Excerpt: Times Ten

The city of Vega is absolutely haunting in its incomplete state; the only sources of light are the fitful bursts and sparks of electricity rippling out of live wires, and the impression is downright ghostly. She stands beside one such generator and stares in fascination at the little explosions of light that come flying off from time to time, moving so quickly that she does not think she could catch them if she tried.

Instead she merely steps closer, reaches for it -- and stops when one of the flying sparks strikes her hand and bites it. Her head tilts to the side; she hadn't been expecting that. She withdraws her hand without changing her expression and turns away.

Truly, this is a strange city. But what is even stranger is that daddy has left her here all alone, and he never does that, not even when he is walking right into the teeth of danger. She has followed him into his battles and watched how he strikes down his enemies, and she finds it very beautiful, the easy perfection of his movements and the lovely patterns that that thick red liquid makes when it comes flying from the people that her father plays with.

She's not allowed to play along -- although she can watch. Daddy is always proud of her when she does.

So where could daddy be? Why did he not wake her when he left this morning?

The city of Vega is very, very big, but she knows her way around it well enough, because daddy always brings her along when he visits to do his inspections, and even with the construction lights turned off for the night, she knows exactly where she is. The only real surprise is that all of the elevators have been turned on; didn't the work crews usually turn them off when they all went home?

Perhaps daddy turned them on, she thinks, as she takes the next one up and peeks into each house in turn. Perhaps-- oh.

There's daddy.

There's a strange man standing over him, with one foot planted against daddy's chest. And there's a strange thing sticking out of daddy's stomach, and a lot of that sticky red liquid making a big puddle around daddy's body.

And when daddy looks at her, his eyes are very dark.