Books and Bacon Magazine Issue #2

First Printing 2014

© 2014 by Extreme Mojo Press

Individual Chapters are held in the copyright

of the authors and are used with their

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All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.  No part of this novel may be reproduced without express written permission of the author.

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In this issue:

Twilight on the Amber Cliffs by Tom Hobbs

AVERIE: Beyond Dead Field by Mercedes Shepherd

Jupiter Symphony  by A.C. Harrison

I Got Your Back, Hailey by June Kramin

One Night at the Jacaranda by Carol Cooper

The Plot to Save Socrates by Paul Levinson

TRIBUTARIES by Illise Montoya

ZomoSapienS “The Apocalypse from the Zombies’ Point of View” by David B. Moon

How To Write A Novel In 30 Days When You Are very Very VERY Busy! By Justin Baker

The Remains of Fate Book One: Survivors by Paul Matthews

Twilight on the Amber Cliffs

by

Tom Hobbs

Chapter 1

Park Slope - Brooklyn, NY - July, 2006

Brandon McKibbin didn't consider himself old.  Sure, he was older than most in this game, but he did own the company. His face and body held the hard lines of a cowboy. His hands were callused from the ranch work of long ago, and he wore the boots. He'd always worn the cowboy boots, at least since his junior year in high school.

He knew how to ride a horse better than most, though it had been years since he had. He had shoed many horses in his day and rode in several rodeos.  He'd even placed in more than his share; steer wrestling had been his event. He hadn’t wrestled a steer in over 25 years.

He didn't wear his Stetson at work much anymore, and hadn't for a long time, but he kept it with him on a special block in the office and wore it everywhere else.  He'd only owned one hat in his life because, as Matthew had once put it, "It can take near 30 year or so for a good hat to train itself to your head." By that logic, Brandon was almost there with this one.

He had never felt out of place as a cowboy. Not when he was a Marine stationed in Germany, not at NYU, not even here in his hometown of Brooklyn. His appearance did occasionally draw a look or two from the more colorful crowd around his neighborhood, Park Slope. He had traded his horse for a news truck; his lasso, for a video camera. His ranch hands were now stringers. He was as proud of being a stringer as he once had been of being a cowboy.

Still, only occasionally, he missed the open range.

Carly, his wife, was always telling him to live in the moment. She often used phrases like “Get out of the wayback machine” or “Turn the page.”

The fact was that he did live in the moment when he was working. However, when he wasn't working, he often would dwell on the time when he had been a cowboy, if only in short bites. He had planned to move back west after college, perhaps to New Mexico, perhaps attend graduate school at UNM, one of the best photography schools in the world; he’d even been accepted into the program. However, fate had intervened in the form of Carly. She was a New York City girl, and she was well worth staying put for.

He had never imagined that he could have fallen that hard again.

The real reason he didn't wear his hat at work was that it made it next to impossible to work the camera properly.

Today, he had decided to work the street. It felt good to get out of the office. Ralph had gone missing again with one of the news trucks, and it was crunch time. Maggie hadn’t spoken to him in over an hour, and, as usual, he had forgotten to call in.

Brandon wasn't quite sure why he put up with Ralph the way he did. Something in him couldn’t quite bring himself to give Ralph his walking papers. It wasn’t like he was costing him money. Ralph worked for commission, as did the rest of his crew, except for Maggie, who ran the office. Brandon’s stringers got to use his equipment, cameras, live trucks, and scanners in exchange for the $110.00 they got for each sale. So, when Ralph decided to take a long lunch or disappear to run an errand, Brandon took to the streets. It was the perfect excuse to get out of the office for a few hours, like some sort of unspoken agreement between them.

Maggie was good at running the office. She made all the phone calls, did all the billing, and followed up on all of the stations to check the footage for use - all of the tasks he used to do.

So, when the story in Prospect Park broke and there was no sign of Ralph, Brandon had simply mounted his news truck. After all, his office was in Sunset Park, "less than spittin' distance," as Matthew would have said, from Prospect Park.

Brandon pulled his live truck up to the curb at a No Parking sign on Prospect Park West and tossed the press placard onto the dashboard. That was the advantage of having a press pass: You could park almost anywhere you wanted and not get a ticket. Even when he wasn't working, he liked to abuse the parking privilege.  It was possibly his favorite perk.

Brandon scanned the area. Two police units had pulled up, and officers were running into the park.  People were running out, away from the playground.  That was where he would start, for if a crowd of people were running away from something, there was a good chance it would be newsworthy.

Brandon was used to running against the crowd.  He'd done it all of his life. He grabbed his Sony video camera and followed the officers at a distance so that they would not notice him.

Over a small grassy rise, he saw the playground from which everyone was fleeing. A man in a white shirt was waving something shiny. A small patch of bushes provided him with the perfect view and also hid him from sight. He ducked into it before he was noticed by the police.

He aimed the lens of his camera with the same precise care that a sniper would have taken for such a shot and zoomed in. The man was holding a woman at gunpoint.

He tapped the button of his Bluetooth ear piece.

"Dial Channel 4."

He always started with Channel 4. They treated him the best. This was going to be big, and he had half a mind to give them the exclusive after the way that that peckerhead at Seven had treated Ralph yesterday. But, in this game, you are only as good as your last story, and burning bridges was dangerous.

"News room. This is Stacy."

"It's Brandon."

"Hey, man, are you at that hostage thing in Brooklyn?"

"Right in the middle of it, hunkered down behind the line. Listen, you may want to get the chopper up."

"No way!"

"This guy has a gun to some woman's head. I got my lens on him right now."

"Holy shit! None of our guys can see him!"

"I'll call you back."

All the while, he was recording. The police set up a perimeter around the playground now occupied by only the gunman and his hostage. Brandon was close enough to hear the gunman screaming. Through the lens, he could see the man’s veins popping out of his forehead, and the woman was horrified. He was using her as a body shield.  She let out a shrieking "Help me!"

ESU was moving in; the sharpshooters were jockeying for a position. A captain with a bulletproof vest moved toward them with his hands in a neutral and calming position. Brandon got all of this. No one else would.

The rest of the freelancers, as well as the news crews, were by now being held at bay by uniformed officers and yellow police tape. The grassy rise obstructed every other crew’s view of the playground from Prospect Park West. Hidden in the bushes, he, and only he, was capturing it all. Then, he saw the third part of the equation: a young boy sitting horrified in silence on a metal duck atop a large steel spring. Brandon got a couple of tight shots of him. The child appeared to be about seven years old.

"She ruined me! Bitch!"

It was a domestic gone bad. Really bad.

The man pushed the woman away and leveled the gun at her chest. Brandon was looking down the barrel of his pistol through the lens of his camera. A red misty cloud erupted from the man's chest directly center mass, a classic surgical shot.  As he fell, his gun went off in a bright flash. Brandon heard the bullet is it whizzed by him. The police rushed in and snagged the woman and child away. He had captured it all.

In the confusion, he hopped up out of the bushes and headed back to the street, managing to avoid being seen. That's how it was done. When he reached the street, several more live crews were arriving and raising their microwave antennas. The union crews seemed always to arrive after the fact. Who cared if they missed the story? They got paid by the hour. That’s why the stations fell back on Brandon and his crew and other freelancers like them. Above him, the Channel 4 news chopper had taken up a hover high in the sky and was beaming live shots back to the antenna mounted on the Empire State Building.

Brandon rushed over to the Channel 4 live truck. The crew was frantically setting up for a live shot. Cathy Sanchez was putting the final touches on her makeup before she went live.

"Cathy! I got the take down!"

"No way!" she said. She sounded excited, but not enough to put down her compact as she continued primping her makeup.

Brandon had known Cathy for almost ten years now. He'd followed her career from the time she had worked for Channel 12, a local cable news station. Back then, she had to do it all: set up her camera, stand in front of it with the mic as if someone were filming her and relay the footage to the station on her own. Now, she had a full live truck crew with Channel 4. When Stacy, the news editor, waffled on a story, she was his go-to person at Channel 4. He had a go-to person at all the stations, a reporter that could get his footage played.

On this story, he wouldn’t need a go-to; they would be coming to him. Brandon liked it better that way. He already knew it was going to be the top story of the night. This was the kind of footage that went national and was recycled on all sorts of reality shows. Something like this could easily be worth thirty or forty thousand dollars in the long run. It was all his.

"Yeah, the guy fired too! Straight on at the lens! I don't know how the hell he missed me!"

Cathy folded up the compact and turned to him.  A look of shock swarmed over her face.

"Oh my God!  Brandon! You’re bleeding!"

Brandon looked down at his arm. A cut had opened up in his upper arm where the bullet had grazed him. It was odd sensation. He hadn't felt the pain from the wound until he looked at it. The pain started slowly seeping in. Blood was running down his arm and dripping off of the very end of his pinky.

"Holy shit! You need to go to the hospital!" Don, the live tech, said as he slid the door open. "Cathy, we are up."

"Don, quick! Get this in for Cathy." He handed Don the tape. "You got a first aid kit in there?"

Don handed him a small first aid kit. Brandon tore open a 4x4 gauze pad and started wiping the blood off of his arm. Then, he took another one and taped it over the wound. The cut was small; he wouldn't even need stitches.

"Seriously, you should go to the hospital," Don repeated.

“What are you, my mom?”

In Brandon's mind, it was nothing: a graze, a small scratch like one he would receive from a carving knife upon the finger. In his life, he'd been kicked by horses, thrown from bulls, and run over by steers. He'd been a Marine for heaven's sake. Once a Marine, always a Marine, and Marines didn't whine about getting grazed by .38 caliber bullets. This was nothing.

"We're here with freelance reporter Brandon Mckibbin, who just took a bullet in the process of filming this police shootout..."

"Stop! What the hell are you doing, Cathy?"

"You're part of the story..."

"No I'm not. If you put that on the air, my wife will throw a fit!"

"Come on."

"No! You done with my tape, Don? I got more sales to make."

Brandon took the tape. Don had finished beaming it to the station to be edited for broadcast. He also fed in the shot of Brandon that Cathy’s cameraman had started taking before Brandon had shut her down. Brandon looked around. Ralph was pulling up in the live truck. Brandon walked up to him as he was casually unpacking his camera.

"Put that thing back. Where the hell were you?"

"I stopped off for some rice and beans..."

"Did you take your scanner in with you like I told you to?"

"Well, no. I forgot..."

"Ralph, what the hell am I going to do with you? Here! I’m going to have to start calling you ‘Lester.’"

“Lester? What does that even mean?”

Brandon pointed to the bandage he had taped to his arm. "This should have been you."

"Ow! You should have that looked at, Boss."

Brandon handed him the tape.

"Just feed this tape."

"To who?"

"Everybody! I'm going back to the office."

Brandon walked into the office. Maggie sat at the front desk fielding phone calls, a lot of phone calls. That was the way it went when a big story broke like this.  Maggie was good at her job. Behind Maggie sat Stew, the dispatcher. He listened to a bank of four scanners simultaneously.

"Hey, Boss, they just called a second alarm on that fire in Bay Ridge. You want me to send Ralph?"

"No, he's feeding the hostage story. He can hardly do one thing at once, let alone two.”

“Yeah, like walk and breathe.”

“I'm on my last nerve with that guy. Where's Mike?"

"He's near JFK."

"Good. Tell him to take the belt. Follow him on the GPS and talk him in if you have to. He's still learning."

"Hey, Brandon. Channel 7 is asking you to confirm you got shot. Did you get shot?" Maggie asked.

"Kinda."

"Oh my God! Did you go to the hospital?" she said, spying the bandage and dried blood on his arm.

"No, I didn't go to the hospital. It's nothing."

"So, what do you want me to tell them?"

Brandon motioned for her to take her hand off of the voice end of the phone and raised his voice.

"Tell him: I can neither confirm nor deny the fact I got shot.” He lowered his voice. “He’ll love that. I'm not the damn story!"

He knew that Marcus, the head news editor hated the FBI, and that's what they always told his reporters. Trouble was that Channel 7 had the highest ratings. He also wanted them to run his footage, so he couldn’t just outright tell him to go to hell.

Brandon walked back toward his office, stopping at the bathroom to wash his arm and redress the bullet wound. It really was minor, just a scratch. Everyone was making a big deal out of nothing. He doubted that, when in 45 minutes his footage played on the broadcasts, anyone would even pay it any attention. Still, his arm ached a little. The pain had become minor, but was still annoying. He felt as if he were getting old, too old to be in this game any longer.

He stepped out of the bathroom and shouted to Maggie.

"Hold all my calls, Mags."

He closed the door to his office from the inside. He sat down in his desk chair, leaned back and kicked his booted feet up onto his desk.

He flipped on the flat screen TV mounted on the wall in front of the desk. He would wait for the broadcasts before leaving for home, just to see if his footage made the lead stories on the early broadcasts. Even after all of these years, he still was excited to see his footage aired. He picked up his Stetson from the block on his desk and put it on. He pulled it down over his eyes. He flipped through all the channels to see if there were any break-ins. So far, there were none. Oprah was doing a show on the signs of a cheating husband. God forbid they should interrupt that for a hostage situation. He waited. The lead story ran; it wasn't his. He began nodding off...

"We open tonight with a new milestone in Iraq: the 4000th American soldier has been killed..."

Maggie opened the door to his office. He woke up immediately.

"I know you told me to hold your calls, but there's a guy on line one who says he went to high school with you."

"What did he sound like?"

"All country bumpkin and shit."

"Thanks. Hey, how did we do with the shooting?"

"We got a sweep with all the local stations. CNN and Good Morning America picked it up, too. God only knows how many locals and late night nationals are going to be using it around the country.  I’ll check that in the morning."

"Sweet."

"See you tomorrow."

Maggie left the office, passing Stew on the way out.  For Stew, scanners were his life. Stew lived with his mother in Cobble Hill and went home as little as possible. Brandon had often caught him sleeping on the floor in the mornings when he came in. It was not unusual for Stew to sit at the scanners for 16 or even 18 hours at a stretch. He, too, was paid on commission and was saving up for a boat to live on.

Brandon picked up the phone.

"Hello."

"Hi, Brandon. Do you know who this is?"

"God, your voice sounds familiar. Randy?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Man! How you been? Where are you calling from?"

"St. George."

"Utah?"

"Yeah, I got me a ranch outside of town. Cattle and some horses."

"How did you find me? Wow, it's been... What? Almost 25, no 26 years."

"It does get away from ya. I looked ya up on Facebook. I run into Hope the other day when I was over to Tropic seein' my mom."

"Oh yeah? How is she?"

"She’s okay. Pressin’ 80.”

He’d meant Hope, but thought he would politely rephrase the question.

“And Hope? How is she?”

“Not good. It's Tidus. He was killed in Iraq. They are bringin' him home next week. Just thought you oughta know."

"Oh God! When's the funeral?"

"Week from tomorrow, over in Tropic."

"If you see Hope again, tell her I'll be there."

(c) Tom Hobbs 2013

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AVERIE: Beyond Dead Field

Written & Illustrated by Mercedes Shepherd

CHAPTER 1

The rusty weeds really compliment the golden sky. A flock of birds race to the horizon. And here, below, is a place where their wings can be heard.

I prefer settling here compared to most of us. These things aren't very odd to me, and things that make me aren't either.

But here is not enough.

I only wish to do what I like, not to do what is forbidden. I do not have a mad heart, I am just not prepared to go beyond it. I am not prepared to become who I am.

We shouldn't have to break a limit to find beauty. Although everything is dead out here, there is still something special about it. I've never seen a dandelion sprout so perfectly, but they still grow and I think it's kind of incredible.

The wind whistles by my ears. I look up to get a glimpse of my frizzy hair dying to leave my scalp. This vacant land that consumes me sends my mind on a journey home. A strand strikes me in the eye just as I bring school back into my memory.

But I never used to have these thoughts. I used to twirl with my friends in the greener sheets that surround our homes. That was where peace came to find me. And I never had to imagine anything better.

Now, this is where I withdraw from all. The world refuses to call itself my home so I had to make one. They can lick the dirt of their neighbours' greens, while I soak up the foreign I found. My nails dig up the roots of the grass. I close my eyes and squeeze the cold dirt into my palm until it feels moist.

Long before I came into the world, there was a great war. It was a time when people went against each other, formed teams and competed to survive. People had problems, people had a lack of trust and violence consumed their minds. When peace reigned again, we were left with such a dark rubble-infested world.

When the people lived in subversion, they designed a pattern for us all to follow. They must've assumed that being distinct led us to having various different thought processes, meaning that we can never fully agree on anything. Through time, we were trained to have an empty mind so we'd obey what we were told. Soon, perhaps out of fear of having another war, the pattern evolved into an official rule called the Equality Act.

These are only my guesses, however. We are taught vaguely about our history, perhaps only up to the formation of the Act, and that's it. Nothing about the group who designed it. Neither do we have a direct reason for why. But I believe that the world had an issue with controlling people. Whether it be their thoughts, or their behaviour. Somebody wanted to dominate our minds to rid the world of evil permanently.

I do not believe the Act provides us with complete satisfaction, as originally planned. It is supposed to help us all get along, to minimize hatred, war, envy and poverty. We are all supposed to be equal, the same, and to be able to do whatever someone else can do. But the way I see it, with the way I think now, things still seem off balance.

I release the grass and push the worms back into their home. I take my fist and stomp the dirt over the hole I created. My fingers soften the soil. I flick the dirt out from under my nails. You can't ensure that everyone is capable of doing all of the same things. There are just some things, like creating a perfect world, that are simply not possible.

With my new brain, I have been able to put all the pieces together. I know that the members were brainwashed and forced to be sensitive to war-like imagery. How else would they rid their minds of war? Our lives are a product of fear and safety.

After the Last War, the world was divided into fifths, for the only five towns, in the only five countries that remain. Each country exists separately on its own as a Realm to further forbid the possibility of war. To ensure that the Equality Act will work, our Ruler said that every Realm must have the Act in place.

However, nobody is aware of what happens in another Realm except the Ruler of each Realm. Everything we know is obtained from the Ruler. At least, all of what we're allowed to know.

My heart pounces as I notice the sky beginning to suck in the darkness. The sun is nearly past the horizon, meaning that the day is about to conclude. I must begin heading home before I get caught out here.

As a part of Realm 2, and perhaps for every other Realm as well, we are only allowed beyond the fence between sunrise and sunset. If you're caught out here over the limit once or twice, you get a warning. If you do it a third time, you get executed.

I leap to my feet and adjust the strap of my bag on my shoulders. As I journey away, I break my neck to take one last glance at the sun before it leaves us again. I squint and press my lips together. Although my heart beats quicker, my legs carry me a bit slower this time.

-

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Jupiter Symphony

A.C. Harrison

Copyright 2014 A.C. Harrison

http://www.acharrison.com

Chapter One

The lenses of the goggles were compound, like those of an insect, tinted a shade of golden yellow like a drop of amber with sunlight frozen through it. The frames were of an advanced carbon composite, the delicate lattice deceptive, hiding the amazing strength of the eyewear that wrapped around the face of the man who found himself puzzling over something. Reflected in those insectoid lenses, distorted by their curvature and stretching out into an amorphous blob, was a single droplet of water, suspended from the end of the faucet on a sink. The drop hung precariously, defying gravity. A miniature inverted version of the world was encapsulated within, shivering under the weight, before the drop finally broke free, plummeting to the bowl of the sink below and landing with a wet plink that was startlingly loud in the otherwise deathly silent home. The man behind the goggles, a desert drifter named Ash, had never actually seen a working faucet out in the wastes, though he had long heard stories from the nomad militia he had been raised in.

As the stories were told, there once was a time when anyone could simply walk to a sink in their house, turn on the faucet, and water would come out. It wouldn’t just come out as one shot of brown slop and then stop, but keep coming out clean for just pennies, back when there still were pennies and no hyperinflation. Sure, there are still places where one can get tap water—Fortress Washington, for instance—but unless you are in the headquarters of a megacorp or part of the Fed, it wasn’t likely to happen without a ridiculously exorbitant cost. But if water were still cheap and considered to be as common as dirt, then Ash wouldn’t have a job, and then what would he do? He wasn’t a hired killer and he certainly wasn’t a suit. He was nothing more than a dirt sucking desert rat nomad, and his one great skill was sniffing out water for harvest. Most of his past jobs were dangerous and difficult, though this one had been nothing more than a stupid-lucky break. Out for a wandering walk one night, Ash had stopped to take a leak. Lo and behold, there were the remains of an old housing development stuck in mid-construction ever since the economy self-destructed so long ago. One of the many so-called “ghost developments” that littered the land. There existed a multitude of cheap, poorly constructed, planned neighborhoods that were suddenly interrupted in mid-build by the cataclysmic cave in of world trade and terrorist attacks. The poor rows of frames and partially finished structures had never had a chance to grow up to be among the many other rows of identical houses that were too large and too foolishly financed. At this abandoned site, they hadn’t even bothered to come pick up the equipment left behind when the workers quit or were killed, and so there were several water trucks that remained with the seals on their bulbous tanks intact. Sure, there was probably some mineral contamination inside from the time they had been sitting, but the filters on Vulture would fix that in a hurry.

