Future Shock: Volume 1 (Future Shock, 1, Band 1) - Softcover

Briggs, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807526800 ISBN 13: 9780807526804

Verlag: ALBERT WHITMAN & CO, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

2017 Westchester Fiction Award

Elena Martinez is a young woman without a future until Aether Corporation offers her a job, but it means traveling to the future and back. But the journey is nothing Elena expected and she wonders if she can save herself before it's too late.

Elena Martinez has hidden her eidetic memory all her life—or so she thinks. When powerful tech giant Aether Corporation selects her for a top-secret project, she can't say no. All she has to do is participate in a trip to the future to bring back data, and she'll be set for life. Elena joins a team of four other teens with special skills, including Adam, a science prodigy with his own reason for being there. But when the time travelers arrive thirty years in the future, something goes wrong and they break the only rule they were given: do not look into their own fates. Now they have twenty-four hours to get back to the present and find a way to stop a seemingly inevitable future from unfolding. With time running out and deadly secrets uncovered, Elena must use her eidetic memory, street smarts, and a growing trust in Adam to save her new friends and herself.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elizabeth Briggs graduated from UCLA with a degree in sociology. She mentors teens in writing and is the author of the new adult series Chasing the Dream. She lives in California with her husband and a pack of fluffy dogs.

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Future Shock

By Elizabeth Briggs

Albert Whitman & Company

Copyright © 2016 Elizabeth Briggs
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8075-2680-4

CHAPTER 1

WEDNESDAY

I can already tell this is one of those moments I'll later wish I could forget. But like everything else, it will be burned into my memory forever.

"Elena Martinez, correct?" The pasty-white manager looks over my application with a frown. I stare at a piece of lint on his hunter-green polo shirt and shift in the hard wooden seat.

"Yes." Remember to smile, I think and force my mouth to curl up. A dusty, round clock ticks overhead. 3:56 p.m. Two minutes faster than the watch on my wrist.

A waitress in a red skirt the size of a belt heads to the table next to us. If they hire me, I'll be wearing that uniform too. Ugh. But I'll take whatever job I can get at this point.

As the waitress takes the couple's order, the woman's high-pitched voice slices through the restaurant noise. "Can I get the bacon cheeseburger, without mayo but with mustard ..." She goes on for another thirty seconds, replacing and adding so many items that she might as well make up her own menu item.

"How old are you?" the manager asks me, even though my age is right there on the form.

"Seventeen." His eyebrows shoot up, and I quickly add, "But I turn eighteen in two months."

He drums his fingers on the table and glances over my application again. My stomach growls at the smell of fried food wafting from another table. I haven't eaten anything since the free lunch at school.

The air-conditioning kicks on overhead with a loud rumble, blasting cold air down on me. I rub my arms, wishing I'd worn a shirt with long sleeves. I would have if Los Angeles wasn't in the middle of a freaking heat wave in the beginning of March, and if I had time to go home and change after school. No way was I spending the entire day in long sleeves, sweating all over myself. Besides, this is the nicest shirt I own.

The manager notices my movement and stares at my arms, his eyes narrowing at the sight of my tattoos. Definitely should have worn a different shirt. Why didn't I bring an extra one to change into? Or a sweater?

"Have you ever stolen anything?" he asks.

"No," I lie. Memories flicker through my head. At thirteen I stole five dollars from a foster mother's purse to pay for food. At ten I took a chocolate bar from a different foster mother's secret stash. At eight I swiped my father's bottle of whiskey and threw it in the trash. But this manager doesn't need to know any of that.

"Have you ever done drugs?"

"No." This isn't a lie. I don't mess with that stuff.

He stares me down, like he doesn't believe me. "Do you have any restaurant experience?"

"No." Yet another pointless question. It's all on my application — a big, fat zero. This is not going well. I can't afford to screw this interview up. I force another smile. "But I can learn."

