'bodycam footage shows Mason telling the deputies that they are "not allowed" to stop her'

Pro-life activist Paulette Harlow, 75, from Kingston, Massachusetts, has been sentenced to 24 months in prison for her role in a 2020 blockade at a Washington, D.C. abortion clinic, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Harlow was convicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and for felony conspiracy following a […]

The verdict and subsequent frenzy all seem like the latest season of our nation's poorly-scripted reality TV show

'You inspired and created fear'

'An amazing Spock, but a terrible customer'

'the federal government will be used to crush you without mercy'

On the island of New Caledonia, a simple, unassuming species of fern has been identified as having the longest genome of any living organism known. It is 50 times longer than a human’s, 7% longer than the previous world record-holding species for longest genome, and 20% longer than the record-holding animal. It contains 416 chromosomes […] The post World’s Largest Genome Discovered in a Tiny Fern: ‘Breaks all records’ appeared first on Good News Network.

News Snowpiercer Snowpiercer Season 4 Trailer Hints That Someone Is Coming, and That Someone Is Clark Gregg By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on June 3, 2024 Credit: AMC Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: AMC “They’re coming!” That’s the message from the very short teaser for the upcoming fourth season of Snowpiercer. Who is coming, exactly, is still unclear, though it looks like it’s a force of stormtroopers/winter soldiers (sorry, not sorry) who don’t seem too happy. We’ve known since 2022 that Clark Gregg (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) will be in the upcoming episodes, but AMC released an image of the actor that strongly suggests that he’s part of the arctic brigade, which you can see here: Gregg isn’t the only new cast member we’ll see in season four: Michael Aronov (The Drop, The Americans, Operation Finale) will also be in the upcoming episodes. The two join series regulars Jennifer Connelly, Daveed Diggs, Sean Bean, Rowan Blanchard, Alison Wright, Mickey Sumner, Iddo Goldberg, Katie McGuinness, Hall, Sam Otto, Chelsea Harris, Mike O’Malley, Roberto Urbina and Sheila Vand. Here’s the synopsis for the final season: Nine months after Snowpiercer and Big Alice parted ways, Till and Ben encounter unforeseen enemies when Melanie sends them off the train on a reconnaissance mission. Meanwhile, the residents of New Eden face uncertain times and unknown adversaries, compelling them to further confront the complexities of their new reality. The first episode of season four, “Snakes In The Garden,” premieres Sunday, July 21, 2024, at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on AMC and will be available to stream on AMC+. If you want to catch up before then, the first two seasons are currently streaming on AMC+, with the third season dropping on the platform on June 8, 2024. Check out the trailer for season four below. [end-mark] The post Snowpiercer Season 4 Trailer Hints That Someone Is Coming, and That Someone Is Clark Gregg appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Doctor Who Doctor Who Uses Social Media Toward Devastating Ends in “Dot and Bubble” What starts as a treatise on the problems of social media bubbles ends on a far more painful note By Emmet Asher-Perrin | Published on June 3, 2024 Credit: BBC / Disney+ Comment 1 Share New Share Credit: BBC / Disney+ This week seemed like it was going to be all cute aesthetics with horror beneath… they sure fooled us. Recap Credit: BBC / Disney+ Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke) awakes in Finetime, a city of wealthy white young people protected from the Wild Woods by a bubble shield. The denizens all go about their lives inside virtual bubbles where they maintain constant contacts with their friend lists via video. They work two hours a day, and then party for the rest of it, and are directed through the environment by their bubble, never looking outside of it. Lindy’s friend Gothic Paul (Pete MacHale) tells her that their friends are disappearing, but Lindy isn’t interested in that; she’d much rather watch the local influencer Ricky September (Tom Rhys Harries) and do her work. The Doctor pops up in her bubble, but he’s not on her friend’s list, so Lindy blocks him. Ruby appears while Lindy is working and claims she works in maintenance. She asks Lindy to turn off her dot and drop her bubble and see what’s outside. Lindy sees a large slug monster eating her coworker. The Doctor and Ruby tell Lindy to drop the bubble again and get out of the building, but Lindy can’t walk without the bubble directing her. She encounters another slug creature, but it doesn’t eat her, and the Doctor can’t figure out why. He tells Lindy to make her way to the evacuation area via conduits underground. Lindy gets stuck and runs into Ricky September IRL. He saves her and admits that after he uploads videos, he logs off immediately to read and learn. Ricky