. She instantly knew what he had in mind for her.

“Sasquatch fax gravy!”

Terrified, she tried to leap from the chair, but the guards clamped on to her shoulders and shoved her back down onto the seat. Another sickening wave of dizziness sent her head spinning. She whimpered and closed her eyes until the sensation passed. Clearly, she wasn’t going anywhere. She moaned in defeat. “Fetal seraglio …”

Collier laid the water bottle down on a nearby table. He gazed down on her like a judge upon a bench. “It pains me that you chose to disregard my warning, and not only because I sincerely regret seeing any promicin-inspired ability wasted. I have great respect for your sister and her partner.”

You and everyone else, she thought bitterly.

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.