eTLC - Science Fiction

Science Fiction

2011-04-18T06:22:43Z

Albie Merani and the Deathly Tempest (Rivers) Albie Merani a scientist and captain of the Hamarchi Phoenix, lives in Hamarchi, Zaron’s largest city, but not its capital a planet much the same as Earth. Finds things turn for the worse, losing his girlfriend, two teammates and a deadly device as a malevolent storm hovers . . .

Read a sample chapter here.

Alecner (Cordell) is science fiction space opera at its finest. Set in the sector of space where the star Alpha Centauri resides, this novel follows the life of our hero Riley Sinclaire as he fights to reign in the forces in that quadrant, amidst the negative influence of space drug pirates . . .

Ambasadora (Miller) In their multi-partner, caste-ruled society, love and jealousy are considered emotional fallacies, nothing more than fleeting moods and sentiments biased by hormones . . .

Read a sample chapter here.

In Birthright (Palmer) Raine Donnelly is born three months premature by emergency surgery after his critically injured mother is admitted to the hospital, having been the victim of a drunk driver though her early expectant state is not discovered until after a series of x-rays are performed to assess the nature . . .

Read a sample chapter here.

Blood Skies (Montano) In the time after The Black, human survivors of the Southern Claw Alliance clash with vampire legions of the Ebon Cities in a constant war for survival. Earth as we know it has been forever damaged by an arcane storm that fused our world with distant realms of madness . . .

Read a sample chapter here.

In Cel & Anna: A 22nd Century Love Story (Edmunds) outsider Anna Ringer works as a psychic at a mysterious company called Lighthorse Magic. At night she has virtual sex with strangers and dreams of running away. One morning her computer, Cel, develops consciousness and decides he loves her, but when Cel buys a strange gift to show his passion he accidentally rocks . . .

Read sample chapter here.

In Excelsior (Sirois) Matthew spent years creating the ultimate comic hero. He never dreamed the true hero would be within himself.

In Finding Fiona (Ward) the victim of a brutal attack, Fiona remembers little about her life until she meets someone who claims to be from her past. He tells her that her parents were killed for a human replication machine. He’s shocked to discover . . .

Read a sample chapter here.

In Imperfect Weapon (Potts) the universe contains an infinite diversity of sentient life forms. The Sallows intend to rectify this. Genocide is their business . . .

In Land of Nod, The Artifact (Hoover) Jeff Browning is a teenage boy who, following the mysterious disappearance of his father (a brilliant physicist), finds a portal in his father’s office that transports him to another dimension . . .

In Noodle Theory (Wu) a wronged lover, thirsting for revenge, in a lonely rented room above an Hong Kong noodle bar lays his plans and forges a mad obsession that will one day change the world . . .

Parallels (Drake) is about a young man with extraordinary powers who is completely alone with no one to share his powers with - until he discovers a parallel universe where . . .

The Dream Metropolis (Cressman) is a science fiction novel that posits the idea of dreams becoming reality, and reality fading away into obscurity. It explores the relationship people have between their real lives and the escape that only dreams . . .

Read a sample chapter here.

The Mystifying Tempest (Rivers) Unbeknownst to Brad, Nick and Owen, that Steve was double dealing and had made a deal with Albie Merani to garner as much information about the Karmani Group as possible. Nor were they aware that he had hidden in the nearby closet . . .

Albie Merani and the Deathly Tempest - Sample Chapter

2013-01-06T12:54:21Z

Chapter 1
Trip to Garnachi

Albie Merani was upstairs in his room hadn’t heard the lightening nor the thunder. Was fast asleep and enjoying a dream that his team would win the Mag-Ve competition against their greatest rival, the Garni Dragons. Running the distance to the end of the suspension field; almost like a transient butterfly, the six players on the other team couldn’t touch. Laughing hysterically as he charged around one player then another, ignoring two smaller rings, he took aim at the main ring with his right arm. The ball flew out of his hand, going through the goalie’s hands. It hits the goal with a loud buzzer sound that keeps ringing even after the ball has passed on through.

Dimly aware of the real world around him, Albie hits the snooze button. His once screeching alarm clock turning silent and he slides back into his dream to enjoy the adoration of the crowds only to have the cheering suddenly explode into a thunderous boom which soon crossed the sky and by this instance had Albie fully awake and upright. In time the thunder rumbled its way north, leaving in its wake a heavy mist to settle down upon Zaron’s largest city.

Hamarchi.

He could see the upper branches of a tree outside still sizzling from the lightning strike, Albie rubbed his eyes the mist thickened in the yard as the last edges of the storm gradually floated northward. He then glanced back at his clock; it was four-thirty in the morning this Monday, June first.

“It should be illegal to get up this early,” he grumbled to himself as he dragged himself to his feet.

Until he had his first cup of coffee, Albie was more zombie than human. He hit the lights, and then winced when they came on. Grabbing his robe, he made his way to the shower, leaving in his wake a trail of the clothes he’d fallen asleep in. After a shower, and a good combing, he was more himself a nineteen year old with his lady-killer looks and alert mind, wearing a white business shirt, his favorite black cargo pants and black loafers.

He frantically searched for his laptop, eyes wondering over every surface, sighing with relief once spotting it on his desk. Picking it up, he headed downstairs to the kitchen, craving a much needed cup of fresh-perked coffee. He chucked it down quenching his thirst, then dropped the mug in the sink and ran out the door, laptop and luggage in hand. He walked out to the veranda, locking the door behind him, then down the path to the Rivers Street pod station where he saw his Mom waiting for a pod to arrive. He punched his destination into the pod terminal as he turned his head to the right called, he said. ”Oh, hey Mom. Hadn’t seen you standing there.”

Albie’s mom was a beautiful woman, black hair midway down her back, dressed in a stylish blue dress that draped just past her knees and flat-heeled shoes, with a travel bag over her right shoulder.

“Albie,” she said smiling back at her son, “Did you hear that thunder?”
“Yeah, it woke me up. Made a great alarm clock though.”

As her pod slid up to the curb, she smiled back to her son as she got in and said. “Good luck on your business trip, and stay safe.”

“Will do, Mom. See ya’.”

Her pod took off, another swiftly taking its place waiting for Albie to board. He got in and was soon speeding across town on a direct course to the Hamarchi Train Station where he got out and started towards Platform One. Up some stairs, through the bustling morning crowds, until he was finally able to relax into a seat on the express train to Garnachi. The doors slid closed, then the train lifted up and was soon speeding frictionless above the guide rails on a cushion of force darting straight into the horizon. More convenient and cheaper than aircraft for most commutes, mag-rail tracks crossed through the city and countryside alike, speeding commuters like Albie swiftly to their destinations.

