Ellie Quin Book 2: The World According to Ellie Quin by Alex Scarrow Page A
Authors: Alex Scarrow
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junction box or other. Jez was bemused by Ellie’s attitude towards jimps. Being a farm-chik she was probably unused to being around them, not really aware that they were little more than genetically-engineered construction tools….organic robots.
She shook her head. Ellie was a funny girl sometimes.
Two minutes left on the order. If she picked up the pace and this time kept an eye on the damned street ahead, she calculated she might just about make it in time.
She barged her way through a tight knot of people waiting patiently to squeeze through a narrow bottleneck in the street, receiving a salvo of curses in return. Finally pushing herself out through the other side and disentangling herself from them, she could see the precinct building directly ahead of her. It was a low box-shaped, dirty, plasteel structure squatting in the shadows of a tower either side and a pedestrian plaza some fifty feet above it. Hidden from the filtered afternoon sun in this permanent semi-darkness, it looked like a forgotten box-shaped toadstool living at the base of some giant trees.
She redoubled her flagging pace, her breath rasping and coarse from the exertion of her four and a half minute sprint down from the New Hampshire tower. Last time she had been this out of breath the man trapped beneath her had begged her to let him go.
Her feet pounded the pavement with the determined rhythmic
clack
of her platform boots.
She threw one more, hasty glance at the display…it was counting down the last minute.
Come on, you lazy thigh-slapper!
She picked up the speed once more, closing the final hundred yards with an athletic sprint that drew a passing glance of curiosity from the shuffling pedestrians she swept by.
She took the three steps leading up to the building’s entrance at a leap and burst inside through plastic-flap draft excluders that swung in noisily, slapping and scraping across the grimy vinyl floor as Jez collapsed across several orange bucket-seats opposite the entrance.
The marshal standing behind the glass security-screen above the counter recoiled in shock at her explosive entrance.
‘What the…?’ his voice crackled over the speakers on Jez’s side of the screen.
Jez bent over double, fighting for breath for a moment before pulling the battered and dented warm-box out from under her arm. She opened it wordlessly and presented it towards the officer behind the screen.
He looked at the churned-up mess inside, lit by the flickering blue tube light above the counter. He wrinkled his nose. ‘And this is?’
Jez took another moment to catch her breath before offering up a reply. ‘Four Double-slab StarGurters, a Star-Proti-beef Rib salad, five orders of StarCarboCurls, and three white coffees.’
The marshal studied the contents in silence, then finally shook his head. ‘Uhh…not any more it isn’t.’
OMNIPEDIA:
[Human Universe open source digital encyclopedia]
Article: Ellie Quin > Myths from New Haven
The story of Ellie Quin, being so poorly documented, is predictably confused by many myths and fictions that have grown and evolved over the centuries. They serve to drown out what we
really
know about her with tales we would perhaps like to believe.
So let’s have a look at some of the more established myths.
One of the earliest to come out of New Haven not many years after Ellie’s death was that of the
alien fortune teller
. For many people, this myth expanded and became folklore. The myth changed over generations, mutating into various different versions, in some cases becoming the cornerstone of some minor cult-like faiths. One has to dig deep though to find the original tale.
The original tale goes something like this;- that during the period of time Ellie Quin stayed in this long gone city, she visited a fortune teller, an alien. It was a member of the now extinct species referred to back then as a
Boojam
. The myth relates how the alien foretold her future in precise detail. That looking only
She shook her head. Ellie was a funny girl sometimes.
Two minutes left on the order. If she picked up the pace and this time kept an eye on the damned street ahead, she calculated she might just about make it in time.
She barged her way through a tight knot of people waiting patiently to squeeze through a narrow bottleneck in the street, receiving a salvo of curses in return. Finally pushing herself out through the other side and disentangling herself from them, she could see the precinct building directly ahead of her. It was a low box-shaped, dirty, plasteel structure squatting in the shadows of a tower either side and a pedestrian plaza some fifty feet above it. Hidden from the filtered afternoon sun in this permanent semi-darkness, it looked like a forgotten box-shaped toadstool living at the base of some giant trees.
She redoubled her flagging pace, her breath rasping and coarse from the exertion of her four and a half minute sprint down from the New Hampshire tower. Last time she had been this out of breath the man trapped beneath her had begged her to let him go.
Her feet pounded the pavement with the determined rhythmic
clack
of her platform boots.
She threw one more, hasty glance at the display…it was counting down the last minute.
Come on, you lazy thigh-slapper!
She picked up the speed once more, closing the final hundred yards with an athletic sprint that drew a passing glance of curiosity from the shuffling pedestrians she swept by.
She took the three steps leading up to the building’s entrance at a leap and burst inside through plastic-flap draft excluders that swung in noisily, slapping and scraping across the grimy vinyl floor as Jez collapsed across several orange bucket-seats opposite the entrance.
The marshal standing behind the glass security-screen above the counter recoiled in shock at her explosive entrance.
‘What the…?’ his voice crackled over the speakers on Jez’s side of the screen.
Jez bent over double, fighting for breath for a moment before pulling the battered and dented warm-box out from under her arm. She opened it wordlessly and presented it towards the officer behind the screen.
He looked at the churned-up mess inside, lit by the flickering blue tube light above the counter. He wrinkled his nose. ‘And this is?’
Jez took another moment to catch her breath before offering up a reply. ‘Four Double-slab StarGurters, a Star-Proti-beef Rib salad, five orders of StarCarboCurls, and three white coffees.’
The marshal studied the contents in silence, then finally shook his head. ‘Uhh…not any more it isn’t.’
OMNIPEDIA:
[Human Universe open source digital encyclopedia]
Article: Ellie Quin > Myths from New Haven
The story of Ellie Quin, being so poorly documented, is predictably confused by many myths and fictions that have grown and evolved over the centuries. They serve to drown out what we
really
know about her with tales we would perhaps like to believe.
So let’s have a look at some of the more established myths.
One of the earliest to come out of New Haven not many years after Ellie’s death was that of the
alien fortune teller
. For many people, this myth expanded and became folklore. The myth changed over generations, mutating into various different versions, in some cases becoming the cornerstone of some minor cult-like faiths. One has to dig deep though to find the original tale.
The original tale goes something like this;- that during the period of time Ellie Quin stayed in this long gone city, she visited a fortune teller, an alien. It was a member of the now extinct species referred to back then as a
Boojam
. The myth relates how the alien foretold her future in precise detail. That looking only
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