Van Terra II: Overdrive [PREVIEW]

Chapter Three ~ A Spork In A Gunfight

Somehow, Grace found herself dragged into a debate that had broken out in a group of kids on whether or not giant outer space neoworms—something she'd never heard of—were real. Despite her insistence she didn't know what they were talking about, both sides desperately tried to persuade her to tell the other they were wrong.

"They're not real, they were made up for that Star Conquerors show," one girl insisted.

A different girl shook her head. "My uncle works on cargo ships. He said he saw one one time—"

"You also said your uncle was a bodyguard for the governor, you liar!"

"That was a different uncle!"

Thea appeared at Grace's left. "I got the signal transmission ready to go," she said. "A few last things are processing, and then the file will be sent out automatically."

"Oh, uh, cool?" Grace looked around. "Where are Holly and Jax?"

"Guarding the device until I get confirmation the file was sent out. I just came to let you guys know."

Grace awkwardly shifted her weight. "Why are you telling me and not Jasper?"

"She looked a bit busy teaching that group of kids how to pickpocket."

Oh, stars. Grace watched Jasper wave around a random wallet as she talked to the group of kids that had taken an interest in her. She did seem to be having fun, but that was generally a bad thing when it came to Jasper.

"Jasper," Grace said, hoping her voice was loud enough to catch Jasper's attention without drawing too much attention.

To her surprise, Jasper jumped and nearly dropped the wallet. "Yeah, Angel?"

Grace jutted a thumb toward Thea. "We're almost done."

"Oh." Jasper shoved the wallet into her pocket. "Lesson's over, kids. Go work on your essays, or whatever it is you're supposed to be doing."

"Can you take us to the fossil exhibit?" one of the kids asked.

"I wanna see your dagger again!" another exclaimed.

"Sorry, kids, but I have to talk to my coworkers." Jasper backed away from the group and joined Grace and Thea. "How much longer?"

Thea checked the gold watch on her wrist. "Thirty seconds. Holly saw a real security guard eyeing her and Jax, so they're going to take a different path out to lose the guy without drawing attention to us."

"Great," Jasper replied. "We'll meet them in the corridor outside the cafeteria. There's an exit to an alleyway that'll be the best way out for us." She folded her arms. "Thea, can you check cameras to make sure no one else is onto us?"

Thea pulled up a screen projection from her watch for Jasper to look at. "I wasn't able to access all of them with the time I had, so I focused on the ones in our area."

While she and Jasper studied the cameras, Grace shoved her hands in her pockets and went back to studying the Starr family tree. She'd learned most of the Starr family history in her time at the palace. Of course, her tutors had left out the stuff about kidnapping kids to use as lab experiments and palace servants.

Grace hadn't known about the servant part until Jasper mentioned it casually a few days earlier. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about it since. The abductee servants mostly worked behind the scenes, somewhere out of sight. How much of Grace's food had been prepared by them? Her laundry? Every dish she'd eaten off of had probably been cleaned by a kid who'd been taken from their home.

"Excuse me," a young girl said, waving a hand to get Grace's attention. "I'm supposed to be writing about Ryse Starr."

Oh. Ryse. Syrus's father. He hadn't been governor very long before getting sick and dying of a rare but deadly disease, forcing his son to step into power at a young age. Well, Syrus did have to run for governor in an election, but he won in a landslide against the few candidates who were brave enough to oppose him. No one had expected anything else. That was how it always went.