It was several weeks later that Nova and her family, accompanied by Ingrid Astia, who’d taken a leave from her work at the daycare, headed to the capital, like her father had implied they might.
Their ostensible goal was to meet with Ingrid’s son, Jamil Astia, who happened to be an old friend of Aaron’s.
Nova was quite eager to see the capital. It felt like she was finally getting to know a larger world than just Saltwell, the city where her family had taken residence. She had of course read a few books about Altera and Edea, and listened to conversations that had given her snippets of knowledge, but this was far from enough. It would have been fine if she’d had access to the internet – she could have taught herself anything she wanted – but most of the features of her bracer had been promptly sealed once Marian had realized the thing’s full capabilities.
The Storm family, along with Ingrid, were all currently riding inside a minibus Aaron had conjured up from somewhere, which left more place for everybody to stretch their legs than a smaller vehicle. The thing, however, didn’t run like a minibus. It ran like a freaking race car juiced up on concentrated nitro. They zipped across the highway, the landscape on both sides fading into blurry colored lines, yet felt nary a bump as they weaved through the obstacle course the other drivers formed on the road, as if the minibus was equipped with inertial dampeners of some kind.Continue reading