Cress humid to herself as she rubbed a towel through her
hair, amazed at how the weight of it no longer pulled
on her.
She emerged from the washroom rejuvenated—her
skin was bright pink from scrubbing and she'd managed
to get almost all the dirt out from beneath her fingernails.
The bottoms of her feet and the insides of her legs were still
sore, but all those complaints were petty compared to the
sensation of unexpected luxury.
A soft towel.
Short, clean hair.
More water than she could drink in a year.
Or at least, her long bath had made it seem endless.
Cress eyed her pile of clothes and couldn't bear to
put them back on.
As Thorne hadn't returned yet, she pulled a blanket
off the bed and wrapped it around herself instead,
then struggled to kick the corners out of her way
as she crossed to the netscreen on the wall.
"Screen on."
It was set to an animated netted that shows orange
octopuses and blue children bopping around
to techbeats.
Cress changed it to the local newsfeed, then opened
a new box in the corner to check their GPS coordinates.
Kufra, a trading city at the eastern edge of the Shara.
She zoomed out on the map and tried to pinpoint
where the satellite would have landed, though it
was impossible to gauge how far they'd walked.
Probably not half as far as it had seemed.
Regardless, there was nothing, nothing, in the
vast open sands to the north and west.
She shuddered, realizing how close they'd come to
being food for the vultures.
She sent the map away, beginning to connect a
strategy for contacting the rampion though they
didn't have the D-COMM chip anymore, that
didn't mean the Rampion was completely out
of touch.
After all, with or without tracking equipment,
it would still have communication capabilities
and a net protocol address.
She could have hacked into the military database
and tracked down the original NPA for the ship
, but it would be a waste of time.
If it was that easy, the Commonwealth would
have been able to contact the Rampion as soon
YOU ARE READING
Cress
Fiksi RemajaTheir best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she's being force to work for Queen Levana, and she...
