by Jen Crane
“That’s not crazy, babe.” Her mother strained to push the rusting silver wheels of her chair toward Nori. Her hands were more calloused than she remembered. “It’s concern. Of course you worry about your friend.”
Nori gave a stiff nod and turned from her mother, who breathed a soft, “Oh.” When Nori turned back, her mother’s eyes were wide with sympathy. “He was more than that, wasn’t he?”
Nori sniffed and cleared her throat. “I just hope he’s okay, Mom. He has to be okay.”
“One breath at a time, one step at a time, one day at a time,” her mother said. “We have plenty to worry about right now.”
When Nori didn’t answer, her mother tugged on her hand. “Right?”
Nori nodded.
“Okay. Who do we call next?”
“I hope y’all had better luck than we did.” Nate’s movements were stiff and angry when the three men returned several hours later. “Those know-it-alls at the Climate Research Center can just fry in the scorch, for all I care.”
“Nate!” Deanna admonished.
“No, I mean it.” He flung himself onto the basement sofa and crossed his arms. “We have information that can save people. And zero time to screw around.”
“They didn’t believe you?” her mother asked her father, who shook his head.
Nori looked from him to Kade. “What did they say?”
“They said…” Kade shook his head angrily. “They said they’d know if we were under threat of a scorch. That they’re confident in their system and their people.”
“And they said we should take our kooky butts back home.” Her father plopped beside Nate and put his feet on the coffee table, but quickly pulled them back down at his wife’s censorious look.
“They did not!” her mother gasped.
“They might as well have,” he said. “They looked at us like a bunch of conspiracy theorists. They listened to appease us but as soon as we finished, they ushered us out the door.”
“I’m so sorry.” Nori shook her head. “I know you guys did your best.”
“Tell me about the news stations,” her father said. “Are they going to report it?”
Nori’s mouth twisted with disappointment. “No one believed us, either.”
“God!” Her father kicked a metal chair, making everyone in the room jump. “We’re trying to save lives here. Can’t they understand that? I mean, even if we’re wrong, what does it hurt to issue a warning? Best case scenario, people live. Worst case, they say some lunatics got it wrong.”
“I bet they get stuff like this all the time.” Kade shrugged. “The whole world lives in fear. Maybe we were just three more pecans in a bowl of nuts.”
Nori groaned. “Well, what now? We have, what, eight hours?”
The air in the room was stiff with tension. “I’ve got it!” Nori’s father jumped from the sofa. “Nate, we need your ham radio.”
“Are you sure this will work?” Nori asked as all seven of them crowded around a set of square boxes covered with knobs, and dials, and buttons.
“It’s the only option we have at this point.” Norman exhaled sharply. “Tell us again how it works, Nate.”
“Hams work on radio frequencies, which are still viable despite the sunscorches.” He straightened and met six attentive gazes. “Now, most hams were destroyed after the first scorch.” His eyebrows lifted proudly. “But that’s because they weren’t in Faraday cages. And even the newer equipment that had been protected was just trash. This old boat anchor,” he spread his arm to reveal his setup with a proud flourish, “is from the ‘60s, and has a tube transmitter.”
Nori and Grant shared an okay-that’s-enough-tech-talk look, but Kade and her father were still absorbed in the lesson.
“Anyway,” Nate wound down, “there are only a few ham operators left with working equipment. But, we’re an organized bunch with systems in place to get a message out.” His face was serious, his blue gaze penetrating as he turned to Nori. “Now, what’s our message?”
“CQ, CQ, CQ. This is ND5LSS… ”
Nori shook her head, fascinated as Nate issued an emergency alert to his fellow ham operators. They took him seriously, and set out right away to spread the message.
When he was finished, Nate turned from the radio system, rubbing his temples. “We did it,” he said, nodding at Nori. “Let’s hope it’s enough.”
48
Initiate Combustion
Council of Concerned Citizens World Headquarters
Sierra Papagayos Mountain Range
Free and Sovereign State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico
Latitude: 25° North
“Duke, are all systems in place for combustion protocol?” Lindgren stood behind his team of scientists, some seated at their computer stations and others pacing the patch of floor behind their colleagues.
Too-white LED lights flickered overhead, their steady hum the only sound as the CCC team prepared to forge another sunscorch.
“Combustion protocol is a go, Dr. Lindgren,” the man replied. “Ready on your order.”
Jason Duke had been with him from the start, a brilliant young geophysicist with loads of initiative and something to prove. While his and Duke’s expertise lay in science, Commander Mills and Harley Pettit had military backgrounds. Pettit was an explosives specialist who’d worked underground pipelines and oil rigs in the private sector after he left the military.
“Pettit.” Lindgren speared the man with his gaze and met confidence. “Can you confirm our allies have been informed of our plans to combust?”
