Read Broken Pixels (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 4) for Free Online Page B

issues such as sedentary lifestyles and such, so why not automate everything? They’ve got the know-how.”
    “All right then, let’s jump in,” Mara said.
    Mara stepped into the van and slipped into what she thought of as the driver’s seat on the left front side of the van. Sam took the passenger seat, and Ping chose the backseat bench behind them. After closing the doors, they sat in silence for a few seconds, waiting for something to happen.
    Sam gave his sister a questioning look and said, “Well, are we going somewhere?”
    Rapping a knuckle on the windshield, Mara said, “Okay, we are ready to depart. Please take us to the repository.”
    A soft feminine voice came from a speaker in the ceiling. “Children may not operate this vehicle without the presence of a competent adult.”
    “What? What makes you think we’re not competent?” Mara said into the air.
    Her phone vibrated. Cam texted Hold on. I’m overriding …
    The van’s engine started, and the platform underneath it lowered. The voice from the ceiling said, “Please secure your seat belts.” Sam blushed and reached for the strap over his shoulder. As soon as it clicked, the van inched out of the inclined bay and took a right.
    Mara raised her phone and typed What was all that about a competent adult? She spoke the words aloud as she entered them.
    While waiting for a response, she looked up as the van rounded the side of the hospital building and said, “It feels really weird, sitting here texting, while the vehicle is just driving itself.”
    The phone vibrated, and Mara read Cam’s response aloud. “The vehicle detected that the three of you were biological and assumed you were under the age of ten. Since I am incapacitated, I did not meet its criteria.”
    Sam laughed. “Just a bunch of kids out for a joy ride.”
    “Cam said they are born with flesh-and-blood bodies but transfer to the synthetic ones when they are ten years old,” Mara said. “We might have trouble getting around without some help.”
    “I have to admit it’s been a while since I was confused for a ten-year-old,” Ping said. “With some luck, we’ll be able to make a quiet exit from this realm, after we get Cam the help he requires.”
    The van stopped at an intersection several hundred yards beyond the hospital, waited for a small blue car to cross their path and then took a left turn. Mara looked out the rear door’s window at the building they just left—it was identical to its counterpart in her realm. Except for the disorganized jumble of vehicles clustered at the front entrance, randomly parked in the driveway, some with tires up on the curb, as if the occupants had simply skidded to a stop and jumped out. Two ambulances sat idle with flashing red lights, unable to get past the traffic jam to the emergency entrance.
    Apart from the chaos at the entrance, it was the same building where Mara met Cam for the first time just a few days ago. Even the skinny little trees and shrubs in the medians and the layout of the parking lot were the same, though the vehicles parked out front were unfamiliar models and all lacked side-view mirrors.
    Turning away and looking at the road ahead, it struck her as ordinary enough, but something remained different that she couldn’t put her finger on.
    “Don’t things look—I don’t know—more pristine, somehow? I can’t figure it out. It looks exactly the same here, but it seems less crowded or something. What is it? ” she asked.
    “Cables,” Ping said, pointing into the gray sky.
    “What? I don’t see any cables,” she said.
    He nodded. “That’s my point. No telephone or power lines running every which way from pole to pole. No poles even. That’s why everything looks so open and uncluttered. You’re actually looking at the horizon without seeing it through a maze of cables.”
    The van slid over to a turning lane beneath an Interstate 84 West sign. A minute later they took the exit and descended rapidly down