uses the computer system to check on their Homeworld—all these young people were sent to live in Finetime by wealthy parents—but he discovers that Homeworld was already overrun by the slug monsters. He doesn’t tell Lindy. Ricky and Lindy make it underground and the Doctor instructs Ricky to plug in numbers at the door leading to the evacuation area until it unlocks. The Doctor and Ruby finally work out that the people in Finetime are being eaten in alphabetical order, leading them to work out that the slug monsters were created by the dots; the technology they created has grown to hate them. Lindy is unfortunately next on the list, and because there are no slugs down there, her own dot weaponizes and tries to kill her. Ricky tells Lindy to work on the door lock while he fights it off. As the door opens, Lindy tells the dot that Ricky September changed his name, and his real surname is Coombes—he’s the next on the alphabetized list. The dot kills Ricky while she escapes. Lindy finds the few survivors remaining underground with the Doctor and Ruby and the TARDIS. The group is preparing supplies to leave, ready to tame the woods outside. The Doctor insists that it’s too dangerous out there, and asks the group to come with him. All of them are mortified by the idea: The Doctor is an outsider, and they already feel contaminated by allowing him this close. The Doctor tells them that he doesn’t care if they continue to believe that, and offers them the chance to escape again, somewhere they can be safe. The group refuses in disdain, and leave on their boat. The Doctor cries and screams, and leaves with Ruby. Commentary Credit: BBC / Disney+ Oh yeah. Yes. Keep going. Let’s get the less heavy stuff out of the way first: Apparently, this episode was originally designed for Eleven’s tenure (which, that would’ve been an entirely different circus, huh?), but cut because the effects needed would’ve cost too much. That work is on display here, and it’s one of the few places where I’ve actually appreciated the Disney money thus far because it gives the environment that extra plastic sheen. The fact that the “monsters” of the episode are practical effects (there are three people working those slugs at a time!) and also aren’t really the monsters of the episode at all, it’s so good. The story also has that limited-scope feel of so many of the best Who episodes, with only two characters really getting most of the screen time and the Doctor and Ruby on the periphery of things. I know that some folks weren’t pleased with the Gen Z style dialogue on this one, but that critique doesn’t hold for me because it’s so important that the sickly parody of social media culture be too heavy and reach a little too hard. The misdirect of the ultimate theme in the episode is more effective when its initial salvo of critiquing social media doesn’t entirely work. I had a moment in the beginning of internal eye rolling at Lindy’s resistance to the concept of “dropping your bubble,” like yes, okay we get it, har har. Everything about it is just on the wrong side of overdone, which is the perfect distraction. The aesthetic works in favor of this, and so does Callie Cooke’s outstanding performance; she leans into the vacancy with intention, so that it’s hard to tell where the portrayal is headed. And the arc here is working to misdirect us because we’ve seen Doctor Who guest stars do the opposite of what this story entails—we’ve watched people learn and change and grow into a better destiny due to meeting the Doctor, so we’re primed to assume that will be the direction things play out in. The story is poking at the audience too, in its depiction of these things. What annoys us about how social media is portrayed here? Is it actual missteps (which are there, in fairness) or is it simply having to acknowledge the inherent nastiness that the landscape engenders and how often it encourages our worst impulses by design? And more importantly—did you or did you not notice that every single person on the screens in Finetime was white? It’s the first glaring clue, and it’s literally projected at us from every angle immediately. And there are clues about Lindy, too, but we’re inclined to dismiss them: As Ricky points out, she’s saying this is the best day of her life while all of her friends are being eaten. She tries to ignore the Doctor from the very start for not “belonging” in her bubble, but is more receptive to Ruby invading it. The script gives us outs, ways in which we can twist her meaning to make the answer for her behavior something more benign. Which is, in turn, often what we do when we encounter behaviors that could be the result of malignant prejudices. We are left to make up our own minds until the point when Lindy sells out Ricky to save herself. And even then, we still aren’t sure of the purpose (if any) around that reveal. We only get to sit with the discomfort of having spent the entire episode with her—another important choice in the framing. This is another Doctor-lite episode and it’s better for the fact that we’re being given the entire plot through