Grip (The Slip Trilogy Book 2) by David Estes Page A

gripping the beam tightly between his hamstrings and calves, using his knees as the pivot point.
    Upside down, he sees her skates first, then her torso, then her head, from top to bottom. And then he sees the AttackDog behind her, its movements lithe and athletic, too bot-lickin’ close for comfort. But the worst thing is knowing the other dog is somewhere behind him, closing in.
    He’s too high, he realizes. Despite the girl’s impressive jumping ability, she’ll never reach him, no matter how far he stretches. He needs another half-meter, at least.
    Doesn’t matter. He has to try. Clamping his legs tightly around the beam, he unfurls himself, trying to stretch his muscles and tendons and skin and bones as far as they’ll go, all the way to their breaking points. His arms ache and he reaches for the ground until his shoulders feel like they might burst from their sockets, his fingers stiff and straight, almost popping from his knuckles.
    The girl is right there, so close he can see the whites of her eyes surrounding deep brown orbs flecked with green, much lighter than the black spots they appeared to be from a distance. She jumps. In front of him, he can see one dog leap after her, while behind him he can sense the other doing the same.
    Time seems to stop as her eyes meet his, a knowing look crossing her face. The knowledge that he’s too high and she can’t jump high enough and that it’s over.
    Harrison feels a jerk and then he’s falling, his legs slipping away as his stretched body rips him off of the beam. There’s a strange pressure on his legs as the girl’s hands grab his arms, her forward momentum knocking him back, into the waiting jaws of the AttackDog, which will rip them both to shreds without remorse, as programmed by some egghead in a laboratory.
    He waits for the collision but it never comes. Instead, his fall stops suddenly and he swings away, the girl trailing beneath him, like a streamer. Her skates glance off one dog’s head while the other one flies past, its relentless jaws snapping and missing them.
    Wind slaps Harrison’s face as he swings forward, releasing the girl at the top of the arc, tossing her onto the junk mountain. Just before he swings back the other way, he sees her land roughly but safely, her hoverskates at the wrong angle to break her fall.
    Like a pendulum, Harrison whips back in the other direction, but he also feels his body being pulled upward. Somehow. Like magic. But slowly. As if gravity has reversed but become a lesser version of itself. Less powerful.
    He hears a grunt and a curse and someone say, “A little help would be appreciated.”
    Clenching his abdomen, he curls himself forward to look up. Minda, her bare arms tight, stares down at him, gripping his legs, straining at his weight.
    He almost wants to laugh, but he doesn’t dare, for fear that any unexpected movement might cause her to lose her grip. Instead, he does an inverted crunch, just like at the gym, and reaches all the way up to grab the beam, releasing his weight from Minda’s arms. He pulls himself up and breathes a sigh of relief.
    Minda glowers at him. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she says.
    “Neither should you,” he says, glancing down at the AttackDogs, which are prowling beneath them, growling.
    “What’s done is done,” she says, pointing her laser at him. No, not at him—she continues moving it in an arc, until it’s pointed at the dogs.
    She pulls the trigger and there’s a sound like a food-maker cooking chicken. A few moments later both AttackDogs are headless, wires protruding from their severed necks, sparking and smoking.
    “C’mon,” she says. “Let’s get the girl inside.”
     
    ~~~
     
    Article from the Saint Louis Times:
    New Head of Population Control Announced
     
    The highly anticipated appointment of the next Head of Population Control is now official, confirming the rumors that have been circulating since the discovery that Michael Kelly was, in