—I don’t know what to say. I don’t—
[What, Dr. Franklin? You don’t what? I know you’re happy to see me, even if you’re making that face right now. Seriously, you look like you just drank a whole glass of sour milk.]
—I think Rose is worried the Ekt will find out you’re alive and come back.
—No, Vincent. They won’t. The Council just needed a victory of sorts after all that happened. I don’t think they could care less about what goes on here.
[That’s the spirit. And who knows? The universe isn’t the most friendly place. You might need some old fool with stories to tell someday.]
I’m sure we will, Mr. Burns. I’m sure we will.
[Speaking of stories, you never told me about the time you fell into that giant metal hand.]
Of course I have! You know all about it. You even told me you played a part in all that.
[No, no, no! I told you we made sure you’d be the one studying that hand when you were older, but we didn’t know anything about you until you fell into that hole. I’d love to hear that story.]
Some other time, maybe?
[Do you have anything better to do right now? Don’t answer that, I already know the answer.]
—I’ve never heard that story either, Rose.
[See! Everyone wants to hear it. Please!]
—All right…It was my eleventh birthday. I’d gotten a new bike from my father…
Eyaktept eket ontyask atakt oyansot ot.
Eyantsant eps.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It’s over. I wrote a yokits trilogy. I’m not quite sure what emotion I’ll settle on in the end. For now, I’m happy. I’m sad. I’m proud. I want to thank Seth, my agent, Will, Rebecca and everyone at Gernert. I owe all of you drinks for the rest of your lives. Jon Cassir at CAA. My editors—I’ve had a few. Mark, thank you for giving this series a home. Mike, who is now being chased by zombies all day—killing a hundred million people with you was a lot of fun. Mouahaha! Sarah! You’re amazing. I’m still in awe at your work on this. You get it. You truly get it. I hope we get to do this again. Everyone else at Del Rey, Alex, David, Emily, Erika, Keith, Scott, Tricia, I love you all. You’re family to me. To the entire PRH audio team, you’ve made something truly special. Let’s not forget my three UK editors—like I said, I’ve had a few. Alex, Emad, Jillian, thank you for putting that big face in the UK sky. Thanks to my nineteen other editors around the world. Thank you, Dave Kaiser, for helping with Bob’s Russian. He says: “Bolshoe spasibo!” To everyone who’s worked on that series in one way or another, thank you.
To Barbara, former president of Bot Bot publishing, can you believe how far we’ve come? This is the thing I started writing on my iPhone while you were reading. I wouldn’t be here without you. To my son, Theodore. You’re the inspiration for all this, so keep asking questions, lots of questions. And don’t worry, we’ll get you more Themis toys.
To the Themisphiles—yep, that’s what I call you, most incredible readers in the universe—one huge thank-you. Mucho, domo merci beaucoup! Eyesunt yesk! Some of you have already asked if there’ll be more Themis Files. We’ll see. I have a few things I’m working on, but I’m not closing the door on that universe. Mr. Burns has more stories to tell, I’m sure. I hope he saves me some Kung Pao chicken.
So…now what?
BY SYLVAIN NEUVEL
Sleeping Giants
Waking Gods
Only Human
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SYLVAIN NEUVEL dropped out of high school at age fifteen. Along the way, he has been a journalist, worked in soil decontamination, sold ice cream in California, and peddled furniture across Canada. He received a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Chicago. He taught linguistics in India and worked as a software engineer in Montreal. He is also a certified translator though he wishes he were an astronaut. He likes to tinker, dabbles in robotics, and is somewhat obsessed with Halloween. He absolutely loves toys; his girlfriend would have him believe that he has too many, so he writes about aliens and giant robots as a blatant excuse to build action figures (for his son, of course).
neuvel.net
Facebook.com/sylvainneuvel
Twitter @neuvel
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Only Human Page 27