Upon making his find, Ash had called in the coordinates to his partner Vasily back aboard the Vulture, and then decided to wait out the night in one of the houses until pickup could be made at first light. Vulture could, in fact, be flown at night, but it really wasn’t worth the risk of beaching the thing on a rock formation when you could just wait for a little sunlight. Besides, Ash would be there to guard the treasure. Walking through the neighborhood, he found the house that seemed to be most complete and let himself in. It wasn’t very difficult; there was no front door. Looking around the inside, he saw most of the interior walls were nothing more than open framing. There wasn't even any wiring yet, so there was to be no luck on any extra metal salvage. The nomad made his way upstairs and found that the rooms at the top were much further along. Finding the master bedroom too open, he holed up in one of the secondary bedrooms that was more defensible and which gave multiple options for escape.

With a tired grunt, he took off his dirty pack and set his weathered, heavy caliber rifle against the wall near the back. Electing to keep his autoloading pistol on him for safety, he proceeded to peel off his gloves, but left on his goggles. The skin of his hands was several shades lighter than the grimey filth that coated the rest of him and his ancient fatigues, which were made up of a primarily desert pattern, broken up by repair patches matched somewhat decently to the rest of his kit. From out of his pack he extracted a surplus MRE: Meal, Ready to Eat. It was a cold, formless gelatin of hardly digestible slop, but the prepackaged meal contained enough calories, fat, vitamins and minerals to fuel a soldier on the go for an entire day, or a nomad who spent most of his daylight hours scrounging for water. Ash gulped the food down, ignoring the flavor when possible and sipping precious H2O from his hydration carrier whenever the taste became too much or too thick. True, some MREs were moderately tasty, but those had been hoarded or used long ago. Now, private contractors, as Ash liked to fancy himself, had to make do with the leftovers from previous wars fought decades ago. He pondered if he should get a cybernetic stomach to process the garbage he was sometimes forced to eat out in the wastes, but ultimately elected to stay human.

The desert heat continued to bleed out of the surrounding terrain, carrying Ash deeper into the night. Outside, the sand shifted over all that was left of the once bright hope that people had carried with them to make a home in the desert, before financial ruin and environmental desolation had set in. The despair was an all-consuming serpent that slithered along with the march of time, but Ash just couldn't relate to those that felt the pain of loss. He had always been a nomad, born into a nomad tribe after the Long Night. Not knowing what had come before him, of the terrorist attack and EMP that had crippled the country, he could only look into the grim and dark future. Such speculation made him weary, and soon the sandman slipped in through the window, urging him to slumber. Curling up in the corner, he finally removed his goggles and shut his eyes, looking forward to the payday tomorrow would bring.

He had not been long asleep, however, before rumblings and murmurs crowded their way into his tired, addled mind. Finally realizing that the noises were real and weren't just going to go away, Ash cracked one bleary eye open. It was still dark outside, so he quietly reached for his goggles and brought them down over his head. Instantly, the world was transformed into brightness as the optical processors inside the goggles gathered up information from various wavelengths and compiled an image in front of the nomad's eyes, after which his human organs decoded the images once again inside his brain so that he could see. It was a tedious and inefficient process. With a glance, he switched the goggles over to thermal only, allowing him to notice thin wisps of heat moving at ground level out behind the house. Without enough of a signature to designate the items as human, the signals seemed more like heat radiating off of a roadway, or perhaps a group of small animals skittering about in the night. It was more noise than actual, hard data worth using. Slowly, he slipped on his headphones, though rather than music they streamed in amplified audio, simultaneously functioning as hearing protection for the rare occasions that required him to forcefully negotiate. He was greeted with the sound of what seemed like mechanical squirrels. The sounds, though muffled, were certainly of machinery, but not a kind he had ever heard. There was a certain urgent, organic quality to the noises that reached his ears.

Curious and cautious, he crept to the corner where his rifle was leaning and secured it, press checking the chamber in the process. With a desert camo coated stock on a black receiver, the firearm looked similar to the kind that had been produced for hundreds of years, and at its basic mechanical level it was extremely similar. On top, however, was an optic that departed markedly from previous iterations. Aside from the various electronic bells and whistles that included range finding, wind speed compensation, bullet drop, etc., there was a toggle recessed into the base of the scope, which Ash now activated. Instantly, the goggle lens over his primary eye—his right—added an additional picture in picture image to the already crowded view. With a quick hand toggle he maximized the rifle’s point of view and maneuvered the compensated, carbon wrapped barrel of the weapon to the lip of the windowsill. Seeing the activity below, the nomads eyes widened.

“Fuck me,” the profanity slipped his lips quietly before he stopped, forcing himself to stay quiet.

Looking out at the lunar landscape, Ash saw huge, menacing individuals that were in full body armor over dark fatigues. The men were positioning some kind of large machine in an open area behind the housing development, a couple hundred meters from Ash. Even though they were some distance away, Ash could clearly make them out through his optic. The object they were handling was a large cylinder, about the size of a passenger car standing on its end, the exterior of which seemed to be some kind of polymer casing. At the base were four large feet, and Ash could see that there was space beneath the device, a gap just large enough that a man could slink through on his belly. The entire unit was painted a dull, featureless gray, and the individual panels that made up the device were difficult to distinguish, blurring into one another with small seams. About the only features that could be seen were the bulky power and data cables that projected from one open panel, slithering through the desert sand, an inky serpent that traced its way further back to a tiltrotor craft that sat idle, the blades of each engine lazily spinning in standby.

A perimeter of armed guards could be seen around the equipment, but most disconcerting of all was something that Ash had only heard whisperings and drunken legends about, but didn’t believe was real. There, standing taller than the surrounding men and holding position directly in front of the strange device, was a sentinel demigod in matte armored layers and carbon nanotubes: a suit of military power armor. The head of the unit, if you could call it that, slowly swept over the area, monitoring progress and seeking out any potential threats. Ash felt reluctant to even breathe, knowing that as good as his sensors and skills were at seeking out men and machines, the augmented soldier inside the titanium chassis would be more effective by an entire order of magnitude. Ash didn’t know how he hadn’t been found out, but wasn’t going to question his luck. Perhaps, having arrived before the military and leaving no real signature while dozing off, his temperature had blended in with the rest of the structure, masking his presence. Now, however, he faced a conundrum: should he remain quiet and hope the men in black simply upped and left, or would it be best to try and sneak away? He could certainly escape a lone militia patrol, and even trained soldiers were doable with the right kind of ambush, but this was a whole different ball game. Everything about what he was seeing screamed special forces, from the gear to the posture and tactics, and that was without even mentioning the mechanical nightmare that stood front and center.

Mulling over his decision, Ash also grappled with his feelings towards seeing soldiers out in areas of the desert where they normally didn’t venture. His anger was at odds with his fear. For years he had heard tales of martial law and government abuse by his nomad brothers, and they still sounded warning bells in his brain. His few previous run-ins with soldiers had always ended poorly, but he had never dealt with this kind of situation, with shit this heavy and thick. His brain felt like it was cooking inside his skull as he ran through all the possible outcomes of his decisions. Why again were these armored thugs out in his territory?

Before Ash could act, his decision was made for him. Without warning, the unidentifiable machinery sprang to life, a dull glow visible from the base of the object before the optical feed from Ash’s rifle abruptly cut out, along with his audio and video inputs. He felt a low hum, felt it fill his bones and tissue. It was as if every single molecule of atmosphere was vibrating, every particle shifting, a torrent of elemental activity that couldn’t have carried on for more than a minute, but seemed to last an eternity. A huge shock wave passed through the ground, radiating out with the device as its epicenter, violently shaking the house Ash was in and causing dust to fall down from the exposed beams where a ceiling would normally be.

As quickly as it began, it stopped, and Ash’s electronics groggily came back online. Once again peering over the window through the rifle scope, the lone nomad saw the men begin to gather up pieces of equipment. The power armor suit, which previously seemed rooted to the ground, turned around and casually lifted the central piece of machinery. Ash was unable to even vaguely guess how much the device weighed, but the size implied great mass. The armored suit carried the piece over to the tiltrotor, the combined ground pressure of the armor and cargo driving the big feet deep into the sand. Setting the equipment on a pallet at the back of the aircraft, men scurried to secure the load while the perimeter guard fell back and began to board the transport as the rotors came up to speed. In the next moment, they were gone, leaving Ash with a series of questions burning inside his head as he listened to the sound of rotors fading into the darkness. Ash breathed a heavy sigh of relief, glad this wouldn’t be the night he would have to die like a dog in the desert.

“That better have been a once in a lifetime experience,” he muttered to himself.

No longer able to sleep, he spent the rest of the night finding the deepest and darkest hole to hide in until sunlight, praying away the tiltrotor and its deadly cargo.

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Kindlemojo Profile #3624

Author Bio

Author of "Jupiter Symphony," the first book in the Nomad Trilogy, A.C. Harrison was born and raised in the desert city of Phoenix, Arizona. He has resided in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, and Tempe, while also spending time away from the heat in hideaways such as Payson and Flagstaff. He currently lives in Mesa with his wife and a small farm of animals that includes two dogs and two cats (and no ark). Though he does suffer a day job, his passions have driven him to writing, ultimately culminating in a side career as an author and novelist. Though mostly interested in full-length novels, A.C. Harrison has also tried his hand at short stories and research papers, mostly stemming from his time spent in college.

A.C. Harrison attended Arizona State University, where he earned a degree in Japanese language and culture. During his studies, he spent time in both Hiroshima and Tokyo, Japan. In studying abroad, A.C. Harrison was able to live within other cultures, allowing him to step back from his own, gaining insight into just what it is to be an American in the modern world, as well as how his country is viewed internationally. As an author, Mr. Harrison would like to give special acknowledgements to John and Miko Ford of ASU, who facilitated the study abroad program which he benefited so greatly from.

When it comes to authorship, the biggest influences on A.C. Harrison's writing thus far include the works of greats such as Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, John Scalzi, Joe Haldeman, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, and many others. Works such as "Snow Crash" and "Neuromancer" helped to shape the universe of the Nomad Trilogy, which includes "Jupiter Symphony," "Unto Persephone," and "The Long Night."

Beyond great cyberpunk and science fiction, A.C. Harrison enjoys classic works by many authors, foreign and domestic. He has explored the works of Hemingway, Salinger, and Huxley. Aldous' "Brave New World" was, in fact, one of the principal books to ignite Harrison's literary passion, and helped to instill in him both a wondrous and yet contemplative look at the future and what it might hold for humanity.

Future plans for his works include writing a book based in feudal Japan, which has led to him revisiting another of his most favorite works, James Clavell's "Shogun." A.C. Harrison would also like to explore more contemporary literature, writing a novel set in modern times and dealing with the challenges of life of American's in the 21st century, from finding one's place in the world to such simple things as friendship, aging, and the experience of love and loss.

As an independent author, A.C. Harrison wishes to thank all the people that have supported him in his fledgling career, giving advice and lending assistance while he continuously tortures himself over grammar rules and punctuation, including that most hated of enemies: the comma. He greatly loves the chance to explore society, technology, and culture through his writing, while also being allowed to throw in such entertaining things as suits of power armor, orbital WMDs, rebels from the desert, and passing references to Rage Against the Machine. Creating and exploring a universe is a great gift that has been given to him, and he counts himself lucky each time he sits down to work on his projects, even if it is doing something as abhorrent as editing.

You can support A.C. Harrison by checking out samples of his work by clicking on a book title at the top navigation bar, and by following him on Twitter or giving a Like on Facebook. He can be reached via email by using the mail link in the top-right corner of the page. He is also available online at both Smashwords and Kindlemojo.

I Got Your Back, Hailey

By

June Kramin

Chapter One

I looked up from my novel for the fifth time to find the man at the counter staring at me again. When he turned away, the smirk I was trying to hide made its way out. “You’re not so bad yourself. Too bad I’m not interested,” I said under my breath and turned to put the book in my purse on the seat next to me. When I turned back around, he was so close he made me jump. It’s not often I can hold my tongue. Okay, I can’t ever. “Shit! You scared the crap out of me.”

He grinned. I’m glad he found my heart attack and potty mouth humorous. “I’m sorry.”

“For scaring me or for staring at me?”

“Both, I guess. Can I sit down?”

“Be my guest. I was just leaving.” Motioning him back, I slid out of the booth.

“You sure I can’t buy you a coffee?”

Persistent bastard. “I’ve already had my fill. Thanks. You watched me through two refills. You should have made your move sooner.” Not really.

“Maybe I needed to work up my courage.”

“Well, now you’ve missed your chance. I need to get home.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Better. My dog.” Again, not really, but I can lie with the best of them when I have to. Trust me, I have to.

He laughed and extended his hand. “Please? Name’s Parker. Parker Peters.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. There’s no way he was serious. “You shitting me? You have your Spiderman costume on under that hoody?”

“That’s Peter Parker and no, I don’t.”

Giving in, I accepted his hand in a quick shake. “Nice to meet you, but I really have to run. See you later, Spiderman.”

He hollered out, “Wait!” Curious, I spun back around. “Won’t you at least give me the name of the woman who’s breaking my heart?”

“Right.” He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head slightly to the side, begging. He was certainly cute. I caved. “Hailey.”

“As in the comet?”

“Except with an ‘I’ as in ‘I really have to go.’” He was adorable and charming, but I really couldn’t do this.

Trying to sweeten the attempt, he put his hands to his chest, clutching at his heart, but I didn’t let that change my mind. Like an idiot, I turned around once I was outside. Parker was pressed up against the coffee shop window with his arms spread wide. Cursing the laugh that escaped, I quickened the pace home.

There was no dog to greet me; I was a cat person. Still am, I guess, it’s just that the cat tree in the corner had been empty for a while. After I moved here, I’d gone to the animal shelter in a weak moment and rescued a cat that was going to be put down if I didn’t adopt it. Even though I didn’t know her, I couldn’t bear the thought of her death. The black‑and‑white kitty had been an ornery cuss, but eventually we’d bonded. Guinevere helped me through a horrible breakup and then two days later was hit by a car on one of the rare occasions I let her ill‑tempered ass outside. It was too much, losing my fiancé and my cat in the same week. I’d been steering clear of both men and cats ever since, not having the stomach yet to replace either. The cat I’d had to put down; I’d wished the same of the fiancé.

As soon as I walked through the door to my townhouse, I kicked off my heels and changed from work clothes into my favorite jogging attire: sweat shorts, a tank top, and a light jacket. After lacing up my well-worn sneakers, I took off for my nightly jog, cursing that second coffee refill. I hadn’t really wanted it, but the man had me curious, so I’d lingered, waiting to see what would happen. My first instinct had been to run out of the coffee shop as soon as I’d realized he was watching me, but something had made me want to stay. He didn’t seem like any trouble at all and was probably just another pretty face hoping for a quick ride. I guess I got bored waiting.

Mostly I ran alone. Sometimes a runner I knew from my jogging path would keep me company for a small stretch of the five‑mile run, breaking up the monotony, but not often. The route I took varied very little. I didn’t want to become a creature of habit, but there were only a few ways the route could be altered. As silly as it sounded to even me, I tried to mix up the course a little each time. One too many cop shows revealed a plot where a person was killed after the killer followed the victim’s routine for days. Sometimes I laughed at myself about being so foolish, but I kept switching my route anyway. A single gal couldn’t be careful enough. Especially with my history. Approaching a “Y” in the path at the playground, I remembered I went left yesterday, so today I went right.

The small suburb of Minneapolis that I lived in had its share of crime, but murder was rarely in the papers. My modest townhouse had a wonderful forest with a jogging path a block away. The thought of going out alone never scared me. The path spanned a local river on three different bridges. Its twists and turns followed the park just right, or vice-versa. I loved that I could still feel a little bit of wilderness, even though I was only minutes from downtown Minneapolis.

Minnesota was a far cry from California, but I really did enjoy the change. The fresh air was the first thing I noticed. Although still a big city, Minneapolis never had the cloud of smog that almost always seemed to hover over LA. I’d traded my bikini for a winter coat, but since I’d only been here for one winter, snow was still a novelty. Shoveling was nothing more than great exercise. I didn’t curse it the way my neighbors did. Of course, they said this had been a mild winter. “You should have been here last year. Now that was hell.” There was always someone with a story of a worse winter. Minnesotans sure liked to talk about the weather.

As I approached the first bridge, I saw a squirrel off to the side, chattering away. Calling out in a familiar tease that my friends at work often used when they get distracted, I said, “Squirrel!”…right before tripping on something and damn near face-planting on the rough gravel.

“Sonofabitch!” I rolled to my back as I clutched my knee, which now sported a pretty good scrape. “This is going to look pretty with nylons.” Glancing down to my feet to see what had made me trip, I harshly kicked at the dark blue backpack. “Piece of crap.” My attention returned to the squirrel, which now seemed to be mocking me. Little bastard. It was still chattering, oddly not scared away by my ranting. “Beat it, rat.” Its tail twitched three more times before it finally scampered away.

The pain subsiding, I finally managed to sit back up. I looked around for the owner of the pack, but found myself alone on the trail, as usual. “Anybody out there?” There was no response. “Great.” I kicked the backpack again for good measure.

I tried to pick up the bag, but it was heavier than I thought it would be. “What the hell? Someone swiping friggin’ bricks?” Squatting down, I unzipped the bag then dropped to my ass, shocked by what the bag held. “What the…?” Quickly standing, I brushed myself off. Looking around again, I picked up the bag and flung it over my shoulder. The weight of it caused me to step forward; I adjusted my balance with all the grace of a baboon in the midst of a shit fight. Why would there be a backpack filled with money in the middle of the park?

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Kindlemojo author # 3754

I Got Your Back, Hailey

By June Kramin

Copyright © 2014 by June Kramin

Author bio: Wife, Mother, Writer, Lunatic. Not necessarily in that order.

"There is a fine line between genius and crazy... I like to use that line as a jump rope!"

June, who prefers to go by Bug, was born in Philadelphia but moved to Maui, Hawaii when she was four. She met her "Prince Charming" on Kauai and is currently living "Happily Ever After" in Minnesota.

Being hopelessly addicted to 80's music is her super power.

There are currently 11 full length women's fiction novels in her collection & a middle grade fantasy series of 7 books, written under the pen name of Ann T. Bugg. Much more to come!

Visit her websites at http://www.junekramin.com/& beforehappilyeverafter.com

Warning: this extract from the novel contains explicit material

One Night at the Jacaranda

Chapter 1

Sanjay

Bloody bollocks.  Why didn’t he have a girlfriend?  Or even a wife?  He’d never wanted to get married, have kids, that whole routine.  Still, it would have done the trick.

Sanjay put on Nirvana and whacked up the volume.  Time was when he and his mates, especially Ben, would put on a CD before they did anything, whether it was gelling their hair, yakking on the phone or pretending to tidy their rooms.

Nowadays music was no longer a reflex.  Sanjay had to consciously choose the right CD for his mood.  This evening Nirvana were perfect.  They so often were.  He found two socks that matched, then shoved his shoes on.

Why, bloody why?  For about the thousandth time, he blamed himself for not having had someone, anyone, since Laure.  If he hadn’t been on his own, it might have all been OK.  Or maybe if he’d worked somewhere that did medical checks, like Marks & Spencer or the Army, instead of that excuse for a charity that he was actually with.

OK, so there were a couple of flaws here.  For one thing, Sanjay loved working for Kids First.  For another, the Army hadn’t been great for Ben’s health.

Now that was another thing that made him livid.  He flung the cupboard door open, denting the wall with the knob.

Tie.  Which one?  While Cobain dirged on about a heart-shaped box, Sanjay considered his options.  Knitted nasties that his dad insisted were dead trendy or would come back in fashion (they never were and never would).  Hideous polyester numbers that even the sales guy in Topman wouldn’t have worn.  Silk ties that cost too much and still looked ordinary.  And the black tie for funerals.  Thanks for that little reminder.

Nah.  Fuck the tie.  Tonight was hardly a bloody job interview, was it?  He’d just wear the shirt and look casual.  Trying too hard was a bad look.

Sanjay examined himself in the mirror to see if the open neck would expose the scar above his collarbone.  But really, was anyone going to check him out that closely?

In the hall, he discovered that Dainty had thrown up again.  Bollocks!  He wiped it up with paper towels, reflecting on the fact that cats never regurgitated fur-balls onto the floor or crapped on the bed unless the owner was in a frantic hurry.

God, it smelled vile.  Just like cat food did when it came out of the tin.  If he could have his life over, he would cook his cat fresh fish and liver.  He wouldn’t name her Dainty either.

