Read Online Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) by D.W. Moneypenny - Free Book Online Page A

water?”
    “You haven’t been paying attention. Recall the digisteam from the miders?” Ping asked.
    “How could I forget? Little arach-notes crawling everywhere.”
    “ Arach-notes . I like that. Too bad we didn’t think of that when we first came up with the concept.” Ping chuckled, then cleared his throat. “First off, the progenitor doesn’t sell her steam innovations. They are freely distributed from here through a network of underground pipes. Second, as you have witnessed, the steams she creates here are quite remarkable and useful.”
    “Like the copter’s gravisteam.”
    “Exactly.”
    Mara walked over to the counter, picked up an empty beaker and examined it. She supposed she could see getting into this sort of thing if she hadn’t gotten attached to gadgetry at such a young age. It all seemed related to understanding how things worked. Yet she couldn’t see anything on this counter, as large as it was—and as covered as it was with a mish-mash of paraphernalia from chemistry, biology and engineering—that explained how ordinary water vapor could carry digital information or make a vehicle fly.
    She set down the beaker and surveyed the rest of the counter. “I don’t get it. This appears to be a scientific endeavor, but it doesn’t make sense. Why steam?”
    Ping was about to reply when Mara pointed to the far side of the counter at a board set up like an easel, a dozen lightbulbs mounted to it. “That looks interesting,” she said. “What is that?”
    She walked around the perimeter of the doughnut counter to get to it, but Ping took her arm.
    “It’s quicker just to go this way,” he said. He grabbed the edge of the countertop and lifted. A segment folded upward, giving them access to the center of the circular counter. He bowed and waved Mara toward the opening. She passed through and walked straight to the board with the lights.
    “This is the first thing I’ve seen since I arrived that looks like real technology,” she said. “Is Mara on the verge of discovering electricity?”
    Ping caught up with her and shook his head. “Of course not. We are fully familiar with electricity,” he said. “Remember where we came from—a world of technologically sophisticated people who built their own bodies.”
    “If you people are so tech-savvy, why the obsession with steam? And why are people pulling around wagons with horses? And, by the way, where the hell did the horses come from? I don’t think the people in your technologically advanced world are keeping farm animals in receptacles. They crossed over with you?”
    “Remarkable,” Ping said, shaking his head.
    “What’s remarkable?” Mara asked.
    “How you can believe that you came from another realm, that you are now in a different realm created by the mind of your counterpart, but you continue to doubt so much? How can you reasonably believe one thing and not the other?”
    Mara shook her head. “It’s not doubt. Not anymore. I used to question everything because I couldn’t believe it. Not now. Now I’m asking questions because I want to understand, to understand why things are the way they are. Like why there is no electricity when you people understand how it works.”
    She turned to the board of lightbulbs and touched one with her finger. A tiny arc of lightning jumped from her fingertip. For a second, the inner space of the bulb glowed, but then it exploded, leaving an actual gaping black hole floating in the air where it had been. One bulb next to it had shattered, spraying glass across the board.
    Ping grabbed Mara’s wrist, pulling it back. “How did you do that?”
    “It was just a little spark of electricity. A tiny bolt, not more than a little static.” Mara stared at the black hole floating over the spot where her finger had been. It looked like someone had punched a hole in space. Other than the broken bulb, the board itself was undamaged, apart from the missing portion taken by the black hole.
    “Is that