Scorpion by Christian Cantrell (novel24 .txt) 📕

passes at a safe distance. But wait until it is only thousands of miles away, and the amount of force required to make a meaningful difference is enormous. Given enough warning, it is even possible to intercept an object with nothing but white paint pellets, and over the span of enough time, the pressure of photons from the Sun colliding with the highly reflective surface is enough to move it millions of miles off course.

For every new Epoch Index Moretti gives them, Quinn will send back a corresponding dossier. Names that must be eliminated today, but that, in a different existence, might be gently bumped onto an alternate track. A secret place in the past where Quinn can stash what remains of her humanity.

Somewhere in the world, she imagines a frightened mother standing up for her son when her husband is drunk. Teachers who learn to support and encourage instead of constantly demean. A father understanding that, even though he was raised to be distant and cold, his son still needs to be hugged and to feel loved. A young woman insisting that she be seen.

But most of all, Quinn thinks about an insecure and overwhelmed CIA analyst taking the afternoon off and picking her daughter up from school. Noticing a stranger in the neighborhood—a tall, eerily calm man keeping his distance, but always watching. Her feeling uneasy and deciding to take her daughter out for ice cream and to the bookstore instead of letting her swim in a neighbor’s pool. Never knowing how such a delicate nudge—an incident she would probably not even recall the next day—was the moment that, for her, everything changed.

There is so much Quinn would like to tell that woman about her father, and about her husband, and about being a mother. About forgiveness, and about squandering time with the people she loves. But more than anything else, Quinn wants her to know that there is someone on her side. Someone who isn’t going anywhere. Someone who will never give up on her because she is worth fighting for.

Wheels down.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOR ME, WRITING fiction is a constant preoccupation. I have to spend time with my characters almost every day, and at least a portion of my thoughts are always dedicated to chiseling out new plots, settings, and scenes. That means a lot of solitude. Staring through the kitchen window until I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to be doing. Frantically (and sometimes impolitely) pecking out notes on my phone. Long walks and even longer hours sequestered in my office.

I can’t imagine I’m the easiest person to live with, yet my family has never been anything but loving and supportive. I want to thank them all for not just giving me the space to indulge in my compulsion to tell stories but also for perpetually encouraging and inspiring me. That includes my wife of twenty-five years, Michelle; my incredible and talented daughters, Hannah and Ellie; and even my two scrappy pit-mix pups, Willow and Poppy.

I would also like to thank my insightful, patient, and supportive editorial and production teams at Random House, including Ben Greenberg, Joel Richardson, Kaeli Subberwal, Clio Seraphim, Luke Epplin, and Avideh Bashirrad. I’ve now written four novels, but I’ve never put as much work into a single book as I did with Scorpion, and I’ve never had the opportunity to grow so much as a writer through a single project.

I have to thank Justin Rhodes, the incredibly talented and creative screenwriter, both for his feedback on early drafts and for his friendship. His thoughtful emails and our long conversations were instrumental in crafting such a complex and multifaceted story.

Finally, I’d like to thank Chris Goldberg for having such unflinching faith in this story early on; my agent, Joe Veltre, for helping me transform a side hustle into something so much more; and my manager, John Tantillo, for taking a chance on me more than a decade ago and sticking with me through not just the fruitful years but the barren ones as well.

BY CHRISTIAN CANTRELL

Scorpion

Containment

Kingmaker

Equinox

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHRISTIAN CANTRELL is a writer and software engineer living outside of Washington, D.C. He is the author of the novels Containment, Kingmaker, and Equinox, as well as several short works of speculative fiction, three of which have been optioned for film or TV.

christiancantrell.com

Twitter: @cantrell

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