There was some more sick on the corner of the Ikea rug.  He tore off another hank of paper towel.  Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.  This was his new favourite word, and no wonder.

Before leaving, he gave Dainty a kiss in the middle of the tabby patch on her head.  “Bye, Daint.  Wish me luck.”

Dainty, now on the sofa looking grumpy, did not even feign a response.  Grabbing his keys and mobile, Sanjay turned off Nirvana and left the flat, locking the deadbolt behind him.

Perhaps he should have read magazines, he thought as he clattered down the stairs, like GQ and Men’s Health, or whichever ones had features on checking your goolies and not leaving your health to chance.  But he hadn’t, because he wasn’t the worrying checking type.  He’d always figured life was for living.  It was also, he now knew, for dying.

What an ace chat-up line that was going to be.

On the bus, he ignored an old bat angling for his seat and mulled over the last 10 months or so.  They said this cancer was treatable, but only if it was picked up early, at a stage when removing the testicle would do the trick.  He didn’t really mind having a false one.  Not that anyone had seen it lately except his oncologist.

But he did mind the spread of cells through his lymph system.  They had infiltrated up to his neck, for fuck’s sake!  Before he was diagnosed, he never thought about where cancers spread, or how they got there.  Now he struggled to think of much else.

As the bus approached Marylebone Road, doubts crept in.  What was he actually looking for?  A nursemaid, a passionate fling, or just a shag?  Any of those would do.  At least it would prove he was still alive.

Karen

Karen piled lentil bake onto her son’s plate.  “You don’t have to like it.  It’s for eating, not falling in love with.”  She regretted it as soon as she’d said it, but too late.

“Ha-ha!” trilled Charlotte.   “Damon is in lu-urve.”

Damon scowled at his big sister. “You’re a moron.”  This earned him a poke in the side of his Manchester United shirt from Charlotte when she thought their mum hadn’t noticed.

“What’s a moron?” asked Edward who was only four.

Ashley, a whole year older than Edward and thus infinitely wiser, explained.  “Duh!  It means a real thicko.”

Edward went back to arranging lentils in a pretty pattern around the edge of his plate.

Karen ran her fingers through her hair.   It was hardly a nourishing meal if nobody actually ate it. “When you’ve all finished, bring your plates over so Charlotte and I can put them in the dishwasher.”  At 10, Charlotte was the oldest and least likely to break anything.

“Do I put them in the dishwasher with the lentils still on?”

Karen made a face they called the Mum Sigh.  “Now Charlotte, you know the answer.”

On the counter, Karen’s mobile chirruped.  “Oh, hi, Rose.  We’re just finishing supper.”

When she heard Rose’s suggestion, Karen went into the hall.  “No, I do not!  Speed-dating sounds vile.  Yes, I realise it’s been a while.”  In truth there had been no dates since Thomas had moved out six months ago.  She lowered her voice.  “Of course I miss sex.”

“Time you did something about it” said Rose, who reasonably pointed out that eligible men were hardly going to beat a path to Karen’s door. And no, the meter reader didn’t count.

“And what would I wear?”

Rose reminded her she always looked amazing.  “The world needs a chance to see you.”

“Well, I don’t know.  When is it anyway?”

“Tomorrow.  Me and the Tupperware club signed you up.   And don’t argue.  I’ll babysit.”

Yes, she did miss sex.  A lot.

The best years for sex were before children, but the best time for sex was anytime.

She had been cleaning the bath.  No point getting dressed first, so there she was, attacking the gunge around the taps once and for all.

As the water was running, Karen felt him before she heard him.  A whisper of a touch as Thomas caressed her inner thighs.  That always did it for her.

He dropped his bathrobe on the floor.  Now she had Cillit Bang in one hand and something far more interesting in the other.  She whimpered with pleasure at his hardness.

She didn’t need to look up.  His bare feet were planted on the floor behind hers.  He worked her for mere seconds before she felt the want overwhelm her.  The bath cleaner clattered into the bath.  Lime scale could wait.

Grabbing the edge of the tub, Karen spread her legs wide.  She was so wet she could hear it.  He barely needed guiding in.   Just one delectable sliding movement, then that bolt home.  She moaned as he hit the top spot.

Thomas’ need was equally urgent.  The bathmat moved rhythmically beneath their feet.

Oh. My. God.  She had to grip the bath tighter to make sure she didn’t sag onto the floor.   She could only see him if she glanced in the mirror on the right-hand wall.  She looked again.

Like porn, only better.

She cried out as the heat rose and engulfed her.  He became harder for a few moments before she felt him fill her with warmth that would soon ooze out and drip down her leg.  She loved that almost as much as her own climax.

Karen blow-dried her hair and chose a dress she’d adored for nearly 10 years.   It wasn’t what you wore as much as how you wore it.  In a glossy at a jumble sale, there was once an advert that said Just wear a smile and a Jantzen.  She hadn’t a clue what a Jantzen was.  Might have been a designer jacket or another word for orgasm.  Whatever.  Confidence could hide any deficiency.

Since the most pressing deficiency was financial, all her clothes were finds.  Accessories were another story.  While you could get away with a £4.99 dress from Oxfam, you had to have good shoes, and those babies cost serious money.

The other problem was her body.  After feeding four babies, anyone would fail the pencil test, but whole pencil-cases could have nestled under Karen’s boobs.  If she found someone suitable, she’d have to pray for a power cut.

As promised, Rose arrived right on time.  “You look really lovely, Karen.”

“Thanks.  I hope the children behave.”

“They will” said Rose.

This was unlikely.  They often said kids behaved better for other people than for their parents, but hers played up even more, a fact Rose had obligingly forgotten.  Why wouldn’t they act up?  No baby-sitter would put them on the naughty step or ban TV for a week.

Karen put her shoes on by the front door.  “Ooh, nice” said Rose.

They were Karen’s favourites, green with little bows.  Even in the sale two years ago the price-tag had caused palpitations.  She dreaded to think how many lentil bakes she could have made for the cost of those little beauties.   “Thanks, Rose.  Wish me luck.”

Laure

Although Laure had only been in from work 20 minutes, the heap on her bed was impressive.  Underneath the jeans, silky tops, skirts of all shapes and lengths, and tights in various shades lay a well-thumbed copy of Flirt Your Way into His Heart.  Laure had consigned most of its advice to memory and tonight she would put it into practice.  First, the right amount of eye contact.  Then active listening and some mirroring.  If he put his arm on the table, she’d put hers there too.  She might match him drink for drink as well, though she drew the line at spreading her legs wide and scratching her crotch.

But she couldn’t decide what to wear.  Red dress?   Too obvious.  Blue shift?  Men liked blue, but it didn’t do much for her.  What about the Joseph blazer?  On balance, no.  Black was better for a trip to court than an evening out.  She settled on a charcoal velvet skirt, a muted grey Armani top, and red suede heels.

There was still one important issue to resolve.  Laure’s occupation intimated men, and the Flirt Coach of the Year didn’t cover that topic in her books.

This time, she told herself as she smoothed on tinted moisturiser, she might use her real name, but say she was a secretary.  No, a hairdresser.  Hopefully this was not going to be a repeat of the Great Bloke Crisis of 2011, or those of quite a few previous years as well.

And tonight, she warned herself, she wouldn’t go home with anyone.  Though it wasn’t clear to her why, first-night sex had blighted a lot of previous relationships.  Nonetheless she was wearing the briefest La Perla knickers she could still walk in.  Just in case.

Finding someone was a challenge.  Online profiles meant drastic re-invention.  In real life, she was Laure Dimmock, lawyer aged 38.  In Dateland, it was another story.

But then dating sites were populated by guys who posed with pot-bellies and sandals and lied through their teeth.  Obviously they all claimed to have GSOH, which meant they laughed like drains at their own jokes.

Many said they loved curling up by the fire with someone special.  In her entire life, Laure had only met one man who lit fires.  Her great-uncle.  Internet daters often claimed to be tactile and sexy.  That was plain creepy.  The more discursive entries were equally cringe-making: I’m into all kinds of sports, and keen to find a partner who wants to explore our physical passion in all its forms.  Why didn’t they just write deviant and be done with it?

In her dream  world, Laure would randomly meet a hot guy while out shopping.  He’d have eyes like molten chocolate and a French name like Yves.  They’d swap phone numbers and then - well, the rest was in soft-focus.

In reality, the only time she’d spotted anyone attractive at the supermarket, she’d up-ended her handbag.  Instead of helping her collect coins and tampons off the floor while begging for her number, the guy had turned away and carried on studying tea prices.

Clearly she had to leave her comfort zone and apply herself to dating with the same diligence she’d used when studying for her LLB.  They said sport was a great way to meet people.  But there were reasons why that wasn’t going to help Laure, not counting the fact that she couldn’t play tennis.  Her feet looked huge in trainers, and her honey-coloured hair frizzed up when she perspired.

Sailing clubs had entailed hours of drinking, only to spend most of the weekend frozen, wet and nursing a head injury from the boom or whatever it was called attacking her without warning.  From time to time Laure considered getting a dog, because people always stopped to talk.  But the poor mutt would have got lonely during the day.  Laure knew what loneliness was like.

Laure curled her lashes to make her eyes brighter and younger, then dabbed a new Clinique cream to disguise a hint of darkness and a few more wrinkles than were welcome.  From her chin she plucked two stray hairs that had grown overnight, thanks to the Lebanese genes that she’d got from her mother.  All the aunts were notable for their hairy chins.

Sighing, she plugged in the straighteners.  Finding a date wasn’t really the problem.  It was hanging onto him.  This time, she would be more careful.  The last boyfriend had not reacted well when she said they’d have to get a move on if they wanted kids.  Actually she wasn’t sure what his reaction had been.  She hadn’t heard from him since.

Well, you lived and learned.  As she slicked on lip gloss, she looked into the mirror and repeated aloud her mantra:  I am not desperate.  I am calm, I am serene, I am a sex goddess.

Geoff

“So I thought I would go wheat-free.”

Geoff could have written a book called The Last Patient, he reflected, tilting the consulting-room chair back as far as it would go, which wasn’t far as he had a cheaper model than his partners.  Sometimes patients booked the latest slot so they could be seen after work, but mostly it was because they knew there was nobody after them.

Then they said ‘This won’t take a minute.’  True.  It took more like an hour.  Or, in the middle of a long list of symptoms, they’d come out with ‘Well, at least I’m not keeping anyone waiting.’  That was how he’d missed his son’s nativity play.

Obviously the main obstacle to writing was lack of time.  What with the clinics, paperwork, meetings and a trainee to look after, his week was full.  He could have done with more time to see Davey.

By the time Geoff got to the Jacaranda tonight, there would only be the dregs left.  At medical school he’d always been first in the queue for pretty girls, as well as prizes like the Finucane medal.  Gone were those days.  He had erectile dysfunction now.  Not yet 40 and on the scrap-heap of sex.  What kind of a doctor was he if he couldn’t sort out his own ED?

With a jolt, Geoff realized Mrs Thing was still talking about her irritable bowel.  She passed rabbit pellets one day, but the next it was like a length of toothpaste.  “I don’t think the wheat-free helped much.  Do you think I should cut out milk?”

Geoff made a non-committal noise while Mrs Thing continued.   His trouble with names would have been all right had he stayed in hospital medicine.  There, it was OK to be distant and distracted, de rigueur to talk about ‘the aneurysm in bed three’ to colleagues, and to peer over your glasses absent-mindedly on ward rounds and imply, if not actually say, ‘Which one are you?’ It meant your mind was on higher things like, say, cystic lesions of the pancreas or vaccines for dengue fever.  But in the cosy, cuddly, touchy-feely world of general practice, it did not do at all.

Now Mrs Thing was filling in the details.  “At work last week, I used the toilet three times, and every time it came out just like a smoothie.  But this weekend just gone, it was fine. I only did a toilet once, but it was, you know, nice.  Really nice.”

Geoff had been a doctor for 15 years, but he still failed to see how a bowel movement could be described as ‘nice’, let alone ‘really nice’.  He hoped to God the women at speed-dating didn’t witter on about their bowels.

Michael

Michael installed himself at his immaculately shiny kitchen table with an apple and a block of mature cheddar.  As he’d cut the apple into 16 pieces, he allowed himself 16 small cubes of cheese to go with it.  They helped the apple down.   If it weren’t for the fact that apples were healthier, he’d have done without the Granny Smith and just put away a slab of cheddar.

There’d be little to eat at the venue, though there’d be drinks.  Expensive ones.

Now Michael had inadvertently eaten two pieces of cheese in a row, so he forced two pieces of apple down to make up for it, wincing at the sharpness.  Obviously you had to meet women face to face.  On the internet, you could waste a lot of time emailing then setting up a meeting, and you didn’t have to be a chartered accountant as he was to realise it was inefficient.

You might plan what to say to the fit blonde from North London who claimed to be a top property consultant, only to find out when you met that she lived in Milton Keynes and manned the phone in some estate agent’s, and that her photo was 20 years old to cover up for the fact that she wasn’t fit anymore.  Some of the women had the drawback of having never been fit, ever.  They posted a friend’s photo instead.

Presentation mattered.  As with books, the cover could tell you if it was likely to be a goer.  But he also had his protocol to perfect.  What job do you do?  Where do you live?  How did you vote at the last election?  What do you like reading?  His list ranged from Dostoevsky through Gabriel Garcia Marquez to the latest offerings, including some of the better titles from the publisher he worked for.

He’d made several copies of the list, because what was the point of asking questions if you didn’t record every answer?  He would put ticks or crosses next to each question.  This would help him get exactly what he wanted.  He rubbed himself hard in anticipation.

Harriet

Harriet sat by the mosque, examining it critically in the fading light.  How she hated that mosque.  But the minaret was OK.  She tilted her head.  Yes, it was practically straight.  Or as straight as possible in the circumstances.

Maybe Simon wouldn’t notice.  After all, he’d barely used it as an alarm clock since he’d bought it on a business trip to Oman.  It was 100% plastic and bright turquoise.  Only once had Simon ever woken to its thunderously loud Allah-hu Akbar.  Harriet was always the one to rouse him in the morning, with his favourite cup containing Lapsang Souchong made the way he wanted, which meant with a teapot because he insisted that made it taste superior.

She hadn’t meant to break his tacky clock, but her sleeve had caught on the needle-sharp minaret, which was how it had ended up on the floor.

Good stuff, Superglue.

It was time to go.  Harriet had meant to arrive early to soak up the atmosphere, chat to people and pick up juicy quotes.  Now it looked like she was barely going to make the start.  Apart from waiting for glue to dry, she’d also had to apply make-up to look the part, take phone calls from subs with queries (all lame), and find a bag that was big enough without looking suspicious.  It had to be the tote bag, with a chiffon scarf covering the Dictaphone.

A digital machine would have been nice, but money was tight.  Harriet packed a couple of blank tapes, as an assignment sometimes took twice as long as expected and turned out to be three times as interesting.  She wasn’t about to make that mistake.

People always assumed you wore a wire to record conversations.  Well, maybe on TV they did, but that was prohibitively expensive, so freelances like her used a handheld of some sort.  Finally Harriet tested the machine.

Damn.  New batteries needed.  She took two out of Simon’s mosque clock, saying Allah-hu Akbar to it by way of thanks.

When she’d started out, she’d intended to become a household name, but now, 16 years on, she was still a lowly freelance.  Once, she’s had dreams of a swish penthouse of her own.Well, Simon had put a roof over her head and lent her money as well.  They’d been together a long time.  He wasn’t a bad man, and she owed him.  She winced as she recalled quite how much.

It was galling to ring a PR agency and, when she gave her name, to be asked ‘From which company?’  It proved, if proof were needed, that nobody had ever heard of her.  She used to reply ‘I work for myself.’  Nowadays she’d say ‘I’m from Bullshit Media. Shall I spell it for you?’

She arranged her scarf in the tote-bag.  Tonight’s feature was part of a series called The Seven Ages of Dating.  At first the commissioning editor of RightHere!, a short but terrifying Glaswegian, had asked Harriet to do a really fun piece on women who traded their baby for a Hermes handbag.  When Harriet’s jaw dropped, the editor assured her there were zillions of women out there that would feel unconditional love for a Birkin, especially since it wouldn’t poop and cry all night, and it certainly wouldn’t tell them it hated them in 12 years time.

Harriet knew what ‘really fun’ pieces involved.  After making hundreds of phone calls and pestering everyone on Facebook and Twitter, she’d still end up without any case studies willing to give their real names and photos, let alone women young, slim and blonde enough.  Editors always claimed to know their demographic through and through, but Harriet doubted if any of the readers were the smart sassy under-40s that RightHere! claimed they were.  The magazine could probably keep 99% of its readers happy with knitting patterns and offers on cod liver oil.

Instead Harriet had asked “Could it be a Mulberry bag?”

The editor gave her a withering look.  “Are ye daft?  Nobody would do that.”

Thank God Harriet had wangled The Seven Ages of Dating instead.  Before leaving the house, she scribbled a note for Simon, saying she’d be back around 11, and propped it up by the kettle.  Not that he looked at anything she wrote these days.  If he did bother, he’d probably complain he couldn’t decipher her impossible scrawl.

Universal link to Amazon sales page http://bookgoodies.com/a/B00GYGEIM0

KindleMojo Profile

Carol Cooper is a doctor and journalist living in London, England. She is best known for a string of health and parenting books, and has now turned her hand to racy contemporary fiction with a medical twist. One Night at the Jacaranda was a finalist in the 2014 Indie Excellence Awards.

On Twitter as @DrCarolCooper

The Plot to Save Socrates

by Paul Levinson

Chapter One

[Athens, 2042 AD]

She ripped the paper in half, then ripped the halves, then ripped what was left, again, into bits and pieces of history that could have been....

Sierra Waters had read once that, years ago, it was thought that men made love for the thrill, while women made love for the sense of connection it gave them.  Sierra had always done everything for the thrill.  She had no sense of connection, except to her work.  Which should have made her an ideal person for this job.

Still ... an ideal person would have followed the plan.  It was written on the only substance which could survive decades, maybe longer, without batteries, which required only the light of the sun to be read, or the moon on a good night, or a flickering flame when there was no moon.   Paper.  A marvelous invention.  Thin and durable. And she had just torn it into pieces, opened her palm, and given it to the wind to disperse in irreparable directions.

* * *

[earlier, New York City, 2042 AD]

Sierra was a doctoral student at the Old School, in the heart of Manhattan. Her specialty was ancient Athens, or, more precisely, the adoption of the Ionic phonetic alphabet by Athens around 400 BC -- the sprouting of the teeth of Cadmus, as Marshall McLuhan had put it -- and its impact on the future of the world.  "A nice, tidy, manageable little topic," Thomas O'Leary, a member of her doctoral committee, had commented, testily.  But he had agreed to help her, anyway.  He was accustomed to unusual pursuits.  He was an odd-ball,  himself, an independent scholar with no university affiliation.   The Old School had a tradition of allowing one such outside expert on its doctoral committees.

Sierra was making good progress on the dissertation -- 72 out of a projected 250-page document, written in under half a year's time -- when Thomas called her down to his office, just off Fifth Avenue and 18th Street, on a wet November evening. He had a copy of a slim manuscript, just a few pages in a worn manila folder. He hefted it, as if to assess its intellectual weight.  By the expression on his face, it looked to be quite important.  He slid it across his pitted oak desk to Sierra. She had mixed feelings about this -- it was no doubt an article of some sort that Thomas had come across and deemed relevant to her dissertation. Sierra hated the thought of having to rethink and rewrite any of her work at this point.  On the other hand, she relished uncovering new information.  It made her heart jump.

She opened the folder.  She looked up at Thomas, who was carefully regarding her, his mouth slightly pursed, a long pen of some sort dangling from his fingers like a plastic cigarette. "It's apparently been kicking around for a while, at least since the 20s," he said.  "It surfaced recently at the Millennium Club up on 49th Street -- their librarian spotted it in an old bookcase, sandwiched between the usual stuff."

"The 2020s?" Sierra asked.

Thomas smiled.  "Well, could have been the 1920s, as far as the club  goes -- it was founded in the 1870s.  But the librarian is sure it wasn't there before 2023 -- that was the last time they did a thorough inventory of their holdings -- and the Preface says something about carbon-dating the original."

"So it's not an obvious forgery.  Otherwise, you wouldn't be showing it to me, right?"

Thomas nodded.  "So far, it looks damn good."

Sierra looked back down at the document.  It was ancient Greek on the left side, English translation on the right.  That was the logical assumption -- that Greek was the original, and English the translation, not the other way around.  Not only because the Greek was ancient.  But also because the words in front of her were apparently a fragment of a Platonic dialog, featuring his  mentor, Socrates.  "I've never seen this before," Sierra said.

Thomas nodded again.  "Apparently neither has most of the rest of  the world."