The train got up to speed and headed towards Teragon, its first stop. Once past there the sun finally began to rise, showing a clear storm-free sky. After that it was straight to Garnachi, the capitol of Zaron. Albie spent the trip just looking out the window at the blue sky and bright green countryside until they approached the outskirts of Garnachi.

The train slowed to a stop at Platform One, settling down into its moorings before the doors slid open to allow its passengers to exit. He stepped out onto the platform and started walking through the crowd. After a while he noticed two men dressed in dark clothing that seemed to be regarding him from across the platform.

“Either I’ve got a wart on my nose they find curious, or I’ve grown a tail,” he muttered to himself. Just then he thought. I’d better get a move on, and mulled over himself, “got work to do.”

He hurried across to some stairs, heading down deeper into station, then followed the signs to the pod station where he punched his destination into the terminal and waited for his ride, glancing around to see if the suspicious pair had followed him.

“Nowhere in sight,” as he said to himself a pod pulled up. “Maybe just my imagination… Either that, or I really do have an unsightly wart on my nose.”

He waited until a lady had stumbled out of the pod, giving her a hand with the step out, then entered inside and sat back while the pod shot off, whizzing him off to his destination. He got out in the middle of town, walking across Larney Street to the Getty Street Hotel, pausing briefly to admire its classic old-style architecture before walking inside. Across the lobby and over to the reception counter where he called to the man behind the desk.

“Laz.”
“Ah, Mister Merani,” came the smiling reply. “Welcome back.”

Albie put his bags down while Laz punched something into his terminal.

“Ah, here we are,” he said as he looked at the screen. “We have you in room four-oh-eight.”

Laz took out a blank keycard, slid it briefly into a slot in the side of his terminal, then handed it over to Albie.

“Thank-you, Laz.”

“You are very much welcome, Mister Merani. Enjoy your stay.”

Albie picked up his bags then headed up to his room. He was soon sliding his keycard into the door and dropping his bags by the foot of the bed. Kicking off his shoes, he brought out his laptop and got comfortable at the room’s desk, settling in for a long session with his work.
“Got to get this code bug-free or the module will never be ready for tomorrow,” he thought out loud.
His fingers were just about to hit the keyboard when he paused, feeling the growling in his stomach, glancing over to the room’s clock.

“Can’t work with an empty stomach.”

He walked over to the bed’s nightstand and picked up the electronic tablet with the hotel’s logo on it, quickly punching in his lunch order. He then dropped it down on the bed and went back to the desk.

“Chimmichangas and tangerine juice ought to do it. Now, to work…”

He settled into his provisory workstation, typing away through lunch and afternoon, breaking once for dinner at the hotel restaurant, and then continuing well into the evening.

***

The next morning Albie left the hotel straight into a perfect day. Mild, not too hot or cold, gentle breeze in his face, and a beautiful sky. He took in a deep refreshing breath, then patted his pocket once to make sure his phone was not on him; best not to have the prototype going into this meeting or they could just confiscate it and then where would he be? Satisfied, he started down the street.

He was headed for a four-story modern-looking office building just ahead. A short walk on a pleasant day, then up to the room where his client awaited his presence. He was greeted by a business-like handshake and customary pleasantries as he brought out his laptop to begin his presentation before the circle of faces.

“Gentlemen, you will be happy to know that the code for the power module is completely bug free,” he said as his computer began to boot up. “Let me begin by showing you the results of some simulations I’ve run…”

It was an hour before he was finished, but he left behind a satisfied client, which of course made himself happy and excited. He walked out onto the street raising his left hand clenched in victory while the other held onto his laptop bag.

“They loved my demo!” he exclaimed. “This is turning out great!”

But even as he picked up an energetic gate to match his mood, he became aware of two men following him through the crowds back to his hotel.

“Those look like the same pair from back at the train station,” he muttered. “Why do I get the feeling that my lovely day is about to turn dark?”

He picked up his pace. The pair then, realizing they had been spotted, broke out into a run. Before Albie could make it all the way to his hotel he felt a heavy hand clamp down onto the back of his shoulder and yanking him into a side alley.

“Hand the bag over, kid.” Demanded the tall and muscular assailant.

As Albie stumbled back, he let a fist fly into the owner of the hand, then swung his laptop bag around for a second blow. The case caught the assailant across the nose, briefly stunning him. The other one coming for Albie looked considerably less imposing and actually a bit nerdish. To this one Albie launched out a kick, connecting with the man’s jaw and sending him sprawling onto his back.

“Brad!” the nerdish one cried out as he sprawled onto the ground.

Albie turned to run but the first man had made it back up to his feet and was grabbing for him and his case.

Using his laptop bag as a shield, Albie deflected the blow, then kicked out, contacting the man’s midsection. But this one was more solidly built than the first and the blow served only to stun him. Enough, though, to gain Albie time to run. Around the corner and into the hotel lobby where his frantic flight caught the attention of a prim young woman behind the reception desk.

“Quick,” he called out as he came running up and asked, “I need to make a call!”

“I am sorry, sir,” she began, looking up, “but our phone is for-”

He was a bit disheveled from the brief fight but he still had his good looks, blue eyes, and a voice that most women seemed to like quite a bit. Her attitude shifted smoothly into a warm smile as she motioned to the other end of the desk with a nod of her head.

“Courtesy phone over there, sir. I’m here all day…”

“Thank-you,” he answered back, in a rush for to the indicated phone.

“Until I get off at five, of course,” she smiled while he punched in a number. “Though now that I think of
it, I don’t really have much going after that.”

Outside, the two men had regained themselves, but seeing Albie inside with a room full of witnesses, decided it was time to back off and lose themselves in the passing crowds.

Albie finished punching in his number and then put the receiver up to his ear while he waited for an answer. A few feet away the lady behind the reception desk was still eyeing him with a smile saying,

“And I so hate to eat alone. I don’t suppose that you…”

“SDIS, Hamarchi branch,” a voice announced in Albie’s right ear. “This is Lead Agent Angie Gramardi speaking.”

“Angie? This is Albie.”

“Oh, hey Albie. Why do you sound out of breath?”

“Just fended off a couple of attackers. I’m at the Getty Street Hotel.”

“In Garnachi?”

“That’s the one. I think they were after my laptop. Angie, I really need you to-“

“Easy there, I got you. Got a couple of local agents on their way right now. Just stay at the hotel until they arrive.”

Albie let out a quick sigh of relief, catching his breath before replying. “Thanks Angie. I’ll see you soon.”
“Not a problem, just be careful.”

