No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (Preview)

Introduction by Jernard
December 6th, 2300; 4:23 A.M.
Chicago, Illinois

“Hey,” Keith Fynn said in a quiet tone as he opened his townhouse’s front door. “Do you want to come inside and warm up a minute? Katie’s still trying to decide on some last-minute things, but we have the essentials packed.”

I hesitated for a moment, looking around at the snow-covered sidewalks and listening for anything suspicious. Other than the early morning traffic, the neighborhood seemed peaceful. With the way things had been going however, this meant nothing. We didn’t have a lot of time.

“Maybe I can help,” I replied as I stepped inside. “If she’s debating about which toys to take with her, I think there’s enough room in the trunk for—“

I stopped, startled by what I saw. Their entire living room was a wreck—all the furniture overturned and everything that should have been on the walls now scattered across the floor. Keith’s stereo system was busted into shards, and the room’s two inlaid monitors had cracks in their screens like they’d been hit with a baseball bat.

“I take it you did your own redecorating?” I asked, noticing the broad smile on his face. “Clever idea, but I still have one question.”

His smile faded as I walked over to the couch, shaking the glass free from a broken picture frame and taking out a wedding photo of him and his wife Kim.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” he said in a sharp whisper. “Not in front of Katie.”

“Keith, if she doesn’t come with us now, I can’t guarantee—“ I started, but just then Katie came around the corner.

“Hi!” she said, holding a pink duffel bag in one hand and some kind of fluffy yellow stuffed animal in the other. “I think I’m ready now.”

I couldn’t help but feel happy just at the sight of her. About an inch of her own thick brown hair was sticking out all over her head, and she looked alert and healthy compared to the last time I’d seen her.

“She’s been in remission for almost a month now—no complications,” Keith said as I crouched down to where I was eye-level with her. “I can’t wait to thank the rest of your medical team in person.”

“Do you remember me, Katie?” I asked, and she pointed a finger toward my eyes—almost poking me in the eye in the process. “Sorry, but I don’t have an on/off switch for those. Who’s your little friend?”

She held up the stuffed animal again, and an involuntary shudder rippled through me because it had eight legs.

“It’s Spivey,” she replied like she was appalled I didn’t already know, but then she laughed at my confused expression. “Spivey the Spider eats all kinds of bugs. Spivey the Spider gives you lots of—hugs and kisses...”

She shoved it toward my face, and part of my brain started to track its plastic eyes like it was a legitimate threat. I leaned back and caught myself on my fingertips, making sure I was calm before I moved again.

“Oh, that’s very nice,” I replied in a humoring tone, jumping up as fast as I could and backing away from her. “Spivey is going to ride in the trunk where there are a lot of bugs for him to eat…”

She frowned at this, and when I turned around Keith was giving me a strange look.

“Let me get this straight,” he said, doing a horrible job of trying not to laugh at me. “You can go up against an entire army of reptilian monsters without a trace of fear, but you’re terrified of stuffed animals? You do realize the thing isn’t real, right?”

“Keith, I don’t like spi—“ I started to say, but Katie was now staring at me with a hurt expression “Spies—I don’t like spies, so we need to get out of here. What can I carry?”

“I think we’re good if you could just get the door,” Keith said, slinging a large duffel bag over his shoulder and grabbing Katie’s booster seat. “You want me to drive? You look kind of tired.”

“I was in a coma for over a week,” I replied, holding the door for him and keeping a watch on Katie as she followed behind him. “If I could be any more rested, I’d be dead.”

“All right,” he said then smiled again. “I just figured if you were asleep that you wouldn’t have to worry about…”

He started humming Spivey’s theme song, and I rolled my eyes.

“I used to believe it was odd that a nice person like you could have so many enemies,” I said, reaching into my jacket pocket and tossing him my car keys. “Now I don’t wonder so much.”

“I think I inherited most of my enemies,” he replied, opening the back passenger door and leaning inside to install the booster seat. “If it wasn’t for—“

I heard the loud click come from a rooftop across from us, and I pushed both Keith and Katie down to the sidewalk just as the shot hit the back glass of the car. Katie shrieked, and Keith had to hold on to her as she started to reach for the stuffed spider—which was now a foot beyond what little protection we had with the car.

“They’re going to shoot him, Daddy!” Katie cried in frustration, trying to squirm out of Keith’s grip like it was her best friend in danger. “I—“

“Look, I’ll save him,” I interrupted, worried she was going to break free. “Just stay with your dad, all right?”