* * *

Sierra stepped out of the hot shower, slipped into her terrycloth robe, and cuddled up with a spiced tea and the new Socratic dialog on her sofa.  It had no title, no translator listed, but it read a lot like Benjamin Jowett, the great Oxford Victorian who had rendered so much of Plato into English.  She had read it at least five times, already.

The first page contained a Preface, signed only "Ed," which was almost certainly short for "Editor," not Edward, Edwin, or Edmond: "The following is a translation of a manuscript self-identified as  written by Plato. Carbon-14 dating (enhanced mode) situates the papyrus and the ink upon it as approximately 400 CE -- the date of this manuscript's creation, not the date of the original writing (which, if Plato was indeed its author, would be much earlier).  The manuscript was unearthed in excavations near  Alexandria, Egypt, in the first decade of the 21st century."

Sierra pressed her face against the warm tea cup, and her back  and neck into the sofa. It wrapped around her, felt so good, so comforting, and--  No, it  was still on sleep mode, from last night, and Sierra didn't want to feel quite so relaxed right now.  She ran her hand on the side, and flicked the "read" control. The contours subtly adjusted.  She felt energized, strong.  She turned the page.

Persons of the Dialogue: Socrates; Andros, a visitor

Scene: The Prison of Socrates

============================

Socrates.  What time is it?

Andros.  The dawn broke a little while ago.

Soc.  I must have been dozing.  I did not see you enter.

Andr.  You were indeed dozing when I arrived.

Soc.  You have come to take me to my destiny? I am more than willing.  But I thought I would be allowed another day or two.

Andr.  I am here to take you to your destiny.  If indeed you are willing.

Soc.  I just said that I was.  I may criticize the state, but I do not presume to place myself above it.

Andr.  The destiny I am here to offer you may be different from the one you suppose.

Soc.  Different?  I would never accept a life that prevented me from praising good and denouncing evil.  And placing myself beyond the state would put me in just such a compromised position.

Andr.  Yet you would accept death, and via hands you know are unjust.

Soc.  Ah, so you are indeed here to try to persuade me against death.   This is the destiny you wish me to avoid?

Andr.  Yes.

Soc. You are not the first suitor to make that proposition.

Andr.  I know.

Soc.  Such a proposition obviously has much to commend it.

Andr.  Yes.

Soc.  But I would tell you what I tell all such noble souls: attractive as such a proposition is to me, I cannot accept it. For such would entail my commission of an evil at least as great as that of those who wish to end my life.  It would say that I was lying when previously I maintained that criticism of the state, to be taken seriously, required an ultimate acceptance of the authority of the state, flawed as it may be. My fleeing now, evading this authority, would make all of that a lie.

Andr.  Suppose I were to tell you that you could leave this prison, and live, without flouting the authority of the state?

Soc.  I would say you are dreaming, and you are wrong to tempt an old man with an impossible dream.  How could I possibly leave here, and not show contempt for the decision of the state that I must die here?

Andr.  What if your body did die here, but you did not?

Soc.  You mean my soul would live, but my material essence would die?  There are those who claim that the two -- soul and body -- are inseparable.  And when one dies, so must the other.  Do you deny that?

Andr.  I mean to say, your material essence and your soul would be saved, and would live.  And another material essence of you would die here, absent any spirit.

Soc.  How could that be?  Are you suggesting my soul will inhabit another body?

Andr:  No.  I am saying both bodies -- the one with your soul, the other without -- would be yours.

Soc.  As far as I know, my material body is unique -- there is but one of me, not two.

Andr.  Have you ever seen twins?

Soc.  Yes.  They do seem to have the same physical body at birth, I grant you.  Are you telling me that there is a twin of me, whom I do not know of?   Even so, by this age -- my age -- we would likely not look exactly the same.  The world wears our bodies in different ways.

Andr.  No, as far as I know, your mother did not bear you and a twin.  But are you seeing where this may lead?

Soc.  No, am I not.  For even if I had a twin, and even if he were willing to trade places with me here at this late hour, and die in my stead, when the ship from Delos arrives, it would not be right for me to allow that to happen.  It would be an unspeakable act of cowardice for me, an act of evil upon the body and soul of my brother.  That would be far worse than the evil of my simply escaping.

Andr.  Yes, it certainly would be. But what if it were only his body that was left in your place?  And what if he were not truly your brother -- not born of your mother? And what if he were not truly alive -- just a perfect copy of your body, in every way but one?  What if it had no soul? It would then not be truly intelligent, not fully alive.

Soc. Leaving aside, for a moment, the impossibility of what you are proposing, where would you take me?

Andr. Somewhere close to Ithaca and Syracuse.

Soc. But those places are not close to one other.  How can a third place -- your destination -- be close to both?

Andr.  In my world, they are close.

Soc. Yet you are in my world, where Ithaca and Syracuse are not close.

Andr. Yes.

Soc. In what manner is your world different from mine, that Ithaca and Syracuse are close in yours?

Andr. My world is the future.

Soc. Are you saying your city is more advanced in the crafts of transport than this one, and you possess there a new means of conveyance, some swift ship, which permits more rapid travel between Ithaca and Syracuse, and that is why you contend that they are close?

Andr. There are new means of transport in my world, but they are not the most profound reason why I say the two cities are close.

Soc. Cities?  Ithaca is an island, not a city.

Andr. Yes, in this world.  Your world.  Your time.

Soc. Your time is different from mine?  Different from this time?  And that is what you meant when you said your world is the future?

Andr. Yes.

Soc.  You claim to have travelled here from the future? Forgive me.  I appreciate your visit at this very late hour.  But only a god or a liar would make such a claim. And my fellow Athenians who have sentenced me would be happy to tell you what I think of the gods.

Andr.  I assure you, I am neither god nor liar.

Soc. Traveling from one age to another cannot be the same as traveling from one place to another, in the same time. I think the two -- time and space -- are very different.

Andr.  That is true.

Soc.  I do not understand how such travel across time could be possible.

Andr.  Could we return to that question later, and consider now how I might help you, were such travel possible?

Soc.  You wish to proceed on the basis of an impossible premise?   I suppose such a conversation is preferable to thinking about the hemlock.

Andr.  My point, precisely.

Soc. Is your world, then, the same as this world, except that your world is in the future?

Andr. I would say so, generally, yes.

Soc.  Then, if that is true, you would know that I have indeed died -- that I will die, in the next few days. For, that, truly is what I intend to do.

Andr. We know, in my world, that a body identified as Socrates indeed died after hemlock was ingested.  I am here to convince you that that body need not be yours.

Soc.  So far, although I can only be grateful for your ingenuity and good intentions, I cannot say that I am persuaded.

Andr. May I continue my attempt?

Soc. If you wish.

Andr.  Let us look again, then, at the nature of souls and life, and examine, if you will, the nature of copies. Do you agree that a statue could be made of you, of such precise resemblance that it could be mistaken for you when viewed at a distance?

Soc. Yes, I have seen such statues of others.  When painted with colors of proper hue, they can quite easily be mistaken for the human being whose image they embody, especially when viewed in dim lighting, in twilight or pre-dawn hours, or, as you say, at a distance.

Andr.  Good.  Do you think it possible, then, that such a statue could be made of someone -- of you -- but comprised not of stone but of living material?

Soc.  Yes, I have on occasion seen fine work of that sort constructed not of stone but of wood.  Is that what you mean?

Andr. The replica I have in mind for you would be comprised of something closer to wood than stone, yes.

Soc.  But no one, on close examination of a wooden replica of me, could possibly mistake it for me, or my body.  Wood is material that is no longer alive; my body is still alive. I suppose there would be more similarity between wood -- material, once alive, from a tree -- and my body, once dead, and no longer alive.

Andr. Yes.

Soc. But, nonetheless, surely no one could confuse a wooden replica of me, however well rendered, with my dead body.

Andr.  No -- no one could confuse those two.  But in the case of wood, could you imagine a branch, pulled from a tree, that was still in part alive?

Soc.  Yes.  It could be placed in water, and might live for a time.  Or, depending upon the tree, its branch could be placed in soil, where it might take root, and eventually give rise to a new tree.

Andr.  Exactly.  Now, do you suppose it possible for flesh to exist in that same relationship to your body, as a branch newly pulled from a tree?

Soc. Flesh taken from a living body is to that living body, as a branch pulled from a tree is to the tree?

Andr. Yes.

Soc.  But the branch would be mistaken by no one for the tree. Nor would flesh be confused with an entire body, dead or alive.

Andr. True.  But just as that branch, properly planted, and if it was from the right kind of tree, could yield an entire tree, would you grant that flesh, taken from a body and properly treated, could be grown into an entire body?

Soc. You mean, inserting a severed arm into some special soil, such that an entire body would come forth?  I have never heard of such a thing, outside of stories of the gods, and you already know my opinion of gods and men and their stories.

Andr. Are you acquainted with the story of Cadmus, who raised soldiers from the teeth of dragons sown in the soil?

Soc.  Yes.  It is at best a useful myth.

Andr. Suppose I were to tell you that one way in which my future world is different from this one is that we can make some of those mythic tales come true?

Soc.  You can raise soldiers from the teeth of dragons?

Andr.  No, but we can raise dragons from the teeth of dragons, if the teeth have been preserved in the right way. We call them 'dinosaurs'  -- 'terrible lizards'.  We can sometimes take something from the teeth -- their essence -- and insert it in a very special kind of soil--

Sierra sighed.  That was where the fragment ended.  She looked again at the Preface--

Her outer doorbell sang.  Damnit.  Who could that be, this time of night?  She looked at her watch -- 12:17am/4 April 2042. She touched another device on her couch, and flicked on her guest display, on the far wall.  Jesus -- she'd forgotten completely about Max-- No, actually, she had not forgotten.  He wasn't due back in New York until tomorrow evening--

The bell sang again.  She cursed, put down the dialog, and buzzed him in.

He was up the stairs of her brownstone, and at her door, on the second floor, in seconds.  She turned from the screen and walked to the old-fashioned peephole in her door.  She peered through it, just for good measure.   She had to admit, Max looked good.

She opened the door.

He walked in grinning, a present of some sort in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other.

"I thought you were coming back tomorrow," Sierra said.

"I got an upgrade to an HST," Max said, still smiling. "Long story, short flight -- 45 minutes in the air!"

"I didn't know they had hypersonic service from Iceland," Sierra said.  She realized that her voice sounded a little icy, too.

Max seemed undaunted.  "Well, that's part of the long story. A friend of a friend at the conference I was attending said I could get a free upgrade -- part of some promotion Iceland is doing -- if I took an overnight flight tonight.  Except, of course, with that quick jump into the atmosphere and back, I was here in New York well before I left Reykjavic.  Incredible timing -- I thought I'd surprise you!"

Sierra nodded. "Bad timing, for me."

"Am I interrupting something?" Max asked, finally getting it.

"Yeah, but not what you think."

Max managed another smile.  "Oh, I'm sure I know what I'm interrupting -- the dissertation, right?  Look, I'm sorry. I know how hard you're working on it--"

Sierra looked at him.  She felt a little bad, now.  He did look appealing, standing there with wine and a gift.  "All right, come on in, but not for long."

They walked to the kitchen table.  Max put his package and bottle down.  He reached for her.

Sierra had forgotten that she was wearing only a robe, and partially open, at that.  Make that two things she had forgotten tonight-- no, she had not forgotten about Max's arrival, he had come home a day sooner than expected.  But she didn't realize she had forgotten about the open robe until Max put his arm around her, on the inside of the robe.  The crook of his arm brushed against the underside of her breast. His hand moved slowly down the small of her back.  She knew this would be a little bit longer than "not for long"...

* * *

She brought him up to date on the whole bizarre evening, in interludes of conversation over several hours.

"The Millennium Club?" Max said, with something between admiration and awe.  "I'm still in touch with one of the profs on my doctoral committee -- he took me there to lunch last year. They have holdings in Greek and Latin to rival Harvard's." Max was an Assistant Professor of Analogic Studies at Fordham University himself, and by  virtue of that expertise, had more than a passing knowledge of the  ancient world and its modes of communication. "You know, I never  bought that Socrates just allowed himself to die, when Crito was giving him a way to escape."

"I've always felt the same way," Sierra said, playing absently with Max's hair. "Why not opt to live, and continue your critique, your philosophy? But, you know, time travel and cloning -- that's what the 'visitor' was hawking -- no way they could have been available in Socrates' time, outside of science fiction."

"Time travel's a tall order in any time," Max said, "no doubt about that.  But if it's ever worked out in some future time, then people would be able to get back to our time, Socrates' time, any time, probably just as easily -- the arrival time would likely make no difference, once the technology became available."

Sierra considered.  "Good point ... They've been working for years on some kind of artificial wormhole in California, haven't they?"

"Yeah -- based on some equations that Kip Thorne worked out decades ago.  But as far I know, it's all just theoretical."

"Better than nothing," Sierra said, and kissed his neck.  "Ok. But what about cloning?"

"Growing a twin of Socrates?"  Max shrugged.  "Who knows … Socrates talks a little about perfect copies in the Cratylus.  A bit reminiscent of your dialog.  I do know that the ancients had a lot more knowledge than we give them credit for.  So much was lost when the Library at Alexandria was burned -- and it happened more than once.  So, granting that they didn't have lasers, or electron or even analog microscopes. But they understood farming.  They understood deliberate breeding to improve crops and livestock.  So, who knows what they knew -- maybe they knew how to put a swatch of human cells into some kind of medium, where it could grow into a clone.  Anyway ... even if they didn't know squat about cloning, if this 'Andros' was really from the future, he could have brought back light-weight equipment with him -- hey, we have already have that, today."

Sierra moved down, and kissed Max, full on the lips.   He had a way of making the surely impossible seem less so. It was at times like this that she understood just why she let him in  in the middle of the night.

* * *

She was in Thomas' office the next morning.  "The librarians in ancient Alexandria make no reference to this, or anything like it. No other reference to anyone named 'Andros,' either," Thomas said, studying his copy of the fragment, while Sierra did the same with hers.

"Jowett says the Alexandrian lists are unreliable," she replied.

"Yeah, but he was saying they included shams and spoofs, not that they overlooked Platonic dialogs that were real."

"Unreliable is unreliable," she maintained.  "Lies of commission, lies of omission, just plain mistakes -- they all add up to the same thing."

Thomas nodded, slightly.

"The 'Ed.' is really more key than the Alexandrians, isn't he," Sierra continued.  "We have only his word for it -- or hers -- about the carbon dating.  The translation looks accurate enough, but we have only Ed's word about the original Greek words, as well."

"You found fault with some of the translation?"

"No big deal," Sierra replied, "but here, and here, for instance."  She pointed to two places in the manuscript. "'Comprised'  is a little overkill, pseudo-intellectual. 'Composed' would have  been fine."

Thomas chuckled, approvingly.  "The translator is definitely a 'he'," he said.

"You know him?"

Thomas nodded.

"That's why you have confidence that it's not a forgery?" Sierra asked.

"I saw the original," Thomas replied.  "I helped with the translation. 'Comprised,' if I remember correctly, was mine."

* * *

Thomas prepared roasted green tea.  Sierra sipped, enjoying the aroma as much as the flavor.

"The original manuscript was breathtaking," Thomas continued. "I was amazed it could survive so long, and in such good condition."

"How'd they manage that?" Sierra asked.

"Those Alexandrians were the cream of humanity, at that time," Thomas replied. "What a mix they were -- Greek culture, by way of Macedonia, situated in Egypt, under Roman rule by then.  They had literacy rates exceeding anything until our nineteenth century. They had the basis of motion pictures, in persistence of vision toys.  They had gadgets that ran on steam. Heron of Alexandria invented them both. And they apparently had ways of preserving documents in airless containers.  They survived oxidation, but not the human stupidity that torched their great Library.  But this one got away."

"Ok, so the manuscript is real, at least regarding the creation of this copy in 400 CE.  But how do we know that the person who made that copy was just copying and not really creating the fragment -- and the larger story, whatever that may have been -- from scratch?  Let's face it, even if we knew for a  fact that Plato wrote it, that doesn't mean the story is true. It could just be another of Plato's fictions -- another tale of Atlantis, right?"

"Yes," Thomas allowed.  "All of those points are well taken."

"Why did you ask me to look at this fragment, now?" Sierra asked.  She knew it wasn't necessary to voice the end of the sentence -- "now, when I'm moving so well on my dissertation" -- because Thomas of all people understood that.

"I wanted you to think about this," he replied, unhelpfully.

"Yes, but why now?"

"I'm going away, for a few days."

She looked at him.  His tone concerned her.

"I have an aneurysm near my heart -- it's likely no big deal. But I had a by-pass and some digital reconstruction around the area five years ago, so any operation on the aneurysm now could be a little tricky. There's a new hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, where they specialize in this."

"How long ... will you be gone?" Sierra asked.

"Just the weekend, probably," Thomas replied.  "So why don't you take that time to think about the fragment, decide if you'd like to get any more involved in it .... I have complete confidence that you'll be able to get back to your dissertation and finish it with distinction, if you decide to take a little breather on it, first."

* * *

She glanced fitfully at some of her notes for her dissertation that evening.  "Phoenician alphabet comes to Greece around 900 BCE ... Greek alphabet written from right to left, like Semitic text, 900-600 BCE ...  after 600 BCE, Greeks write left to right, top to bottom ... 403 BCE, Ionic version of Greek alphabet used by Athenians ... spurt in literacy ... approximately 400 BCE, Socrates denounces the written word, according to Plato's account in the Phaedrus ... 399 BCE, Socrates drinks the hemlock..."

She focused on the last four entries, underlining them, circling them, in her mind.  Those had always been the most intriguing sections of her dissertation.  The Ionic alphabet comes to Athens, revolutionizes literacy there, aggravates Socrates but not Plato -- at least, not enough to stop Plato from writing -- and Socrates dies shortly after.  Oh yeah, at the hands of the newly restored Athenian democracy, perhaps energized, solidified, by the written word.  So Plato winds up hating democracy, because it killed his beloved mentor, Socrates -- or, actually, because Socrates allowed the death sentence to be carried out, refused Crito's good offer of escape.  And Plato, lover of the written word,  eventually crafts his masterpiece anti-democratic manifesto, The Republic, inspiration for everything from the totalitarian societies of the twentieth century to the Islamic "republics" and the Far Eastern cyber-cities of the twenty-first -- government by the wisest, or at least those who deemed themselves the most wise...

Yeah, that had always been the most fascinating part of her doctoral work, anyway, and now this damned untitled fragment with a new look at the final hours of Socrates ... Even if Thomas was right about its 400 CE authenticity, it was likely no more than some very early science fiction, myth-writing, anyway... But damn it, that was almost as fascinating, in its own right...

She called Max.  "How about we go away to my parents' place for the weekend?  Bounce some ideas around?"

Max was available.

Then she called Thomas.  But all possible numbers only yielded all possible voicemails.  She didn't leave a message.  That wasn't why she had called. She just wanted to wish the man well, tell him how much he meant to her.  She knew he would never have drawn her into this fragment had his operation in Wilmington been assured of success.

* * *

Her parents had a little place on Sea Street, in Quivett Neck, near the town of Dennis, on Cape Cod Bay.  But they were wintering on the Baltic Sea in NeoRome, formerly Romania. They had the time. Her father had been Chief of Detectives, NYPD, and had taken an early retirement.  Her mother was Professor of Mathematics at Harvard, on sabbatical.

Sierra and Max arrived just in time to see a  purple sunset over the stippled grey-blue bay.

"So, did Socrates ever see anything as beautiful," Max said softly.  He ran his hand through Sierra's long dark hair.

"Probably," she replied.  "Piraeus has western views over water....  Certainly Plato did.  He travelled as far as Egypt, after the death of Socrates, and spent lots of time in Sicily. He had to have seen at least a few suns swallowed by the sea."

"You almost expect to see the steam rise," Max remarked.

"Yeah," Sierra said.  She turned to Max, stroked his face, then turned back to the smoldering sunset, which had a slice of orange floating in it now.  "Do you think he took Andros up on the offer?" she asked.

"In reality or in the story?"

"At this point, I'll settle for the story."

"Well, Socrates' rejection of Crito's escape plan seems pretty deep-rooted," Max said. "'Suffering is a better response to evil than committing another evil' -- didn't Socrates say something like that?  And he thought running away was an evil."

"According to Plato, that's what Socrates thought."

"It all goes back to Plato, doesn't it," Max said.  "Any other reliable contemporary accounts of Socrates' death?  I know Aristophanes has a Socrates character in The Clouds and some of his other comedies, but that's a far cry from Socrates' death."

"Xenophon has a less dramatic, still mostly compatible recounting  of the trial and death," Sierra said.  "What Plato also has going is that no one subsequent to him, close to that time, contradicted his account.  We're talking Aristotle, Plato's student, who disagreed with his mentor about lots of other things. Aristotle said nothing about the trial, one way or the other, but says a lot about Socrates, and likely would have mentioned, somewhere, any reliable accounts of the trial that contradicted Plato's. And, for that matter, there's Alexander the Great, who was Aristotle's student."