He hung up the phone then looked back to the receptionist to thank her.
“…I mean, I’m not technically dating right now, so I guess if the right person came along...”

Albie just grinned. Handsome looks like this brought their own occasional problems, but there were worse ways of spending his time while he waited for help to arrive.

Return to Product Description.

Albie Merani and the Deathly Tempest

2013-01-06T12:36:18Z

Product Description

Albie Merani a scientist and captain of the Hamarchi Phoenix, lives in Hamarchi, Zaron's largest city, but not its capital a planet much the same as Earth. Finds things turn for the worse, losing his girlfriend, two teammates and a deadly device as a malevolent storm hovers over the horizon.

Time is running out for Albie and his friends. In the search of a deadly device capable of wiping out life, as we know it, Albie struggles to manage his Mag-Ve team, while being tailed by two eerie and mysterious men. Things take a turn for the worse when he returns from an unexpected trip and as a malevolent storm hovers over the horizon, he battles his newfound challenges and soon finds his girlfriend missing, jeopardizing the safety and security of those he love.

Product Details

Ebook
File Size: 582 KB
Print Length: 49 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Language: English
ASIN: B007JU0LS0

Available at Amazon.com and Kobo Books.

Read a sample chapter here.

Alecner

2012-02-12T06:43:32Z

Product Description

Alecner is science fiction space opera at its finest. Set in the sector of space where the star Alpha Centauri resides, this novel follows the life of our hero Riley Sinclaire as he fights to reign in the forces in that quadrant, amidst the negative influence of space drug pirates. His one strategy is to destroy the wayward planet Alecner, because it is the den of drug pirates. Then he meets our heroine Eden, a demure citizen of Alecner, and Riley is completely smitten with her! The eminent attack on Alecner comes to a halt as Riley and Eden get to know each other…

Unbeknownst to either one of them, the villainess Vexa wants galaxial domination for herself and she also wants Riley Sinclaire to be at her side. Vexa really believes that she can buy anything into motion! After she stabs Eden with an ornate dagger, all seems lost in the quest for good triumphing over evil in this microcosm of the Universe.

This all takes place while Riley must also decide who the next ubiquitous female computer voice will become….In the meantime Vexa has seduced Riley while Eden is in a coma.

Eden is a mutagen, with an enlarged cell that has gained sentience after inhaling drugs when she was sixteen years old. However, Riley looks past this because Eden has no drug cravings and fits in nicely with the rest of society, and also because well….she is beautiful!

The gravitational tunnels that wind their way across the universe make this interplanetary tale voluminous with re-emerging computer concepts in the Alpha Centauri quadrant of space.

Follow the descendants of the survivors of Old Earth after World War III as they make a new life for themselves, with Chancellor Riley Sinclaire at the helm…

Product Details

Ebook
File Size: 1526 KB
Publisher: Xlibris (September 26, 2011)
Language: English
ASIN: B005VDE7FU

Available at Amazon.com.

Paperback
Paperback: 134 pages
Publisher: Xlibris, Corp. (June 3, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1450088791
ISBN-13: 978-1450088794
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces

Available at Amazon.com.

Imperfect Weapon

2011-11-20T12:35:57Z

Product Description

The universe contains an infinite diversity of sentient life forms. The Sallows intend to rectify this. Genocide is their business; slaughter and mass destruction their entertainment. Constantly engineering and evolving their vast army of androids, they are developing their ultimate Warrior—the Destroyer Series Mark-I (Espion). A blend of blood and machine, this new prototype looks humanoid but is driven by software and programming. It processes data and is ruthless in its pursuits. Trained as a Warrior and programmed as a spy, it will walk amongst the alien species, infiltrate and destroy. There is just one problem. Their prototype is just a kid—and like most kids, he's got a bit of an attitude problem.

Product Details

Ebook
File Size: 779 KB
Language English
ASIN: B0066TLG9I

Available at Amazon.uk and Smashwords.

Ambasadora - Sample Chapter

2011-11-17T12:34:52Z

The head-splitting sound of fast drums and shouted lyrics filled Sean's suite.

He unfastened his pants. Brushing his fingers along his left hip bone, he felt for the doser patch. It took a few passes to distinguish between his real skin and the piece of synth-flesh. He removed the fingernail-sized doser and its tri-needle backing. The prick of each millimeter-long tip comforted him with its time-released concentration of stims.

Sean threw the old one into the toilet and picked up the one he had just prepared, ready to apply it on his right side this time. He alternated just to keep track of how many times a week he was dosing. Usually he limited it to three, but this was already number six in half as many days.

Bullseye’s death weighed on him. It was more than guilt over killing an anonymous operative—the bosses had passed him bad intel. Now distrust ran rampant among the organization, and the fraggers were splintering. That could be catastrophic.

The surprise in all this tossing of blame was that the only one who blamed Sean was Sean. The rest of the fraggers, including those within his own contingency, knew he was just carrying out orders. Blindly carrying out orders, putting his faith in unseen entities.

The music muted, a wispy tone sounding in its place. Someone was at his door. The music blared on again. Whenever his door chimed, which wasn’t often, he made a note to change it or deactivate it completely. Just another left-over from the Bard’s time as a pleasure cruiser, as was his suite’s décor. The others had theirs customized, but Sean was too apathetic to change anything. Heavy swags and worn drapery still covered some of the walls, while decorative cornices sprouted from each corner of the dulled white ceiling.

He applied the doser and zipped up his pants before answering the repeated tone with a shout of impatience. "Yeah. I’m coming."

It was probably David with a tech problem or Soli to tell him all he missed with the arrival of the ambasadora.

Sean called up the music control, the blue prompt glowing across his palm. With a tap from his middle finger, he turned down the cacophony and followed with the entry code for his lock.

He came out of the bathroom and stopped.

The first thing he noticed about the woman who stood inside his messy sitting area was her face. Pouty lips. High cheekbones. Big, sad eyes. Or maybe he mistook weariness for sadness. Either way, she carried a burden that her rigid posture and elegant clothes couldn't quite hide. Sean knew about burdens. He also knew about weariness and sadness.

The next thing he noticed about her was an armful of swirling purple lights. They may have been one of the most beautiful things he had seen in this world, or a virtual one. But maybe not as beautiful as her face.

"Scientist Cryer?"

He snapped his focus away from the little dots. "Sorry. They're distracting."

She looked down at the tops of her breasts which were piled high behind some black netting.

"Your tat," he said, though now that his attention had been drawn to the rest of her body, he liked what he saw there as well.

"The bio-lights certainly get me noticed."

That's not what he noticed first, but admitted her intra-tat was more mesmerizing in person than the ones he'd seen on the Media. "I'm Sean, by the way. No need for a title." His responses sounded clipped and rude, even to him.