I took a deep breath as I crawled under the car then grabbed for Spivey’s closest leg—pulling my hand away just before the second shot almost hit it. I managed to grab the thing while the sniper reloaded for a third try.

“EIP?” Keith asked, but I shook my head.

“I don’t think so,” I replied, handing him the toy. “They tend to be better shots.”

Just then I heard the crack of someone being punched, and a man groaned.

“I got him, Jernard!” Wynn shouted down to us, and I was able to rise up enough to see him on a rooftop breaking the man’s rifle apart. “Hang on—I’ll be down there in a minute!”

Instead of taking the stairs, he opted to climb down the building’s exterior—something I would’ve done at his age but that made me uneasy watching him do. I kept glancing around until he reached us, thankful that the sniper had been alone.

“Are you all right?” I asked Keith, noticing his grip on Katie was still almost as tight as her grip on Spivey. “Come on, we’ll take your truck until we can switch to something else.”

Keith’s new truck was a quad-cab and bright red—problematic because it stood out. The four of us hurried and piled into it, Keith and me taking the front while Wynn figured out Katie’s seat on the way.

“Why did you risk doing that?” Wynn asked me in Hannarian not long after we were on the road and settled. “It was just a toy.”

“It isn’t to her,” I replied then turned around in my seat to face him. “Now if it’d been real, I’d have shot it myself. I—”

“For what it’s worth, thank you,” Keith interrupted, taking his eyes off the road a moment to look at me. “It’s good to have friends—even if they’re not human. I just wish Kim could understand that…”

“She doesn’t like Spivey either?” I asked, but he shook his head like he wasn’t in a joking mood. “Look, if Kim has a problem with us, just let me explain everything. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her just because—“

“She won’t be coming with us no matter what you say, Jernard,” he said, his tone firm but desperate for me to drop the issue. “I’ll explain later. Now where are we heading?”

I brought up his truck’s GPS and programmed Olemdi’s location. It was stationary since Fost knew we were on our way.

“We’re going to need your help with something—but only if you want to do it,” I said in a cautious tone. “Would you be up for it?”

“To stop these people?” he asked as he pressed on the gas pedal. “Anything.”

Introduction by Paronis
December 6th, 2300; 5:32 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

“So explain to me again why we’re doing reconnaissance in a food court?” Andrew asked in a skeptical tone, holding up the pretzel I’d just bought him. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with these, would it?”

I grinned and nodded, and he laughed. Even though he looked a lot like his father, Andrew was a very different kid to train compared to Jernard. Considering he’d never known a time when our lives weren’t in danger, Andrew was much more obedient—almost to the point I wanted him to relax a little.

“I also got word that the EIP has a new headquarters in the Pizza Palace across the street,” I replied, spotting us a table with a decent vantage point. “We can go verify that around lunch time.”

This made him look down at his DMR, and he glanced back up at me with a concerned expression.

“You only have about forty-five minutes,” he said in a whisper. “If you need to go early, I can wait here until—“

“Ashner will be here soon,” I interrupted, but his expression didn’t change. “I’ll feel it coming if it hits earlier, so don’t worry.”

He nodded and forced a smirk at we both sat down.

“Have you ever scared people on purpose?” he asked, and he looked somewhat disappointed when I shook my head. “Have you ever scared people by accident?”

“Just your parents, but that was a long time ago,” I replied, but he leaned forward on the table like he wanted more details. “I don’t know if they want me telling you that story yet. Maybe another time.”

He took a bite of his pretzel and grew quiet—for an entire two seconds.

“Do you think Yonus and Wynn will ever be able to cure you?” he asked with his mouth full. “The fact that you can change back at all is a good sign, right?”

I took a bite of my own pretzel in the middle of his question and took my time chewing. The saltiness of it was very concentrated but not unpleasant, but I went for a drink of soda to buy myself more time to think of a response.

“I believe I won’t be like this forever, even if it takes some time to find a cure,” I replied, wishing we were on another topic. “Let’s just eat before you get the name ‘Question Boy’ for the rest of your life, all right?”

He half-smiled at the idea, but then he frowned like something was still bothering him.

“I do have one more question I want to ask you before you leave,” he said in a serious tone, glancing down at the table for a moment then back up at me. “I overheard you and Dad talking about Glaven this morning. Do you know why he wants to kill us? Mom and Dad won’t tell me, but I just want to understand why he hates us so much.”

I hesitated, debating for a moment on how to explain it to him without getting too graphic with the details.