"Would help if you had a look at the rest of the manuscript."

Sierra nodded.

"You think he's holding out on you?"

Sierra considered.  "Much as I admire him, I wouldn't rule that out completely."  She thought more about Thomas.  Why would he give her just a piece of a manuscript, if he had more?  Didn't make sense.  But, for that matter, none of this quite did.

* * *

By the end of the weekend, she had made a decision.  Actually, she had already mostly made it when she had decided to come up to Cape Cod, with Max, to make the decision.  Nothing like the sky and sea and shore of the Cape -- the north shore, the bay shore, at least, for her -- to help confirm the cosmic importance of things.

And this fragment and its implications were cosmic -- at minimum,  a lot more profound, if any part of the fragment was true, than anything she would be doing in her doctoral dissertation.

She called Thomas when she got back to her apartment on Sunday evening.  She doubted he would be in -- he hadn't been clear about exactly when he would be returning from Wilmington. There was no live voice, anywhere.  She got the number of the hospital in Wilmington, and tried that.  No way Thomas would be annoyed to hear from her.

"Professor Thomas O'Leary?" the computer repeated the name Sierra had provided.  "I'm sorry, but we have no patient under that name in our hospital."

"Perhaps he already checked out?"

"I'll check," the computer told her.  "No, sorry, we have had no patient under that name for the past ten years.  Should I check further back?"

"No..."  Sierra opted instead for a human operator.  About 20 minutes later, a Ms. Dobbins called her back.  She sounded more like a computer than the computer voice, but Sierra had no choice but to take her word for her humanity.  "Sorry," Ms. Dobbins confirmed the computer's report, "I can verify that we have had no patient under the name of Professor Thomas O'Leary, Professor Tom O'Leary, and both names without the professor, here at the hospital for the past ten years."

* * *

So Thomas had lied to her about going to the hospital -- or, at very least, the hospital in Wilmington.  Maybe he was at another hospital.  Maybe he was in Wilmington, but not in a hospital -- what attractions did Wilmington have, other than its new hospital, its old theater district, and its superhub train station?

Maybe Thomas was neither in Wilmington nor in a hospital anywhere. Why would he lie to her?

What else had he lied about?

The obvious thing was the manuscript. But why would he get her going on that, only to put its veracity in doubt by telling her an easily discoverable -- self-revealing, in fact -- lie about something else, like going to a hospital in Wilmington, Delaware?

Perhaps something had happened to him, along the way.  But she would have heard, had it been anything bad -- it would have made some sort of news.

She pressed her head back into the sofa, and this time she didn't contest the sleep settings.  She felt herself nodding off, and realized she was about as uncomfortable as she had ever felt in her life.  Nothing like committing yourself to a course of action, only to have it pulled out from under you a few hours later.

* * *

She awoke the next morning, repeated her rounds of calls to Wilmington, the Old School, any place Thomas might have been.  She got the same result.  No sign of Thomas O'Leary, anywhere.  She toyed with reporting him to Missing Persons. No, the most likely explanation was still that he had lied to her, and there was no point in calling the police about that...

She looked again at the manuscript, as she fixed her first tea.  Where had Thomas said this thing, or his copy of it, had been recently residing, brought there by whomever?

The Millennium Club was on 49th Street, east of Fifth Avenue. These clubs were famous for being extraordinarily protective of their members -- an oasis of civility in an age of omni-accessibility, one of them had unfurled a new banner outside its entrance last year.  This, of course, had drawn a round of media attention.  Not the Millennium Club, but Sierra doubted that she, as a non-member, would be given more than the time of day there...

She considered ... Hadn't Max said something about the Millennium Club a couple of days ago, when he had shown up at her door a day early?  Yeah, one of his profs had taken him to lunch there -- that meant the professor was almost certainly a member. She called Max, told him about Thomas and her predicament. He was one of the few people she could just call cold, without a preliminary text.

"Goldshine?  Sure, I'll give him a call right now, and see what I can find out for you," Max told her.

Her own phone rang a few minutes later.  "Sierra Waters?" a jovial voice inquired.  "I'm Samuel Goldshine.  Maxwell Marcus said you'd like to talk to me about the Millennium Club?"

"Yes--"

"The best dissertation I read that year.  He's a smart fellow."

"Yes--"

"You free for lunch today, at the Millennium Club, 1 pm?"

"Yes."

* * *

"The food wasn't always so good here," Goldshine told Sierra, smacking his lips after tasting the blueberry-cherry souffle. "The Club finally relented and hired a new chef about six months ago -- I've heard nothing but compliments.  Part of his secret is he's unafraid of using new genbrids.  This blueberry-cherry is actually a single fruit, as you probably know."

Sierra nodded, savoring her raw cloysters, also a new species.

"Anyway, about your manuscript fragment, as Thomas O'Leary probably told you, the Club was founded in 1879.  So, hell, Mark Twain could have smuggled it into the library -- he was a member, you know."

Sierra washed down a tangy cloyster with ice cold ale. "That's why it would be great if we could speak with the Librarian, Mr--"

"Charles, yes.  His first name is Cyril, but I checked before you arrived, and I couldn't get a firm answer as to whether he'll be in today.  Something about a sister, ill, in Baltimore-- Ah, Franklin, this is Ms. Waters, Thomas O'Leary's student."

A well dressed man, about fifty, had approached their table. He bowed, slightly but graciously, in Sierra's direction.  "I have definite word on Mr. Charles' whereabouts," he said to Goldshine.

"Oh, good," Goldshine replied.

"Well, I'm afraid it is not very good, for your purposes today, Professor.  Mr. Charles is expected to be in Philadelphia, with a sick sister, for the rest of the day."

"Philadelphia?  I thought it was Baltimore."

"Philadelphia is what I was just told, Sir."

"Ok, well, thank you, Franklin."

Franklin bowed again, slightly, to Sierra and Goldshine, and excused himself.

Goldshine looked after Franklin, then back at Sierra.  "Well, bad luck, but I can certainly show you the general place -- including the part of the Library where O'Leary says the fragment was found."

* * *

The Library was actually a series of libraries on the third and fourth floors - elegantly appointed, as Sierra imagined someone from the 19th century saying. The armchairs were burgundy, plush, and inviting. Maple tables of varying dimensions were overflowing with various newspapers, magazines, journals, some of which looked like they could have been on the tables since 1879. And the books on the shelves were  an autumn rainbow of rust, brown, green, and red bindings that put Sierra's home collection of Appleton editions of Darwin and Spencer to shame.

But the nook of the Library that held Plato and his progeny was the prize.  Sierra recalled an old engraving she had come across, as a child.  It featured a man on a ladder against a library wall of shelves marked METAPHYSIK, his nose in the pages of an open book held in  one hand, a second book in his other hand, a third between his knees, a fourth between his elbow and waist... Too many books, too little body ...

Sierra felt that way now, although the only things she was clutching were her hands--

"Can I be of assistance?" A deep voice inquired, with a trace of a British accent.  It was not Goldshine's.

Sierra turned.  A short, stocky, bald man smiled first at her, then Goldshine.

The professor gave no indication of knowing the man.  "Well, yes ... Ms. Waters, a student of Thomas O'Leary -- a club member -- was wondering about a partial manuscript that apparently Mr. Charles located here."

The man scrunched his face.  "What sort of manuscript would that be?"

"Oh, yes, sorry, it was a piece of a Platonic dialog, apparently unknown until now, and ... look, well, I know it sounds crazy--"

"The dialog with Socrates and Andros, taking place, presumably, right after Crito has taken his leave--"

"Yes!" Sierra burst out.  "I mean, you know it?"

"Of course I do.  Mr. Charles indeed discovered it.  We know it wasn't here during the last cleaning, that would have been nineteen years ago, in 2023.  Mr. Charles knew just what to do with it -- he took it out for a proper scientific appraisal, which confirmed the authenticity of the ink, from the late Alexandrian era, about 400 AD, if memory serves ....  Oh, my apologies, talking about memory, I forgot to introduce myself! I spend so much time in the back stacks that I forget how to behave among people. I'm Mr. Bertram.  A Millennium Librarian, like Mr. Charles."

"Professor Samuel Goldshine, member since 2026."  Goldshine extended his hand.  "A pleasure."

Mr. Bertram took the hand, shook it, briefly.

"Do you know anything more about the fragment," Sierra pressed, "how it got to be here, who else knows about it other than you, Mr. Charles, Thomas O'Leary?"

"Oh, well any member could know about it, of course," Bertram answered.  "We don't keep any of our holdings secret from the members."

"Do you know who else Mr. Charles or you talked to about this, in addition to Mr. O'Leary?" Sierra tried a slightly different tack.

But this drew disapproving looks from both Bertram and Goldshine. "Those who serve the Club would never reveal such details," Goldshine advised.  "Why, at the beginning of the 21st century, the Club even stood up to a Federal subpoena once, and refused to divulge its members' reading habits!" he concluded, proudly.

"I can show you the other piece," Bertram offered.  "That is, I can show it to Professor Goldshine, and if he doesn't mind your reading over his shoulder--"

"Yes, thank you--" Sierra said.

"That would be grand, thank you," Goldshine said at the same time.

"Do you know if Mr. O'Leary knows about this other--," Sierra began, but stopped as soon as she saw the beginning of the return of the stern looks.  "Thank you," she simply said again, to both men.  "This means a lot to me."

* * *

She sat next to Goldshine at a small, cherry maple desk. A green banker's light provided warm illumination.  Sierra reckoned the lamp was the real thing, not a repro, likely from the 1920s.

Bertram returned a few minutes later with a folder. He handed it to Goldshine, smiled slightly at him, then her, and left.

Goldshine opened it.  There were two groups of papers, each clipped together.  Goldshine picked up the first, looked through it briefly, then handed it to Sierra.

It was the same fragment which Thomas had provided. Sierra picked up the second.  "Ok if I read this?" she asked Goldshine.

"By all means," he said, and busied himself with the first.

Sierra turned to the second.  It was smaller than the first, and apparently did not begin where the first left off.

Soc. The time is not sufficient.  Even if I were inclined to agree with your proposition, which I am not, the ship from Delos with the priest of Apollo will be here in a day or two, after which I am bound to follow the wishes of the Athenians.  And, surely, one or two days is not enough to grow a full-bodied likeness of a man.

Andr.  That is true, Socrates.  Even with the special craft the people of my time and place possess -- the life-growing craft I have described to you -- one day would not be enough to grow a man.  But believe me, Socrates, there exists a yet deeper craft, which makes that one day, any given amount of time, irrelevant for our purposes.

Soc.  What is this deeper craft?

Andr.  It is part of the craft through which I have arrived here, from a future world, a future time.

Soc.  Ah, the godly craft, the unknown craft, which you have yet to explain to me.  Are you saying that this craft gives you the power, as it is claimed for some gods, to make time stand still for some events, but move forward for others?

Andr.  Yes, that is similar to what I am saying.  But in my world, such power is reality, not myth.

Soc.  But you are in my world now, are you not?

Andr.  True.  But by virtue of my being here, you are in my world too, are you not?

Soc. Yes, I would agree.  If indeed you come from another world. But, then, tell me, how in your world, or in the connection between your world and mine, could time stop in such a way as to allow a man to grow seventy years in a day?

Andr.  I will try.  Let us say that, by the process of branching we were talking about earlier, a part of you could be moved to the future, and placed in a soil such that the branch could grow into a complete, living likeness of you.  Now, whether that growth took one day or seventy years would not matter, as long as our two worlds remained connected, and as long as your part of the connection, your world, the place and time in which we are conversing, at this moment, was this very time.

Soc.  You are saying you could return to your world and time, and then return here, at this very time, before you left, and there would be two entities of you this instant in this room?

Andr.  Yes, that would be possible.  Though I would try not to do that.

Soc.  And you could return with a living replica of me, which took even seventy years to grow, as long as at the conclusion of that seventy years, the path to this time and place, from that future world to this room, shortly after the break of this dawn, in which you and I now converse, at this very moment, remained open?

Andr.  Yes, that is what I am suggesting.

Soc.  And, if that were truly possible, all you would need to complete your plan would be a branch, as we have been describing it, of me.

Andr.  Yes.

Soc. I could never allow that.

Andr.  What if I told you the branch had already been taken?

Sierra realized her hands were shaking.  This fragment of the dialog ended with Andros' words.  Who the hell was he?

She glanced at Goldshine, still engrossed in the first, longer fragment.  She tried to calm herself.  Reading this dialog in public was not a good idea, if she didn't want everyone to know how it was affecting her.  Maybe that didn't matter.

She looked around.  No sign of Bertram.  She needed to have a copy of this, but she doubted the Club's rules would allow it. Maybe she could prevail upon Goldshine to request a copy?

She couldn't chance his saying no.  She reached, quietly, for her phone.  She placed it in her palm, set the rapid photo function, then moved her palm quickly over the pages in front of her.  She'd study this on the screen back in her apartment.  Thank you, Thomas, she thought, by dragging me into this, you've turned me into a goddamn spy.  But she couldn't say she really regretted it, now, either.  No, not at all.

* * *

She thanked Goldshine, profusely and truly, and walked home, down Fifth Avenue, with her thoughts.  Goldshine had seemed more amused than thrilled by the fragments, in the end. Well, he probably didn't believe they were  real, even if carbon-14 said they had been copied in 400 CE. Time travel and cloning in the ancient world were a lot harder to believe than an error or fudging of carbon-14 dating in the present.  Time travel was hard to believe in any world....

Goldshine had said he'd return the fragments to Mr. Bertram. "And come to my lecture next week -- 'The Vulgate and the Vulgar'."

She had looked for Mr. Bertram after she'd said goodbye to Goldshine.  But he had receded into the stacks.  She would have loved to question him further about what he knew about the fragments. He seemed like something of a fragment from another time and place himself...

The stone lions on the steps of the New York Public Library on 42nd Street looked especially stoic today, as if they had the lost Library of Alexandria on their minds. Somehow that Library of Alexandria, burned by the Christians, burned by the Muslims, reputed to have a copy of every manuscript at the time, was a keystone in all of this.  The Preface to the first fragment had said it was discovered in excavations near Alexandria in the first decade of the 21st century.  What excavations?  Exactly when?

She thought about what Thomas had said about the Alexandrians in Egypt.  A magnificent culture, one of the three Hellenistic pieces of the sprawling empire Alexander the Great had left to the world on his untimely death at 33.... Alexander the Great, who died a year before his mentor, Aristotle, in 323 BCE.  Aristotle, student of Plato, student of Socrates....

But the scholars of Alexandria were by and large not great philosophers.  They were mathematicians, astronomers, like Ptolemy, whose calculations of the Moon's orbit would have been good enough to land a rocket there.   They were tinkerers, like Heron of Alexandria, who invented the toy steam engines and persistence of vision devices Thomas had mentioned.  Heron had invented lots of other things -- automatic doors, coin-operated machines.... Had he tinkered with a time machine, too?

Not likely, from what Sierra understood of physics.  Steam engines and motion pictures and automatic doors operated on Newtonian principles. Time machines, if they were real, would likely operate on a physics that made current quantum gravitics look like child's play.

She reached her brownstone, on 11th Street, between University Place and Fifth Avenue.  For a second, she thought she saw Thomas sitting on her front stoop.  He looked terrible, somehow twenty years older than a few days ago.  The operation hadn't gone well ... what did they do to him down in Wilmington, or wherever he was?

But as she approached, she realized the old man on her staircase was just a derelict staring at his photophone.

* * *

She entered her apartment, and checked her screen.  Good, the second fragment, photographed with her phone, was there.  She was a researcher, she assured herself, not really a spy, and that surely took precedence -- the pursuit of truth -- over any conventions of the Club. Yet she still felt a little bad.

She showered and put on something more comfortable. She had dressed up for her lunch at the Millennium.  She returned to her screen, and printed out a copy of the second fragment. Not because she was afraid of losing what was on her screen -- her grandparents had told her that, in the early days of the computer, people were often afraid of that, and printed out documents as a way of saving them.  But Sierra printed out the second fragment because it seemed more connected that way, more a part of the first piece of the manuscript, that Thomas had given her.

Security in numbers.  Two fragments made each seem more legitimate, more real.  But that feeling, she knew, was still mostly illusion.  Two people, buttressing each other's stories, made neither story more likely, unless at least one of the people was already known to be trustworthy.  What if both were liars?   The two pieces of the dialog she held in front of her, each with Greek on one side, English on the other, could well just be partners in the same lie. She shook her head,  beginning to feel as if she were having a Socratic dialog with herself...

She looked back at her screen, and requested information on "excavations," "Alexandria," "2001-2010".  Hmmm... the search yielded stories about  a couple of apparently minor activities in 2008 and 2009.  Nothing about a new Platonic manuscript. Well, Thomas had given no indication about how well the 'discovery' had been reported or publicized at that time... She searched "Andros".  Nothing other than that it was the name of an island near Athens, which she already knew. People in the ancient world were often called by the places of their birth.  But the Andros of her dialog said he came from the future...

She put in another request, "Alexandria," "inventions". Heron of Alexandria dominated the 800 hits....  Also known as Hero....   Date of birth and life uncertain -- estimates ranged from 150 BC to 250 AD....  Most common date, 75 AD....  Invented the "aeolipile" -- ah yes, the toy steam engine.... His manuscript, Heron's Formula, lost for years.  Fragment recovered in 1894, complete copy in 1896.... He wrote in Greek...

She searched on Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Benjamin Jowett, 1817-1893 ... She came upon his quote, "The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them..."  She wasn't sure she agreed.

She read the Crito anew.  No hint of Andros -- man or island -- anywhere.  Just the angst, everywhere, of Socrates' refusal to escape.  She looked at the Apology and Cratylus, too...

It was evening when she finally turned away from the screen and thought about eating.  In a feat of perfect timing, that was just when the screen beeped -- she had set it to alert her about any news stories that mentioned Thomas O'Leary.

She clicked and read the brief report in the Athenian Global Village:  ".... three men missing in a boating accident in the Aegean..."  Two of the names meant nothing to her.

But the third was "Thomas O'Leary, a scholar from New York..."

She searched frantically for more information about Thomas and the accident.  She searched on his name, his picture, the titles of his books...

She got nothing more about the accident. But in her fast perusal of the photos, something caught her eye. She looked more carefully, expanded it to full screen, maximum resolution.  She enhanced the part she wanted to see more of. It was a grainy, sepiatone photo, on a page, appropriately enough, with an old-fashioned Web address, and a stat box that said it hadn't been visited in twelve years.

She rubbed her eyes, and looked again.

No doubt about it, unless Thomas had an ancestor who looked exactly like him.  There, standing in front of the Millennium Club with two other gentlemen, was Thomas, looking just as he did the last time she saw him.

No real problem in that, she'd seen photos of Thomas taken more than twenty years ago, and he looked pretty much the same as now.  He had one of those faces, she had recently heard him remark, that looked fifty when he was thirty and fifty when he was seventy.

Except this photo, near the bottom of a page about Victorian New York City, was captioned  "a new literary club, 1883, a few years after its founding".

Buy here on Amazon

Paul Levinson on kindlemojo.com

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in NYC.  His nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009; 2nd edition, 2012),  have been translated into ten languages.  His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (winner of Locus Award for Best First Science Fiction Novel of 1999, author’s cut ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), The Consciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003, 2014), The Plot To Save Socrates (2006, 2012), Unburning Alexandria (2013), and Chronica (2014)  - the last three of which are also known as the Sierra Waters trilogy, and are historical as well as science fiction.  He appears on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News,  the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the History Channel, NPR, and numerous TV and radio programs.  His 1972 LP, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2010.  He reviews  television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education's "Top 10 Academic Twitterers" in 2009.

TRIBUTARIES

By Illise Montoya

Chapter One: Night and Day

NYX____________________________

On a tower of metal and light, I saw the span of a great and perilous land. Overhead, three small suns raged in the sky. I felt like a shard of night beneath the cold steel and rusted iron.

The wind rushed to me the scents of damp rosewood, chimney smoke, and pearled barley—the miscellany of a simpler life. I crouched on the platform and the lids of my tawny eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun-lit valley. The village of Toah was a small and peaceful place, nestled like a babe amid those cold forests. Children were playing with a ball near the horse stables, and the women washed their laundry in the nearby stream. Off in the fields, I could see the bronze muscles of the men strain against their plowing equipment.

In the distance, I noticed a woman with a large green sack slung over her shoulder. She wore shiny steel shoulder-guards that caught the sunlight and reflected what appeared to be a long sword hung from her belt. I wondered nervously if she was a mercenary hired by the village. Judging by her long red hair, she appeared to be a Fiamman. Historically, Fiammans killed creatures like me on sight.

