Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,
Just around the corner.
All is well.”
By the fourth line, I was crying, and by the end, everyone else was too. We had no body to bury, no casket to even represent the space where Jesse would have lain, yet as one by one his relatives came up to drop a daisy on the pile in front of the stone, I could almost feel him there, listening, just like he used to.
Great reading, Professor Stone, he would have said as I finished. Now read me something from this century, why don’t you?
At last I walked to the stone and laid my flowers down.
The others started to walk back to their cars, which were parked on the dirt road near the bathrooms where Dr. Reed had found me and where Jesse had met Darlene. Mrs. Alvarez kissed her hand and then pressed it to Jesse’s grave site, but even she walked back to her car. Soon enough, it was just Jesse’s stone, the dying flowers, and me.
“I miss you,” I said, as though he could hear me. “I miss you so much, Jesse. I wish I could tell you that.” I’d said the same thing to Georgia a few days prior, when her parents had put on the most elaborate funeral I had ever seen, complete with fireworks and a sixteen-person choir. She would have hated it, but then again, funerals weren’t really for the dead, were they? I’d gone, even though I’d known the encounter with my parents would be uncomfortable. I’d been living with Mr. and Mrs. Alvarez since the explosion, and though my dad had called me a few times to check on me, neither of my parents had shown up to the BB to bring me home.
“Your hair’s brown again,” my mother had pointed out before sitting in a row farther up.
“It looks nice,” my dad said encouragingly, then followed her.
Neither of them said they were sorry or that they were glad I was alive—then again, I hadn’t expected them to. They were under government surveillance because of me, and their funds were frozen pending further investigation, both of which apparently outweighed their only child.
Some people never learn from their mistakes.
“Are you okay, mi hijo?” Mrs. Alvarez called back to me from the car. I could barely see her through the trees, but I recognized her red shoes.
“I’m fine,” I yelled back. “Is it okay if I just stay here for a few more minutes?”
“Of course. We’ll ride to the restaurant with Uncle Ric. You just come when you’re ready.”
I walked back through the trees to the lake and then began to walk the perimeter. The sun reflected on the calm, unpolluted water and sent me into a sweat, but I didn’t care; there was no one to see me looking like a hot mess anyway. Everyone I loved was gone, and I knew there might never be anyone else to take their place.
I was completely, utterly alone.
“Hi, Maddy.”
Tommy startled me so much that I slipped on a stick and almost fell into the lake. My arms pinwheeled a few times, but eventually I regained my balance.
“You scared me!” I said as I walked over to him. He wore a dark suit, too big for his scrawny shoulders, and now-muddy black shoes. “What are you doing here, anyway? You barely even knew Jesse.”
“I’m not here for him. I’m here for you.”
“You are?”
He started walking again, and I trailed behind him, careful not to repeat my close encounter with the lake. Frogs hopped off the bank in front of our feet, making loud plopping sounds as they landed.
“I came to tell you something. I debated telling you for the past two weeks, but as much as I try to be a heartless, self-centered businessman, I occasionally fall short.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is.” He stopped walking and looked up at me. “What if I told you that there was a way to bring Georgia and Jesse back?”
“I’d tell you ‘you’re crazy.’” Yet my heart sped up, and I began to sweat even more.
“We both know I am. That’s the only explanation for why I made two copies of the repro program when I stole it, and why I set up a Wi-Fi connection on the second USB to transfer the repro machine plans onto a computer in the van Darlene was driving. Crazy, or just completely competent.”
I grabbed his arm, though whether because I was angry with him or needed to use him for support, I wasn’t sure.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I gave this a lot of thought, and I decided that if I become famous for an invention, I want it to be one of mine. Besides, I’m not so sure that this technology is something we should put into the wrong hands. I’ve even set up one of my hackers to specifically target companies doing similar research in the hopes that we can prevent anyone else from figuring it out.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You, actually.” He patted my arm in a strangely affectionate action for the standoffish thirteen-year-old. “Watching you destroy your only hope at bringing Jesse back made me realize the world probably wasn’t ready for reproduction—and that maybe it will never be.”
He took something out of his pocket with his other hand and placed it in mine. I knew, without looking, that it was two USBs.
“You made the right choice back there,” Tommy said softly, “the selfless choice. Maybe, now, you can make the selfish one.”
Without another word, he started to walk back toward the road.
“If I decide to do it, who’ll build it?” I called to his back.
“You will.” He saluted me and then disappeared amidst the trees.
I looked down at the two USBs snuggled safely in my palm, and then at the calm blue water next to me.
Maddy would know, I imagined Long John repeating.
AND HE was right.
I did.
More from Annabelle Jay
The Sun Dragon: Book One
Dragons once roamed the skies, as common as our modern-day airplanes but much more beautiful in their gliding, soaring thermal choreography. Until King Roland and his gold-greedy men defeated them.
Years later King Roland reveals that not only did he let the dragons live, but he turned them into humans so that they could enter the population and breed him an army. Allanah, a sophomore in high school, saves her know-it-all friend Victoria from exactly this fate with magical powers she never knew she had. Allanah’s first high school crush, Jason, reveals that he’s been sent by a secret society of wizards to bring Allanah and Victoria to the Council to have their magical abilities tested by The Egg. Everyone, including Allanah, is shocked by what she produces: the world’s first light dragon.
Allanah must save her best friend and all of the rest of the dragons from Roland’s evil plan, but when she meets the beautiful Dena, a member of the native forest-dwelling Igreefee camp, she must wrestle between her feelings for her new wizard crush, Cormac, and her attraction to Dena.
