Free Satellite: The Satellite Trilogy, Part I by Lee Davidson Page B

Willow says as we move a step forward.
    “What’s training like?” I ask.
    “And kill your initial reaction?” She shakes her head. “Uh-uh, no way.”
    “Another one of Willow’s surprises. Excellent!” I say with exaggerated sarcasm.
    “Hold still, kid.” She brushes my shoulder. “Got it.”
    “Got what?”
    “The chip.”
    “Seriously, Willow. Your jokes are bogus.”
    She sticks her tongue out.
    When it’s finally my turn, the girl behind the gold desk smacks her gum and then blows a huge pink bubble that matches her hair color. She sucks in and pops it. “Name?”
    “Grant Bradley.”
    She tries to straighten her T-shirt over her pink tank top, which is difficult because the green-striped fabric, slashed with diagonal lines, appears to have been in a scuffle with a mountain lion.
    I look at Willow, hoping she’ll help me out when my staring contest with Bubble-Gum Girl is almost to the one-minute mark. Of course, she doesn’t.
    “Is something wrong?” I finally ask Bubble-Gum Girl, irritated.
    “Nah. You just don’t look like a Grant.” She cocks her head. “Maybe a Sean or a David.” She smacks her gum again.
    “Sorry, it’s Grant. My assignment?”
    “Oh, right.” She spins in a circle and disappears into the marble floor. An instant later, the floor spits her out, making her hoop earrings swing back and forth even though she’s now standing still. “Here you are, then.” She hands me a heavy book.
    I mumble my thanks. This place is so ridiculous.
    “You should consider changing your name!” she yells after me.
    Willow and I walk back to the lobby. “She’s as weird as you,” I say.
    Willow nudges me in the side. “Watch it, kid, or I won’t go easy on you in training.”
    “Who are you kidding? You won’t go easy on me, anyway!”
    “True that. When you complete your first assignment, you’ll meet Jonathan in the same place to get your next one. His approach at retrievals is a lot different than Eve’s back there.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Let’s just say he’s much more…traditional. To each their own.”
    I study the book as we walk. On the cover, Grant Bradley, Assignment One, is stacked in gold text and bracketed by wings. The cherry red book is about the size of the ones Tate always had her nose stuck in before her reading material switched from fiction to medical texts. She was always trying to uncover the next miracle treatment for me.
    “I’m hopeless, Tate. Give it up,” I’d say.
    “You’re hopeless, all right,” she’d tease back.
    I wonder who she’s trying to save now that I’m gone. I pray it’s herself.
    At the end of a short hallway, towering French doors made from a mess of tree branches greet Willow and me. The word Courtyard is formed from the limbs in the center. Willow grabs the giant stick handles and gives them a push. After chuckling at my reaction, she grabs my elbow and pulls me onto the stone pathway. If I could force my eyes to stop bugging out, I’d squint from the vibrancy.
    My dad would have heart failure if he saw this. The lawn is even more manicured than ours, and that’s saying something. One time, my dad cut the grass along our driveway with scissors . It was sick the way that man loved our lawn. One look at this place, and he’d never want to leave. He’d probably request a pair of scissors and ask if he could be the groundskeeper.
    “You coming, kid?”
    Willow’s voice registers, but I can’t stop staring.
    “Earth to Grant.” She snaps her fingers two inches from my eyes. “Hellooooo? Can you hear me?”
    I grab her tiny wrist, and in an instant, I have her arm pinned behind her back. “Yes, I hear you, but I prefer to ignore you,” I say into her ear.
    She jerks unexpectedly, and before I know what’s happening, she has my arm behind my back. “Well, you’d better listen up, because you’re about to get schooled by the Almighty Willow.”
    I struggle lightly, not wanting to hurt her. “Certainly