Lena Gets Plugged Novels & Stories

Lenny scolds me and I roll my eyes playfully at her. “Okay! I’m here to help!” I groan as the screech filters in from the front door. I head over to Elena and Lenny packing up totes full of supplies as far from the hallway entrance as I could be. “What can your future Luna help with today?” She asks, walking in the room like we aren’t in the middle of preparing for war.

"Sir, we’ve reviewed the footage, there’s something you might want to see." Adrian leaned over the monitor. The timestamp showed Lena entering the library. Working. Leaving her desk. A girl—long hair, red jacket—darting in, inserting a USB in Lena's laptop, and running out with the USB in her hand. He stared. "Can you zoom in?" The girl’s face became clear. Adrian’s brows furrowed. "Melissa Joe." The technician nodded. "You want a copy?" "Yes. And send it to the board. Now."

Lena sat in the living room, her legs crossed on the couch, flipping idly through the channels on the large flat screen television. The remote clicked lazily in her hand until the screen stopped on a live broadcast. A bright studio filled the frame, with cameras flashing and reporters speaking with excitement. The banner at the bottom of the screen read: “GRAND OPENING: MAYA DESIGN STUDIO.” Lena froze. The words burned into her eyes. Her chest tightened, and her grip on the remote grew so hard her knuckles turned white.

I peek up from my mostly abandoned drawing to find him grinning smugly at Hallee. “It is not a sticker book,” she snaps. Luka sighs again. “No. Not again. If not for me, think of poor Jenna.” I put my stylus to one side and reach for my earbuds. “Do you want to borrow these?” I offer Luka, briefly meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror as I hold them up. His eyes fix on the buds in my hands. “Why didn’t I think of those?” “Anyway, I’d have thought you had plenty to fill your journal, what with all of your mysterious disappearing trips to town when no one can find you for hours,” Nathan says as he turns to buckle his seatbelt on.

Lena read it once, then looked away. Five hundred dollars for an embarrassing photo. Eight hundred for a video. Ten thousand — ten thousand — for whoever made Lena transfer out. "She has a lot of disposable income," Lena said. "This is serious." "I know it's serious." "You need to go to Adrian Hale and stop whatever you both have going on before it gets too dangerous." "I need to not get pushed down a flight of stairs." Lena pulled the note off her locker, folded it, and put it in her bag. "Give me the group chat. I want to see everything."

Tonight the blur became a smudge. Jordan was sprawled on Lena’s bed in bike shorts and an oversized hoodie, legs kicked up against the wall, scrolling through Anki cards on her phone. Lena sat cross-legged on the floor, back against the bed frame, pretending to reread the same paragraph about action potentials for the fifteenth time. “You’re not even turning pages,” Jordan said without looking up. Lena sighed, closed the textbook. “My brain is soup.” Jordan snorted. “Same. Want to take a break? We’ve been at this for four hours.”

I discarded it but it kept bulging on my mind as I escorted him to his car. Jason moved to the other end of the door side, fidgeting with his hand. "If you want to meet your mother in peace, don't do anything," I said, putting the device on the leather seat before I left the car. The car immediately roared to life and zoomed off. I stared after it for a long time before I went back to where my car was packed. Lena was on her tablet with her apple pencil in hand, engrossed in the new character she was drawing. Her hair which was loose earlier was pulled up in a messy bun while Ben was playing slow music.

“He knows we’re here.” Lena stood beside him, clutching her pulse gun. “Then we move before he recalibrates the grid.” They stepped out into the night again. The streets were slick, reflecting the pale glow of the Nexus tower now visible through the haze. It rose from the earth like a jagged spine of glass and steel, pulsing faintly with a rhythm that matched Lena’s heartbeat. Adrian noticed. “The signal’s syncing again.” She nodded, swallowing hard. “He’s drawing on it. Using the child’s energy to stabilize his network.”

"The whole pack is very excited. Someone released actual flower petals into the air Mama. With their hands. Like they had nothing better to do with them." "Lena." "I'm serious. Flower petals. Meanwhile our roof leaks every time it rains but sure. Flower petals." "Lena," she said again. Softer. I stopped talking. She was looking at me with that expression. The one she had been wearing since I was a little girl whenever I used too many words to cover something up. "Did you feel the bond tonight?" she said quietly. The word landed in the room like a stone dropped in still water. I opened my mouth. Then closed it.

"I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, Scarlett." His shadow left the room as silently as the still night, his existence remaining unnoticed. It would have been so if it weren't for the fact that Leaxandra remains conscious all this time. With the unknown shadow already out of the place, the Luna's eyes snapped open while her heart couldn't have pounded more vigorously as though surviving from death itself. ******