“I can.” Pettit cleared his throat, his deep voice cracking with phlegm as years of smoking caught up with him. “Most remain underground full-time now anyway, only venturing out for missions or communique.”
The heavy thud of a metal door slamming shut set the room on edge. The air was already charged with tension, a month’s work culminating in one press of a button. The presence of Commander Mills sent backs rigidly straight.
The Commander’s attention turned to Lindgren, as it always did. “You’re certain we’ve told our people, Lindgren? God forbid we nuke our own kind.”
Lindgren didn’t look Pettit’s way for confirmation. His team was trained, focused, and committed. “Yes, sir. Would you like the honors, sir?”
The calculating glint in Mills’s eyes made them all the more severe.“By all means,” the Commander’s gaze met Lindgren’s. “The privilege is yours.”
Lindgren's gut twisted. He knew why Mills was declining to make the final call, why he insisted Lindgren command his team to ignite the methane mixture that barely made muster. He was being tested, his commitment to their cause confirmed.
He never looked away from the Commander. “Initiate combustion,” he ordered.
49
The End
Nori and Kade helped Deanna with dinner. It didn’t take her mind off the impending scorch—or Cooper—but it did keep her busy, and that was good.
Nate and Deanna’s house had been constructed as a post-scorch fallout shelter, equipped with a kitchen and all the essentials of living in the cement-reinforced basement. It was as good as being underground, and they could all stay there until the scorch passed.
Grant had challenged Nori’s mom to a card game, and Nate and her father spoke in hushed tones near the door. Honestly, Nori didn’t even want to know what they were so worried about.
High-pitched alert notices cut through the hushed basement atmosphere like a serrated knife to canvas. All seven of them turned toward the old box-set television to see the announcement. There wasn’t a press conference like before, only a red screen with bold white letters, and a computerized voice-over repeating a script.
Warning. Find shelter immediately. The Climate Research Center has issued an immediate sunscorch warning. Residents should take cover in designated shelters immediately.
Repeating.
Warning. Find shelter immediately. The Climate Research Center has issued an immediate
sunscorch warning. Residents should take cover in designated shelters immediately.
A relieved sob escaped Nori before she could contain it. Her parents, Kade and Grant, and Deanna and Nate all turned to her, and collectively they shared both sighs of relief and the satisfaction of having been right. Nori beamed at them, her team of heroes.
The swell of satisfaction filled every porous chamber of Nori’s heart, and it threatened to burst from her chest. They’d done it; they’d saved lives. For the first time, she’d had a purpose, a plan, and she had made a difference.
She vowed it wouldn’t be the last time.
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Book 2 Preview
Terminal Combustion: Subterranean Series, Book 2
I hope you enjoy this preview of Terminal Combustion, Book 2 in the Subterranean Series.
~Jen
Esperanza, Mexico
Free and Sovereign State of Durango
Latitude: 25° North
Nori inhaled the warm night air and smiled. Life was better at the 25th Parallel. It was farther from the sun and cooler than it had been in Ralston, sure, but those weren’t the only differences. Her new home thrummed with life. Music and laughter bounced from the streets up to her family’s adobe-style home carved deep into the mountainside. Somewhere nearby rice simmered with dried chilis and onions. That it had all been grown hydroponically didn’t diminish the aroma or quieten the growl in Nori’s belly.
Though she was content, there was always something tugging at the back of her mind, like a piece of her was missing. It had been a month since the last sunscorch. A month since she’d sped through the Subterranean to find her parents. A month since she’d seen Sam Cooper.
“All right, spill.” Kade slid onto the bench beside her and pinched the last crumb of flourless birthday cake from her plate. “What’d you wish for?”
As he popped the morsel into his mouth, Kade’s chestnut eyes glinted with mischief. Or maybe it was joy. Since they’d arrived at the 25th Parallel, he had transformed into someone else entirely. Someone playful, weightless, and very nearly happy.
“No way,” she said and pushed against her friend’s massive shoulder. “If I tell it won’t come true.”
“Sure it will. Birthday wishes always come true.”
“Oh yeah? Whose wish have you seen come true?”
Kade’s head fell to the side and candlelight caught his dark eyes as they slid in Grant’s direction. “Mine.”
Grant Corredor was the reason for Kade’s newfound happiness. Until a month ago, though, he’d also been the cause of his anguish. Kade had been a wreck when Nori first met him in a gritty Subterranean fighting syndicate called the Pit. Just days before she arrived, Grant had been presumed dead after jumping into a nearby ravine. No one at the Pit had known the depth of Kade and Grant’s relationship and he’d had to conceal his grief, to internalize it. It had nearly sent him over a cliff, too.
But on Nori’s terrace, after a small but wonderful eighteenth birthday party, Kade was on the road to healing.
