Free Ellie Quin Book 3: Beneath the Neon Sky by Alex Scarrow Page A

last a day without their regular StarBreaks meal and a bottle of sugary pop. If for some reason the freight ships suddenly stopped arriving, it would be a matter of only days before the citizens of New Haven started hungrily biting chunks out of each other, whilst Ellie’s family could carry on quite happily…eating their freshly grown vegetables and meat gourds.
    ‘I really want to get the fregg off this mud ball,’ said Jez after a while.
    ‘Me too,’ replied Ellie.
    ‘If we can make as much money as we did last time, crud….we could have enough within two years to get out of here.’
    ‘If you can avoid spending it, that is.’
    Jez reached both of her hands out to playfully throttle Ellie. ‘Ach!! What are you, my mother all of a sudden?’
    Harvey stirred at the sudden movement and watched Jez with intense eyes for a moment, before realizing the gesture was harmless.
    ‘Oooh, did you see that?’ said Jez, ‘your monkey thought I was going for you.’
    Ellie patted Harvey’s head, ‘who’s a good boy then? Knows exactly who’s boss, right?’
    They rode in silence for a while, Jez fidgeting after a while like a bored child.
    ‘Question for you, Ellie.’
    ‘What?’
    Jez hesitated, sucked air through clenched teeth. Ellie knew her noises well enough to guess it might be an awkward question. ‘You….and Aaron,’ she started, ‘so have you…..?’
    The question hung in the space between them, incomplete, waiting for Ellie to join some dots. And belatedly she did. Her cheeks turned crimson.
    ‘Freg! What? No! God, no!’
    ‘Hey,’ Jez shrugged. ‘He’s not so gaga now I’ve tidied him up a bit.’
    ‘Jez! He’s…he’s almost as old as my dad!’
    ‘Hmmm…not by a few years. And actually, you’re dad’s not bad for his age.’
    ‘Jez!’
    ‘I mean it. He’s lean…tidy, not all bloated by proto-lard sizzle snacks like most of the homs in New Haven.’
    ‘Jez! Not my dad, please! That’s totally grosso!’
    Jez laughed and gently punched Ellie on the arm. ‘Messin’ with you, farm-chik. Just messin’. He’s out of my goldilocks zone by about five years anyway.’
    Ellie made a face. ‘Thank God for that.’
    ‘Aaron though…’
    She turned to look at Jez. ‘Seriously?’
    Jez grinned. ‘Much longer…and I’ll be down to using something with a battery.’
    Ellie closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe I brought you back home to meet my family.’

CHAPTER 11
    Deacon watched the arid world pass by below. It really was an incredibly dull and ugly landscape, and from what he had seen in the few weeks he had been down on Harpers Reach, it was the same dull and ugly landscape right the way across the entire planet, with no significant features to speak of to break up the monotony. He could almost understand why ninety-nine percent of this world’s population had crammed themselves into New Haven and Harvest City and refused to come out.
    The shuttle he had appropriated from the New Haven authorities - with no explanation whatsoever and a mere flourish of his credentials - was pitifully old and slow. He guessed this shuttle had seen active service on several other worlds before this one; bought in second-hand by the planet’s local law enforcement for the occasional bit of policing outside of the city.
    Inside the main cabin, sitting on benches facing inwards, his team looked almost as bored as he felt. Leonard was busy scribbling on a tablet, his mind a million light years away, fraternizing with some mathematical distraction. Nathan sat beside him trying to watch his portable holotoob. He flipped distractedly from one station to the next, glancing momentarily at a steady procession of day time sopa-drams and home-shopping channels; nothing seemed to be holding his interest for long.
    Deacon suspected the technician was suffering a mild form of post-trauma stress. Up close he’d witnessed those families butchered right in front of his eyes. The