The Last Days of Lorien by Pittacus Lore Read Free Book Online Page A

installation of the grid some hundreds of years ago was that the city had by far the highest population density of any part of the planet and was home to most of the important members of the Lorien government, along with being the central hub for our most important information and communications systems. Any enemy planning an attack on Lorien would likely strike the city first.
    I still didn’t believe that was going to happen, but I also had to grudgingly admit that the whole thing was pretty cool. Too bad it was also basically useless.
    As I worked with almost unconscious ease, I contemplated the grid with new interest. One out of every four wires I ran diagnostics on needed replacement, which seemed strange. I reached back into my kit to check the date of this pole’s last maintenance check, and was surprised to discover it was only a couple weeks ago. These wires were burning out at a pretty fast clip.
    Of all the wires I was servicing there were very few backups or redundancies—almost every wire served a unique function—and a bunch of them were messed up, which meant that this pole was probably pretty much broken. If I understood the nature of the grid’s defense shield well enough, that meant the entire area around here was vulnerable to attack. Why would that be, if it had just been repaired? I wondered if the control panel had a special glitch that was shorting out wires at a faster rate.
    My curiosity stoked, I hurried through my work, eager to get back to Rapp and ask him if he’d seen anything similar in the poles he’d serviced. I wanted to know if this one was a fluke or if there was a bigger problem.
    Not that I cared.
    “What is it about a man in a dress?”
    I had become so absorbed in my work that the unexpected voice sent my heart leaping into my throat. I knew exactly who it was without even looking down.
    I looked down anyway.
    The electric-white wig had been replaced by a brunette pageboy; she was now wearing a simple red dress with a short flared skirt. The dress, along with the hair, was covered in white, irregular polka dots.
    I don’t even know how you get polka dots in your hair. Was that another of Devektra’s Legacies? Honestly, with her, nothing would surprise me.
    “Hey,” I said, the word coming out of my throat in an awkward croak.
    She looked up at me with a pursed-lip smile, shielding her eyes from the suns. “Never figured you for the Munis apprentice-type.”
    “LDA, actually,” I said, determined to hide my embarrassment.“Engineering trainee.” Then, realizing what a dork I sounded like, I added, “I’m just in it for the tunic.”
    She let out a lilting, genuine laugh. “You actually don’t look bad in it,” she said. “I just don’t see why you guys wear those dumb pajama pants underneath. What’s the point of wearing a dress unless it’s to show off your legs?”
    “You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever seen my legs,” I said, and then turned back to my work. Today was not the day that I was in the mood to be made fun of by the world’s hottest girl.
    To my surprise, though, Devektra didn’t leave. “What exactly are you doing up there anyway?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered what those poles were for.”
    “It’s the grid.” I didn’t want to humor her ditzy act. Everyone knew what the grid was. Most of them chose not to care.
    “The grid,” she said. “So I guess you’re one of those people who believes in all that stuff?”
    “What do you mean by ‘that stuff’?”
    “Great Elder Prophecy, threat to Lorien, eternal vigilance, blah blah blah. Aliens are going to land tomorrow and take us all back to their home planet to clean their toilets unless you fix that box up there right this second!”
    I thought for a second. No, I wasn’t one of those people. Obviously. Considering that it was basically what I’d been saying to Rapp all week, I was surprised to find myself resisting her interpretation. Instead of laughing along with