Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller Brandon Ellis (ebook reader for comics txt) 📖

simply look out, someone is coming for you? Drew semi-knew Anderle and Anderle would send a more distressful code if he was in imminent danger.

“Do not reply” also meant urgent. That was hacker for, “Holy shit, get your ass here immediately. We have a bitch-storm on the way or in progress.”

In any case, Anderle needed him and needed him at that location now. But why?

“I said pack. Now.” His mom stood in front of Drew’s TV. “You wouldn’t listen to me. You’d best listen to him.”

Drew yelped and slapped his palm against his chest. “Dammit, you got to stop doing that, Mom.”

His mom faded away, but not before tutting and raising her eyebrows. She’d said more to him since she’d died than she had in the last fifteen years of her life. He eyed his empty luggage bag near his closet. It was never put away. His life as a World News Network reporter meant he was always on the road. The problem was that Drew hadn’t heard from WNN in a while and probably never would again, seeing how many companies were shutting their doors from the downturn in the economy. He didn’t know if Hobbs Howell, his boss, was out of a job either and if so, if Drew would be on the chopping block. Right now, it didn’t matter. Reporting was the last thing on his mind. Anderle, on the other hand, needed him. He had helped Drew leak the GSA story and now it was Drew’s turn to return the favor.

He stood and picked up a pile of laundry off the floor, not knowing really if it was clean or not, and shoved it in his luggage bag. Did it matter? It was a crisis. All he needed to do was get gone.

A car skidded to a halt and yells pierced the air—profanities. He froze. Worried that his mom would make a reappearance and kick his butt, he hurried around another pile of clothes, waving the smoke out of his way, and opened his curtains a slit.

Two men in hoodies stood in front of a car, each with a crowbar in hand. A thicker, smaller man was behind the vehicle, also in a hoodie. A woman in the car shook her head, screaming bloody murder. A small child sat in the back, no doubt scared shitless.

A thug reared back with his crowbar and slammed it against the car light, shattering the plastic casing, the bulb erupting, glass pieces falling to the asphalt. “We need your car, lady.”

Crap. Drew rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to, but he had to. He ran to his closet, rummaged for a wooden bat signed by pro baseball player, Mike Trout. A prized possession. Something that would be worth thousands some day—if the United States didn’t fall into oblivion. Yeah, scratch that. It was a piece of nicely-shaped wood now, nothing more.

Bat in hand, he opened his front door, hesitating for a half a step. It had been three days since he put his trash can out for the garbage service, but it sat on the sidewalk, pizza boxes poking out of the lid. His neighbors and their neighbors’ cans had been tipped over by the wind and pecked over by the crows. The entire street was strewn with banana peels, yogurt containers, dog food cans, and Playboy magazines.

Drew hadn’t paid attention as he’d been hunkered down, eating black cookies with white fillings, stoned beyond belief, not realizing changes were taking place in his neighborhood as well. What he observed on the news was just that: news. News happened 'everywhere else'. It didn’t happen in his back yard, on his street, while he chowed down and got high.

A woman’s scream shattered his dreamy survey and sucked him right back to his doorstep.

Shit.

They pulled the woman out of her car.

He didn’t want to deal with this. He was happy and content in his own smoke screen.

Why did she unlock the damn door?

“Hey,” said Drew. He tried for a mature, manly voice, although what emerged was distinctly pubescent and unconvincing.

The men turned, chests thrust outward, fingers gripping their crowbars, ready for someone to dare confront them.

“What the fuck you want?” said one of the men, eyes like a tiger about to catch its long-awaited meal.

Drew walked on his yard, catching his black Mazda Protege parked on his driveway out of the corner of his eye, and slowly put down his bat, his other hand up in surrender in a don’t-kill-me type of way. “Don’t hurt them. Let them out and take their car, but please don’t hurt them.”

The man at the rear of the car kicked the bumper. “What you gonna do? Huh?” He thrust his arm toward the woman. “We need her and her kids.”

“For what?” asked Drew, his hazy, weed-induced mind succumbing to curiosity, his heart trying to race, but his Maui Wowie intoxicated blood not allowing it.

The man shrugged, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “For whatever the fuck we want. That’s what.”

The woman kicked at one of her would-be abductors. “Leave my kids alone.”

She was Puerto Rican, or at least her accent made it seem so, along with her skin tone, black hair, and powerful attitude. She was short, but strong, her will even stronger.

The man tossed her against the car. He pinned her with his forearm, lifting the crowbar over his head. She pushed back, raising her arm, ready to catch the crowbar if it came down.

“Kick me again, lady…I dare you.”

Drew put his hand up and took a weary step forward. “Stop. Money. How much do you need? I have some.”

The man eased his weight off the woman and she fell to the street, then crawled to the car’s back door. She yanked the door open and pulled her kid out, clutching him to her chest. He whimpered and his eyes darted from his mom to the men. Her daughter slid out from behind her brother, not making a sound. She found her mother’s hand and clutched