Lindy’s eyes. Encouraging the viewer to fully engage with her point of view, perhaps even empathize with her plight, is the surest way to give the ending its maximum impact. But before we get into that ending: Whatever this episode achieves, there are still no Black writers working on Doctor Who this season, or any POC writers at all, for that matter. That needs to be said because the show can still and always do better, and that’s a particularly glaring place to start. Regardless of that, racism is still something that the show needs to continually reckon with, particularly with their current leading man. And this episode manages that need in a way that doesn’t feel clichéd, tidy, or weakened for audience comfort. In fact, the end of this episode is perfectly calibrated devastation. And that matters coming off of Thirteen’s tenure, where sexism only got the barest wave in a couple episodes, and even then was never handled emotionally for the Doctor at all. It matters because even after all that he’s been through, this is the first time the Doctor has been told ‘no’ with such blatant, sickened disgust from the very people he would help. It matters because it’s this Doctor, who occupies this body and is also a supernova of compassion. He will be hurt by this in a way that would have hurt so few of his previous faces. It matters because he was willing to take that abuse from them, and they still said no. It matters because the racism implied here is technically an allegory—their objections are to the Doctor being an “outsider” to Finetime—but oh-so obviously not one at all when they call the TARDIS “voodoo,” and talk about “taming” the world outside like their ancestors, and all the white kids get in their damned Mississippi paddle-steamer-looking boat to head into the great unknown. And Ruby can do nothing but stand next to the Doctor and watch him hurt because none of this was directed at her. It matters. It fucking matters. And it was there right from the start. Along with all the things that play into that supremacy: the wealth, the unattainable beauty standards, the consumerism masquerading as activism, and the constant looking away from anything that makes us uncomfortable or frightened or confused. It’s all part of the same circuit. So yeah, it’s a little blunt in places. But it’s a gorgeous piece of work, this episode. Time and Space and Sundry Credit: BBC / Disney+ This episode has quite a bit in common with “Gridlock” and also with “The Long Game” and it’s ensuing follow-up in “Bad Wolf,” with its themes of pacification of the masses and how various forms of media can be used to control us. Similarities to Black Mirror certainly fit the bill as well, but Doctor Who is always Doctor Who in that. One of my favorite things about the episode is the use of color and light—the way everyone in Finetime is bright enough to be on camera all the time, and depicted in the soft colors we see so frequently on social media. But even better in its rendering of that is the makeup—literally from the moment Lindy appears on screen, she looks oddly yellowed because her makeup had been so heavily and obviously applied, only for it to instantly come clear that this was intentional. Of course, Susan Twist is back, this time as Penny Pepper-Bean. Who is she? How is she tied to Ruby? Next week we’ll be back with “Rogue”…[end-mark] The post <i>Doctor Who</i> Uses Social Media Toward Devastating Ends in “Dot and Bubble” appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Natalie Leif’s Take All of Us A YA unbury-your-gays horror in which an undead teen must find the boy he loves before he loses his mind and body. By Natalie Leif | Published on June 3, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Take All of Us, a new young adult horror novel by Natalie Leif—publishing with Holiday House on June 4th. Five years ago, a parasite poisoned the water of Ian’s West Virginia hometown, turning dozens of locals into dark-eyed, oil-dripping shells of their former selves. With chronic migraines and seizures limiting his physical abilities, Ian relies on his best friend and secret love Eric to mercy-kill any infected people they come across.Until a new health report about the contamination triggers a mandatory government evacuation, and Ian cracks his head in the rush. Used to hospitals and health scares, Ian always thought he’d die young… but he wasn’t planning on coming back. Much less face the slow, painful realization that Eric left him behind to die.Desperate to find Eric and the truth before the parasite takes over him, Ian along with two others left behind—his old childhood rival Monica and the jaded prepper Angel—journey to track down Eric. What they don’t know is that Eric is also looking for Ian, and he’s determined to mercy-kill him. The itch to say I love you rattled inside me for the rest of the evening, around a tasteless taco dinner and mindless homework attempt, and all through a long night of waking up dry-eyed and sleepless every half hour. I finally cracked around eight a.m., when Eric might be awake, and I sent him a text to