The Sun Dragon: Book Two
Half-human, half-dragon Mani hatched from an egg and was adopted by Allanah, a human woman who discovered him after the death of his dragon mother. He possesses abilities he’s only beginning to understand, and every night he takes the form of a blue dragon.
When Mani’s secret is revealed, he takes refuge at the wizard Mansion. There, he encounters the Animal Guard, a group of people who share his affliction. But the members of the Animal Guard are under a curse by the sorceresses, and they need Mani’s aid to break the spel
l and resume their human forms. Growing romantic feelings for the wolf-boy Lup convince Mani to offer his help, but Mani’s own developing powers might destroy any chance at a relationship. The world of magic is changing, and as Mani and his friends fight to stop the evil sorceresses from using the deadly North Star, they must figure out what places they will hold when the battle is over.
The Sun Dragon: Book Three
The inhabitants of Earth thought they evaded the enemy robots by fleeing to another planet, Balu, under Merlin’s leadership… but they were wrong.
Meanwhile, on the nearby planet Draman, the half-human, half-dragon people celebrate a Naming Ceremony. On that day, the children pick between colored robes that represent the choice to become male or female.
After Sara Lee, maid and best friend to Princess Nimue, escapes the ceremony with a child who refuses to select a robe, she resigns herself to a life without the princess in order to fight an oppressive tradition. However, an attack by a robot spaceship looking for Merlin forces both women to seek help from the sorcerer, and princess and maid are reunited. Unable to protect them during the battle, Merlin sends them back in time, where the women must find Allanah, defeat the creator of the robot army, and decide whether the gender norms of their society are strong enough to keep them from falling in love.
The Sun Dragon: Book Four
Long ago, in the days before King Roland, the four dragon kingdoms—Ice, Sun, Earth, and Bone—battled for dominion over the bountiful planet Earth. Prince Grian, a young dragon, hid aboard a Sun Dragon ship, traveled to Earth, and met Caden, an Earth Dragon who’d run away from his village. Despite falling in love, destiny’s plans for them turned cruel, and both perished in the war.
The Artists who created the universe could not let this tragic loss of true love go unpunished. They wiped out the race of Sun Dragons, exiled the Bone Dragons to Draman, and banished the Ice Dragons to the North Pole, safely away from the Earth Dragons. Only the rebirth of Grian and Caden could break the curse. One day, the return of their love would usher in an age of peace and prosperity for all dragons.
But when Prince Grian is reborn, he finds reuniting with his soulmate on Earth will be no easy feat. As he searches for his lost love, the Earth Dragon Protection Society, or EDPS, searches for him, ready to kill him when they find him. If Grian can elude the EDPS, he might find that the true love he once had isn’t guaranteed to bloom a second time.
The Sun Dragon: Book Five
As the epic saga of the Sun Dragon series draws to a close, transgender teenager Luke must face her destiny to decide the fate of her world. Not only is Luke a girl born into the wrong body, she is the universe’s last Artist: a person with the ability to draw things into existence. When she comes face-to-face with an incubus who might be her father, she learns it falls to her—along with allies from the wizard’s Council and the dragon clan leaders—to prevent the incubi from destroying the world. If that isn’t enough, she needs to find a way out of a relationship with her girlfriend that she never intended, go after the Igreefee royal she really wants to be with, and decide if the time is right to transition physically into the girl she’s always been inside.
The journey that began with Allanah’s first Sun Dragon is coming to its thrilling conclusion. The dragons, wizards, sorceresses, and birds you’ve come to know and love will reunite for their biggest battle yet—one that will decide their destiny at last.
Readers love The Sun Dragon series by Annabelle Jay
The Sun Dragon
“…this is one of those types of books that I actually, and unexpectedly, loved.”
—Lexxi is Reading
“Overall, I really enjoyed the book, I found it to be a unique idea with very colorful characters no matter how minor they may have been.”
—Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words
Merlin’s Moon
“…this second adventure in the ‘Sun Dragon’ world is as exciting and fantastical as the first.”
—Rainbow Book Reviews
If there’s one thing author ANNABELLE JAY believes with all her heart, it’s that there is no such thing as too many dragons in a book. As a fantasy writer with few other hobbies—does being bribed to run with her partner or dancing awkwardly in the kitchen count?—she spends every day following her imagination wherever it leads her.
A hippie born in the wrong decade, Annabelle has a peace sign tattoo and a penchant for hugging trees. Occasionally she takes breaks from her novels to play with her pets: Jon Snow, the albino rabbit who eats all of Annabelle’s bookmarks; Daisy, the Angora rabbit who constantly tries to escape her cage; and Stevie, the crested gecko who climbs glass with the hairs on her toes.
During her day job as a professor of English, Annabelle is often assumed to be a fellow student playing a prank on the class—that is, until she hands out the syllabus. When people stop mistaking her for a recent high school graduate, she will probably be very sad.
Website: www.annabellejayauthor.wordpress.com
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By Annabelle Jay
Jesse 2.0
THE SUN DRAGON
The Sun Dragon
Merlin’s Moon
Starsong
Caden’s Comet
Luminosity
Published by HARMONY INK PRESS
www.harmonyinkpress.com
Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
[email protected] • harmonyinkpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jesse 2.0
© 2018 Annabelle Jay.
Cover Art
© 2018 Adrian Nicholas.
[email protected]
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or [email protected].
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64080-196-7
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64080-195-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017957408
Digital published July 2018
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
Jesse 2.0 Page 16