Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald Page B

when she caught sight of the running figure. And looked out and saw it was Everett M, movingwell, looking fit. He ran slowly down Albion Road. At the end he turned and ran back up Albion Road. A car was pulling out from the side of the road. A moment of madness: Everett M flicked Thryn power into his legs, and in one leap hurdled the car. He landed agile as a cat in the middle of Albion Road and kept running. He whooped with delight. The car blared its horn, but Everett M was already a hundred metres away.
    Did you see that, Noomi Wong? Put that on your Facebook page
.
    And you, Charlotte Villiers. I took that car sweet. You’ll never get me again with a trick like that, knocking me down in the street. Never again. You may think I’m working for you, but I’m working for me. You owe me, Charlotte Villiers
.
    His phone buzzed against his ass. Everett M hooked it out of the tricky little zip pocket at the back of his running gear.
    The SMS said simply,
???!!!???
    Everett M opened up the Thryn power and blazed home, grinning as he dodged through the evening traffic. He felt warm and stupid and lost inside, a little sick, a little uncertain, a little dizzy as if he had looked over the edge of the tallest building. It felt marvellous.

11
    Noomi and Gothy Emma had rated it. All Gothy Emma’s emo and vampire friends had rated it. The Bourne Green Harajuku girls had rated it. Even the girls who talked about nothing but make-up had rated it. All of Team Red, Team Lilac, Team Gold and Team Sky Blue had rated it. The really sporty guys who never talked to geeks, all the teachers who coached sports teams and one hundred and twelve random strangers had rated it. Ryun Spinetti’s mum had rated it. Ryun Spinetti’s dad had rated it, and that scared Everett M the most.
    ‘Your dad has rated my ass,’ Everett M said. ‘Your dad thinks my ass is hot.’ He and Ryun Spinetti were down in the basement den at Ryun’s house. Television played, iPads glowed, smartphones shone. Ryun’s mum was fixing something to eat. Everett M understood that this was a verygood thing. The smell working down the stairs into the den was certainly a very good thing. It didn’t have that slightly acrid smell of microwaved plastic food tray that Everett M associated with food at home. Everett M had accepted the invitation back to Ryun’s place reluctantly but inevitably, like a trip to the dentist. Ryun had just got FIFA 13, though Everett M suspected the real reason was that Ryun had questions about why Everett M seemed so different
after
Christmas from
before
Christmas. He didn’t know what he would do if he was questioned too closely. His Thryn super-powers didn’t run to lying.
    ‘My dad thinks it’s funny, is all,’ Ryun said.
    Everett M liked Ryun Spinetti’s dad. He always seemed about to burst into laughter and could find something funny in anything. Something on the television, on his phone, his cats did, in the
Islington Gazette
.
    ‘“Satanic cult desecrates graves”,’ he read, quivering with laughter. ‘If only.’ He had given a five-star review to a picture of Everett M with his hand down the back of his shorts, giving it a good scratch. So had everyone else. By the time Mrs Spinetti called that the dinner was on the table, which meant it was ten minutes from being ready, there were five hundred likes. Everett M’s ass was well on its way to going viral.
    ‘I wouldn’t read the comments, if I were you,’ Ryun said.
    Ryun’s mum called again and this time there was food on the table. Moussaka. Home-made, hot enough to burnthe skin off the roof of your mouth. Everything Laura’s cooking was not. Everett M waited as short a time as he politely could before enquiring about seconds. And after that, because it would be wrong to send the dish back to the kitchen with such a little piece left in it, thirds.
    ‘Now that is a vote of confidence,’ Ryun’s mum said. ‘Everett, when you were here last time, you didn’t see my