He frowns but doesn't answer. I start to fold my hands on the checkered tablecloth but stop when I see how greasy it is. At the next table, the couple laughs. The sound gets under my skin, like they're laughing at me, even though I know that's ridiculous.

The manager finally stands up and offers his hand. "Thank you for coming, Ms. Martinez. We'll let you know."

Yeah right. I stand up and shake his warm, wet hand. He has a limp handshake. My father would call him a pendejo. But Papá is in prison for life, so what does he know?

The manager pulls his hand away and that's it. Another job interview over. I grab my backpack and start to walk toward the exit. I pass the other table and they laugh again. Maybe they are laughing at me.

What am I going to do now? I've been all over the city and have spent every free minute after school applying for jobs. No one wants to hire an underage, inexperienced, tatted-up Mexican girl. Even McDonald's turned me down. If I don't find something soon, I'm screwed.

In two months I'll be kicked out of foster care, forced out of my current home, and most likely will have to drop out of school. My time's running out fast, but I refuse to end up like some of the other foster kids I've known who aged out of the system. Living on the streets. Knocked up. Hooked on drugs. Sent to prison. Dead.

Screw that. I'm going to make it on my own. I'm going to college. I'm going to be free.

But I need a job, fast.

I swallow the tiny amount of pride I still have left and turn back to the manager. "Look, I really need this job. Please. I'll wait tables. I'll wash dishes. I'll do anything you want. Just give me a chance."

"I'm sorry," he says, crossing his arms. "We're not hiring right now."

Oh sure. Except for the NOW HIRING sign on the window outside. Rage flares inside me and I clench my fists. No one will give me a chance. Is it my age? My tattoos? My brown skin? What the hell is wrong with me?

The manager takes a step back, and I see a flash of fear cross his face. He's scared of me, of the anger in my eyes, of the ink on my arms, of the way my fists ready for a fight. I know I can take him, easy.

And the worst part is, I want to.

I'm jerked out of the moment when the woman at the other table raises her voice. "This is not what I ordered."

The waitress looks at the plate and then back at the woman, as though the words don't translate. "Bacon cheeseburger with coleslaw, right?"

"Yes, but this burger is completely wrong. Where are my onion rings? And my salad?"

"I'm sorry, what did you order?"

The woman huffs. "I ordered a —"

The words pour out of me before I can stop them: "A bacon cheeseburger without mayo, with mustard, no tomatoes, Swiss cheese instead of cheddar, extra avocado and bacon, onion rings instead of fries, and an extra side of coleslaw. Plus an order of the mixed green salad with no tomatoes, and a Diet Coke with no ice." I stop to take a breath, and then I add, "And he ordered the blue cheese burger with a Sprite."

Everyone's staring at me now — the manager, the waitress, and the couple at the table. Even a few people across the restaurant. Eyes wide, mouths open, suspicion and shock creasing their brows. I know these looks. I've seen them before.

My face burns, and I wish I could take back everything I said, redo the entire moment. I spin around and head for the exit before they can say anything.

A blast of heat and sunshine hits me as I step outside. I wanted to show them I could do this job just as well — if not better — than they could. But like a pendeja I let my anger get the best of me and proved to everyone in there what a freak I am. And the worst part is, I'll never forget this moment either.

Because I never forget anything.

* * *

The doorbell rings at 8:34 p.m. I stare at the green numbers on the clock, while Katie reads out loud from her homework. The doorbell doesn't mean anything. It could be a salesman or a neighbor. But I know better. Sudden arrivals in a foster home are never a good thing.

"Elena, you're not listening," Katie says as she looks up from her Spanish textbook.

"I am." I tear my gaze away from the clock and force a smile. "You're going to the 'discoteca.' Keep reading."

We're huddled next to a flimsy desk light because the bulb overhead is out and no one's bothered to change it yet. Not that there's much to see — two twin beds crammed into a room not much bigger than a closet with one dresser between them. It's obvious our foster mom once put some effort into...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: ALBERT WHITMAN & CO
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0807526800
• ISBN 13: 9780807526804
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar