The Future's Mine by L J Leyland Page A

minute that those men saw you as their equal ? You’re nothing but an unpleasant inconvenience for them; a fat, stupid bully who they can manipulate to do their dirty work so they keep their manicures clean.’
    His hand closed tighter so that I struggled to breathe but I kept on going, unable to cork the stream of abuse that spouted from my mouth. ‘But you know what’s funny? What’s really, really, amusing? You actually believe that the people of Brigadus respect you!’
    I laughed at the absurdity of it. ‘Here’s how much we respect you.’ And I spat in his face.
    He roared and shook me by the neck like I was little more than a toy. The crushing pressure on my throat and the blood pulsing from my head sent me to a world of colours and sparkles that burst in front of my eyes as my body tried to get enough air to fight on. As I was being shaken about by his attack, the cold weight of metal registered against my thigh. The knife I had stolen from the kitchens!
    I pulled it out and drove it deep into the flabby flesh of his upper arm, the only part of him that I could reach. He immediately dropped me with a yowl of agony and I rolled out from under the other side of the table. A surge of adrenalin took over any control I had over my thoughts and actions. I didn’t care about helping anyone else at that moment; I just needed to get out, needed to get back to Matthias, back to Edie and Aiden and back to our normal life of talking about rebellion from the safety of our boat. But after tonight I doubted that would ever happen. I’d stabbed the Mayor. I’d be hanging from the end of a rope tomorrow morning if I didn’t act quickly.
    I took a running leap at the golden harp, which was placed next to one of the glass walls. It was enormous and looked as though it could easily weigh half a ton. It tilted forward with a groan but didn’t topple. I ran at it again, this time getting some purchase from the ground. I threw myself at it as hard as I could manage.
    Slowly, agonisingly, the harp teetered and then toppled forward. It hit the glass wall. A resonating ting like a tuning fork reverberated through the glass, sending shockwaves of sound through the other crystal panes. For a moment, my heart stopped. The glass didn’t smash and silence descended as everyone stopped their battles to look at where the ominous sound came from.
    What if the glass was shatter-proof?
    Nausea threatened to take me captive when, suddenly, a large crack sprung from the place where the harp had hit the glass. The entire room watched the fault line spread quickly up the glass and give birth to other fractures which branched off onto other panes of glass, producing a criss-crossed road map of fissures. There was an odd noise, like the creaking of our wooden boat in a storm, a noise I would never have thought glass could make. The cracks spread to the glass ceiling, forming delicate hair-line fractures. My fingers fumbled to untie my apron and wrap it around my head. I knew what was coming.
    The Parrots and the Metropolites stood dumbfounded, unable to move but I saw Noah and some of the more savvy serving girls inch towards the table, ready to dive under it and take shelter when the inevitable happened. Suddenly, there was a deathly silence; we all held our breaths.
    A tiny shard of sparkling crystal popped out of the glass where the harp had hit it and musically tinkled to the ground.
    And then it happened.
    The entire pane imploded with a force that almost blew me off my feet. I clung to the harp, weathering the bombardment of sharp slices of crystal that cut my face and bare arms. There was an ominous cracking noise as other panes started to give way, pouring slithers of pain onto the guests and the Parrots. With relief, I saw that Noah, Flora, and Sal had taken shelter under the table. The Mayor was shoving Parrots out of the way to get to the door but his blood loss from the stab wound was slowing him down.
     I braced myself and sprinted