Free Aurora by Julie Bertagna

he taunts the dragon with his sword, poking it, dancing around it, risking another flick of the tail, one that will swipe the legs from under him – and then he’ll be gone in a snap.
    A shadow moves across them and the netherworld vibrates with the rumble of an airship. It unnerves the dragon. The beast raises its snout and swivels up its tiny eyes. Fox takes his chance and plunges the sword deep into the unarmoured flesh of the dragon’s throat.
    He reclaims his sword and clambers up the mud towards the other beast, still choking on the pie tin and slaughters it too. Then he stands gasping for breath as Pandora flings her arm around him, sleek and cold against his hot human body.
    ‘You saved me,’ she whispers ‘When you love someone, you save them. There’s no greater love than that, you said.’
    ‘So no more silly talk,’ he says gently, and peels her off him.
    ‘Can we save my pie too?’ she asks.
    ‘Your pie ?’
    He bursts out laughing and the tense moment breaks. He wipes the sweat from his eyes and scans the mudbank and the lagoon.
    ‘I can do better than a stinking old pie. We’ll have dragon for supper.’ He raises his axe and begins hacking at the nearest one. ‘Keep watch, Pan. There’s sure to be more.’

THE SURGE RISES
     

     
    Fox bolts the door of the tower and climbs the winding stairs with two huge dragon steaks, dripping hot blood, skewered on his sword. Pan has the fire ready and he flame-roasts the steaks on the tip of the sword. Once he’s eaten his fill of the rich, tangy meat Fox finds his godgem and in the guise of his old fox avatar he connects to the Noos . . .
    . . . and leaps into a virtual universe of brilliance and chaos: a frenzy of imagineering, ideas-wheeling and dealing, cyber-trading news and data. Fox travels through maelstroms of energy, ever-changing cyberpatterns and links, as the global Supermind of the Noos endlessly expands and re-creates the miracle of itself.
    It’s as if the sky people, so close to the heavens, peered into the mind of the universe and captured its neverending spirit of creation in their Noos.
    Spellbound by their own magic, the sky citizens have no need to wonder about the world outside, as Fox knows all too well: he too was caught in the trance of the Noos, once upon a time. It’s that global trance he has worked so hard to break.
    Deep in the rumpus of Noospace are doorways to secret clubs. It’s here that young Noosworkers flock after long shifts of cybertrading and imagineering the endless products and technologies – galaxies of invention – that are the engine of the empire and create lives of sizzling luxury for the sky citizens.
    In the rowdy gatherings of the clandestine cyberclubs a raw, rebellious energy beats hard and fast. The police rooks ban them if they find them – but the Noos has grown so vast and complex it’s impossible to police it all. No sooner is a cyberclub shut down than it springs up again in another shady corner of the Noos, and the boisterous brilliance beats on.
    These restless young spirits weave a chaotic dark energy all through their beloved Noos. Forever adding new links and patterns, endlessly spinning ideas – just to see what happens – each bestows their own random gifts to the virtual universe.
    It’s here that Fox found rebels who ask the same hard questions about the world that he once did. They have become his Surgent allies, working up a revolutionary spirit in the dense jungles of Noospace. Its a gift of purl rebel energy from the Noos weavers who want to see what happens when all systems crash and everything is rebooted in the real world. The best of human nature, Fox has realized, exists deep within an empire built on the worst.
    We are creeping along a ledge of history, Fox tells the young rebels in the Noos. Are you ready to jump with me into the unknown?
    Fox zips through the beautiful tangle of energy, the hairs tingling on the back of his neck. At last he finds the outlaw den he