Exo: A Novel (Jumper) Read Online Free PDF Page A

horizontal words that run across it don’t work. It needs to start with a D and end with an A . I tried a dictionary and even Google, but I’m stumped .”
    Millie’s mother looked up, briefly, to the ceiling, then said softly. “Try ‘Dear Santa.’”
    Seeana shook her head, not in disagreement, but in wonder. “That’s it!”
    Millie laughed and then nearly burst into tears. All that razor-sharp intellect trapped inside brittle bones and wasting muscle.
    “Thanks, Sam. I knew I could count on you.”
    Millie’s mother twitched her hand again and Seeana left.
    “She seems nice,” said Millie. It sounded inane, but anything to avoid what her mother had been saying before Seeana stuck her head in.
    “She’s great—she should be supervisor. I get to hear about her love life. She has a real fondness for guys that her mother hates.”
    Millie winced. “I suspect there are quite a few, then.”
    “The mean and median duration is about five weeks. You could chart it. She’s in a rough place. When she doesn’t have a boyfriend, her mother is all over her about that, too.”
    “Have you pointed this out to her?”
    “She pointed it out to me . She’s stuck, but self-aware. I’d really like to see her find someone worthy before I die.”
    They were back to it.
    Millie said, “Remember our offer?”
    “Yes.” Samantha sighed. “I probably should have taken you up on it back then.”
    Even before the first hip fracture Millie had asked Samantha to come live with them, but back then Samantha still had an active social life. While she still lived in the facility, it was dangerous for Davy, Millie, and Cent to visit her. It wasn’t that their enemies kept permanent employees in the retirement community—but they suspected electronic surveillance and Davy was convinced that some of the staff was on retainer to report all of Samantha’s visitors.
    Millie thought Davy paranoid, but she still followed most of his recommendations. She’d arrived by taxi because they might have installed a local gravimeter. Jumping opened a point between two different places and, for a tiny but measurable period, gravity readings from both sides of the jump registered if the jump was close enough.
    “It’s not too late,” Millie said. “You can still—”
    “Good afternoon,” a cheery voice said. A white-jacketed man walked into the room, a stethoscope hanging from his neck, a file folder in his left hand, his right hanging down on the far side of his body.
    Millie glanced at her mother’s face and saw her brow furrow. She doesn’t know him. She jerked her head back toward the man as he lifted the gun, pointing it not at Millie but at her mother.
    “Do anything and I’ll shoot her .”
    Millie held perfectly still.
    The man moved closer to the bed, the gun pointed at Samantha’s chest. He threw the file folder onto the bed and reached into his left jacket pocket and pulled a different gun, yellow plastic with a square black muzzle.
    A Taser.
    “I mean it. You do anything and she’s—”
    He was gone.
    Millie saw it, but then, she knew what to look for.
    Like lightning, like a single frame of film in a projected movie. She couldn’t even tell how Davy grabbed the “doctor.” Did he grab the neck, the jacket, hook his arms around from behind?
    Subliminal. Below the threshold of perception.
    She stepped to the doorway and peeked both ways down the hall, but no one was waiting there. She didn’t hear any sudden footsteps or distant commotion.
    Not yet.
    Samantha’s eyes were wide when Millie returned to her bedside, but she said dryly, “Tell him to stay longer next time.”
    “Are you all right, Mom?” She should have avoided saying “Mom” but she wanted to hear the word—hear it out loud.
    “I wasn’t worried about me if that’s what you mean.” Samantha’s face was oddly reflective. “Don’t trade the years of your life for my fifteen minutes! Think about Cent.”
    Millie winced. “Come spend some