Grendel Unit 2: Ignition Sequence Read Online Free PDF

life. You pick anything else and you are on your own. Don't ask me for a damn thing."
    Frank sighed deeply and said , "I kind of thought you'd say that. I understand."
    The judge slammed his fist on a hidden button on his desk and the lights kicked back on. He turned away from Frank to focus on his computer's vidscreen, busying himself with some suddenly-important message or a new legal decision he'd been writing for weeks that would eventually be included in one of these same books surrounding them. He focused on anything he could find that was not his only son, standing by his desk, looking down at him.
    Frank was used to it . He reached in his pocket for the graduation tassel and dropped it on his father's desk without another word, and then he walked out.
    He rode the lift down from the judge 's chambers to the courthouse's main entrance. It was packed with people and aliens and prisoners and uniformed courthouse staff. Everyone was stopped at the front entrance and body scanned for weapons. Because of the multi-species makeup of the Unification employees and a thousand other reasons, courthouses were high-valued targets for terrorists.
    Not that any of the alien species working here had the good jobs , Frank thought. They were sludgesuckers, the most vulgar term imaginable to describe anything non-human that had the temerity to think and speak and do more than just serve as food or pets. Some of the aliens Frank had met at school came from races that were hundreds of thousands of years old with a rich and varied culture. They had pursued art and holistic technologies instead of building massive ships that could skirt around the universe and weapons large enough to wipe out entire civilizations. Unfortunately, the humans had done exactly those things and now, we've taken over, Frank thought.
    He watched the multi-tentacled Squiddites mopping the courthouse floors instead of swimming in their native ocean planets. There were several massive Mantipors standing guard in front of the courtrooms instead of roaming the caverns and ancient ruins of the once-great temples and coliseums of their home world. Now, they've become our low-paying janitors and security officers, and all of them have human supervisors to answer to. Somehow, that's called progress, he thought.
    For all Unification 's speech-making about alien integration, the only people working on any floor above the main lobby were human. All of the faces in the photographs outside his father's office, or any other judge's office, to be certain, were human also.
    Frank watched another alien push a maintenance cart into the nearest bathroom to clean it and thought , Is this what the Sapienists are so upset about? Humans weren't even applying for that kind of work anymore. They considered it beneath them.
    Actually, I wonder how much those jobs pay. I'll have to find some way or another to afford medical school.
    He got into line to be funneled through the main exit , waiting behind a dozen others to be buzzed out the doors. He watched the people stepping into the body scanners and raising their arms, or wings, or tentacles, or whatever they had, waiting for the light on the scanner to turn from red to green. When he got tired of that, he saw a kiosk nearby with Unification Works! printed across the front and sides. He ran his finger along the pamphlet titles until one caught his eye that said, "Military Service - Securing Your Future, and Ours."  
    The line continued to move as Frank scanned through the folded scroll , touching each image to make it come to life. There were short clips of sharp-looking uniformed men and women jumping over barricades and running to the rescue of some emergency with lots of smoke in the background. There were training montages of young men doing pull-ups, and women performing hand-to-hand combat moves. A starship pilot pulled up his display visor and gave Frank a wide smile and a thumbs up. The last image reflected Frank's face as he