Big Big Sky

Sometimes it''s harder to kill than pod might think.

I crouch in the dark, stare into the manimal''s shining eyes.
It blinks right at me. It shakes in fear. Its thrumping furred chest quickens my own pulse. The thing wave-sends a sonic roll of pure emo: terror, disbelief, and a wee glimmer of hope...

Rustle is a young scout in a tight-knit female warrior group of five. They''re trained to be aggressive, quick thinking, obedient-though for what exact purpose they couldn''t quite tell you. But somehow the group is falling apart now. The leader Shona turns out to be a traitor to them. Roku has disappeared. Rustle has failed to show her killing skills in a crucial test of courage, and is feeling quite separate from the others. Loo is a true warrior, ready and able for action of the most extreme kind, though Rustle''s private yen for her has not dimmed. Solomon, the healer of the group, is a steady hand, but not even her stability can save them.

So when their StarPod is transported to the Living Lab, they all know that it''s time to make a run for it, or else they''ll be deplugged - finished, dead. It takes a lot of wit and energy, but eventually they make it to the outside of the great mountain where they''ve been raised and trained and programmed-and here for the first time they behold the big, big sky of the real world.

Kristyn studied English Literature and Theatre at McGill University. Her passion for children''s literature and wigs led her to the University of Guelph where she completed a Masters Degree in English. She hosts burlesque parties, cabaret evenings, drag king shows and weddings, and her performance pieces are innovative and thought provoking. She also enjoys making school visits, facilitating creative writing workshops with learners of all ages, and is an excellent guest speaker.

Edited by Nalo Hopkinson. Hopkinson''s novel Brown Girl in the Ring won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. She has taken second place in the Short Prose Competition of the Writers? Union of Canada, and is the recipient of the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award for Emerging Writers, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and the Locus Award for a first novel.