As I continued to watch, I saw her leave the village limits and enter the forest beyond. I let out the breath I was holding. Relief came over me knowing that was one less thing to worry about.

Clouds rolled forth from the horizon, reaching hopefully westward as the storm before me fell over the village and claimed daylight in its smoky fingers.

With bandaged hands and sure boots, I climbed down the watchtower. I didn't normally target villages; however, circumstances were forcing my luck. If there was ever a village to choose, this was the one. The rainfall would cover my trail and mask my scent, leaving the villagers ignorant as they cowered from the downpour. If I were adept enough, a jug of spiced cider could very well be part of the meal. My mouth watered at the thought of biting into the hen's neck—snapping it—the hot blood splashing over my parched tongue as I tore it apart. My bestial side was seeping through with all of my hunger. In fact, the thought of all I would taste almost made me fall out of the tower and my fatigue was making it harder to keep from slipping.

Hunt! Kill! Food!

These broken thoughts were not words but just sentiments. They came from HER, my animal counterpart, who paced excitedly in my mind. She was a constant presence weighing down on me, pushing me to strike. I had to remind myself just how crucial it was that I brace myself; there were innocent people here. They didn’t deserve the havoc I could bring.

My dark green gambeson bunched as I fell from the last foothold and landed onto the uneven dirt, the shock of a twenty-five foot drop piercing up through the soles of my boots. A cloud rose at my feet. A myriad of smells came with it; mostly typical wildlife scents: sparrows, cats, rats—that sort of thing. I also picked up the heady odor of spit from someone who drank a heavy dose of mead. For Toah, this tower was a place of congregation and socializing. I took a risk climbing it, but I had to see what I was to expect. My luck had not been good to me in the year and a half since I’d left my village of birth, and I didn't want to take the chance of running into a large dog or, worse, a small militia. The villagers here were supporters of the Fiamman kingdom, who were at war with my people. I doubt I would receive a warm welcome here.

I imagined a roguish male voice laughing at me, Öctér! Kitten, I think they'd throw a VERY bloody parade for all the love they'd spare you!

A lump formed in my throat and I tried to swallow it down. My eyes welled with tears. I brushed my dark hair back to wipe at them. Now was not the time for ghosts. I had to focus. I had to survive.

As I stood up, I spared a frustrated sigh. I last cut my hair clumsily with a pair of shears found in a garden shed. It was now at an uneven slope, only one eye was covered and the other completely exposed. I could hardly wait for the hair to grow out so that I might mend my mistake. I looked ridiculous, and ridiculous was memorable. Not exactly a good trait for someone of my particular lifestyle.

My brown cotton pants were baggy, their seat molted with wear. My boots were dusty and worn, soles threatening to separate all together. I looked like a pauper, which was all I could hope for, as people tended to ignore me at a glance. However, I couldn't take all the credit for my appearance. My clothes were hand-me-downs, once belonging to my mother—acquired when she passed away a little over a year ago. It wasn't until recently that I could fit into them...and I did so awkwardly.

I could still smell her in the fabric.

I was tired from walking all day, and didn't wish to be seen by anyone. I slinked off into the cover of the woods to find a berry bush and a soft patch of ground I could rest upon.

Though it was still early, the dead cast long shadows in my mind.

----------------------------

Darkness. The new moon. I knew this even with the cloud cover.

I removed my boots and hid them near the berry bush, along with my other meager belongings. I had to take them off; otherwise I'd tear through them.

Amid the bay trees, under the blanket of shadow that fell upon me, I shifted.

If I may explain, I am a therian, which is a species of shapeshifter capable of taking on various animal forms. There are several types of therians; I come from a race called the Ailurans—cat people, to be crass. Unlike most, my kind can transform into many different varieties, but shifting hurt for me. It was payment to Aelurus for use of her gifts.

I would often wonder, shivering in the blasphemy of it...if my ability was really inherent and unavoidable, or was it just a privilege? If the latter was the case, could I renounce what I had? Would that make life easier? Sadly, something resisted this thought, and a feeling that tasted of anguish rose up inside me.

This is my life. This is what I deserve.

The transformation gripped and held me fast in the dark. My skin tingled as the flesh beneath rippled—muscles shifting, bones snapping and curving into their new positions. The change always began in the torso and spread its way out all at once, debilitating me completely before it was done. My nerves screamed in agony as muscles tore, shredding themselves into firmer, sleeker nodes as I shifted. I bit into the inside of my cheek, the sharp, salty taste of my blood serving a strange anchor for my thoughts. Fur began sprouting along my body and a tail forced its way through a discreet opening in the seat of my pants. Blood pounded in my ears and hot-cold flashes ravaged me until all fell quiet. When I stirred I was on the ground. My clawed hands sought placement on the soft earth as I pushed myself up like a drunkard stirring from sleep.

I tried to clear my head. Changing always left me face down in the dirt. I tried not to think about the aches that lingered as I reoriented myself using my new senses.

Though dazed, my mind already perceived the world through a different view. My eyesight became fuzzy around the edges and color became dull. I could see better in the dark now and farther into the distance. My ears were large and pointed on either side of my head, twitching at the slightest bit of sound. My nose processed my surroundings, not missing a single scent. My whiskers, which sprouted from my fleshy chops, tickled with the changes of the wind; even my tongue was privy to relating information to my brain as I tasted the dampness of the air. Soon it would rain, and by soon, it would be a matter of seconds. Sure enough, droplets of water began to fall from the heavens through the forest canopy.

I loved water. I tilted my furry head back and opened my mouth wide, fat drops splashed onto my tongue.

Hate water.

I choked in surprise at HER thought, doubling over as I fought to clear my windpipe. I strengthened my mental barriers hastily. Did SHE really just have an opinion on something other than food and violence? The most unnerving part of all was that her thought, which was again pure sentiment and not formed of words, had been in direct contradiction of mine. This wasn’t natural at all. Even in my changed state, I should have had complete mastery over my animal self. I was in what my kind referred to as the waxing crescent form, Eikadi—or near-sapien, one of the five forms of the Lunar Hall. As I was, someone in the distance would perhaps only make out a very hairy person with poor posture.

For my part, I tried to be quiet, cautious, and unassuming. In my year of solitude, I knew it to be necessary to keep my other self tapped down and trapped under my control. The Beast hated it. What could have been curses hissed at me from the dark parts of my mind.

Hate you! Want freedom! Will KILL you!

Of course, SHE could not speak actual words. Thank the gods for that.

I don't know if I could stand being threatened all day.

My transformation complete, I slunk near the ground and my fingertips lightly touched the earth. The peculiarity with my animal counterpart sloughed away. I panted a little. Despite myself, I felt excited. It wasn't often that I allowed myself to change other than the full moon. Down the slopes that dipped into the heart of the valley I flitted amain. By the time I entered the farm fields west of the village, the rain came down in sheets. The water tried to repel me, as it pounded against my down-turned shoulders and furry head. I flattened my ears and bared my teeth against it.

I came upon the village empty; all the denizens had retreated into their stone-wood homes, and warm glows seeped through the cracks of shut-up windows. With a cursory glance around me, I crossed the square to the storehouse on the western side. It was a medium sized wooden barn with no windows and only one way in. The double doors were bolted shut with a menacing padlock. I took my right hand's pinky, extended its thin sharp claw, and inserted it into the keyhole. After a moment's work, the lock opened and I pushed my way inside.

Over the years, through curious circumstances and a certain tendency toward rebellion, I learned the various arts of larceny. Perhaps that may not sound virtuous; however, the means in which I learned these things were in no way nefarious. As a child, I often crept past town guards to go swimming at night in the local lake. I snatched back toys my brothers had taken from me in a fit of sibling rivalry, and infiltrated areas where adults spoke of dire things children were not supposed to know. These days, my wily skills were used for more serious affairs...like basic survival.

Bags of grain lined the floor and shelves inside the storehouse. I could smell the different kinds even without reading their markings. I plucked two empty bags up from a nearby rack and went over to the grain sack that smelled of rice. Using a scoop left upon the rack, I shoveled enough into my bag to last a week. Deftly, I tied it and slung the rice over my shoulder. I went back out into the rain, locking the barn behind me. With luck, the villagers would never even notice what really had happened.

My mouth watered at what I knew would come next. My claws extended in anticipation as I stalked toward the hen house, the empty bag I held in my other hand swayed like an unfulfilled promise. Inside the little shack, the hens clucked and tutted. They probably sensed my intentions.

I went to pry the door open. Through the rain, I heard a barely audible gasp come from behind. It made me halt in my actions.

With bared teeth, I whirled around. My arms held up, my body crouching low, ready to spring away. A man in a heavy cloak stared at me, his face hidden by the dark of his hood.

Dear gods, what is he doing?

No one was supposed to be out, no one, yet now unhap was in front of me. I had shifted in order to sneak better, to use my claws, to see better in the dark...however, my new form made hunger my master, and my distraction. All this coupled with the rain, prevented me from noticing anyone was near. He could've been out to search for something precious he lost, maybe fetch a tool he needed, or to double check that the hen house was properly locked. No matter what the reason was…I knew I had to run.

My clawed feet dug deep into the mud and I tore off in a panic. I vaulted over the wooden fence. From behind, I could hear the man let out a hoarse yell as he slopped through the mud to get help. Inside of me, the animal half of my soul growled low at the denial of meat. Despite the state I was in, my sapien nature still reigned supreme, although, I could clearly feel the discontent of the feline beast within. She was not a brave or ferocious warrior.... SHE was hungry, and well aware that we could take care of that man with a powerful swipe from our claws. I would never let it come to that…had sworn that I wouldn't.

I used my speed to get me to the forest beyond Toah. I was on the other side of the village and would need to sneak my way back to the berry bush where I had left my other things. When I was deep enough in that I felt safe, I shifted back. Maintaining Eikadi for a long period of time required a strong will. Without it, one would shift to full form, Ekilluos. That was the war form, the perfect balance between the sapien and the animal. It was dangerous, because emotions, such as fear and anger, were more intensely felt in that state, leading to bloody frenzies and wild decisions made from passion. I needed to keep quiet and focused—I needed to revert back to Einaudi, my sapien form.

The shift back hurt just as much as it did to change in the first place. I felt spent and nauseous, my limbs rebelling against me as I tried to rise to my feet. At first I only fell. The bag of grain I had spilled onto the wet earth. Normally after a shift, I felt fatigued and needed to rest. Did I run far enough ahead that I could afford a few seconds to catch my breath?

No, I can’t stop.

I forced myself up again, my body wet and my limbs feeble. I tried to keep steady as my vision lurched and I careened further into the forest.

I seemed to go on for some time. I was in a daze, trying to find a place that smelled of safety and comfort...but there was no such place. Try as I might, the angry call of those I wronged chased me quick and fierce like a monster all its own.

Through it all, I could hear my dead friend’s voice in my head:

Go East, kitten. Go find those incredible deserts and jungles and cities you been readin’ about. You have’ta keep goin’. Think beyond right and wrong doin’ and jes give back to the life that sustains ya.

"Marquis!" I gasped. My shoulder clipped an elm as my feet snagged in its web of roots. I stumbled, barely keeping upright as I heard men shouting. I looked over my shoulder, fear striking my eyes wide. "Marquis, I can't do this!" I sobbed. Though my body was drenched, I wasn't shivering from the rainwater.

A bright pair of slitted golden yellow eyes peered at me from the belly of a thorn bush.

I hugged myself and gave a strong shake of my head.

I had to steel myself. I had to survive.

And so, hunted by the living, haunted by the dead, I plunged further into the darkness.

ELMIRYN________________________

She felt so small.

Small and quiet.

Against a plane of broken thoughts, she dashed lithely between rows and shelves of contemplations, concentrating as much as she could on herself—her one true sense gone—her integrity straining beneath the weight of silence.

Well, all right.

Not REALLY silence.

Just...non-speaking, non-moving, non-acting, non-changing static, punctuated by the rainfall. Gods were crying, but for whom?

Aw, who cares....

Bored and discontent, Elmiryn sat beneath the cover of the maple tree. Her leather bustier protected her spine from the harsh surface of the bark. Beneath it, she wore an opaque white cotton shirt that helped keep out the cold. The sleeves stopped a little past her steel shoulder guards. Going up her arms were thick, fingerless, emerald gloves; over these were leather braces with steel plates to match the guards.

The air simmered and hissed with the sound of the rain as it poured through the canopy. She was still victim to some of the torrent, from where she sat, but it was not so bad. At least here, she could whittle her little stick in peace with eyes glazed, thinking...thinking...thinking....

Thinking this stupid knife was dull.

Heavy footfalls thundered. Elmiryn's back stiffened as she leaned forward to gaze about with sharp cerulean eyes. The corners of her lips twitched, but her mouth seemed uncertain of itself. She swiftly sheathed her knife and rose to her feet, retrieving her bow and quiver from against the tree trunk. Quiet as a lily that floats through a swamp, she moved forward—gliding over the roots and rocks and damp leaves.

She saw a vague shape, one that shifted and displaced the darkness. It moved rapidly through the forest; but its speed came from panic, and panic made it clumsy and careless. Who or whatever it was stumbled and nearly fell face first into the dirt. Elmiryn ventured closer, straining to see. She resisted the urge to blink even though water seeped into her eyes leaving them irritated and wanting.

A girl. It was...a girl.

The rain began to let up. Elmiryn could hear better—there was the tramp of boots as others gave chase. The warrior could see the amorphous shadow of the ragtag mob of farmers even from where she remained still, hidden behind a tree. What are they doing? She wondered with a soft frown. It's raining, and there isn't moonlight to guide them.... Why are they chasing this girl? Is she really such a threat?

Elmiryn looked back to where the youth had been only to see that she had resumed her fevered run.

With furrowed brow, the woman followed, running parallel with her quarry, her long red braid whipping behind her. Though clearly dazed, the girl was unusually quick. Interest piqued, Elmiryn picked up her pace so she would not be left behind.

The girl came to a small cliff where a rock, placed there by time, jutted out like a little plateau. She peered over the edge, her shoulders bunched, hands and fingers tensed in an unusual fashion.

Elmiryn again stopped just far enough away that the girl could not see her. Her clear eyes, lit with intensity, narrowed as the warrior tried to make sense of this peculiar scene. There was something about how the girl moved, how the others chased her that painted this entire situation as unique...or maybe....

Maybe it was just that ridiculous haircut the girl had?

Then the girl turned her head, and the redhead's eyes widened a fraction at the sight of tawny-colored eyes. Humans didn't have such eyes. Well that certainly narrows it down. A therian then. A shapeshifter.

The warrior's thoughts were interrupted by a hoarse yell.

"There's the beast!"

Elmiryn's eyes snapped onto the group of men charging toward the youth. Farmers, she thought with a roll of her eyes, They have no tact....

She looked back at the girl to see what she would do. Fight or flight. If the woman's suspicions were correct, the girl would fight back or jump over the edge of the plateau. To Elmiryn's surprise, the girl held her hands up and fell to her knees.

"Please!" she begged, her voice hoarse. "Please, I was starving! I'm sorry! I meant no harm!"

Jeers erupted from the men. One particularly large man, apparently the leader, brandished his axe.

"Filthy animal!" he thundered. He raised his weapon with both hands. The girl, startled, scrambled to her feet and retreated to the edge where she swayed.

Elmiryn's lips twitched and quirked with her observations, finally making a decision about what to do…a wide smile baring all her teeth spread across her face….

NYX____________________________

I was dead.

Dead.

Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

Or on my way to it. Being cleaved in half is synonymous with my demise, I thought. If I were to look up my end like it was an idiom in a scholar's text, I was certain I'd find, "To be axed; To be hacked; To be chopped, etc."

I was surprised to find that it made me angry too. I was cornered...by farmers. A fat thick man who probably never swung that damned axe on his own was about to take the sharp edge of it and whack it into my brain. How horribly unfair. I imagined something a little more...dignified. As dignified a way to go as anyone in my position—rueful as it were—could hope to have. Maybe dragged to death by a soldier's horse, or torn to pieces by werewolves, or crushed beneath a glacial avalanche...during summer...but to be hacked to death by a peasant over grain and some scared hens?

The great oaf in question grinned victoriously amid the folds of his sweaty face. I was surprised he kept pace with the others. He wheezed and rasped as he tensed his arms, prepared to swing down the axe. I stood precariously at the edge of the plateau, aware of the other men that stood behind the fat farmer, blocking my only escape. My last hope, it seemed was to—

But that idea never finished.

I sailed through the air, my wet hair whipping out a trail of rainwater as I spun right over the edge of the plateau. The fat farmer let out a squawk of surprise—as did I. I crashed at a funny angle, the breath rushing from my lungs. I tumbled like a rag doll down a slope so steep, that I may as well have been falling through air. I burst through the bushes in an explosion of leaves, and felt my limbs painfully clip tree trunks. Finally, I came to an end harshly stopping face down.

Ye gods!

Everything hurt. My eyes rolled in their sockets as I tried to focus my gaze to make the world stop spinning. I spat the leaves and dirt out of my mouth and turned my head away from the ground only to see an arrow had been shot through my collar. I stared. It had narrowly missed my neck and had gone completely through the fabric. The force of the arrow hitting must have been what sent me over the edge. Did one of the farmers fire it? I tried to move to remove it, but screamed when I found my left shoulder was dislocated.

Therians have a heightened rate of healing, but for this I was going to have to fix it myself.

With a grimace I rolled onto my back, in the opposite direction of the arrow. With my other hand, I bent my dislocated arm laying it on my stomach. Then with several quick breaths and using all the strength given to me by the Lunar Goddess, shoved my left arm upward at the elbow, popping it back in. Haste made proper procedure seem like a luxury, but I doubt it would have made the pain any less nauseating.

Weakly, I snapped the arrow shaft and reached back behind my collar to grab the arrowhead. I examined it closely. Pewter. I let my hand fall against my chest. My body was cold from the rain. My face, hands, and feet itched. They had been slashed and cut, but were already scabbing over.

I gazed upward at the forest canopy and imagined what it would be like if moonlight shined through. I imagined its silver kiss on my weary skin, where I could indulge in the idea that Aelurus would take pity on her wayward daughter. My eyes started to drift shut. This damp place, where cold pelted my sham of a body was not something I cared to stay conscious in anymore...

Then someone lifted me up. My eyes opened blearily. I was thrown over a shoulder—an uncomfortable one at that. The feeling of something hard digging into my gut made me alert again. I stared down at the ground as it steadily retreated from me. I could hardly believe it. I was going up.

My mind took a second to register the grunts coming from the person carrying me. I looked at their back and noted the curves, the criss and cross of thick woven strings through the back of a bustier, the tight-fitted leather pants that griped with the movement of determined legs....

Was a woman carrying me?

Up a tree?

I squirmed, suddenly worried I was being spirited away by some lunatic who had inhaled too much witch smoke. My shoulder still hurt, but I didn't want to be in the hands of someone else. My protests turned to all-out struggles when the person didn't release me right away.

The stranger only gripped me tighter and snapped in a rough southwestern brogue, "Idiot! Keep still! I'm saving you!"

I didn't listen. I'd heard too many stories of Ailuran girls being caught and sold into slavery. I took my uninjured arm and struck my elbow hard against the back of the woman's head. She exhaled through gritted teeth.

Then she shrugged me off.

By that time, we were at least twenty feet up a great old oak. As I fell through the air and saw how far I was from the ground, I thought blithely: Wow. She's a fast climber. Then my fall stopped. My body jerked and I winced at the pain that shot through my shoulder. I could feel an iron grip around my right ankle. I looked up in a daze.

Past the length of my body, I could see a red haired woman with light eyes smirk down at me. I felt a numb sort of surprise to see that it was the warrior I had spied before. She held onto a piece of rope that was tied to a thick branch not far up. "Just kidding," she said. Her voice was melodic and steely at the same time. I felt my skin break out in gooseflesh.

"Now hold still," the woman continued in a quieter voice, "and keep quiet. If you haven't noticed, your friends are coming."

I blinked up at her and slowly looked back toward the ground. I strained my ears. Sure enough, I could hear the farmers approaching. They grumbled amongst themselves sullenly. Not very subtle, these men, but I was so focused on the woman I hadn't even noticed their approach.

They came closer and closer. If I was dizzy before, I was even more so now. My head felt so thick with blood and pressure that I thought it would explode. One man came beneath the tree, and his eyes swept around him. My heart thumped. He looked up.

If possible, the woman's grip on my ankle tightened. The feline within knew better than to move when in hiding, even if a threat looked her dead on. I froze, holding my breath, and closed my eyes.

It seemed to pay off. I heard him pass on.

After another few minutes, the men conferred somewhere nearby.

"She's gone," one said insipidly.

"We'll never find her in this dark!" another complained.

"What was it that hit her? Was it an arrow?"

"Do you think she died?"

"If so, we have no business left out here...."

"But that beast must be dealt with! She threatened our livelihood!"

Ah, the fat farmer.

