A Million Suns Read Online Free PDF Page B

will
not
fail the Eldest.”
    She hands the floppy to Fourth Shipper Prestyn. “This is a good hack,” he says after a moment of examination. “I’ll get my group started on breaking it right away.”
    Marae nods curtly, and Prestyn heads to the door, already barking orders into his wi-com.
    â€œI’ll check all our security feeds,” Second Shipper Shelby says.
    â€œAnd we’ll need to start researching methods to add increased security to the floppy network,” Marae says. The rest of the Shippers break away from the group, a buzz of activity already drowning out the sounds of the churning engine behind me.
    Marae touches my elbow and draws me aside. I can still see the bright white words on the floppy, mocking me.
    â€œWhat are you going to do, Elder?” she asks.
    I meet her eyes. “I really don’t know.”

6
    AMY
    THIS WI-COM IS SUPPOSED TO CONNECT ME TO THE SHIP, BUT all it does is make me feel even more
dis
connected from my past. But . . . I
do
need it, like Doc said. Because I’m not safe here.
    My hand clenches around my wrist. The bruises are long gone, but other hands once held my wrists, forcing me down to the ground. . . .
    I release my hand and suck in a huge breath of air. I won’t let myself think of that. I can’t let myself think of that.
    Instead, I look at the wi-com. I imagine the braided wires slithering apart, sliding under my skin, burrowing through my flesh. I’m wearing something that was once
inside
someone else. It’s like wearing a tooth on a necklace or making earrings from toenails. It’s even worse that it came from Orion. I want nothing more than to rip this thing that was once his off my wrist and destroy it . . . but something stops me.
    At least, with the wi-com, I can reach Elder. In the past few weeks, I’ve seen him less and less—and I get it, really I do, I know he’s busy. But . . . I can’t help but smile. It
will
be nice to be able to talk to him.
    I push the button on the wi-com and say Elder’s name. I raise it to my ear, waiting to hear his voice.
Beep!
“Com link denied,” a pleasant female computer voice says.
    Well, it
would
be nice to talk to Elder. If he’d actually answer my com.
    I look closer at the wi-com—small black letters are printed along one of the wires. I wouldn’t really notice them if I wasn’t inspecting the wi-com so closely. I dig my finger into the braided wires, separating the red wire from the others so I can see the letters more clearly.
    It’s one phrase, three words repeated over and over and over in tiny print: Abandon all hope .
    My first thought is, how did Doc miss this? He said he cleaned the wi-com. But, I suppose, this is just another mark of how disturbed—by which I mean downright psycho—Orion was. I wouldn’t be surprised if Doc saw the message and gave the wi-com to me regardless—words printed on a wire don’t actually change whether or not the stupid thing works. Doc cares more about practicality than whatever leftover bits of Orion’s insanity are braided up into the thing.
    Beyond that, the phrase is apt. If there’s one thing I don’t have any more of, it’s hope. It’s almost like Orion left that message just for me.
    And then I realize: he did.
    Doc said the wi-com came with a note. It is, in a way, my inheritance.
    My mind spins. Orion doesn’t have to tell me there’s no more hope for me aboard
Godspeed
; I figured that out on my own. But . . . maybe he meant something more . . . Because—I know where this phrase comes from. It is, according to my tenth-grade English teacher Ms. Parker, one of the most recognizable lines in literature, right up there with Rhett not giving a damn about Scarlett and Hamlet waffling on about whether to be or not to be.
Abandon all hope
is the phrase written above the gates