“It’s really not a personal issue with us,” I replied, but this seemed to confuse him. “Have you ever been angry about one thing, but you take it out on someone or something else just because it’s nearby?”

“Yeah,” he replied, but he hesitated for a moment. “So you’re saying Glaven is really angry about something else, but he’s trying to kill us because we’re in his way?”

I nodded.

“Ashner and I were both younger than you when it happened, but Glaven’s entire family was killed by an infected creature during one of the first attacks on the colonies,” I replied, and Andrew cringed. “He was on Hannaria at the time—some kind of diplomatic meeting—so when he came home…to be honest, I think the same situation would’ve broken something in my mind, too.”

Andrew stared at me for a moment then sighed.

“Can someone just help him like you helped Dad?” he asked, but before I could answer I saw him glance past me. “Hi, Ashner.”

“Hey, Andrew,” he replied then turned his attention to me. “You’d better get out of here before people start asking for our autographs.”

“What?” I asked in confusion, but Andrew started laughing.

“You two look like you’d be the world’s tallest twins if you were human,” he explained, and I nodded that I got it.

“Did you spend all night thinking that one up?” I asked Ashner as I stood up and let him have my seat, and he handed me his truck’s keys. “One day you may even work your way up to completing an actual joke without Andrew having to explain it for you.”

“The tank’s full, and everything’s in working order,” he replied in a firm tone, ignoring my entire comment. “Please return it the same way.”

“All right,” I said, hanging my head down like I was disappointed. “I was planning on running out the fuel and driving it off a cliff, but if you insist…”

He rolled his eyes at me then turned to Andrew.

“The terrifying thing is he used to outrank me,” he whispered like I couldn’t hear him. “I believe the promotion was to get him behind a desk so he’d stop breaking things faster than our enemies.”

By this point, Andrew was giving us both strange looks—wondering if Ashner and I disliked each other as much as we seemed or if it was all just banter. I took my DMR out of my jacket and looked at the time.

“Well, I need to go,” I said, holding my hand out to Ashner. “Try not to bore the kid too much, all right?”

“I’ll at least keep him out of trouble,” he replied then grinned for a brief moment.

Be careful, Brother.

You, too.

I turned and started toward the spaceport’s exit, and Andrew realized that the ‘no more questions’ rule no longer applied.

“So what would happen if Paronis read your mind the same time you were trying to read his mind?”

I paused around the corner, wondering how Ashner was going to answer this one.

“It would create an endless feedback of mind-reading that would result in our brains exploding,” Ashner lied but in a serious tone. “Now finish your pretzel, Question Boy.”

“How did you know—“ Andrew started, but he got out of range where I could hear him.

I found the truck and made it back to our nearest safe house with plenty of time to spare, but I still felt a wave of dread hit me as I sat down on the couch and waited. Turning on the monitor as a distraction, I kept surfing the news channels until I found one that caught my interest.

“—that the army of ships the Hannarians stopped was hostile,” Dr. Ryan Duka said in a firm tone despite the skeptical look the interviewing reporter was giving him. “The overall situation is very complex—considering these reptilian creatures have been warring among themselves as well. Not all of them have bad intentions toward us, but there’s a core leadership that plans to take over Earth.”

“That’s according to the Hannarians,” the reporter added in a smug tone then leaned forward in his chair. “In the millions of years that we know about, those creatures have never shown any indication of wanting to cross over into our region of space until the Hannarians made their own move toward Earth—and toward their border line. Who’s to say those creatures weren’t attempting to defend their families and got slaughtered by the Ambassador for their trouble?”

Duka was quiet for a moment then rose up out of his seat.

“This isn’t news, Gary,” he said in an angry tone. “It’s bull—“

The station went blank then cut to a commercial, and I sighed and closed my eyes as the scales began to overtake me.

Chapter 1—Bill Dermott
December 7th, 2300; 2:16 P.M.
Baltimore, Maryland

The crack of gunshots broke the eerie quiet of the cemetery, and I covered my head and dropped to the snow-covered ground. Then there was silence again, and a wave of embarrassment hit me as I realized a Pearl Harbor ceremony was taking place less than a hundred yards from my brother's grave. I still decided to wait before I got closer, brushing snow off a nearby park bench and sitting down so my heart would slow down. It was a dry kind of snow, but a damp coat and jeans would’ve been the least of my worries anyway.

“Do you remember when it happened?” I asked, knowing I’d been followed but not turning around. “Pearl Harbor, I mean. You were here back then, weren't you?”

