Broken Pixels (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

through them and filling the room.
    Hammering continued from the door while the transparent blue bubble filled with lines and nodes along its periphery. Sam’s head craned in an arc as he watched the progression. When a node appeared above the center of Cam’s torso, Mara nodded at it and said, “There it is. Are you guys sure?”
    Ping and Sam nodded.
    “Put a hand on my shoulder,” she said.
    As they complied, she placed her left hand on the gurney, reached out with her right and grabbed the node that levitated above it.
    Electricity shot through Mara’s body, and, as if in slow motion, she saw the edge of the translucent bubble peel away from the lines and nodes, turning itself inside out and engulfing them. It collapsed on them in a burst of blue light. She felt herself in a free fall, her stomach turning, her chest compressed so that she could not breathe. She felt movement, velocity, but no wind. There was no sound either, as if she tumbled through the vacuum of Space. All she could see was blinding blue light, and all she could feel was the node in her hand and the hands on her shoulders.
     

CHAPTER 5
     
     
    The brilliant blue light winked out, and the sense of hurtling through space stopped so suddenly that Mara lurched forward over the gurney and banged her head into something thick and solid. Stars bloomed before her eyes—the only light she could discern in the utter blackness that surrounded her.
    “Ouch, watch who you’re head-butting, genius,” Sam said from the darkness ahead.
    Mara ran her hands over the top of the gurney and felt Cam’s arm under the sheet. “Ping, are you here somewhere?” she asked.
    “Indeed. I believe I’m standing next to Sam across from you,” Ping said. “Do you have a sense of where you have transported us?”
    “When I used the Chronicle to travel to Prado’s realm, I arrived at the same location in his realm as I had left in ours—in that case it was the shop where I encountered my counterpart almost immediately. It would probably be safe to guess that we are in the hospital storage room in Cam’s realm, assuming things work the same way on each trip,” Mara said. “If that’s true …” She turned and ran her hands along the wall she found behind her. It felt like a plain concrete wall. So far, so good. After taking a step to her left, she found the raised metal box mounted on the wall, searched for the switch at its center and flipped it with a knuckle.
    Just a few feet above her head, fluorescent tubes illuminated. She turned around to find Ping and Sam, blinking their eyes, standing next to the gurney in the center of the gray storage room. The Chronicle lay on top of the sheet that covered Cam’s chest. Mara picked it up and slipped it into her front jeans pocket.
    “Are you sure we actually went anywhere?” Sam asked.
    Mara glanced over his shoulder and nodded toward the door. “Yeah, I’m sure. The doorknob isn’t melted. We went somewhere, all right. Let’s just hope we ended up in the right place to help Cam.”
    “If this is a hospital in this realm, it might be the ideal place to have brought him,” Ping said. “Perhaps we should seek assistance for him outside.”
    Mara raised a hand. “Let’s not jump the gun. I’m no expert on these things, but the one thing I learned from my trip to Prado’s realm was that things are not what they seem. Those people were using dead souls to illuminate their traffic lights, for heaven’s sake. Who knows what we will find outside that door.”
    Ping nodded. “I think we understand how different things may be here. Remember, both Sam and I come from different realms than the one we just left.”
    “That’s true. I suppose you guys might be more prepared than me.” She turned to Sam and said, “But let’s try to have more finesse while we’re here than stuffing an unpeeled banana into our mouths. Okay? And no surveys about the local cuisine—we don’t need to know where the best corn