"It was just some grain, Humphrey. Hardly worth catching a cold over."

"And if she comes back?"

"Didn't you see her? That therian was afraid. She won't be coming back so soon."

Not ever, if possible.

"Let's go. I'm freezing!"

When their footsteps faded away, I let out a sigh of relief. Then I felt myself rise.

"Swing and grab that branch there," the woman said. Her bicep bulged from the effort it took to hold me up the way she was. I was not a little impressed. I was light—barely a step above emaciated really—but to hold a full-grown person with such ease like that!

Swallowing, I looked around and saw the branch she spoke of nearby.

I was about to swing when I decided it would be in my best interest to second-guess this show of strength. I looked at the redhead with my eyes squinted.

"You won't drop me?" I asked, my words thick from the strain of being upside-down.

The woman seemed amused by this idea. "You think I would?" she asked in a jocular tone. "And even if I did, don't cats always land on their feet?"

I wasn't really in the mood for jokes, and I think the look I gave her said so. Still, she laughed. I flushed at the sound.

Her other hand was occupied so she couldn't continue climbing until she wasn't holding me anymore. If I didn't try and grab hold of something, she'd eventually have to drop me. There was nothing else to it. I'd just have to trust her.

Carefully, I stuck the arrowhead I was holding in my teeth, and then I swung back, then forward. I held out both my hands when I came close to the branch. I grasped it at the apex of my swing, and the woman let go of me. My fingernails scraped against the bark for a frightening moment before finding purchase. My shoulder ached terribly, but the pain wasn't as stabbing anymore. I managed to pull myself up further and swing my left leg over. Exhausted, I sat and took the arrowhead from my mouth. I was glad to have the blood rushing from my head. My eyes fell shut against the odd feeling this caused. My head drooped to my chest.

I was so tired.

Then I felt the branch quiver and my eyes opened to see the woman sitting across from me, closer to the trunk, her gaze a little too focused for my liking. She toyed with the rope in her hands, twirling the end of it around her long finger. My shoulders bunched like hackles raised, and I tucked my chin in with a guarded look. If I were a cat, my ears would have turned and flattened, and my tail would have been lashing.

"Who are you?" I asked in a low voice.

"Elmiryn," the woman said with a wide smile. Strands fell from her long braid and framed her angular face. At a glance, she could have been mistaken for a maiden...but she was anything but. Not with arms like those, so toned and strong, her skin lightly tanned. I breathed in deep. She smelled of steel—metallic and sharp. She didn't have her weapon, but she may have hidden it somewhere in order to deal with me. I could also tell she had spent some time in the forests as I could smell the maple, bay, and oak trees on her skin like the scents were a natural part of her.

It was almost like she was wild.

"For an Ailuran, you're awfully weird." Elmiryn’s voice burred softly, humor evident in her words as she leaned back against the tree. Her long mouth shaped into a smile that teased.

I glared at her. "What would your kind know about that?"

"I've fought Ailurans. They're prideful. Fiery. They would never kneel before farmers." Her tone was matter-of-fact.

I dug my fingers into the bark and leaned forward. "And what sort of warrior are you? Firing arrows at helpless creatures the way you did?"

"You're hardly helpless," the woman returned with a raised brow. She sighed and placed her hands behind her head. She was being rather lax around me...or did she just think she could take me on? "I'm a good shot," Elmiryn continued, "I saw my opportunity to help you and took it. If I didn't send you over the plateau, what would you have done?" There was something smug about her tone, and it irritated me.

I didn't answer. I couldn't even remember what my original plan had been. "No human makes that kind of shot in the dark. I just don't believe you," I snapped. I sat back roughly with arms crossed and turned my gaze elsewhere.

Her voice was quiet when she asked, "You don't believe I saved your life, or you don't believe I'm that good a shot?"

I pursed my lips and found I could only glare at her from the corner of my eye. I DIDN'T believe she was that good a shot...but I DID believe she had saved my life, however unintentional. The question was: what would she do now? "You must've had a reason to want to bother with someone like me," I said.

The woman shrugged, her eyes still gazing intensely at me. "I was curious." Her smile turned into a smirk.

"About what?"

"Why didn't you defend yourself?"

I looked away. "That's a silly question. I was outnumbered."

"Therians are naturally stronger than humans," she countered. Something about her voice turned hard. "They're one of the strongest creatures in the world. Any idiot knows that. You could've held your own if you wanted to. Maybe even shifted just your hands to claws to keep them at bay...but you didn't. Why not?"

I looked at her again, my eyes wide with incredulity, "Because, I'm not like that, all right? Where do you get off speaking like you know everything, who do you think you are?" Why does any of this matter to her anyway?

"Because that's just how I understand things," she responded, her voice returning to its curious humor and lyrical brogue. "You can't shame me for working off my prejudices–everyone in this world needs a way to react to something new and mysterious if they want to keep from getting overwhelmed. Hells, you're doing it too. You don't trust me, because in your experience, people like me must've done you or the people ‘round you harm. That's fine. But look!" She patted the tree branch and smiled jauntily. "Here we both are. You aren't running away, and I'm not hurting you. Between the both of us is a need to understand. So let's get to it! The first question–and I get to ask since I saved your life, and all–is why didn't you fight?"

I pursed my lips and ran my hand through my hair. My nose itched in frustration, and on the tip of my tongue danced a curse, but this woman's logic, as vexating as it was, made it difficult to argue. Sullenly I muttered, "I can't fight."

Elmiryn leaned forward and tilted her head. "Can't or won't?" she asked. She came near enough that I could feel her breath against my skin. I leaned back, and my body turned rigid. My throat tensed and my fingers clenched. The Beast within me didn't like being challenged like that.

After a long moment I managed to bite out, "I can't." Then I took several deep breaths to keep my other half, my feline self, in check. This woman seemed to push my buttons on purpose.

When I regained calm, I bowed my head. The anger drained away, replaced instead by shame. "I don't know how to fight at all," I sighed.

The warrior remained quiet. Then came four words that would change my life forever. As cliché as that sounds, I don't think I'll ever forget that moment for as long as I live.

"I'm on a quest," she said in a candid chirp. It sounded completely incongruous with the message that entered my ears. "An astral demon by the name of Meznik has been terrorizing the continent and I mean to stop him." She shifted on the tree branch a little, as if just mentioning her task made her anxious to complete it.

I looked up at her, bewildered.

No, more like flabbergasted.

What did this have to do with me? And who went around announcing that sort of information in the first place?

She continued, and her smirk returned in a triumphant tilt. "It gets awfully boring on my own.... So I just had an idea. Why don't you come with me?"

Shocked silence was the only response I could give.

Elmiryn gestured at me vaguely with her chin, "You're an Ailuran in need of food and protection, and I'm a warrior in need of some company. Who knows? Maybe I could teach you a few things?"

I shook my head, my face puckered in some expression that resembled disbelief. "You want me to go with you? To...to seek out trouble and place myself in danger while you go around chasing something that isn't even real? Have you lost your mind?" Astral demons were a myth. Something the poor had cooked up to annoy the rich. People who brought them up in serious conversation were regarded as crackpots.

"Meznik is real," the woman said, her voice level but her eyes daring me to press the argument.

"All right, even entertaining that idea, there's still the matter of me not wanting to fight! I don't want to be in the position to get myself killed! I just want to live my life in peace!" My tone was almost panicked. She can't be serious?

"Oh," was the woman's only response. She sagged, deflated. Somehow, I didn't trust this switch in demeanor. I gazed at her with apprehension. Elmiryn blew some strands out of her eyes and shrugged one shoulder. "Very well. That's perfectly fine. You're entitled to do as you wish. I just thought this might be a good way for you to repay your...ah...." and here she paused, smiling cattily, "debt to me. For saving your life."

"Debt?" I echoed, incredulous. But a part of me squirmed....

Those light eyes—frigid cerulean—fell on my face and I shrank unconsciously. "I was just under the impression that Ailurans honored all debts." She said this in an affable tone that belied her fierce gaze.

My face fell. She was right, of course. My people were honorable, above all things. I may have been a coward, but I was an honorable coward, damn all my luck.

I slumped, defeated. "You...you won't expect me to fight, will you? I'm not mincing my words when I say I cannot do it, I cannot defend myself, and I have no courage whatsoever," I said tiredly. What was I going to do? Refuse? There was something peculiar about this warrior. Her simple gaze was enough to make me nervous.

"Now let's not get so hasty," she said with a raised a hand. "I've seen bravery come from the most unlikely places."

I smiled at her for the first time. It was a sad smile. "Not here, I assure you." I rubbed at my face and sighed. "I should also let you know...I'm an outcast. I've been...been Marked."

Marked. I could barely get the word out of my throat.

Ailurans dealt with criminals two ways: death...or the Mark. Death was preferable. The Mark was a curse—a brand burned into the criminal's skin by magic. The design of it varied on the crime itself. The curse that was set upon the individual made shapeshifting an agony, and prevented them from stepping into any holy Ailuran areas—like temples and shifting grounds. Elves and other therians could sense the brand on me, and they tended to target outcasts like myself because we make such easy prey—and also because they know that the Mark is a serious punishment, and anyone with it could be a murderer. It was a distasteful trait in any culture.

"Did you kill anyone?" Elmiryn asked, her gaze probing. I looked at her, startled. It seemed to be the only question that mattered to her. Did she believe then, that everything else was tolerable so long as I answered her correctly? If I told her...If I said to her....

"No." When I spoke it was with a frail voice—but I gazed straight into her eyes. Like daring a fearsome monster to attack. "I've never killed a person—not in my entire life. Directly or indirectly." I added the last part hastily. Conspirators were apt to getting the Mark as well.

She nodded, her face suddenly somber.

I was surprised to find that I desperately wanted her to accept me.

Then Elmiryn smiled a long satisfied smile. "Well, I don't really see what the problem is then!"

I smiled back at her uncertainly.

"What's your name?" she asked as she tossed the end of the rope so that it stretched out to the bottom of the tree.

I hesitated a moment before answering.

"Nyx," I said in a small voice.

She held out her hand to me and smiled, this time more warmly. "Give me your hand, Nyx. It's time to rest. We've got a lot of walking to do tomorrow." The rain had almost completely stopped. There was a light mist that tickled my nose. Did she have a camp? Blankets? Some place dry and warm to sleep? And what about my boots and other belongings?

I swallowed the questions down and gave her my hand.

Elmiryn didn't move. Instead, she squeezed and looked at me quizzically. "Can I ask just one more thing, though?"

I blinked at her. "I...suppose," I replied hesitantly.

She gestured at me with her chin, her eyes on my head as a single eyebrow arched high. "Who in the nine hells did you pay to cut your hair?" When I didn't answer right away, she shrugged one shoulder and offered off-hand, "I can beat them up if you'd like."

I gave her a mortified look.

Sweet Aelurus, just what in the heavens have I gotten myself into?

Copyright Illise Montoya 2014

Purchase on Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00O88K8Y8

Kindlemojo.com Author #3769

About Illise: Illise Montoya was born and raised in California, where she currently lives with her husband and son. A storyteller since the age of six, Illise cultivated her skills writing poetry, short stories, and fan fiction. At the age of 22, she enrolled in Full Sail University, graduating valedictorian with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. A strong believer in art for art’s sake, she also writes free serial fiction online. In her spare time, Illise enjoys video games, reading, and going to the beach.

ZomoSapienS

“The Apocalypse from the Zombies’ Point of View”

by

David B. Moon

Copyright

ZomoSapienS

First Edition

Copyright © 2013 David B. Moon

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-304-26766-5

Editor: Audrey E. Moore

Cover Art Model and Make up by Cassandra Juell

Back Cover Art Model David Moon

Cover & Back Cover Graphic Art by David Moon

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For my beautiful wife Tanya for putting up with my late nights and blank stares, my awesome sister Audrey for her inputs and editing and my sons Christian and Damian

Prologue

People say it’s not easy being a teenager.  People have no idea how hard it really is to be a teenager, especially a teenager with a background like mine.  The day of my parents’ first meeting and my conception was bloody and violent.

The following events led to their meeting and my unique conception.  On the 20th of March in 2019, Life Pharmaceuticals finally received Food and Drug Administration approval to market their new product LifereNew.  This revolutionary product used micro-machines called nanites to repair cells.  The nanites were so small, they could actually repair DNA, reverse the aging process, repair body damage and maintain the body.  The promise was that after taking the product, you would lead a long life in a fit, young body.

Most of humanity had dreamed of such a product.  Needless to say, when LifereNew was approved, there was a rush on the market. People lined up to pay the $1,500,000 for the treatment, which potentially would extend their life hundreds and maybe thousands of years, while looking and feeling young and fit.  New ReLife loans were set up so anyone could afford treatment, even though some folks would be paying back the loans for decades to come.  Within six months, more than four million Americans experienced this life-changing procedure, the majority of those being rich retirees desperate to fend off death and start life anew.  Not having to wait for a loan, they were the first to receive treatment.  They became known as the New Lifers.

One of those New Lifers was Laura Appleton.  She received her treatment on her seventieth birthday. Day after day, her amazement grew as her wrinkles disappeared and her gray hair slowly returned to its vibrant auburn hue of yesteryear. To her delight, she had to make almost daily trips to the clothing store to replace her clothes as she found herself going from a size 14 down to a size 1.  Two months after her treatment concluded, she was loving life.

On a bright September morning, Laura was biking in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Her auburn hair whipped in the wind as she pedaled through downtown Colorado Springs.  She was enjoying the admiring glances from the young guys.  At least, she assumed they were young.  For all she knew, they could be older than her.  She didn’t care either way; she was delighting in them checking out her new, youthful body.  And her bright green eyes were checking them out as well.  She was tight and lean and finally living life the way she had always wanted to, but never had.

Laura had grown up in a cold home.  Her parents had been too busy with their own careers to care about a little girl at home that needed caring for, too.  This gap in Laura’s life led her to seek comfort from food, so she was a plump little girl and an even larger teenager.  With no love at home and no one paying attention to her at school, Laura dove headfirst into her school studies and ended up being the valedictorian for her class.  She was accepted into Princeton University and finished her four-year business management degree in three years.

In her early twenties, she began her career as a successful businesswoman.  She spent her life working and fighting until she found herself very wealthy, but old and alone.      She had spent her life working so hard that she forgot to actually live her life, but all of that changed with LifereNew.  At the age of seventy, she had the money and the youth to live the life of her dreams.  With her renewed youth, she considered all the things she could now do:  skiing in Aspen, deep-sea diving in the Caribbean, dancing with gorgeous young men until the break of dawn.  She planned to do all of this and more.

While fantasies of her future life flashed in her mind, distracting her from her current life, she got blind-sided by a car that was going too fast and the driver wasn’t paying attention.  He was distracted because his girlfriend had just broken up with him to date a ninety-year-old, wealthy New Lifer.

His car smashed into the bike and the last thing Laura saw was the pane glass window she flew through.  Even though her body began rapidly healing, the healing process could not keep up with the amount of damage done.  She was dead from blood loss in less than two minutes and nothing would ever be the same again.

0900 Hrs - The Change

To say LifereNew was revolutionary was a bit of an understatement.  LifereNew combined nano technology (micro machines) with drugs and chemical pods.  The LifereNew treatment started with the injection of a master control pod and millions of self-replicating nanites into the patient.  The nanites traveled throughout the body and reported back to the master control pod, which made an evaluation of the patient and programmed the nanites.

The patient also received an injection of micro drug and chemical pods, which the nanites could access to create almost any combination of drug or material needed to repair the human body.  The master control pod also had the ability to order the nanites to make changes to their very structure and reprogram themselves to meet the body’s needs in extreme situations to save the host.  The prime directive of the master control pod was to save the host at all costs.

LifereNew went through intensive testing with the Food and Drug Administration.  Animal and human trials were conducted by the hundreds, but not one of those tests involved draining a body of most of its blood.  Nobody even thought of it, and who could blame them, but that one simple test in a lab would have prevented the events that followed Laura Appleton’s accident.

The basement of Memorial Hospital housed the morgue.  Laura Appleton’s recently deceased body was placed on a slab, the picture of a perfect corpse.  And for all outward appearances, that was what she was:  just one more dead body in a room of dead bodies.  But unlike the other corpses, the nanites in Laura had been busy making repairs and evaluating her condition.  Her body was in desperate need of hemoglobin, and the nanites contacted the master control pod for instructions.

The master control pod was frantic, if a machine can be frantic.  Its prime directive was to keep the host alive and it was failing at that task.  Millions of options of restructuring the nanites were evaluated and dismissed.  It needed to do something radical.  It began looking at options to restructure the host instead.

Accessing the nanites in the host's nostril sensors, it detected that hemoglobin was nearby.  It just needed to get it in its host’s body.  It decided on a course of action and reprogrammed the nanites to save the host. They began making radical changes to her body at a cellular level.  The task was huge, so the master control pod directed the nanites to start mass producing more nanites to help with the task.  With so many nanites being made, the master control pod removed the programming that requires nanites to remain in contact with it so it would not be overwhelmed by all the pings from the new nanites.

This mass production took its toll on Laura’s body, which was the only material the nanites could access to make more nanites.  Her body slowly shrank as the nanites converted cells and created more of their kind until they could jumpstart Laura back to life.

0926 Hrs - The Event

Laura’s eyes flashed open as she gasped for air.  She was in massive pain; pain beyond imagination.  She looked down at her body and it was almost skeletal.  The pain hit her again.  Never had she felt hunger pains that intense in her life.  It almost felt like she was drowning, deep underwater, desperate for air.  She slowly got off the slab and observed her surroundings, not understanding where she was or how she had gotten there.  She couldn’t think with the searing pain in her belly.  And then she smelled it.

Before her were two bodies laid out for autopsy, and they smelled divine.  She was drooling when she approached them, no longer thinking, just reacting to some primal instinct. Grabbing the male cadaver’s thigh, she sank her teeth in, ripping out a huge bite of flesh. Her teeth had been honed by the nanites to a razor’s edge and they left a clean cut.

When the taste of the flesh hit her tongue, she was bathed with the most orgasmic feeling she had ever felt.  The taste of flesh was better than any sex she had ever had, better than any drug; it was heaven in her mouth and she wanted, needed, more, much more.  She bent to take another bite, but the flesh suddenly smelled wrong.  She moved down the cadaver, sniffing its flesh.  The scent of its right arm sent a shiver running through her body, she quickly sank her teeth into the meat and relished in the taste of it, with blood dripping from her mouth.  Swallowing, she pulled the cadaver’s arm back to her mouth for another bite, but again the flesh smelled wrong.

Frustrated, she thrust the cadaver’s arm away from her and moved to the remaining body that still smelled good.  As she took her first bite from the new entrée, the double doors of the autopsy room opened and in walked Doctors Fischer and Melton.

In human comparison, if the cadaver flesh she had eaten could be compared to Kobe beef steaks, these living bodies smelled like the best Maine lobster smothered in garlic butter sauce with a side order of Kobe beef steak with blue cheese on top.  Laura was more than happy to upgrade her menu selection.

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/ZomoSapienS

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HOLVSRW

KindleMojo Bio#Author #1977

David "Dave" Moon is originally from Florida, but at the tender age of 8 his parents moved to Alabama. Dave didn't really care for the move so when he turned 18 he joined the military. He travelled the world and collected four degrees in the service, his highest being a Master's degree in Information Operations from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. After 22 years he retired as an Air Force Major. Back in the civilian world, Dave decided to do something completely different by getting into acting and writing. He currently has one published novel out called ZomoSapienS: The Apocalypse from the Zombies Point of View and he's acted in a few short films in addition to doing background acting on eight feature films and the TV show Salem. He resides in Louisiana with his beautiful wife and kids. He's a bit of a nut in a cracked shell.

How To Write A Novel In

30 Days When You Are

very Very VERY

Busy!

Do you have a lot on your plate? Are you wearing way too many hats? Is it go time, all the time? Are you a full time student, a full time employee, and / or a full time parent? If you are like me, it sometimes seems as if you have everything in the universe going on around you at all times. With barely enough time to reflect, let alone think about taking on any new projects, your days seem to be set on a frantic pace that just does not let up. Me? I have an fifty hour a week, very labor intensive job. I also have children, and, with my partner, I live on an organic homestead with five hundred square feet of garden space, a small orchard, cats, a dog, and thirteen chickens. I am also currently starting a new online retail business. I do understand being very, Very, VERY busy!

And you said you want to write a book too?

Sometimes the bug just bites you. Or you hear it from a friend who heard it from a friend about "write a novel in one month", something or other. Maybe you used to write a lot, back when you had more time and more peace and quiet. Perhaps you just always dreamed of writing a novel. You want to scratch this off your bucket list and you just decided that this was the year. I assure you, even with your hectic lifestyle, you can write a novel.

