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    Cat Leaps
    Cat Leaps
    Cat Leaps
    Ebook54 pages28 minutes

    Cat Leaps

    By Sean Monaghan

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Time operative Ari once again finds herself caught at the mercy of a ruthless journalist. At the edge of a jungle, in a rebel-destroyed harvester.
    Nasty. Spurious journalists just about wrecked her career before.
    Then again, Ari's Margay, Pix, always leaps to her assistance. Even if it means trying all over again.
    A twisted time travel story with a heart from the author of "Crimson Birds of Small Miracles".
     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSean Monaghan
    Release dateMar 22, 2018
    ISBN9781386711209
    Cat Leaps
    Author

    Sean Monaghan

    Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music. Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music.

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      Book preview

      Cat Leaps - Sean Monaghan

      Chapter One

      The journalist smiled at Ari and went ahead and filed the story. The journalist’s palm gave that familiar swooping sound of departing information.

      I wish you hadn’t done that, Ari said. Her hands still felt sticky from blood. Her denim shirt stiffening where Acala’s blood had drenched her.

      His blood.

      Ari trembled. None of it felt real.

      From the nearby forest came the hoots of recently escaped monkeys. Humid air rolled into the combine’s windows, bringing with it the smells of old corn chaff from the machine’s previous incarnation.

      Ari didn’t like the cramped control room, nor the uncomfortable seats, but at least it got the journalist away from Acala’s body. As if that would have made a difference to the story.

      How odd that she would think of that when he lay below in the makeshift fort. Dead. Bled out.

      Now Ari had the shakes. She’d known Doctor Acala since she’d been a kid. Her Pappy. Uncle, almost.

      You gave me a quote, the journalist said. No older than Ari–well-under thirty–the woman had her thick hair trimmed into a halfway-down-the-ear bob that reminded Ari of a mushroom.

      We weren’t done talking, Ari said. You shouldn’t file before I’ve given all the facts. The fact was, Doctor Acala was dead and no amount of journalism would bring him back.

      Well, the journalist said. I’m allergic to cats and I need this over and done.

      Pix is a margay, Ari said. She doesn’t shed like a domestic.

      The journalist shrugged. A cat is a cat. She stood and exited the cramped room, boot soles clanging on the steel decking.

      Pix leapt onto Ari’s lap. The margay kneaded Ari’s quadriceps.

      Don’t look at me like that, Ari said.

      Like what? Pix said. We screwed-up the assignment. We need to return to Entebbe for our debriefing.

      Ari sighed. Through the windows she saw the journalist leaving, strapped to a personal jetpack. An older model. Easy to fly. Even Ari herself held an expired license in the type.

      I don’t know about ‘debriefing’, Ari said. It’ll be more like a ‘reaming’.

      Chapter Two

      The hover carried Ari and Pix over the mountains at near-bullet speed. The machine’s engines sang a long, low drone. Pix pressed up to the windows, watching the craggy, ice-laden rocks sweep by.

      Once these mountains had

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