Mana of the Ancestors_Wildflower_CyberAthena_Marked for Failure
Catalog Guide:
Mana of the Ancestors
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kali fumed, as she tried to connect her phone to the hotel’s guest Wi-Fi and pull up her reservation confirmation. Easter Island had unreliable cell service.“Miss Mana, we realize you have a reservation but there’s been a mistake. We're terribly sorry, but our hotel is overbooked, so the best we can offer is for you to share a suite with another guest. That guest has already been staying with us for three weeks, and he has graciously agreed to split the cost,” the desk clerk did his best to apologize.“He?” Kali protested and pulled her deep brown hair away from h...
Wildflower
Jenny steadied herself with her left hand as she squatted among the rubble. With her right hand, she tried to push aside a slab of siding jammed against the remains of the patio table. She’d taken off her work gloves when the insurance agent stopped by, and then plunged back into the debris, forgetting where she’d set them. With shards of glass covering the ground, she moved cautiously. But she thought she’d seen a familiar bit of red ceramic among the jumble of splintered boards and branches. She kept pushing through bits and pieces.One more heave. A brick clunked to the ground, and she saw t...
CyberAthena
Marisol had been ready, willing and able to earn the contract the right way. After all, her cybersecurity firm, CyberAthena, was the best, and Nicholas Kozlosky needed the best.Kozlosky, Inc. was a multinational hedge fund, voraciously engaged in trading on financial markets around the globe. As far as Marisol could see, if a firm ever needed CyberAthena’s expertise in keeping the trading volume of short selling, leveraging, and derivatives safe, it was a target as rich as Kozlosky, Inc. She'd shown up an hour early for her appointment with the Chief Technology Officer to discuss her proposal...
Marked for Failure
Twenty years earlier, Chaoxiang’s mother had held her newborn son, weeping with joy. Of all the auspicious names to choose from, his mother picked the Chinese name for “expecting fortune.” As an undocumented kitchen worker at AmeriCasino’s Shanghai Buffet in Reno, Chaoxiang had learned to temper his expectations. In the midst of chopping endless mounds of broccoli, mushrooms, onions, and peppers for a pittance, Chaoxiang paused mid-slice, knee-deep in parings, to watch the cheery twinkle lights blink. Outside, they clicked wildly against the grubby kitchen windows’ panes as the howling, icy wi...