She shifted back to hide behind Nnadi. Peeping over his shoulder, she could not understand why they weren’t alerting security or at least stabbing this oddly dressed stranger with the random spear she never knew her father had.…

He selects Netropolis and pierces the world's membrane. His avatar pixels into existence in a gloomy back alley. It fits here, his shark self. Riptide is a sharp, fast shadow that swims through narrow streets lined by skyscrapers lighting the night with bright neon outlines.…

Alive or dead, people were too much trouble. Look at where being a good girl landed Megan. Dead at sixteen, a random pedestrian struck in a freak car accident, the driver a woman speeding past a red light on her way to pick up her kids from school.…

All the other village boys Berit’s age have long since found their voices swimming in streams or grazing in fields or nesting high in trees. They have hunted them, and they have feasted. Now they speak as men. Only Berit is an unvoiced child, a boy who must sign.…