meet me at the mall like I had something important to tell him. What I was going to tell him, how and when and where, I had no idea about. Eric, I love you. I don’t mean like a friend, I mean more than that. I want to… date you? Kiss you? Marry you?Eric, I am IN LOVE with you. I don’t care if you’re a boy. I get if that ruins our friendship for you, and you want to leave forever and never look back—No, that ain’t true, I wouldn’t get it. I don’t want to lose out on spending lazy summer days together like this. So if you don’t love me back, let’s both pretend I never said anything. Got it?But… if you DO somehow love me back, maybe we could kiss? Just once, real quick. No one would have to see, promise. I buried my head in my hands, scrubbing against my eyelids until my vision flared red. None of those sounded right. Even in my own head, I sounded hesitant and slow, the sort of person you could only love out of a strange sense of pity. All this seemed like a bad idea, now. Too late for that, I guessed. I’d already made it to the mall. I’d already sat down on the edge of the fountain, on plaster that smelled like chlorine and mildewed coins. And he was already settled next to me, drinking pop out of a water cup, waiting for me to confess whatever big damn secret I had. Once upon a time, the Kittakoop mall was somewhere important. It was built that way, with a long, wide hallway and a dozen off-shoot stores, with lush potted plants along the walls and speakers piping synth-pop Muzak overhead. Maybe it was built with the expectation that we’d grow into it, like little kids in hand-me-down clothes. Nowadays, though, it sat half empty, its big hallway caked with dust in the corners and that same handful of Muzak songs cycling through static. The plants still looked nice, though their plastic threads had frayed at the edges and the glue showed through in spots. Half the stores stood empty, their security grilles drawn and their insides a dark mass of cardboard boxes, while the other half cycled through brands every year or two: first a hair salon, then an insurance company, then a Chinese takeout place. Only the clothing store seemed to stay every year, a single corporate mass keeping the mall barely alive. Every so often a person or two would mill past us, their footsteps echoing across the tile, and I watched them for the sake of something to do that wasn’t trying to find words. My eyes flickered from them, to my hands, to the scattered coins rippling under the fountain’s shallow pool behind us. The air-conditioning rattled, too cold and stale, cutting through the faded purple jacket I’d thrown on. Buy the Book Take All of Us Natalie Leif Buy Book Take All of Us Natalie Leif Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Beside me, Eric pulled out the battered lighter he always fiddled with when bored or restless. He lifted a tanned arm, exposing an inch of bare skin under the edge of his tugged-up shirt… and opened an eye to watch me. “What?” he asked. “It’s just…” I took a deep breath, let it out again. “It’s nothing. Never mind.” And it could be nothing. It could be nothing, and we could both go home, and soon enough it’d suffocate under the weight of all that nothing, and the world would keep spinning round, and it’d be fine. That’d be the safest option, too. No one could blame me for being too safe. We’d moved to West Virginia in the first place to be safe, because I’d had a grand mal seizure on the kitchen floor and suddenly the city was too full of strobe lights and flashing signs and alarms blaring DANGER, ALERT, EMERGENCY, everything the doctors told me to avoid. I could imagine just about all those signs now. They sat on any path toward talking about my feelings, blaring and bright and not giving a whit about the medical alert bracelet on my wrist that said EPILEPTIC. “It don’t seem like nothing,” Eric said. He flicked the lighter, flick-flick-flick, and I bit back an itch to slap it out of his hands and remind him that you don’t even smoke, you just like looking at the fire. DANGER, went my brain. “Well, it is.” “You called me all the way out here for nothing?” DANGER. ALERT. NO ACCESS. “Yeah. Guess I must’ve forgot what it was. Probably wasn’t important. You want to get takeout or something instead, while we’re here?” “Uh-huh. And now you’re changing the subject. Come on, fluffy.” DANGER. EMERGENCY. “I told you, it’s not a big deal. I’ll tell you later, promise.” “Wait, which is it? ‘I forgot’ or ‘I’ll tell you later’?” DANGER, DANGER, DANGER, DANGER. “It’s both. Neither? Look—” I couldn’t get that flashing siren out of my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “I just don’t want to ruin things—” “Ian—” “I don’t want you to think I’ve just been creeping on you, but ever since I realized it’s been hard to stop thinking about it—” “Ian—” “I can’t hardly think right now, even, I—” “Ian, stop.” Eric pressed a hand to my arm. “What the hell?” I stopped, but that siren didn’t, and I realized with a start that it wasn’t in my head. High overhead, next to the skylights, tiny lights flashed sharp white, casting