For a moment, no one answered. I began to wonder if I'd been wrong—that maybe it'd been an EIP operative that had tailed my taxi here.

“We weren’t there, but we heard about it,” a voice behind me replied, and I relaxed as Hannaria's Ambassador brushed the rest of the snow off the bench and took a seat next to me. “Rhaynan and I were about thirty-two miles outside of Paris when it happened, but the news didn't reach us until two days later. Seems kind of unbelievable now, doesn't it?”

He looked younger in person, and even I would've mistaken him for a teenage kid if it wasn't for what he'd just said. The hood of his thick black ski-jacket was covering his head, and his eyes weren't glowing like they should've been. He smirked at me then turned to watch the line of soldiers file away toward the graveyard entrance. There was an intensity to his expression, but it wasn't what I'd call inhuman. He just seemed nervous, and I wasn't sure whether to be comforted or afraid by that.

“So, which side were you on during World War II?” I asked, and he rolled his eyes. “Just checking.”

“I know you can't help yourself,” he replied, shaking his head at the ground then glancing over at me. “Look, just turn off the microphone. I want to help you, but you need to make up your mind why you’re here. I came here to pay my respects to your brother—not to do an interview.”

I took my recorder out of my coat pocket and erased the file I'd created right in front of him. Then I put the entire thing on the ground and stomped it. It was an exaggerated gesture and an expensive recorder, but I needed him to trust me. He didn't seem impressed however as he stood up and began walking toward Mike's grave.

“Hey!” I shouted as I started after him, slipping and almost falling on a patch of ice as the hill got steeper. “I just want to know what happened to him—that's it! You don't have to say a word about anything else!”

He stopped and waited for me to catch up. When we reached the grave, the headstone had a two-inch layer of snow on it. The Ambassador wiped off the top with his bare hand, but after a few seconds he had to stop and put both his hands in his pockets. I also noticed his breath was fogging up the air a lot more than mine, and even with a coat he was shivering.

“Cold weather has never been my thing,” he explained, his voice shaking as he stared at the headstone’s inscription. “I don’t mind snow, but I like it a lot better when I’m looking at it out a window. You drink coffee?”

“Sure,” I replied, now wondering if it was something more than the temperature making him uncomfortable. “Do you need a minute? I saw a coffee place about three blocks east of here. I can wait for you there if that would be better for you.”

“That’ll be fine—thanks,” he replied, now staring at the headstone again. “How was the funeral? Did anyone other than you show up?”

“Just the preacher,” I replied, but he didn’t seem surprised by this. “Do you know where his wife and daughter are? I know why you couldn’t come, but I at least thought they would’ve been there. I’ve never even met them before. They probably don’t know that I exist.”

“Oh, they know,” he replied in a strange tone, but then his expression turned serious again. “They won’t be back for a long time. It’s complicated right now—and unsafe. Come on, let’s just go.”

He started back down the hill in a fast walk for him, but I had to jog to keep up.

“They didn’t know about his condition, did they?” I asked, and he shook his head. “How is that possible? He couldn’t have hidden it from his wife—not for that long.”

“He did,” he replied, slowing down and keeping his voice low now that more people were around us. “He managed to hide it from us, too—or at least Charlie did. He was the personality in control the entire time I knew your brother—at least until right at the very end. I’ve read about multiple personality disorders in humans, but I think there was more to what happened to him than just a mental illness. I believe someone created his condition on purpose. I just don’t know how or why.”

I knew a lot more than him, but for a moment I was hesitant to admit it. For all I knew, he was just testing to see how much I was going to tell him. I waited until he got a few steps ahead of me and opened the door to the coffee shop.

“Michael was raised to kill you,” I replied almost in a whisper, taking advantage of the fact he wouldn’t attack me in a public location. “So was I.”

He stopped in mid-step, and I almost bumped into him. He didn’t turn around, though. He just stood there, his hands out of his pockets and balled into tight fists.

“Can you close the door, please?” a woman at the counter asked in an annoyed tone, and I looked down and noticed I was standing in the middle of the doorway. “What can I get you?”

The Ambassador took a step forward, and the sleigh bell on the door jingled as I moved to the side toward the counter.

“Do you sell hot chocolate here?” he asked in a pleasant tone, and I noticed his hands and shoulders had relaxed again. “I’m not in the mood for coffee right now.”