Now, I am not going to mince words. This is not a fiction novel, it is a self-help novel. So I am just going to get to the point, and create a quick, easy guide, to help you unearth the timely completion of your novel. If this is your first novel, then make sure to read every word. If you are already a novelist, then you can skip to the pertinent areas. But hey, everyone needs a refresher course every now and then, right?!

Writing a novel is not only a huge undertaking, but a very rewarding one. Pushing the limits of what you can achieve and coming out on top of your own personal hangups and restraints can lift your spirits like nothing else. The sense of accomplishment gained is nothing short of extraordinary. Talk about living the dream!

What is this "write a novel in one month" thing, you ask? National Novel Writing Month, or, NaNoWriMo (pronounced na-noh-ry-moh),  is a creative writing project on the internet that challenges participants to write a fifty thousand word novel in the month of November. The project started in 1999 with only a handful of participants and grew to over seven hundred thousand in 2013. Constant support and encouragement to the writers who participate throughout the "month of writing dangerously" is abundantly prevalent. When you are done reading this book, there is a web address for NaNoWriMo in the "helpful resources" section at the back of this book.

Whatever your reasons, inspirations, and motivations are, this book will help you with this dream and aspiration by giving you the tools and a slurry of tips and tricks to help you, amongst all your hectic,  chaotic events, to write your novel. I will accomplish this by first giving you some basics to understand how to squeeze in the largest amount of writing in the shortest amount of time. We will then go into structuring your story for the easiest way to get it done. I will also bring up some of the tools you can plant in your "writer's utility belt" to combat the inevitable mental blocks you will encounter, as well as a few unexpected social obstacles.

Don't believe me? This book itself was started on October first, of 2014. It was finished and published online on October ninth of the same year. See? Eight thousand and thirteen words in nine days. You can do it too! Here, I'll help you;

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OCFFMIY

kindlemojo Author #3790

Quick author bio:

A homesteading,

self proclaimed mountain man,

I am a father,

a writer,

and lover of good soil!

The Remains of Fate

Book One: Survivors

By Paul Matthews

Chapter 1: Strange Occurrences

Endria City was a bustling metropolis on the eastern coast of the Kingdom of Endria. It was a forest of concrete, steel, and glass, set against the crystal blue waters of the Gulf of Madora. Its location on the coast made it a major port, as well as the seat of power in the Kingdom. Most people casually referred to it as the “Capital” or “Capital City” over the years, so the name stuck. As the weekend came to a close the city had wound down to a peaceful calm. At the late hour, a Royal Guard cruiser making the rounds was one of the few things moving through the streets.

Occasionally Marcus Hamilton saw another car pass by or a wino stumble down the sidewalk, as he rode in the passenger seat of the cruiser, but for the most part it was a silent night. The driver was his long time friend and partner in the Guard, Scott Drummond. Scott was a wiry 38 year old man of average height, with closely cropped brown hair and a goatee that was growing rapidly longer by the day. He had taken to braiding it to keep it from becoming a nuisance. Marcus, on the other hand was 6 feet 3 inches tall and well muscled. He was the older of the two, at 48 years old, and his black hair was already starting to go gray at the temples.

Both men had worked enough night shifts to be used them, so it didn't bother either of them that they hadn't seen much action, other than two dogs fighting over a discarded can of sardines. The long night was enough to make Marcus a little fidgety, which wasn't helped by the itchy nature of the Guard uniforms. Both men were wearing gray button up shirts, with short, black, high collared coats over them and black slacks. On the right breast of the coat was the emblem of the Royal Guard, which was a silhouette of a Hippogriff standing on its hind legs, with its front legs extended defensively. The Hippogriff had been the symbol of the guard dating back to the ancient times. In those days the guard rode on the backs of Hippogriffs, both on the ground and in the sky. Unfortunately there were very few Hippogriffs in existence anymore. Most of them lived in the wild, far from civilization.

At the moment Marcus would have preferred flying on a Hippogriff, as it would be far more interesting than the night so far.

“Get a load of this guy,” Scott said after a few minutes of silence.

Marcus looked up to see a man digging inside a dumpster. All that was visible were his legs, which were idly kicking through the air as his upper body was inside the trash filled bin.

“Five bucks says he falls in there,” Scott said.

Scott slowed the car down to a crawl as the two of them watched the man closely, but after a minute he emerged from the dumpster, with a torn up magazine and a half eaten sandwich. When he turned and saw the car with the emblem of the Royal Guard on the door, he froze in fear and tossed his loot into the air as if it were hot. He then took off running down the alleyway, with his limbs flailing comically.

“Does he think we're going to arrest him for dumpster diving?” Marcus asked.

“Jokes on him. That alleyway has no outlet,” Scott said with a laugh.

Soon he ran back out of the alleyway, looked both directions, and then jumped into the dumpster to hide.

“Well that's the most entertaining thing I've seen all night,” Marcus said.

“He ended up inside the dumpster after all. Pay up Marcus,” Scott replied.

“He didn't fall in, so it doesn't count.”

“Come on man, I need the money.”

“Why?”

“I'm saving up to buy Diana an engagement ring.”

“Scotty, don't go to the dark side man.”

“I'm not like you. This will be the one and only time I get married.”

“I said the same thing, four wives ago,” Marcus laughed.

“She's had her eyes on one of those enchanted diamonds that randomly change colors,” Scott said, ignoring Marcus's comment.

“Don't buy one of those from the retailers. Drake does enchanting as a hobby. Buy a regular diamond and have him enchant it.”

“Really? Thanks for the info man.”

“You're welcome.”

Marcus then pulled a cigar out of his pocket and rolled the window down a few inches. He placed the cigar in his mouth and then began fumbling around for something, but he couldn't find it.

“Where did I put my lighter?” he asked himself.

“Here, I got ya covered,” Scott said and then held his thumb and middle finger up in front of the cigar.

Scott's eyes then began to glow bright blue and he snapped his fingers, which conjured up a small flame to light the cigar. Marcus used the flame to light it and then nodded in thanks.

“That's probably the only time I'll use magic this whole night,” Scott said with a laugh.

Marcus merely grunted in response as he began to puff on the cigar. The smoking didn't bother Scott as he was used to it after years of working with him. He knew that it helped calm Marcus's nerves, so he allowed it.

“Quinn is going to complain about the cigar smell again I'm sure,” Scott said, referring to the captain of the Royal Guard.

“Let him complain,” Marcus replied.

“I don't know why he put you on night shift tonight. You've got a full day tomorrow.”

“He did it because he doesn't like me.”

“Yeah, well who does?” Scott asked with a laugh.

“Not a lot of people nowadays.”

“It was a joke Marcus.”

“I know, but there's truth to it.”

“I take it your ex-wife is still giving you grief.”

“More or less.”

Scott knew better than to push the issue further, so he began to search for a new subject to discuss. As they rounded another corner they turned onto a street that was directly in line with the King's Tower. The tower was far taller than all of the buildings in the city. It rose into the air like a beacon of power for all of the citizens to see. It was a round tower of steel and glass, which was protected from attack by a magical barrier that was invisible to the eye. It rose so high into the air that it appeared to be endless with the low clouds obscuring the top. That night the golden light from the windows reflected off of the fog, which gave off a glow that encompassed the building like an aura. Marcus imagined that if the protective barrier were visible it would look much the same.

“What do you think our dear King is up to right now?” Scott asked.

“About 6 feet I believe,” Marcus replied.

“Very funny, but you know what I mean.”

“I try not to think about it to be honest,” Marcus said and then took a long drag of his cigar.

“Tomorrow morning you're going to be training new recruits to defend that man and have you ever stopped to wonder if he even deserves it?”

“That's a dangerous thought Scotty,” Marcus replied while squirming slightly in his seat.

“Are you worried that he will hear me?”

“I wouldn't put it past them to bug these cars.”

Scott went silent for a minute or so as he turned the idea over in his head. After a moment he turned to make a retort, but the video screen in the dashboard beeped, which signaled an incoming call. Scott pressed a button near the screen and the face of the dispatcher, Joan, appeared. She looked just as weary of the long night as they were. She had placed her gray hair in a hastily made bun, held together by a chewed up pencil, and it looked ready to topple over at any moment.

“What ya got Joan?” Scott asked.

“Are you guys near the tower?” Joan asked.

“Yeah, we're staring right at it,” Scott replied.

“There are reports of a disturbance on 3rd Street, near the intersection with Tower Drive,” Joan explained.

“We're on it,” Scott said and then switched off the video screen.

Marcus threw his cigar out the window and then did his best to dust off any stray ashes that had fallen. It was the first bit of action they had in a few nights and both of them were beyond ready. Scott then turned on the siren and floored the gas pedal. There was no traffic at that time of night, so it didn't take them long to reach 3rd Street. When they arrived they found a small crowd had surrounded the entrance to an alleyway and were pointing at something. Some of them were shouting and one man even threw a can down the alleyway.

“This is just great,” Scott said.

“We haven't had a drunken mob in awhile,” Marcus replied.

Scott pulled to a stop behind the crowd and then opened his door. He stepped out and launched a small fireball into the air as a warning.

“Everyone step away from the alley!” Scott yelled.

The fireball was enough to bring silence to the crowd, although it did garner a few angry stares. Marcus stepped out and brought himself to the ready. He opened himself up to the flow of energy that he drew from nature itself and let it combine with the life force within himself, which resulted in the creation of Chi Energy. This was the lifeblood of all Red Mages. His eyes began to glow a dull red as he stored enough magical energy to be ready for anything. His senses were heightened to the point that he could hear the individual heartbeats of each member of the crowd and smell the mixture of sweat and alcohol wafting off of them. They all glanced at each other, as if hoping someone else would speak first. Finally a short, balding man stepped forward and pointed down the alleyway.

“One of those skinless freaks from the Quarantine Zone is down there!” the man said.

Scott and Marcus looked at each other with skeptical glances, but they didn't speak their thoughts aloud. Marcus stepped forward, while Scott watched his back. He approached the man who had spoken and the man took a slight step backwards. He seemed to have lost his nerve when he saw Marcus's size, but his friends wouldn't let him retreat. They gave him a small shove forward and he had to regain his balance to keep from stumbling into Marcus.

“Step aside and let us handle this,” Marcus said.

The man did not hesitate in obeying his orders. He hastily melted back into the crowd, as Marcus walked over to the entrance to the alley and glanced inside. His heightened senses allowed him to see clearly, even in the dark of the alley. He could see a figure crouched beside a dumpster, but the figure had a hooded jacket on and the hood was pulled over his head.

“Royal Guard! Come out with your hands above your head and you will not be harmed!” Marcus called out with a magically enhanced voice that echoed off the walls.

The figure flinched at the volume of the command, but he did not stand or raise his arms. Scott joined Marcus at the entrance to the alley, but he kept his body turned so that he could watch the crowd.

“I only wish to speak with you,” Marcus said, but the figure didn't move.

“He doesn't speak,” a man called out from the crowd.

Marcus ignored the man and continued to stare at the figure. The figure turned his head slightly to glance at Marcus and when he did, Marcus caught the first glimpse of his skin. He could see, even in the dark, that it did indeed have the translucent nature of one from the Quarantine Zone. Their skin had turned that way due to the magical fallout of an Arcane Bomb that was dropped on the area during the Varidian Invasion 15 years prior. The bomb had completely decimated the city of New Arrington, leaving a massive crater in its place, but the surrounding areas were affected by fallout. The magical nature of the bomb meant that the fallout had strange effects on people. The survivors didn't die from the fallout; instead they mutated. Their skin became translucent, which led to the unfortunate nickname of “skinless”, but they also showed the strange side effect of becoming magically volatile. They could expend massive amounts of magic, but couldn't control it. The side effects made them greatly feared by the public, so a wall was put up around the affected areas, which were renamed “The Quarantine Zone”.

When Marcus saw that it was indeed a skinless person he became wary. He had no idea how one of them managed to not only escape the Quarantine Zone, but also make it to the capital. He turned to tell Scott what he saw, but he could tell from the look on Scott's face that he already knew.

“I'm going in,” Marcus whispered to Scott.

“I've got your back,” Scott said.

Marcus took a few steps forward and the man flinched and moved further into the alleyway in a half crawl.

“Relax, you're not in trouble. We just need to talk to you,” Marcus said.

Marcus tried to take another step, but he found a trashcan hurtling through the air at his head. He easily swiped it aside and then drew even more magic into himself. He knew that the man had not touched the can, so he felt it safe to assume that the man was a Yellow Mage, since Telekinesis was one of their abilities. He could feel the hairs on his body begin to stand on end, which was usually a sign of magic being channeled nearby, but something did not seem right. The magical energy emanating from the man seemed to pulse like a sickly heartbeat. Ever few seconds the pulse would surge, as if it was barely being held at bay. When he looked at the man's face there was no glow in the eyes to indicate the use of magic, but he knew it was there.

“Sir! Stop channeling magic and surrender peacefully! This is your only warning!” Marcus said.

“He's channeling? Why aren't his eyes glowing?” Scott asked.

“I don't know,” Marcus answered.

“We better subdue him before he loses control,” Scott said.

Marcus had become distracted by Scott's statement, so he almost didn't react in time to a blast of energy that was sent in his direction. He moved just in time for the beam of energy to tear a hole in the sleeve of his coat. He could feel his skin burning slightly and he realized that he had come too close for comfort to that attack. He then drew in enough magical energy to send off a blast of his own that nailed the man square in the chest and sent him to his back.

“Are you okay Marcus?” Scott asked.

“I'm fine. He only clipped me with that Chi...wait a second,” Marcus said.

“What's wrong?”

“How did he do that?”

“Do what?”

“He just used two different types of magic. That shouldn't be possible.”

Scott was unsure how to answer, so Marcus decided it was a discussion for another time. He then walked over to the man, who was laying on his back and breathing heavily. When he stood over him he saw a look of fear on the man's face, but he could also feel the waves of energy pouring out of the man. It was as if the air itself was trembling in anticipation of the inevitable explosion. Marcus quickly placed a shield over the man that would prevent him from using magic and the man's eyes grew wide when he felt it lock into place.

“What's your name?” Marcus asked.

The man shook his head without saying a word.

“Where did you come from?” Marcus asked.

Instead of answering, the man glanced up and to the left as if trying to look at something in the sky.

“Can you speak?” Marcus asked.

The man shook his head and then pointed at his throat in response.

“Keep your hands down!” Marcus said.

“I've got him,” Scott said and then Marcus saw the man's arms snap to his side as Scott used magic to restrain him.

“Why can't he speak?” Scott asked.

Marcus didn't answer at first, because he was studying the man's throat closely. At first he didn't notice anything strange, but then he spotted a small scar that ran horizontally across his throat.

“His vocal chords have been removed,” Marcus replied.

“What!?” Scott asked.

“Who did this to you?”

He saw the muscles in the mans arms tense a few times as the man struggled to lift them, but the restraints were too strong for him.

“Give him use of his arms,” Marcus said to Scott.

Scott's eyes glowed blue once again and the man's arms became free. He then lifted his right arm and pointed towards the sky. At first Marcus thought that the man was blaming God in some way, but then he realized that he was pointing in the direction of the tower. Marcus looked towards where the tower stood. The building next to them was too tall for him to see it, but he could see the glow cast against the low hanging clouds.

“The Crown did this to you?” Marcus asked.

“Give me a break. I'm no fan of our King, but that's far fetched even for him,” Scott said.

The man continued pointing at the tower and then pointed at his throat again, but even Marcus was finding it hard to believe.

“Okay, that's enough of that. You're coming with us,” Marcus said and then reached down to take the man by the arm.

The surge of magic inside Marcus increased his strength enough to easily lift the man off of the ground. The man winced in pain, but he couldn't say anything in response. Marcus then dragged the man back to the car and placed him in the backseat.

“That's what you get you freak!” a man in the crowd yelled.

“That's enough out of you!” Marcus replied.

“Everyone go back to your homes! There's nothing to see here,” Scott yelled at the crowd.

Marcus and Scott then climbed into the car and headed in the direction of the Royal Guard station. Both of them remained silent for most of the trip, but when they were about a mile away Scott finally spoke.

“How did he really get there?” Scott asked.

“I have no idea,” Marcus replied.

“You don't suppose he really did come from the tower do you?”

“Why would the Crown be keeping Skinless at the tower?”

“Research?”

Marcus wasn't sure how to respond to that question, so he remained quiet and let the idea roll over his mind for awhile. He could understand doing research to find out more about the Skinless, but why remove the vocal chords? What would they be worried about the Skinless saying?

“We can't bring this guy through the front door,” Scott said after a few minutes of silence.

“Why not?” Marcus asked.

“It will cause too much noise. Call the Captain, tell him the situation.”

Marcus pulled out his phone and dialed the Captain's number. When the Captain answered Marcus filled him in on the situation and he agreed that it was better to not draw too much attention to the man.

“Bring him to the back entrance. I'll meet you there,” Captain Quinn said.

When they arrived they found Quinn waiting outside for them with a look of concern on his face. The worry lines on his forehead only made him look older than he already was. It was hard to read his face, other than the lines, due to his heavy jowls. They gave him the appearance of a bad tempered bulldog, with thinning hair that was dyed black in defiance of his age. They pulled to a stop and got out of the car, but Quinn held up a hand to stop them from going further.

“Hanks will take care of him, you two need to come with me,” Quinn said as he pointed to Hanks, who was standing behind him.

Scott and Marcus nodded as Hanks made his way to the car. The two of them then followed Quinn inside as he led him to his office. Once they were inside he closed the door and then lowered the blinds. When he was sure they were alone he sat down and indicated that they should do the same. There was a moment where Quinn simply stared at them, as if choosing his words carefully. Marcus had faced that stare enough times for it to seem commonplace, but for some reason, on that day, it made him squirm in his seat slightly. He braced himself for an onslaught, but then Quinn gave him a minuscule hint of a smile.

“I'm glad you called me Marcus. We need to keep this incident quiet,” Quinn said.

“Why sir?” Marcus asked.

“For one, we don't need a panic, and secondly this is a sensitive situation,” Quinn replied.

“How so?” Scott asked.

“This isn't the first sighting of a Skinless near the tower. A report came in a week ago, but none of our men were able to find anything. I had thought it was a hoax, but I still had to report it,” Quinn said uneasily.

Scott and Marcus looked at each other in surprise and then turned back to Quinn with hundreds of questions running through their minds.

“Why didn't we hear about this in briefing?” Marcus asked.

“I was told to keep quiet,” Quinn replied.

“By who?” Scott asked.

“That's not important. Just know that the order came from high up the ladder,” Quinn said.

“How high up the ladder?” Marcus asked.

“High,” was all Quinn said in response.

Scott and Marcus shared another look with each other, but they remained silent. Marcus knew that Scott was thinking the same thing that he was. Maybe there was some truth to what the Skinless man was trying to tell them after all.

Inside the tower a man was hurrying along at a pace that was almost a run, but slow enough as to not seem unprofessional. He tried to hide the worry on his face, but it was for naught as no one around him seemed to care that a random page was in distress. He carried news that he was sure would end in his death, even though it wasn't his fault in any way. As he approached the door that led to the Science & Research department, he began to second guess his plan of action. He could have pretended that he never heard the news and let someone else deliver the message, but he knew that there had been witnesses that saw him receive it. He finally reached the door and took a deep breath before heading inside.

He saw the man that he was looking for standing beside a window to one of the laboratories. He was Victor Snyder, the head of the Royal Science and Research Association and he was known for a calm demeanor and had never been known to lose his temper in even the most stressful of situations. For this reason the page was somewhat at peace with approaching him with the news. Victor was busy watching the activities on the other side, but he didn't show any indications that he had heard the news already. He was showing the signs of another long day. His coat had long been discarded and his sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. His glasses seemed to be slipping down his long nose, but he was too focused on the lab to adjust them. The page cautiously approached Victor and then cleared his throat.

“Yes?” Victor asked.

“Sir, I have a report that you need to hear,” the page said.

“Well, what is it?”

“Um, one of the specimens has escaped sir.”

Victor's eyes widened slightly, but only for a second. He then grabbed the page by the arm and led him down the hallway a few steps. When he turned to the page he seemed calm, but his voice showed signs of thinly veiled displeasure.

“How did this happen?” Victor asked.

“I don't know. I only found out that he was gone, but there's more sir,” the page said.

“Well don't hold back son. What is it?”

“He was picked up by the Royal Guard sir.”

Victor swore under his breath, but then he quickly regained his composure and turned to the page with a finger pointed directly at his chest.

“Go and fetch Renault. Tell him to meet me in my office, but do not tell him what it's about,” Victor said.

“Yes sir,” the page said and then walked away at a hurried pace.

Victor then turned back to the window and watched with quiet contemplation. Inside the lab a Skinless man was strapped down to a table as scientists took samples of blood. He was one of the few specimens that was housed in the lower sections of the tower. No one but those closest to the King knew of their presence or what the purpose of the experiments were.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O7CGIQM

Kindle Mojo Author #3709

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