the mall kiosks and plants into searing silhouettes. An alarm warbled in and out, and the speakers crackled, that soothing Muzak drowned out by a distorted recording. “State of—Evacuate—warning—please—from the building— This is—” a man’s voice echoed, thundering across the hall. It kept on, but all I could really notice were those lights. They flashed over and over, searing neon, and as I stared at them I felt the taste of sour copper and spit gather in my mouth, along with a dizzy floatiness somewhere behind my eyes. No, I thought. Then: no, no-no-no, not again. I couldn’t hear Eric’s voice anymore, but I saw him hold up a hand: stay here. I saw him stand up, and I mouthed the words, help me, at the back of his head. His shirt flared a sickly reddish-orange, smearing across my vision as he moved—him surging forward in bursts of feverish white light toward the exit, me fainting backward into the fountain, and that siren still screaming, screaming, screaming over both of us. Then I hit the water, and the back of my head cracked hard against the tile, and everything went from a carousel of electric colors to brilliant white. I tasted copper and chlorine, mixed together in a mouthful of cloudy red bubbles, and… it was funny. Under a foot of stale fountain water, the alarm didn’t sound so loud. It drifted into my ears from somewhere far away, along with echoes of EVACUATION and BUILDING and STATE…and, over it all, somehow, still that gentle shopping mall Muzak, crooning gently on. Even the light didn’t seem so bad, distorted by ripples. I wondered, absently, if this was how non-epileptics got to see alarms: as distant, casual things, acknowledged and ignored, the kind of things they could look directly at and then away from without once wondering if it’d be the thing that killed them. It seemed nice. I watched the light sparkle like stars as I choked down another lungful of water, listened to buzzing synths and happy drumbeats as my vision faded from white to pooling black, and it did seem so nice. I sank into it like Mr. Owens did, letting it settle into my aching joints and racing heart and overwhelmed head. And it all went dark. * * * I can’t remember what happened after that, except in fragments. Someone pulling on me, yanking me out of the water. Eric’s voice, frantic and shouting and stumbling all over itself. A rush of cold air against my face, the taste of old pennies against my teeth. Trying to breathe, failing, panicking. Throwing up mouthfuls of pinkish water onto the floor, the splash of it against cement. Taking thin, reedy breaths I coughed back out, burning in my throat. Dropping, curling up on my side, lights still too bright, fluorescents buzzing like wasps. Running footsteps. The hallway—a potted plastic fern—sticky dark blood against my fingertips, too much, everywhere—the cool comfort of a shadowed corner, the black slab of an OUT OF ORDER vending machine—a pounding in my head, needles and hammers against my skull—sinking into a corner, burying my face in my jacket hood—shaky legs and a bone-deep tiredness— And a long, long quiet. * * * The worst part about seizures was never the seizure itself. I fainted through those, or otherwise got so fuzzy-headed that I forgot them before they were over. Nah, the worst part was always afterward: waking up disoriented on a floor somewhere new, head full of cotton stuffing and a sour burnt taste in my mouth. Shaking pins and needles out of heavy limbs, checking if I’d pissed myself again, feeling up and down for all the new bruises and cuts and aches I’d have to carry home. If I was really unlucky, there might be a couple onlookers or a cop there, too, gawking and throwing out questions like what the hell happened to you? No watchers this time, at least. Hadn’t pissed myself, either, somehow. Or I had, and falling into old fountain water made it hard to tell. I decided to pretend I hadn’t. When I finally felt stable enough to lift my head—with the pounding and nausea faded into something just south of excruciating—I pushed myself upright. The siren and flashing lights were gone, and the peppy Muzak, too, leaving a silence deep enough to bask in. I savored it for a second, then, all at once, I remembered being pulled out of the water. I remembered Eric’s voice, shouting noises that didn’t settle into words but damn sure settled into fear. Of course. Eric always knew what to do. After years together, he’d become a natural at noticing the signs of a seizure, getting me situated in a safe place, and shooing away anyone who wanted to rubberneck. He must’ve run back from the entrance as soon as he saw me flailing underwater like an idiot. So I raised a hand and forced a smile, in case he was lurking somewhere close. “ ’M okay,” I rasped. “Still here. Thanks for the save.” No answer. I squinted around, raising a hand to shield my eyes from even the faint skylights of the mall. “Eric?” Eric wasn’t here. Neither were any of the other shoppers we’d seen milling around. The mall sat dim and empty, a wide swath of shuttered storefronts and drifting dust motes. The only lights I