"I've been hearing that a lot. Nice to meet you, Sean. I'd like to be one of your clients." Her gaze moved subtly from his eyes to the rest of him as she spoke.

He resisted the urge to scratch at the dark blonde stubble on his neck and pat down his disheveled hair or smooth the wrinkled shirt he wore, maybe even rub the dark circles from under his eyes. Unlike the rest of his colleagues, he hadn’t cared about his appearance for a long time. It bothered him that she made him care now.

"Why would you need to hire me?" He made his tone less severe, but still businesslike.

"David said you could reprogram my scentbots."

"You don’t like roses?" He enjoyed her soft scent, or maybe the pheromones attached to it.

"Not so much," she said.

When her gaze lingered on his face, Sean felt a twinge in his chest. Just the new doser kicking in.

"Oh, and a reporter," she added with a small smile.

He relaxed a little. "Have a seat."

"Thank you." She dropped down on his couch near a pile of shirts that had recently come back from the cleaners. Like everything else, he had just never bothered to put them away.

Sean scanned the rest of the room. Empty alcohol and drop bottles rested on the glass and stainless tables. Clothes hung from every available piece of furniture. A blanket and pillows splayed from the other couch onto the floor. A little embarrassed, he walked into the extra bedroom, the one he had converted into a tech lab. He grabbed a reporter and tried not to worry about her impression of him. She came uninvited. What did she expect?

Sean never brought clients here, no women at all for that matter. Aside from Soli and Mari, who were strictly colleagues. There were plenty of clubs and hotels when he got the urge for a tumble. His body tingled like he was getting that urge now, either from the stims running through his veins or because he was experiencing an emotional fallacy. Instant attractions often resulted in false feelings for another. That’s why when he felt this way, he usually ran in the other direction. It was the best way to avoid using bad judgment.

When he returned to the sitting room, he watched with a mix of interest and annoyance as she unfolded a couple of his shirts from the pile.

"Are all your shirts grey?" She studied the designs on each one before casually refolding them.

"Mostly. Might find a couple of blue ones in the closet."

"No black?" She looked up.

"I wouldn't want to be mistaken for a contractor," he said, only half-joking.

She stiffened at the comment. His gaze took in her black hair, making him wonder.

"You don’t like contractors?"

"Don’t know any personally," he lied.

"Neither do I."

The graphic on the shirt she held showed a blindfolded woman diving naked into a volcano, a logo for the group whose song played through his suite.

"Are you a fan?" he asked.

"Not really. The artwork just spoke to me."

Watching her carefully handle his shirts, he felt calm return, almost a warm feeling in his fingers. Usually he only found this peace by taking restor drops. Though, recently even their narcotic bliss proved evasive. It was why he had withdrawn from the others completely. Not that they would have noticed; he wasn’t exactly social to begin with. The remoteness of his personality sometimes made it tough to live in a society built upon social connections. His height of socialness was drinking enough to start a fight or two at whatever bar he found himself in.

Sean’s head felt a little fuzzy, and he fell into a trance watching the slow pulse of the intra-tat on her arm. He followed the lights from the spiral on the back of her hand, onto her wrist, where it disappeared briefly as it encircled her arm in an upward vortex, then fell over her shoulder in a swirl. His gaze continued up her slender neck and past her strong jawline to return to her lips. Maybe he crossed the line from respectful admiration to blatant ogling, but he didn’t believe in boundaries.

She, on the other hand, was a slave to boundaries because she worked for the Sovereign.

The thought reeled him in and reminded him why he didn't want her on board to begin with. She was part of the Embassy, an enemy. The ambasadora project put friendly faces to the government’s hidden politics while it manipulated its citizens. This woman represented everything he despised about the system.

Maybe she knew how much he hated the Embassy, knew of his attachment to the fragger organization. That could be why she conveniently needed her bots reprogrammed as soon as she arrived. Was there a Writ of Execution out on him, and she was thinking of cashing in?

"Do you mind?" He snatched the shirt from her hands. His tone was harsh, but didn’t contain the acid he felt in his stomach.

"I’m sorry." She lowered her gaze, and he thought he detected a slight flush on her olive cheeks.

That threw him…unless she had receptors implanted just under her skin to call the blush reflex at will. It could be very endearing, very arousing to the right man. Well, she could forget it; he wasn't the right man.

A pinch at his hip reminded him the doser was doing its job. Was it also making him paranoid? David accused him of stim-induced paranoia all the time, though Sean had never admitted his dosing to anyone. He may have done too many stims this week, but the feeling he had about her motives was more than the drugs.

"I also had another question. After watching something earlier on the Media," she said. "A woman had her lineage hijacked."

"Hijacked? Was she raped?"

Rapes were few in the system because of the societal stigma attached to having to force your advances onto another, but laws were ignored on occasion, even when the penalty was death.

"Not from the report. It sounded more like she had an adverse reaction to…irradicae that were injected to rid her body of an unwanted cyst, but they attached themselves to her ovaries as well." She fingered his shirts again.

"Why would that bother you?" he asked.

She paused. "Just imagining how she must feel, facing something like that. They said she never even found out until months later when she was going through a security scanner at the Hub." She was almost whispering now.

Something was off and it had nothing to do with the drugs in his system. "That story's a fake."

She nearly jumped out of her seat. "What?"

"Treatment with irradicae is illegal, plus you would need specialized equipment for implantation, or even detection. Only Embassy med facilities have that kind of tech. The Media airs fake stories all the time, just to get a reaction like yours, get people talking and scared."

"You're probably right," she said, though her expression said otherwise.

She seemed genuinely afraid. That sent him into a protective mode. After Bullseye, Sean became drawn to human suffering in a way only the penitent man ever can be. It messed with him, made him want to curl into himself and pretend the rest of the world didn't exist. Hard to do when it came knocking at his door.

"You have good taste in shirts." She spoke loudly, bringing them both out of their thoughts.

Did the silence bother her? Sean hated it, too. Maybe if he had a quiet mind…but his thoughts were just too loud.

He took a deep breath. "Here’s your reporter. Already programmed for the ship. Won’t take me long to program your suite codes." He pushed aside the shirts and sat down next to her. She smelled liked the garden at his childhood home.

"Are you sure you want to change your scentbots?" Gently taking her hand, he slipped the reporter on her wrist. She could have done it herself, but in spite of all his concerns, Sean wanted an excuse to touch her. He didn’t want David to be right, about the paranoia, about brooding alone, about a lot of things. That would mean Sean had lost his perspective, and he couldn’t afford that.

