A Crack in the Sky

by Hughes, Mark Peter

• ISBN13: 9780385737098
• ISBN10: 0385737092
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-08-09
• Publisher: Yearling

Summary

Thirteen-year-old Eli Papadopoulos is worried. Even though hers"s a member of the most powerful family in the world. Even though his grandfather founded InfiniCorp, the massive corporation that runs everything in the bustling dome-cities. Even though InfiniCorp ads and billboards are plastered everywhere, proclaiming: DON'T WORRY! INFINICORP IS TAKING CARE OF EVERYTHING! Recently, Eli noticed that therers"s something wrong with the artificial sky. It keeps shorting out, displaying strange colors and random images. And though the Department of Cool and Comfortable Air is working overtime, the dome-city is hotter than itrs"s ever been. Eli has been raised to believe that the dome-cities are safe, that the important thing is to keep working and consuming, and that everyone is secure and comfortable in InfiniCorprs"s capable hands. But now he begins asking questions. All of a sudden, operatives from a dangerous band of terrorists keep contacting him. The Friends of Gustavo-or Foggers-want to tear down everything InfiniCorp has created. They promise Eli that they have the truth he seeks-if hers"s brave enough to handle it. Eli isnrs"t convinced. And hers"s about to find out that in the dome-cities, being a Papadopoulos isnrs"t enough to save a rule-breaker like him from being sent far away to learn right-thinking. In his new home, the Tower, Eli meets Tabitha, once at the top of her Internship class, now a forgotten slave. Together, and with help from Elirs"s beloved pet mongoose, Marilyn, they just might be able to escape . . . and try to make a life for themselves in the scorched wilderness outside the domes. This sweeping, high-concept eco-thriller recalls Disney/Pixarrs"s Wallbull;E and Lois Lowryrs"s classic The Giver, yet it is completely original, a remarkable, fully realized fantasy that will change the way you look at how we live.

Author Biography

MARK PETER HUGHES was born in Liverpool, England, and grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island. Visit Mark's website at MarkPeterHughes.com.

Excerpts

Something was wrong.

Thirteen-year-old Eli Papadopoulos could feel it.

Just as thunder boomed in the distance, there was a faint bursting sound from somewhere outside his bedroom window. Eli spun his head just in time to witness a tiny spray of sparks falling from the artificial sky. Debris drifted to the ground like faraway fireworks and quickly disappeared, leaving an empty space where some of the pixels had gone out—a dark spot, almost unnoticeable in the five-mile-wide hemisphere of blue light.

Whatever the little explosion was, it was so quick and small in the vast expanse of the protective dome over the city of Providence that anyone might have missed it among the digital clouds if they hadn’t been in just the right position when it happened. But Eli did see it, and for a while he kept staring. Sky malfunctions were supposed to be rare, and yet this wasn’t the first time in recent days that he’d seen something troubling up there.

He felt again the vague dread that had been growing inside him for weeks.

Nobody else in Eli’s room seemed to have noticed anything.

Stretched across the windowsill at his elbow, Eli’s mongoose, Marilyn, yawned. A recent birthday gift from Grand-father, Marilyn was a small, scruffy animal, shaggy and gray, with a short snout, a skinny body, and a long, bushy tail. If she’d observed the unsettling burst of sparks, she didn’t show it. Her eyelids drooped, and after a moment she laid down her head and began to snore quietly.

Not even Dr. Toffler, the surly old instruction robot seated on the other side of the desk from Eli, seemed aware. It continued plodding through the day’s lesson as if nothing strange had happened, droning on and on about project management.

Today’s lecture was even duller than normal.

“Nurturing a customer’s sense of well-being through positive message repetition,” Dr. Toffler was saying, its voice crackling with age, “not only encourages complacency but is also a useful tool that ultimately leads to widespread respect for authority and obedience to rules.” It paused. “Representative Papadopoulos, you’re not paying attention. Please try to stay engaged.”

Eli pointed, startled out of his reverie. “I just saw something break. Up above those silver trees, see? There were sparks, and then part of the dome just . . . fizzled out!”

Dr. Toffler’s slender plastic head swiveled to see. By then, though, everything appeared normal. The dome ceiling shimmered a cheerful blue. The synthetic sun, a perfect sphere of blazing gold and red, was halfway through its daytime journey and now glowed above the shopping mall at the center of downtown. The dark spot had grown smaller, as if the surrounding pixels were adjusting their positions to leave no trace of their missing brothers. Even Eli was having a hard time making it out anymore.

“I see nothing peculiar,” Dr. Toffler said. “I’m sure it was just part of a cloud-vertisement.”

“No, it wasn’t a cloud-vertisement! I’m telling you, something exploded!”

The droid’s head swiveled back, its optical sensors fixing on Eli. Dr. Toffler was so old that the rubber at its joints had almost worn away, exposing the wires that ran up its neck and the steel rods at its elbows and knees. “This wouldn’t be another of your attempts to divert our discussion from the lecture, would it? Your tactics are becoming rather tiresome.”

Eli ignored the jab. As a member of the powerful Papadopoulos family, the family that owned the giant company that managed everything in the domed cities and kept the millions of domed employees safe and productive, he was being raised differently than most kids. Instead of attending a normal school and getting a regular job at age thi