David Dunton and the Harvey Klinger Literary Agency as well as its subagents. Thank you for all the support and advice!

Kassie, Drew, Zander, and the folks at 20th Century Fox who optioned Insignia.

To Hot Key Books, Egmont, Goldman, and my foreign publishers, translators, and editors.

To Veronica Roth, Dan Wells, Aprilynne Pike, and Rae Carson, for all the wisdom you guys have shared.

To Derek Webber at SpaceX for answering a random writer’s questions about suborbital planes.

To Brother Guy Consolmagno, for helping me figure out how to minimize my violation of causality.

To NASA, for looking forward.

And last, but certainly not least, to the readers who have made this all worth it. Thank you so much!

About the Author

About the Author

S. J. KINCAID was born in Alabama, grew up in California, and attended high school in New Hampshire. She also interned for a politician in Washington, DC, and received degrees from universities in Illinois and Ohio, but it was while living beside a haunted graveyard in Edinburgh, Scotland, that she realized she wanted to be a writer. Several years, several manuscripts, and several jobs later, Ms. Kincaid now lives in Chicago, and Vortex is her second novel in the Insignia trilogy. You can visit her online at www.sjkincaid.com.

Also by S. J. Kincaid

Also by S. J. Kincaid

Insignia

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Credits

Credits

Cover art © 2013 by Sammy Yuen

Copyright

Copyright

Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Vortex

Copyright © 2013 by S. J. Kincaid

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kincaid, S. J.

Vortex / S. J. Kincaid. — First edition.

pages    cm

Summary: “While serving as a superhuman government weapon during World War III, teenager Tom Raine’s loyalties are tested by corruption and nefarious enemies”— Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-06-209302-8 (hardback)

EPUB Edition MAY 2013 ISBN 9780062093042

[1. Science fiction. 2. Virtual reality—Fiction. 3. Video games—Fiction. 4. War—Fiction. 5. Conduct of life—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.K61926Vor 2013

2012051722

[Fic]—dc23

CIP

AC

13   14   15   16   17      LP/RRDH      10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

FIRST EDITION

About the Publisher

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