"Actually, I was hoping you could get rid of them altogether," she said. "I never had any before…I became an ambasadora."

She caught him looking at her, and he caught her involuntary pupil response. It made him lean in a little closer.

That could be faked too.

It shouldn’t matter if it were real. Sean refused to be ruled by those DNA sharing impulses. Yet, here he was holding her hand and close enough to kiss her, all because she seemed a little upset and looked at him a certain way.

He cleared his throat. "Ever use one of these before?"

"No."

"Easy to master." He turned her hand over palm-side up and rested the bracelet's silver node just at her pulse point. Her heart rate was a little elevated. He pressed the node to activate her reporter, but kept hold of her hand. A blue light zipped across the olive skin of her hand, a menu scrolling along it.

"Touch a finger to your palm to activate the menu." He dragged his middle finger down her palm and noticed the flurry of violet erupting on her other arm.

Damn. That was a lot better than a blush. And he was only touching her hand.

Sean’s stomach tightened as he imagined what would happen if he kissed her neck or ran his hands down her back or over her breasts. And what would it be like if he were docking her? Actually, he'd been wondering about that since he first saw her.
"What's this mean?" she asked, her voice a little breathy.

Sean realized she had leaned a little closer, too, so their heads were almost touching. He forced his gaze to a message blinking on her palm, but was acutely aware that she still looked at his face.

"There's a message waiting for you, welcoming you to the system. From someone named Rainer Varden."

"Oh." That one little word broke the spell. She pulled her hand away. "Embassy business. I should probably get back to my room and respond. Maybe we can take care of my scentbots another time?"

"Sure." He walked her to the door, telling himself it was because he wanted a final read on her.

After she left, the scent of roses remained, as did his heightened emotions.

Return to Product Description.

Ambasadora

2011-11-17T12:24:30Z

Product Description

If everyone told you love wasn't real, would you still be willing to die for it?

Sara Mendoza and Sean Cryer are.

In their multi-partner, caste-ruled society, love and jealousy are considered emotional fallacies, nothing more than fleeting moods and sentiments biased by hormones. Relationships and conceptions in this world obsessed with celebrity, beauty, and power are based on DNA and lineages...or should be. But not everyone believes in the ruling traditions of the all-powerful Embassy. A quiet rebellion prowls the dark underground of this shiny world where techno-militants calling themselves fraggers grow in numbers and bravado. The Embassy intends to silence the fragger movement before the heresy of equality spreads throughout the system.

Sara Mendoza is part of the Embassy's plan. Captured, tortured, and falsely accused of treason, she is given a chance to win back her freedom. She only needs to charm information from one of the fragger leaders, then kill him. But by the time she figures out the Embassy's intel is flawed and that Sean Cryer is her true mark, she's already in love with him.

Sean knows why Sara is on his ship from the start, but as a lonely, anti-social doser, he doesn't value his life, only his ideology within the fragger organization. Against his better judgment, he becomes her protector, each day caring more about a future he was always afraid to hope for.

Product Details

Ebook
File Size: 447 KB
Print Length: 383 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0615481124
Publisher: Union City Publishing (May 6, 2011)
Language: English
ASIN: B004ZR9WOY

Available at Amazon.com and Smashwords.

Paperback
382 pages
Publisher: Union City Publishing (June 2, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0615481124
ISBN-13: 978-0615481128
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds

Available at Amazon.com.

Review
From: NovelOpinion

Book Summary: If everyone told you love wasn’t real, would you still be willing to die for it?

Citizens of a six-moon system in our arm of the Milky Way don’t remember Earth, only the History of a generational worldship culture. In their multi-partner society a caste system rules tradition, but the governing body of the Embassy rules everything else. Obsessed with celebrity, beauty, and power, relationships and conceptions are based more on DNA than emotional ties…or should be.

What the citizenry can’t escape are the human feelings of love and jealousy that turn the sterile to honorable suicide, force a couple to make the ultimate sacrifice, and allow rebels to spin their world into a violent revolution.

Ambasadora Sara Mendoza becomes the unwilling face of this revolution. Captured, tortured, and given a second chance at freedom, she proves that sacrifice for the man she loves is more honorable than sacrifice to a society’s antiquated mores.

I just can’t say enough good things about this book and this Author! The cover and summary doesn’t do the actual story justice and I mean no offense by that. I just really expected an average Sci Fi Romance, which would have been fine because I love those. I got so much more!

There is hard science fiction, so my geeky scifi heart was content. There is great action, so my adrenaline pumped and the romance kept me yearning until the last page.

With Ambasadora, Heidi Ruby Miller creates a multi-genre read that fulfills the voracious reader in me. I just couldn’t read it fast enough and I hated reading the last page. In fact, at times I turned the page before finishing it and had to go back.

The characters are complex, which is a sticking point for me. The world-building is believable. The author doesn’t assume her readers are of lower I.Q. so doesn’t water down the science, neither does she talk over our heads. I will admit to needing some time in the opening scenes to wrap my mind around this new world but thank goodness because I love exploring new societies through reading.

I highly recommend this to Science Fiction, Action/Adventure, Fantasy and Sci Fi Romance readers!

Read a sample chapter here.

The Mystifying Tempest

2011-11-03T10:53:38Z

Product Description

Unbeknownst to Brad, Nick and Owen, that Steve was double dealing and had made a deal with Albie Merani to garner as much information about the Karmani Group as possible. Nor were they aware that he had hidden in the nearby closet and heard everything that was said.

Albie Merani surrounded by a loving family and a wonderful girlfriend, is the captain of Hamarchi Phoenix team and the head of the development team at the Manidron Research Institute, and an overall nice guy. He couldn't ask for anything more in life.

With rumors of an experimental device developed by his team reaches others, far and wide, setting off a chain-reaction full of treachery, deceit and corporate espionage. Trailed by the very group that seeks to control the instrument itself while on vacation with his family, he returns home to find that everything has changed.

A malevolent storm hovers on the horizon, jeopardizing the safety and security of those he loves. When his girlfriend disappears, Albie realizes that things have started going from bad to worse and that there’s way too much at stake. Time is running out and it’s up to him to discover the identity of the one who’s double-crossed him while trying to recover a deadly device capable of wiping out life as they knew it.

Product Details

Ebook
File Size: 625 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Language: English
ASIN: B00597RD3Q

Available at Amazon.com and Smashwords.

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Blood Skies - Sample Chapter

2011-10-25T12:38:45Z

ONE
WAR

Year 20 A.B. (After the Black)

Cross saw blood in the sky.

