24
The light drizzle had stopped, but Melissa only noticed that by the silence. She had grown used to the sound of raindrops hitting the patio door. Gray light filled her kitchen through the window above the sink, making the normally-gleaming white tiles seem drab. It suited her mood.
The processing unit of her multi-tool – the little metal disk that was usually clipped to her gauntlet – sat in the middle of the white table, and it projected a hologram into the air. A lattice of thin transparent lines formed a globe. Like links in a chain, they all traced circles of latitude and longitude with tiny dots where they intersected.
The top hemisphere was mostly orange with only a few links dipping down toward the bottom pole. The bottom, however, was almost all blue. That was Melissa's terri