“We have dark chocolate, hot fudge, milk chocolate, deluxe hot chocolate with marshmallows—“

“Just surprise me,” he replied, holding both his hands up like he was surrendering to the ridiculous amount of choices then nodded at me. “Go ahead and put his on there, too—and a thirty percent tip to offset us running up your heating bill.”

The woman smiled, and she seemed even more pleased after I ordered. The Ambassador was glaring at the receipt however as I sat down across from him. When he looked up at me, his irises were flaring past what I now realized were dark contacts in his eyes. I shuddered.

“I figured since this may be my last cup that I’d go all out,” I explained, and he smirked at this then took a sip of his drink. “If you’ll just give me time to explain, you may not want to kill me. I’m fighting this just like Mike did, but I need your help. It may be the only way for both of us to get what we want.”

He stared at me for a moment then took an envelope out of his jacket pocket. I opened it, and it was a ticket for a transport heading for Phoenix the next morning.

“I say we start at the beginning then,” he said as he stood up, putting his jacket hood over his head again and taking his drink with him. “Sorry, but I need to go.”

“Where are you going?” I asked as I turned around in my seat. “I thought you wanted to talk.”

He smirked at me again.

“I do, but I have an interview,” he said, and his back was turned as everyone looked up to see who he was. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The sleigh bell on the door jingled again, and I was left holding my coffee that cost as much as an entire meal for two people. The worst part was I couldn’t even enjoy it.

Killing him was going to be a lot harder than I thought.

Chapter 2—Portia Roberts
December 7th, 2300; 2:16 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

“Yes, I’m serious,” I said as I lifted the lid off a box of garland I’d just brought down from my hall closet. “I’m so serious that I’ve taken my first vacation in over five years. The tree is already up, my balcony is decorated—“

“Raymond made you take a vacation as part of your new contract, didn’t he?” my sister Lisa interrupted, but there was so much interference in the signal it was difficult to hear her. “I can’t make any promises, but we’ll try our best to be there.”

Having used this phrase a hundred times in my life, I knew that meant they weren’t coming. Still, something felt off.

“Where are you anyway?” I asked, trying to change the subject since she’d been right about my vacation being forced. “Neil didn’t take you and Austin to Mars with him, did he? If—“

“We’re not on Mars,” Lisa replied in a firm tone, but from the delay in the response I knew she wasn’t on Earth either. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything other than we’re safe.”

“Did you ever find out who set your warehouses on fire?” I asked, and there was silence for several seconds. “Lisa? Are you there? Lisa?”

Nothing.

I picked my DMR off the coffee table and tried to reconnect with her, but it didn’t work. Frustrated, I sat down on my couch and pinched the bridge of my nose.

“The hubs are—“ a voice said behind me, but I screamed and jumped up before the intruder had time to finish his sentence.

“How did you get in here?” I shouted as I scrambled for something I could use for a weapon. “I warn you! If you even lay a finger on me, I’ll—Ambassador?”

The tall blond-haired boy shook his head, and as I got a better look at his face he appeared to be about thirteen or fourteen. He was Hannarian however, and his resemblance to the Ambassador was obvious.

“I’m his son,” he explained in a cautious tone as he stared at the wooden barstool I was holding out in front of me. “I’m also not a circus lion, so you can put that down. I’m not going to hurt you. My dad sent me.”

“He’s alive?” I asked, and the boy nodded as he walked over to my Christmas tree, still keeping his distance from me. “How? I saw the footage of the explosion. There’s no way anyone could’ve survived that—not even one of you.”

“He got rescued at the last second,” he replied with a smirk, and I cringed as he pulled out an LED from the tip of one of my tree’s branches to examine it. “It wasn’t our technology, so I don’t know how to better explain it. He was still in a coma for over a week—which is a very long time for him. He’s fine now, though.”

His attention went back to the LED and the tree, and he seemed to have a disappointed look on his face for some reason.

“Look, those won’t work without electricity,” I explained, putting the barstool down and holding out my hand as I approached him. “Here—give it to me, and I’ll put it back. Haven’t you ever seen a Christmas tree before?”

“A few,” he replied as he put the LED back in its spot by himself, and it lit up again. “They used to have strands of lights—and if one bulb went out, the rest of the strand went out until you replaced the right one. Our hubs are like that—the system isn’t going to work right until we replace all the ones that are damaged. Your sister is fine, and so are Neil and Austin. They’re safe on a planet about four days away from here.”