could see were the skylights letting in shafts of hazy afternoon sun… and the vending machine beside me, its face glowing with shadows of cola cans and water bottles. Its motor hummed somewhere inside, and the fountain kept burbling on down the hall, but everything else sat quiet and dead. Dead. At the word, the back of my head gave an angry throb, and I cried out and pressed a hand to it. It felt sticky and somehow soft, like a baby’s head where the bones haven’t quite shaped all the way yet. I pushed at it and it hurt in a dizzying way, a little button I could press to knock myself out of my senses for a bit. My hand came back bloody. Not just a smear, either, but a whole handful, welling into my palm and leaking between my fingers as I stared. One mercy of waking up post-seizure: I always woke up too tired to know if I should be scared yet. I could get up, get my bearings, and tidy up most of any mess before I came to enough to panic about it. So when I saw the blood pooled in my hand and felt it trickling down the back of my neck, I didn’t scream, even when I realized in a vague way that it’d be a good time for it. I got up instead, swaying with vertigo, and staggered down the hall past all those grated storefronts and toward the nearest bathroom. A family bathroom, it turned out, one of those kinds with a single room and a baby changing station and a toilet that only came up to my shins. And a mirror. I caught myself against the sink, smearing blood all across its pretty white porcelain, and I looked up at myself. And I realized I was dead. The eyes gave it away first, as they always did. I’d always had a round face and a scrawny build, as if after years of health scares my body had given up on growing somewhere around age twelve. It’d been what made me and Eric match—him pushed to grow up too soon, me stuck behind, and both of us meeting in the middle, where we were supposed to be. But now I had big black doll eyes to go with all that, nestled above purple shadows in a milk-pale face like a ceramic figurine, and that doll-me in the mirror seemed as shocked by it as I did. Everything else came with its own flavors of wrong, too. My hair hung in blond fluffs over my forehead, dry in the front, plastered to my neck in chlorine-dark blood-clumps in the back. The jacket I’d thrown on hung waterlogged on my shoulders, all my careful iron-on patches of skulls and monsters and other cool things—slapped on in a desperate attempt to seem at least a little badass—were dyed pinkish-orange from the water. Even my shirt fit wrong now, its collar tugged askew and sleeves rolled up somewhere between falling and thrashing back up. Just like Mr. Owens, I thought. A little less out of it, a lot less sunburned, but otherwise we could be cousins. And all of a sudden, I started laughing. I laughed way too hard, coughing it up and wheezing it back down, and I pressed a red-smudged hand to my face just to keep it steady. “Holy shit,” I breathed. “I really messed up, now.” Another laugh. “What a stupid way to die.” I couldn’t stop laughing. Because it really was funny, in that awful-funny way. All the ways I could have died—hell, all the things that had tried to kill me already, from seizures to allergies—and I died in a foot and a half of rusty fountain water. This shouldn’t have even happened. I did so good, living in the fancy side of town and drinking filtered water and eating organic food . . . except mall fountains didn’t have water filters, did they? Mall fountain water wasn’t clean enough to drink from or to die in. It didn’t matter if I’d lived like a rich person expecting a quiet death—I’d died like an old country man with a lungful of used fountain water. Like the letter from the government warned about: Sorry. Our mistake. Here’s three hundred dollars. Buy a water filter. Eat uncontaminated food. Consider moving. Push your neighbors into a lake. Or maybe I’d already been doomed like this. Maybe I’d contaminated myself with some school water fountain, or a drink from a vending machine. Maybe I was always gonna die stupidly and wake back up mad about it. I didn’t even get to see what the alarm was about; it could’ve been a fire, or a terrorist attack, or a tornado, or anything else that would’ve killed me with some sort of dignity. Maybe I could have even been a hero, rescuing a dozen orphan kids before collapsing from smoke inhalation. Eric would’ve found it funny, if he was here. Only Ian Chandler, fifteen-year-old walking crisis, could fail an evacuation so hard he died. Only Ian Chandler could get so flustered at being gay that he slipped on a tile and cracked his head open and let all the brains spill out. Only Ian Chandler could die in a mall fountain before he’d even tried living first. I kept laughing until I teared up, until the tears started streaming down my face between chuckles, until I curled up on the floor and I laughed and I laughed and I screamed myself hoarse. Excerpted from Take All of Us, copyright © 2024 by Natalie Leif. The post Read an Excerpt From Natalie Leif’s <i>Take All of Us</i> appeared first on Reactor.