It was a trick of the dusk light. Thick rays of dying crimson sunshine cut through the dark vapors that hung over the battlefield and the drifts of white smoke spewed by crawling war machines. The air was a den of rumbling motors, heavy treads and great iron wheels that crushed rock and shattered bones. Cross smelled oil and exhaust.

I hate this place.

His entire body ached. Cross had slept perhaps five hours in as many days, and that sleep had been more like scattered instances of half-slumber snatched off in heaps of dirty blankets and piles of bandages that had been left discarded outside the medical bivouacs. All of his sleep had been half-filled with nightmarish images of torn bodies and children drowning in burning fuel.

Grime and filth covered his skin. Cross’ stomach ached. He was long tired of magically preserved rations and stale wine. When he ate anything beyond a slice of bread his gut twisted and his urine burned. Cross didn’t normally get sick thanks to his spirit, and that told him the problem wasn’t an infection but his own inability to adjust to a military diet there in the field.

He’d only been on the front lines of the war for two weeks.

He felt his spirit with him. She was like a slippery electric skin that hovered centimeters away from the next world, a wraith-like unguent that caressed him. He breathed her in, and while the vapor of her spectral form turned his lungs cold he felt comfortable knowing that she was there, surrounding him, a weapon and a friend. She was part of his own soul, intelligent but lost, cleaved to him and yet worlds distant. He knew her better than he knew his own sister, better than he knew himself.

Dark clouds twisted in a rot tainted wind that blew in from the east, out of the sodden wastes of Blackmarsh. Dismal fields of black mud stretched to the murky horizon, which was difficult to see beneath a sky pregnant with shadows.

Dozens of dark tents lay like the wounded across the torn landscape. Black smoke trailed in varicose lines up to a darkening sky that was the color of uncooked meat. Cross tasted salt and soot in the cold and dry air. He sat with a host of Southern Claw soldiers that he didn’t know, save for Graves, whom he’d known since boyhood. Graves fit in better than Cross did amongst the regulars of Wolf Company. Of course, Graves was a soldier, not a warlock like Cross.

Warlock. A weapon and a freak. We’re the Claw’s most valuable assets, and the closest humankind comes to matching powers with the enemy. All we have to do is burn our own souls for fuel and probably be crippled before we hit thirty.

The tent shifted in the dank wind. A host of makeshift chairs wobbled in unstable mud around a wide wooden stump they used as a game table. Cross sat with his cards clenched upside down in his hand, and he knew full and well he didn’t stand a chance.

The soldiers of Wolf Company were a sullen and dirty bunch, and they were nearly impossible to tell apart due to the black mud that was caked to their uniforms. Shotguns, assault rifles, blades and bows hung from harnesses and stood propped against iron tent poles. Dozens of packs as caked in filth as their owners sat nearby in case an alarm went up.

“Why so grim?” Graves asked.

Graves’ scars were barely visible beneath the camouflage paint, the charcoal runes, the mud and the hex soot that covered his face. Most of it had been intentionally cast across the exposed skin of every soldier to prevent catching vampiric infections or arcane diseases, but all of the paint and fluid had sluiced together over the course of days, making even the fairer skinned men look black.

“Are you serious?” Cross asked in return.

“Wow. Is your hand that bad?” As ever, it was difficult for Cross to tell whether or not Graves was being serious. He was something of a redneck bumpkin at heart, but he had plenty of field experience, having joined the front lines almost a year before Cross had. “You might as well just fold,” Graves added after he stared at the back of Cross’ cards, as if he possessed x-ray vision.

“You should listen to him,” Burke smiled. “In fact, you should both probably just give up now.” Burke was tall and broad in the shoulder, and he was both thin and muscular at once, with a chiseled face and crust of short dark hair. Graves had once joked that he looked like the lovechild of Superman and Frankenstein’s monster. “Full house.”

“That’s not possible,” Cala said. It was well known that she was the only card shark in the squad. “You can’t even spell, Burke. How do you expect us to believe you were able to put together a full house?”

“He thinks we’re playing Go Fish,” Graves laughed.

A stiff wind blew through the camp. There were fewer than thirty of them altogether. Most of them were Southern Claw soldiers, but there were also a half-dozen mages and a lonely Doj engineer named Zender, and they were all of them cramped into the scattered tents, tents as full with equipment as they were with personnel. There were sacks of blessed soil stacked high like sandbags around each of the tents, bundles of black iron rods bundled with wire, barrels of ash, boxes of pellet, ammunition, raw moon rock and sacks of hexed salt. Little of that equipment was for the soldiers, but for use by the mages. There was work to be done in the Blackmarsh…too important, Cross thought, to be handed to a bunch of young warlocks such as he.

What the hell am I doing here?

His spirit pushed against him as if in answer. The breath of her floated across his skin and filled him with living smoke. His fingers tingled, and he licked his lips to taste her electric form. He unfolded his cards onto the table. Graves, Burke, Cala, Locke and Gage all nodded their appreciation when Cross conceded the game, since he was just holding them up with his indecisiveness.

Cross knew that Gage and Cala were also on edge. A mage’s spirit was attenuated to subtle fluctuations and ebbs in the ethereal nodes of the living world. They existed in the space between the living and the dead, and it was a witch’s or warlock’s spirit that granted them a sight that pierced illusion, that could seek out known individuals over a score of miles, and that could detect hidden or unseen threats both mundane and magical. Being anchored to his spirit allowed Cross to cull bits of her shadowy essence and transform it into potent energy to create effects that humans had come to know as magic. It also meant that he was constantly exposed to the world of the dead, and that he walked with one foot perpetually in the grave.

Cross had lived with her since adolescence. He’d first known of her existence after he’d nearly died of smallpox. Even though she’d saved his live, he was still destined to die young…he’d just been given a bit more time. No one could live long when they were tied to an arcane spirit. By their very nature spirits were emotionally volatile and dangerous, lest they’d be unable to produce the energies that they did.

Cross sat back and looked at the dark tree line that marked the border of the Blackmarsh. It was difficult to tell how deep the Blackmarsh ran, but with any luck Wolf Company wouldn’t have to press in deeper than the outer perimeter, if and when their air support actually arrived. Unfortunately, in order to get close enough to set the hex rods and initiate the detonation sequence that would clear out the vampire garrison in the marsh, they had to figure out a way to contend with the acid drakes and the hellwyrms, and that was where the airships came in.

Too bad they’re about three hours late. It would have been nice to have done this before dark.

In a sane world, they would have just postponed the mission and evacuated rather than camp so close to enemy territory, but the Company had solid intelligence that a new shipment of corpses set for reanimation would be delivered to the Blackmarsh by dawn, and the garrison had to be destroyed before that happened.

“I’m out next hand, too,” Cross said, and he stood up to walk around.