I knew he couldn’t have meant Neptune—which was the only planet that was four days away to my knowledge—so I assumed he meant four days journey for a Hannarian transport. I knew his father had lied to us about their top speed, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that there were other inhabitable planets that we didn’t know about either.

“How far would that be for an Earth transport?” I asked, but he didn’t answer as he moved the box of garland off my couch and sat down. “Months? Years? Is that why your father sent you here—to tell me I’m never going to see my sister again?”

“No,” he replied, and he took an envelope out of his jacket and handed it to me. “He sent me here to give you this.”

He waited for me to open up the envelope, and inside was a transport ticket to Phoenix, Arizona and a printed photo. It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at—a headstone with three full names on it but only one birth and death date.

“What is this?” I asked as I glanced up at him then back down to the photo. “Three men born on the same day and that died on the same day—all buried in the same grave? That makes no sense…”

“They were all the same guy—physically anyway,” he explained as he stood up from the couch and started for my front door. “He had different personalities that were independent of each other. My family knew Charlie Miller. The EIP knew Michael Dermott. We can’t find much on Derek O’Bannon, but we thought you may be able to access information we—”

“And you also thought I might help you because of Lisa?” I asked, now angry that I was about to be manipulated into doing something I wouldn’t have done otherwise. “I help you, and then I’ll get to see her again. I refuse, and you’ll keep her and her family trapped on whatever planet you’ve put them on. Is that how this works?”

His eyes flared bright blue for a moment, but his expression seemed more sad than angry. He sighed and opened the door.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” he asked in a frustrated tone as he stepped out into the hallway. “We’re not the bad guys, Ms. Roberts. If Neil and Lisa come back to Earth, the EIP will kill them—and they won’t care if Austin is with them or not. Why can’t you understand?”

“Because I have just as much reason not to trust you as I do not to trust the EIP,” I replied, stuffing the ticket and photo back into the envelope and holding it back out to him. “Your father has lied about so many things that I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know why he’s putting you up to this, but I want no part of it! Now get out of here before I call the police!”

He took the envelope back but didn’t seem to be in any hurry as he walked over to the elevator and pushed the button to go down. I waited, making sure he was going to leave before I shut my door back.

“The EIP bought out GBN’s stock last week,” he said as he stared at the elevator doors. “Within the next forty-eight hours, all of the news databases are going to be wiped clean of anything that puts them in a negative light. Your superiors didn’t send you home to reward you. They did it so you’d be out of their way.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, making sure my door was unlocked before I stepped out into the hallway and closed it. “I got promoted because Ryan Duka has decided not to renew his contract for next year. Are you saying that was forced, too?”

“I’m saying your days of being a real reporter are numbered,” he replied as the elevator door opened, and he held it open with his foot for a moment. “They’re going to turn you into a glorified teleprompter reader, Ms. Roberts—and after that they’ll see if you fall in line or quit like Duka did. If you change your mind, this ticket is on record under your name. Dad wants to tell you the entire truth, but it has to be on our terms. We don’t have time right now to wait up for you.”

I paused a moment, divided on what I wanted to do but trying hard not to show it.

“What does Hannaria’s Emperor think of all of this?” I asked as he walked inside the elevator and turned around to face me. “I thought your parents were restricted on what they could tell us.”

“Not anymore,” he replied. “Dad’s going to become Emperor soon. He just has to be confirmed by the Council. As soon as the security shield drops, we’re going back to Hannaria. That might take up to a year, though. We don’t know yet.”

He let the elevator door shut, and I sighed as I realized I was going to have to unpack my summer clothes again.

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No Good Deed Goes Unpunished is the third book of the Hannaria Series, featuring Jernard, Paronis, Rhaynan, Bill Dermott, and Portia Roberts as narrators. It is currently available in Kindle, nook, and paperback formats. Purchasing through the following links also supports Writing.com:

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Sci-fi novelist Patricia Gilliam is the author of the Hannaria Series: Out of the Gray (April 2009), Legacy (Nov 2009), and No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (June 2010). Beginning her career as an online content writer, she has written over 1,000 non-fiction articles and 40 fiction short stories since 2006. She has been a preferred author on Writing.com since 2007, offering free help and resources to the site's community.

Outside of writing, she and her husband Cory are broadcast camera operators for the Christian television show Power of the Word in the Knoxville, TN area. In 2009, they adopted a rescue greyhound (racing name Lucius Malfoy) and are active volunteers for the local adoption group.

Book 4 of the Hannaria Series, Something Like the Truth, is in progress with an expected release in early 2012.