Chapter #3
Backwards
“Prepare to be dazzled!”
Larry Knight tapped the computer lab’s smart board and couldn’t help but smile at the collective “Oohs” and “Aahs” that rippled through the class as a large, shimmering cube materialized above their heads. He tapped the board again, and the same shimmering light erupted from its stylus and encircled his hand. Now for the true pyrotechnics. He stepped onto the sensor array directly beneath the ceiling projector. Immediately, the glow from the stylus spread up his arm, to his head, then all around his body until he was engulfed in bright, y...
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Sweet Roll
II – Jump Tech Preview
Chapter #2
Fresh Start
Christian squeezed his eyes shut, fully expecting the Toyota Tundra to smash him to the pavement, smear his body into paste, and crush his beaker of plasma balls into a coruscant fireball. None of that happened. He wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. Only that the mid-morning chill and smell of wet snow had been replaced by a warm numbness and the faint scent of curried lime. And though he had sprung forward, he still hadn’t landed. His body had stopped falling but hadn’t yet touched the ground. Maybe it would help if I opened my eyes.
He did, but whether th...
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I – Jump Tech Preview
Chapter #1
Hot Seat
Christian Meadows was ready to be fired. Or expelled. Maybe even shot by the campus cops if it came to that. Anything to get out of the university president’s outer office, off the damned uncomfortable visitor’s couch, and as far away as possible from the president’s high-strung executive assistant Doreen. She was having a bad day, to put it mildly—much worse than Christian’s, which was saying something.
Christian had been called to the president’s office to answer for the small matter of his PhD advisor’s treason, but Doreen had the much harder job of thwarting t...
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III – Jump Point Preview
CHAPTER 3
Discovery
Thirty immobile minutes passed, with Mitch just staring out the window and sighing. The maintenance crew showed up in the corridor, noisily emptying trash barrels and flushing the toilets in the lobby bathroom. The whine of the floor buffer knocked Mitch out of his inaction. Hard as it was to not be depressed, he knew he had to snap out of it and do something. He turned back to his bench and thought, What if I just surround these pieces with whatever junk I can find? If I throw enough stuff onto the bench, something might come to me.
He rustled through Bische's re...
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II – Jump Point Preview
CHAPTER 2
Disaster
Three weeks and six days later, Mitch found himself wishing he had more time. Bische's lab hummed with activity. It was First Check-In, the day that students with completed projects could present them and call it a semester. It was also the day for struggling students to solicit help. As Mitch's maker reputation spread over the course of the semester, more often than not his classmates called on him. Today was no different. He floated from one bench to another, soldering a piece here, rebuilding a breadboard there, thoroughly enjoying solving real problems, but comple...
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I – Jump Point Preview
CHAPTER #1
Busted
It started with a beam of light. The shaft pierced the gray, midday sky over Golden, Colorado, shot straight across Highway 6, onto the School of Mines campus, through the open window in room 103, and right into Mitch Campbell's drooping eyes.
He could have blinked and played it off but like a dork, he jerked awake and yelped. His hand spasmed as he pulled himself back from the chasm of sleep-deprived dreams into the harsh, bright reality of class. He fumbled his tablet, and it clanged to the floor right as Dr. Bische walked past his bench. Bische, mid-lecture, didn...
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