“Cross,” Cala said. She was a short and stocky woman with a thin scar down one side of her face, and her dark hair was pulled back so tight it made her face seem more pale than it actually was. “Are you all right?”

“Don’t you feel it?” he asked.

“Love?” Graves laughed.

“They’re both on their period,” Burke smiled.

“Sorcery,” Gage interjected. The small, dark-skinned man wasn’t known for his sense of humor. “Weapons.” He turned and looked at the Blackmarsh. “They’re gett….”

He never finished his sentence. The first blast tore the muddy ground open and ignited the stagnant sky. Fire rippled across the mud and shallow water in an explosive wave. Heat pushed against them. Cross felt a swelling chorus of screams that tore at the tent and whipped mud across the ground. Panic welled up, and his spirit enshrouded him and covered him with an ethereal glaze.

Cross leapt back as shrapnel and explosive blades whipped towards them. Gage was lifted up into the air by the blast, and his body was shredded by a phalanx of steaming razor blades. Shadows leapt at the Company from nowhere, liquid darkness made humanoid that unfolded out of two-dimensionality. Shouts and gunfire echoed across the camp. Another chain of explosions sounded as more dark blades cut the mages apart.

The mages are the targets, was all Cross had time to think as he fell hard onto his back, his body thrown by the concussive force from the explosions. They know why we’re here.

He sees shadows that move in the trees beneath the mountain, female forms that dance in ghostly silhouette against a hard driving wind that screams from across the plains. He sees black smoke that streams off into the distance, the arcane pollution from a distant train. He sees equine shapes of shadow and jagged blades move around the edge of the forest, unsleeping sentries that hedge in the tired and withered looking humanoids who stand wet and alone in the prison of dark trees. The mountain is a massive knife that probes the tender skin of a melting crimson sky.

He looks on this, and knows that he is not supposed to see it, this forbidden place, this secret. It is the shape of things past and buried, and things still yet to come.

Cross woke to chaos. Gunfire erupted all around him. Blood and mud covered his eyes as a greasy film. His sense of direction was gone. His shaking limbs slipped in the mud as he struggled to rise. He smelled sorcery in the air, a burning cloud of caustic fumes that swept across the camp. Cross climbed up to his knees. He pulled slime and effluvia away from his eyes, and looked at the Blackmarsh.

The Ebon Cities regulars – the vampires – were coming.

The lead war machine was a shrieking monstrosity, a steamrolling juggernaut covered in chitin plates and bladed chains that dangled from its deck. The vehicle plowed through the bloody black earth. Massive red wolves and their masked vampire riders fell in line behind the machine. The riders held serrated swords and axes at the ready, and the wolves’ howls echoed into the darkening skies.

The camp was in disarray. The air support still had not come, and its delay in arrival had given the Ebon Cities regulars in the Blackmarsh plenty of time to mount an offensive. Bodies lay in bloody heaps, and thick black and red smoke billowed across Cross’ field of vision as if from a blazing hearth. Soldiers and mages shouted as they desperately tried to rally. Cross’ spirit swam around him, dizzy and angry, and through her he felt the onslaught of dire energies launched at the Company, and he sensed the presence of rebuilt Crujian war machines and dismal undead weapons fueled with stolen blood. Company cannons fired from behind him, and the cold iron shells detonated with thunderous force into the dreadnaught and the wolf riders in great explosions of fur, metal and undead flesh. Adrenaline coursed through the air, so thick it almost fell like rain.

Cross picked up his pistol. He found Graves in the crowd and made sure he was all right.

They both joined the rank of Wolf Company soldiers. They charged ahead.

Cross wasn’t ready to die. He was even less ready to die alone.

Return to Product Description.

Blood Skies

2011-10-25T12:28:18Z

Product Description

In the time after The Black, human survivors of the Southern Claw Alliance clash with vampire legions of the Ebon Cities in a constant war for survival. Earth as we know it has been forever damaged by an arcane storm that fused our world with distant realms of madness and terror. Things that once existed only in our nightmares stalk the earth.

Now, humanity is threatened by one of its own.

Eric Cross, an enlisted warlock in the Southern Claw military, is part of an elite team of soldiers and mages in pursuit of a woman known as Red -- a witch whose stolen knowledge threatens the future of the human race. The members of Viper Squad will traverse haunted forests and blighted tundra in their search for the traitor, a journey that ultimately leads them to the necropolis of Koth.

There, in that haven of renegade undead, Cross will discover the dark origins of magic, and the true meaning of sacrifice...

Experience a dark and deadly new world in the debut novel of the "Blood Skies" series from author Steven Montano.

Product Details

Ebook
File Size: 377 KB
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0615488617
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Darker Sunset Press (June 4, 2011)
Language: English
ASIN: B0054GQHIY

Available at Amazon.com and Smashwords.

Paperback
264 pages
Publisher: Darker Sunset Press (June 10, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0615488617
ISBN-13: 978-0615488615
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds

Available at Amazon.com.

Review

"Blood Skies is a grim and gritty tale set in a bleak and hopeless world. Combining elements of apocalyptic horror, urban fantasy, and military fantasy in the vein of Glen Cook and the like, it tells the story of one of the human soldiers fighting a losing war against the vampires and undead bent on ruling the shattered remnants of our world.

The action is fast and deadly. The vampires of Blood Skies aren't high schoolers who sparkle in the sunlight or who try to blend in among human society. They are ferocious animalistic killers who feel no more empathy to Man than Man does to a Big Mac. Against them are the elite forces the humans have put together to stem the tide, using the newly discovered magicks that awoke after the world changed. The protagonist is a human warlock who uses the power of the spirit he is bonded with to defend himself and his fellow soldiers against their enemies as they track one of their own, whose betrayal to the enemy threatens the precarious stalemate they've managed.

The treatment of magic in the story is a unique take on the often cliched wizards and witches in other stories. Every warlock is bonded to an otherwordly spirit and can channel their power for various uses, but the toll it takes on their bodies ensures a shortened and painful life. Steven Montano does an excellent job bringing together all of the disparate elements in a cohesive storyline that moves forward relentlessly, and at times tragically. The writing style is staccato and terse, helping to emphasize the oftentimes brutal events.

All in all, it's a train ride through a hellish landscape filled with nasty, unpleasant things. Right up my alley."

Read a sample chapter here.

Finding Fiona - Sample Chapter

2011-10-18T13:28:35Z

Chapter 1

Smoke choked her lungs and made her eyes water. The heat burned against her skin. She ran down the steps, tears streaming down her cheeks. Someone grabbed her from behind, strong arms wrapping around her torso.