She felt like a voyeur watching Grant’s face light at Kade’s secret smile. She looked away, giving them their moment, and caught sight of her mother. The hard angles of her mother’s face softened as she looked down on the lights of town, releasing some of the tension around her eyes. Since the accident that left her unable to walk, her health had steadily declined. Nori had been watching for weeks as the constant pain and obvious frustrations of being bound to a wheelchair added years to her mother’s face.
Pain and frustration were things Nori knew too well. Hypersensitivity to the sun in a sunscorched world meant being bound indoors except for a few blessed hours of darkness each night. Over the past 17 years, severe burns and infections had left Nori bedridden for weeks at a time. The new patches of skin and old scars that marred her face had always made people uncomfortable, and she didn’t have many friends. Before Kade, she hadn’t really had any.
More familiar to Nori were loneliness and hopelessness, and as the old friends stopped by, her mood took a sharp, dark dive. She folded in on herself, fingers twisting in her lap. She was damaged, out of place, and out of sorts, and the fragments of joy she’d collected from her birthday party were washing away in a wave of despondency.
“You know what?” Nori cleared her throat and attempted to clear her mind, forcing a smile in Kade’s direction. “I think I’ll keep this wish to myself.”
“Like we don’t know what you’d wish for anyway.” Grant said as he wagged sleek eyebrows and made his way to the table.
“What?” Nori’s father asked. Emerging from the house, he looked first to her, then to Grant. “What would she wish for?”
Nori’s murderous glare in Grant’s direction would’ve withered lesser men.
“An eclipse?” he bleated desperately.
Closing her eyes on another wish— that they’d drop the subject— she stood and dusted the ever-present ash from her pants. “Well, thanks, everyone, for a great birthday. I don’t think a girl’s ever had better parents… ” Nori looked to her parents, whose faces beamed with adoration, before turning to Kade and Grant. “Or friends.”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Kade shook his head, a slow grin transforming his face. Every bit a powerful pit fighter, he’d also been born with a killer bone structure. “Your night’s not even close to over. There are three full hours of dark left, and we’re gonna burn every last second.”
“Oh yeah?” Nori replied. ”We going to have a movie night?”
Kade and Gran shared a wicked grin.
“Wait,” she said. “What are you two up to?”
Kade crowded her space, daring her to disagree. “You, Nori Chisholm, are going to the club.”
Buy Terminal Combustion to follow Nori’s adventure!
Also by Jen Crane
Descended of Dragons Series
Rare Form
Origin Exposed
Betrayal Foretold
Descended of Dragons 3-Book Box Set
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Subterranean Series
Sunscorched
Terminal Combustion
Acknowledgments
To the best readers and friends in the world: Thank you for supporting me. Thanks for your encouragement, thank you for your kind notes and generous reviews. Thank you for recommending this series to your friends. Books need readers, and I’m so glad you’re mine.
Being an author can sometimes be a solitary business, but with colleagues, friends, and family like mine, it’s not lonely.
To Brock for rock-solid support, for pushing me out of the house to write, for always saying “I got this.”
To Bebe and Gary, Marianne, Angela, Nathan and Deanna, and to Tammie Jo for unceasing support and encouragement. To my oldest friend, Beau, for answering my many military questions.
To the critique partners and beta readers who made this a better book: Kathleen, Brooke, Brinda, Erica, Skyler, Peyton, Kristin and Rebecca- thank you from the bottom of my heart.
To Cary Smith for exceptional cover art: thank you for sticking with me! I love the finished product.
Thank You for Reading!
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed the gritty world of Sunscorched, Book 1 in the Subterranean Series. Thank you for your support, and for following Nori and Cooper’s dark ride.
Be sure to sign up for sneak peeks, news, and giveaways for more from this series, and others in the
future. You’ll also get an exclusive and unpublished six-chapter novella in Cooper’s point of view!
I love hearing from readers. Please visit my site at www.JenCraneBooks.com, or I can be found on most social media sites at @JenCraneBooks.
I’d love to read your review of Sunscorched. Reviews help other readers find books they might enjoy, and word of mouth is still the best marketing tool. Please consider leaving a review of Sunscorched by using this link to visit your bookstore. Goodreads helps, too!
Thanks so much for reading.
Jen
About the Author
Though she grew up on a working cattle ranch, it's fantasy and sci-fi that shine Jen Crane's saddle. Her newest novel, Sunscorched, received the 2017 Rosemary Award for excellence in young adult fiction.
Jen has a master’s degree and solid work histories in government and non-profit administration. But just in the nick of time she pronounced life too real for nonfiction. She now creates endearing characters and alternate realms filled with adventure, magic, and love. She lives in the southern US with her family and too many pets.
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