Fantastic Children 2 Ch.10Chapture 10: At the Bottom of the Deep Clear Sea"Hasmodai…Hasmodai…Hasmodai…"When he opened his eyes, it took him several minutes of blinking before the blurriness cleared, and even after, he barely recognized Soreto. Her face was streaked with blood, her eyes and nose puffy and swollen."Soreto?"She looked relieved. "How many fingers am I holding up?""Some of them," he answered.He was sitting in a chair. He leaned forward to stand, but a wave of pain and dizziness seized him, and he closed his eyes again. His head felt…he put up a hand to feel the back of his head, bu
Fantastic Children 2 Ch.11Chapter 11 : The Burden and the TransienceIt was unfair, Dumas thought, that the universe should make its own rescue so complicated. Once again he was coming up short in the number of souls he needed to relocate.He thought there was a good chance that those in the ship's control room might have survived, because that part of the ship was designed to detach from the body in disastrous circumstances. His sister Tina had been in there.If she had not survived, he had no more interest in saving the universe. Let it all fall down. He owed the rest of creation nothing.Agi had almost certainly been killed, and that was a serious inconvenience
Fantastic Children 2 Ch.3Chapter 3: Teo: Small PlanetTeo took a deep breath of sea air and let all the tension leave his body with it. He had not thought that the day would come when he was relieved to be leaving home. He loved his sister Serena, and was happy she was in love and going to be married, but he did wish that she had fallen in love with someone he actually liked.Lately Rogan had been casually asking questions about whether Teo planned to go to college, and exactly when, or whether he had been looking for a part-time job yet, and even about which of the siblings actually owned the house their parents had left them. Even Serena seemed to be impatient
Fantastic Children 2 Ch.4Chapter 4: Pollux and Dumas: Tearful MorningsBuilding the device had been the easy part. Keeping anybody from knowing about it had been nearly impossible. Pollux had watched Castor tinkering with his own project for half an hour before feigning disinterest and boredom, and wandering off to dismantle a portable computer on his own."I just want to see what it looks like inside," Pollux told Doctor Mellert when she started asking questions. "I've never had one I was allowed to take apart before."As he disassembled the machine bit by bit, he laid the parts out neatly on the counter of the lab. All but the parts he needed. Those he secr
Fantastic Children 2 Ch.14Chapter 14: Widening RipplesThe Atalanta was even more enormous than it had appeared from the wreck. Hasmodai sent a probe into it with the scanner, but if the ancient vessel had a matter transference system, it was deactivated, broken, unrecognizable or undetectable for some other reason. There seemed to be a number of hatches, some sealed over with ice or other encrustments. Hasmodai finally was forced to warm one of the smaller airlock hatches enough that the ice released when he activated it. The task nearly depleted his considerable energy reserves, but he was able to enter the airlock and seal it after
Fantastic Children 2 Ch.5Chapter 5: Soreto, Winter, Belle: BeginningsThe ship in which Dumas had traveled from Greecia was uncommonly small and functional: as was only reasonable, if he had planned to abandon it and return via the Zone. The equipment was packed tightly and efficiently into the hold, and once the two robots that Dumas called for had been activated, the Greecian scientists stepped back and let them take care of the unloading.Soreto had absorbed the data Dumas had brought with him, as had the others. Now she continued to study it in detail on a data pad. Having something artificially implanted into your memory was quick and useful, but vi
Fantastic Children 2 Ch.1Fantastic Children 2: Lost SoulsChapter 1: Ian: The continuation of the dream."Far, far below, beneath the crystal clear and shining deep blue sea,A tiny little flower sleeps so peacefully.Soft and gentle breezes sing a quiet tune while flying through rainbows,And all the fish are playing in the sky to and fro."The baby Ian held in his arms stopped squalling and settled into curious silence, looking up at his sixteen-year-old cousin as they rocked on the porch together. Ian smiled down at the newborn. Another family member. The thought sent a stab of delight though him. The baby was moist and warm and gave of
Fantastic Children 2 Ch.2Chapter 2: Pollux: The Butterfly and the WaspSwiftly the wasp fliesThe butterfly drifts softlyTo the same blossomThe wasp flies at 250 km/ph. The butterfly drifts at 10 km/ph. They start at the same place, and reach the same flower simultaneously. If they each traveled 27 km, how much earlier must the butterfly have started? Round to the nearest minute.Castor Weaver scrawled the final answer on his paper and slid it toward the examiner with thinly veiled contempt. He looked away as the man examined the test paper. Pollux could feel his twin's irritation, but it was nothing new. Castor had been born angry."You got the answers
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