Lightning Read Online Free PDF Page B

so. Stone Braide is too close to the Mountain, and I really want to get back in the Repository. I’ve added at least a dozen questions to my search. It’s not all about me as a novarium. Now it’s a lot more about Landers in general, and how they acquired these abilities, and how many Landers there could be with no marks.”
    â€œAll right, but the offer stands. This shuttle is moving away from the Petrol City platform. I should land in TicCity in about twenty minutes or so. Bye.” Treva’s link disconnected.
    Selah leaned against the glass wall again and looked out over the water at the gas rig platform, Petrol City, anchoredfifteen miles out at sea. Its geodesic dome encompassed a circular mile of self-governed real estate and grew from the ocean like a ripe pimple on an otherwise harmonious seascape. It didn’t appear threatening, but sometimes she felt strange vibrations coming from there when she and Treva mind-jumped.

    Selah exited the left arm of the sprawling six-story, U-shaped complex and turned west to the bottom of the U where the Institute for Higher Learning was located. She stopped. The lure was too great. She turned back east, to her beloved sea, and strolled to the edge, mindful not to leave the walkway. Stepping on sand provoked the dreams.
    She inhaled the briny taste of the salt air. The sea mist sparkled on her face as she glanced to the right, over petrified wooden remains jutting from the water like tipsy soldiers. To the left, shoreside amusements were driven deeply into the sand with only horseshoe-shaped metal skeletons exposed to 150 years of elements. The ancient tsunami had scrubbed most buildings from the landscape, leaving only a single remnant—a huge wedge of rusting metal with the word ball partially buried by the shifting sands at the water’s edge.
    She turned back. The enormous building complex that housed her, most of the local Landers, and the university and Repository had risen in her level of curiosity. Even as far back as one hundred years before the Sorrows, this was called the Dennis Hotel and rumored to be the original home of a Lander.
    The U opening faced the sea and the ends had been scrubbed off by the tsunami, then later replaced with two conical glass-composite fronts that extended above the building as solar collectors. The part Selah liked—the Repository—was rumored to have secret levels.
    A sudden flash. Her knees buckled. She reached out, first missing then catching the post at the end of the walkway. Selah steadied herself and took a long breath. This one came without warning. Usually she felt a tingle first. The flashes were getting closer together. She gripped the post with both hands. The feeling passed. About five seconds later, she felt as though it had never happened. Selah wondered if these little events were actually happening or whether her subconscious was driving her. Maybe she had more guilt than she’d realized over Bodhi’s loss of abilities.
    She turned back and followed the pale composite pathway that wound through groupings of trees and grassy areas in the courtyard of the tall glass-and-stone complex. Up ahead, a group of several well-dressed young women milled about on the grass and benches outside the archaeological studies section.
    Selah vaulted the steps at the front and hurried inside. The cool air was a refreshing welcome to the heat radiating from her face. Lately, every time she went to see Glade, she started to sweat. If she had to read her own body-speak, she’d say she was scared. She knew how he’d been lately, trying to discourage her from prying into the past. But he hadn’t rescinded her Repository access, so that was a plus. She needed more details to refine her searches through the millions of files.
    She brushed sweat from her cheeks and peeked in Glade’s office. Empty. Her crepe-soled shoes padded silently across the mosaic-tiled floor to the third door. She