Susannah was folding clothes in front of the television when Eddie returned with Rose; now Eddie has taken over, while she watches Rose perch on the arm of the couch and devour left-over lasagna.

"So other than Fox News, how was your day?" That had been a fun phone call from the train.

It's evening on Monday when Susannah is able to call X; her calls to Tet and Charlie and the Calvins, and then Rose's visit to Kaylee, have taken most of the day. (That and blessed, blessed sleep ( Read more... )

Close to dawn, and Delores Vickery stops her cab on Second Avenue, at the little park across the street Dag Hammerskjold Plaza. She has him wait--she can afford it--but she takes her duffel bag full of money. Oh yes ( Read more... )

--end of the world. Fire and smoke and screams as the sun is blotted out ( Read more... )

In the lobby of the Tet Corporation building, just around the corner from the elevators and with a great view of the Turkish restaurant on the corner, is the Garden of the Rose; a little patch of green in the middle of the tile. Eddie Toren stands at the verge, his expression one of slack horror. He sways on his feet ( Read more... )

When Tet Security Dispatch gets the call from Helen Saldana that she's sighted a heavily-armed mercenary force massing in Rose's school's parking lot, the first call goes, of course, to John Hairald, in his deep cover position as a teacher currently chaperoning the dance. The second call goes to Susannah Toren herself; it's answered by Eddie Toren ( Read more... )

And she sawShe huddles for a time in the darkness of her own mind, eyes flickering from screen to metaphorical screen, here in the dogan, the control center. Something has tapped into her mind, yes, but she can win this; she can hack them back, through whatever is sending the illusions and into whatever is powering it. Into the will behind it ( Read more... )

Backstory

BOOK ONE: Guns And Sharp Swords
There's only two types of people in this world.
--BRITNEY SPEARS, "CIRCUS"
Part 1 - G L A M O R O U S - Prom, interrupted.
Part 2 - B A N A N A S - Why Helen Keller crashed her car, two dangerous plans, and a trial.

BOOK TWO: The Lady of Fire, the Lady of Shadows
This can't be undone. This can't be undone. ( Read more... )

As she watches Rose's little yellow car drive away, she's overcome by a feeling of her own brief mortality; a startling vertigo, as she looks back over the long road of her life. The girl in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with a crack in her skull; the girl in kneesocks at the Spring Hop with Nathan Freeman; the girl in the backseats and the alleys of the ( Read more... )

I do not en pointe with my toes; she who en pointes with her toes has forgotten the face of her chiropodist. I en pointe with my back.

"Didja hear?"

"Hear what?" She would not even be talking to Eddie Dean if she wasn't out of cigarettes; now, squeezed up in in a corner of Lincoln Center, she let him give her a light (and sneak a peek at her ( Read more... )