The Neptune Project Read Online Free PDF

government plan could kill me.
    Cam is waiting for me in the street, a pale Robry already at his side. Cam’s face is cool and guarded, but I can tell he’s furious. I want to cry on his shoulder, but I don’t want to embarrass him.
    â€œYour mother’s already headed back,” he tells me. “Wait here. I have to talk to someone.”
    I gaze after him, stunned that Gillian has already left. My whole life is falling apart, and she can’t stay away from her work?
    I feel even worse when I see Cam walk straight up to Lena. She brightens at his approach and starts to turn up her flirty act. But whatever he is saying quickly wipes the bright smile from her face. She looks over at me and scowls. He seems to be urging her to do something, but she shakes her head vehemently and dashes off.
    His face tighter than ever, Cam doesn’t even pause as he passes us. “Let’s go,” he says, and Robry and I hurry after him.
    â€œWhat did you say to Lena?” I gasp as I run to catch up with him.
    â€œYou mother asked me to give Lena a message, but I can’t tell you what it was.”
    So we’re back to my mother and her secrets.
    â€œDo you know why Gillian was in such a hurry to go home?” I ask.
    â€œShe didn’t say, but I gather it was important. She wants you and Robry to hurry, and both of you are to go straight to your cottage.”
    Cam strides along so swiftly I can’t keep up with him. “Cam,” I say, hating the wheeze I hear in my voice, “I can’t walk this fast.”
    Twice we have to step off the road into fields of dead cornstalks as convoys of armored troop carriers race by us heading toward Goleta. They must be sending more troops to make sure the fisher folk don’t cause any trouble.
    â€œHow can they make all these people give up everything they care about and leave like this?” I wonder aloud.
    Cam’s eyes are hot and bitter. “Because we actually believe that our leaders helped us survive the famines and the tyrox outbreak before them. Because we’re so grateful to be alive, we’ve become sheep and let them tell us what
to do.”
    â€œYou’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”
    â€œI suppose it depends on how you define stupid.”
    â€œYou’re not g-going to fight them?”
    â€œNo. If it makes you feel any better, I’m planning to run away. My brothers and I have talked about this before. We’ll slip away with the Sandpiper and become black-market fishermen.”
    â€œMaybe you could take me with you. With the dolphins’ help, you could be the most successful black-market fisherman ever.” I blurt the words, not really thinking about what I’m saying, but Cam stops dead in his tracks.
    â€œNere, if only I could take you.” There is something in his eyes that I’ve just caught glimpses of before. He raises his hand and cups my cheek gently. “But your mother made it very clear to me years ago that she has other plans for you,” he says, and he drops his hand and starts striding along again.
    â€œWhat do you mean, she has other plans?”
    â€œAsk her,” he says. I’m shocked by the anger in his tone.
    â€œWhat other plans? Cam, you can’t keep this—”
    â€œSomething’s burning!” Robry interrupts my protest.
    â€œNo!” The hoarse cry is torn from Cam, and then he’s pounding up the rise to the headland above the harbor. Robry and I run after him as fast as we can.
    When I reach the top and see what’s happening in the harbor, I feel like the air’s been knocked from my lungs. The first of the wooden fishing boats is engulfed in soaring yellow and orange flames. A sleek, deadly Marine Guard cutter blockades the entrance to Goleta Harbor. Soldiers, with their solar rifles at the ready, block the access to the pier to make sure the fisher folk don’t try to save their