Suddenly, one of the bikers near Elfrida gunned his machine. Engine howling, he roared off the street and zoomed along the sidewalk, away from the Colosseum, heading for the hillvilles. He shouldn’t have been able to do that. His bike was obviously jailbroken. Knowing that he’d be slapped with a massive fine when the police got to him, he’d decided to make a run for it. Everyone rubbernecked.
The bike’s taillight reached the nearest hillville, Città Collina San Gregorio, and started to climb the landscaped path to the top.
There was a sound like the pop of a wine cork. The bike veered off the path. It somersaulted downhill and landed against the swings in the playground. Its rider came to rest under the seesaw. He seemed to be bleeding pink from a glow-in-the-dark splotch on his back.
Elfrida knew what had happened. The polizia had sniped the biker with a paintball gun. He’d be pink for weeks, but otherwise fine. Just fine.
She cowered as a strider leapt over her, planting one foot with terrifying precision beside her rear wheel.
“Dumb pleb,” she mumbled. “Why would he think he would get away with that?”
Ten minutes later, the traffic started moving again. Elfrida’s inbox had filled up with emails from colleagues sharing the news of Charles K. Pope’s tragic death. She read and responded all the way home. No one mentioned murder. ‘Tragic windsurfing accident’ was the consensus. Elfrida’s supervisor, Jake Onwego, assured her that this would not affect her options. She still had a choice to make.
She parked off Piazza Benedetto Cairoli. As she was about to walk away, her Vespa sniggeringly informed her that she had had an unpaid parking ticket, and the polizia had hit her with an fine that was going to eat up half her furlough pay.
Tense with annoyance, she moved the bike into a legal parking place, and then walked back to her parents’ building.
Windowboxes of flowers and the odd ancient archway enlivened the quaint 20th-century street. A cat skittered across the wet pavement. The timelessness of the neighborhood comforted her—until a poll popped up in her path, randomly foisted on her by her network connection. “Hello! Jugglers, stiltwalkers, and other street performers should be taxed as a) artists, b) polluters, c) small business owners. Please pick one!”
Elfrida was tempted to reply, Frag off, but voting was compulsory. “C,” she snapped, and was informed that 53% of people so far had voted for b), polluters.
It would be just like this on Luna, except indoors.
She called Cydney on her way up the stairs.
“Hey, Cyds. I’ve decided: I’m going to take the Mercury job.”
“Yay!” Cydney shrieked. An animation of falling confetti surged across Elfrida’s contacts, obscuring her view of her father, who had opened the door at the top of the stairs. Her phone buzzed with applause.
Tomoki Goto caught her as she blundered into the door frame. “Did you just win something?”
“No, but I’m really hungry. Is there any of Mom’s sauerbraten left?”
Her father’s gaze tracked down. “What … is that?”
In her free hand, Elfrida was carrying the basket she’d been working on for the last three months. Louise 361AX had given it to her as a goodbye present.
“Oh,” Elfrida said, “just some junk my therapist had me do.” She sailed it into the living-room. Then she went after it and dramatically stuffed it into the recycling bin.
END OF PREVIEW
Books by Felix R. Savage
The Solarian War Saga, in chronological order:
Crapkiller
The Galapagos Incident
The Vesta Conspiracy
A Very Merry Zero-Gravity Christmas (short story)
The Mercury Rebellion
The Luna Deception (coming in 2015)
Stand-alone
Finity (A Story of Mars Exploration)
Mercy (A Fantasy Novella of Revenge)
… and more to come!
THE VESTA CONSPIRACY
(THE SOLARIAN WAR SAGA, BOOK 2)
A Science Fiction Thriller
Copyright © 2015 by Felix R. Savage
The right to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by Felix R. Savage. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author.
First published in the United States of America in 2014 by Knights Hill Publishing.
Cover Images by
© 2014 Depositphotos.com/Victor Habbick
© 2014 Depositphotos.com/Andrea Danti
© 2014 Depositphotos.com/Konstantin Shaklein
© 2014 NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Cover Design by Donna Mixon, Mixon Enterprises
Interior design and layout by Felix R. Savage
ISBN-13: 978-1-937396-12-1
ISBN-10: 1-937396-12-6
Table of Contents
The Vesta Conspiracy
A Note from the Author
More Books by the Author
The Vesta Conspiracy: A Science Fiction Thriller (The Solarian War Saga Book 2) Page 38
