Inheritance by Malinda Lo Page A

“No. You gave me the talk when I was twelve. I know how things work.”
    “I’m sure you do,” her mom said wryly. “But if you need anything—a trip to the doctor, whatever—come to me first.”
    Reese shook her head. “I know. Jeez, are you going to have this talk with me every time I date anyone?”
    Her mom laughed and stood up. She went to the window andtwisted the stick that controlled the blinds, opening them to the morning light. “Point taken. I won’t push it. And I do really like David—”
    “Oh my God, what is that?” Reese cried. She jumped off the bed and ran to join her mom at the window.
    Startled, her mom moved out of the way as Reese pulled on the cord to raise the blinds.
    The spaceship was moving.

    Reese ran downstairs and into the kitchen, where her dad was mixing pancake batter. “Reese?” he said, but she didn’t answer. She opened the back door and went outside to look at the sky. The ship was heading north at a smooth, stately pace, and it made no sound and left no contrail.
    As it headed out of sight, Reese went back inside, going into the living room to turn on the news. An image of the black spacecraft took up the whole screen as a headline crawled across the bottom:
Imrian Spaceship Moves to Angel Island
.
    In a voice-over, the news anchor was reporting: “—City of San Francisco has been dealing with crowd control problems ever since the Imrian spacecraft took up position over the Noe Valley neighborhood three days ago. Today we have learned that the State of California has granted permission for the ship to land on Angel Island, which is a California state park. The park itself will be closed to tourists for the foreseeable future. The Imrian representatives on board the ship are reportedly in talks with the United Nations to meet with diplomats at the annual meeting of the General Assembly this fall.”
    The black walls were a familiar sight by now: The ship was seamless and windowless, without a single distinguishing mark on its surface. Analysts had spent hours on cable news shows speculating about why the ship was so blank, with stealth being the most popular theory.
    “The crowds that have congregated daily in Noe Valley to view the spaceship are now moving with the ship as it makes its way over the city to the bay,” the news anchor said.
    The scene changed to show a helicopter’s view of the streets of Reese’s neighborhood. Thousands of people were packed onto the sidewalks, and all of them were turning en masse to watch the spaceship fly away. Their signs seemed to sag in unison, the motion of their bodies like a giant arrow pointing north. Even the cars had stopped as people climbed out to watch the flight of the Imrian craft.
    “California Governor Anthony Moreno will be giving a press conference in a few minutes to explain the state’s decision to allow the Imrian spaceship to land on state property,” said the news anchor. “There is speculation that Angel Island was selected because it can be isolated, preventing large crowds from gathering there.”
    Reese went to the bay windows and peeked around the edge of the curtains. The crowd was paying no attention to her house now; they were rushing in the direction of the ship. Reese heard her parents come into the living room and sit on the couch, but she couldn’t tear herself away from the window. The exodus didn’t take long. The street emptied of tourists in barely half an hour, leaving trash strewn across the road and clumped in the gutters: plastic bottles, candy wrappers, brown paper sacks greasyfrom the ends of burritos. It was a residential neighborhood, so there weren’t any public trash cans. Reese saw one of the neighbors across the street emerge from his garage with a broom and a trash barrel. As he began clearing the sidewalk in front of his house, she noticed a champagne-colored sedan parked nearby.
    A man in a black suit was in the driver’s seat.
    Reese backed away from the window,