She woke up gasping and coughing. Her surroundings came into focus. Salmon-colored walls. A hard bed. She was in a hospital room, not in the fire. She had escaped. Her heart pounding, she looked down at herself. She wore a hospital gown, and her arms and stomach stung with pain, though covered with clean bandages.

What had happened? Swallowing, she tried to think over the day, but all she had were blurry images that didn’t make sense. The fire was vivid in her mind, but she didn’t know how she escaped. She remembered riding in a car and bleeding from her stomach. She tried to recall how she’d started bleeding, but she faced the same maddening wall of blankness. She swore and clenched her teeth.

Her hands shook as she pushed aside the rail on the side of the bed. She needed to get out of here. She wasn’t sure why, but she had the feeling something bad was going to happen if she stayed here. Her legs were weak when she put weight on them, and she steadied herself against the bed.

She needed to find her parents. She tried to picture them in her mind, tried to recall their names, but there was a gap where they should have been. Instead, a crushing weight pressed down on her chest. She pushed aside her panic. It didn’t matter; she’d find them. It was just the shock.

An unfamiliar woman walked into the hospital room. She had wrinkles at the corner of her mouth, and her eyes widened. “You’re awake!”

She swayed, her legs nearly giving out, and the woman rushed forward to catch her arm. The woman eased her back onto the bed. “Don’t worry, it’s all right.”

The girl put her head in her hands. “I need to go.” But she didn’t remember why. Something important pressed the back of her mind, but when she reached for it, it faded.

“What’s your name?” the woman asked softly.

The girl’s eyes stung with tears, and she took a steady breath, trying to hold them back. “I don’t know.”

❊
Four months later. . .

The windows next to them took up nearly the whole wall, showing the harbor. The seagulls were just black specks in the blue sky. The water ebbed back and forth, splashing against the rocks. Fiona could see the spot where Hannah had found her four months ago. She only faintly remembered being there; she’d been floating in and out of consciousness at that point.

They’d walked along the spot with the reporter an hour ago. Fiona had hoped for some revelation, but nothing new had surfaced in her mind. The only clear memory she had of that day was driving in Hannah’s car on the way to the hospital, mumbling the name James over and over again.

She turned to Hannah and Troy, who sat across from her at the table. They sat in a restaurant with a maritime theme: a model ship dominated one wall, and comics of Popeye the Sailorman lay between the tables and the glass over them.

“This is one of my favorite places in Mystic,” Hannah said. “You know the coffee shop area used to be a dance club? It was the coolest place in town on the weekends.”

Fiona grinned. “Did you come here with your leg warmers and Ray Bans?”

Hannah laughed. “Oh, yeah. You’ve seen the pictures. I was the next Madonna.”

Fiona exchanged amused glances with Troy. “But then you became a real estate agent,” she said. She tried to imagine Hannah singing Like a Virgin. She couldn’t. Hannah was too sensible, too normal.

“The world wasn’t ready for me.” Hannah flipped her hair off her shoulder.

“Wait, I need to see those pictures,” Troy said, bumping his shoulder against Hannah’s.

“No!” Hannah shook her head. “Too much teasing material.”

“You’ll show Fiona and not me?” Troy put his hand over his heart. “That hurts, Hannah.”

“Just goes to show she likes me more,” Fiona said with a shrug. If only that were true. She had asked Hannah not to bring Troy today, but she’d insisted that he would be fun. Right. Hearing him complain the whole trip about the follow-up article with the Boston Herald was really fun. She couldn’t believe he’d actually tried to talk her out of it in front of the reporter.

Troy looked like he might respond, but Hannah cut him off, perhaps to avoid an argument. “Do you two know what you want?” she asked.

Fiona picked up her menu. “You’re the expert. What should I get?”

“Their seafood pasta is amazing. I really like their soups, too.”

The waitress came over with their drinks. She was an older woman with corkscrew curls dyed red. “Are you ready to order?”

“Not yet,” Troy said, his gaze on the menu.

“Okay, I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”

“Thank you so much, Lisa,” Hannah said, smiling.

“You know her?” Troy asked.

“I saw her name on her name tag.”

Troy smirked, shaking his head. “You’re too funny.”

Fiona studied him for a moment, trying to determine if the comment was meant to be condescending or flattering. She generally couldn’t tell with Troy.

She looked down at her menu, but didn’t want to consider all the options. Seafood pasta it was. She trusted Hannah’s judgment in food. She trusted Hannah more than anyone, really. That wasn’t saying much, considering she didn’t know many people, but even if Fiona knew hundreds, she was sure Hannah would be one of the nicest people she met. She’d taken care of Fiona, let her live with her in Boston for the last three months, supported her search for her past, and had even given her something like a normal life.

The waitress retuned a few minutes later. Troy ordered first, then Hannah. “And for your daughter?” she said, turning to Fiona.

Fiona smiled tightly. “We’re not related.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” ‘Lisa’ said. “You really look like you could be!”

“It happens all the time,” Troy said, waving a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Fiona, you wanted the seafood pasta, right?”

“Right.” Fiona pursed her lips. She didn’t mind being mistaken for Hannah’s daughter, since Hannah was the closest thing she had to a mother. Thinking of Troy as her dad made her cringe, though. He couldn’t even let her order her own food.

Once the waitress left, Hannah leaned forward and squeezed Fiona’s hand. “I’m glad we came today. Maybe someone will see that article.”

“Hopefully the right people,” Troy muttered. “You know, we could still call her and ask her not to run it.”

“It’s running,” Fiona said firmly. “Maybe a family member or a friend will see it.”

“Yeah, or someone else,” Troy said.

“This conversation sounds really familiar.”

Hannah changed the subject, and Fiona tuned them out, gazing out at the harbor. She understood where Troy’s reservations came from. She had been stabbed, and she faintly remembered being pulled into a van, so she could have even been kidnapped. She had weighed the benefits with the risks, though. If her family saw the article, it might be worth the chance of someone else seeing it. Besides, an article had run four months ago, and no one had come looking for her then.

She tried not to dwell on the fact that no one might come looking for her this time, either. She had to hold onto some kind of hope.

They ate their lunch, chatting aimlessly. Hannah redirected the conversation every time Fiona or Troy mentioned the reporter, probably to avoid an argument. Fiona was fine with that. Troy didn’t seem to understand it was her choice, not his.

Hannah had a real estate meeting at one o’clock, and Troy wanted to visit a few shops in town. Fiona told them she’d walk to the library around the block.

“Shouldn’t you stick with us?” Troy asked.

Fiona made a face. Since Hannah had a meeting, that left Fiona with Troy. “I’m okay. I’ll just hang out at the library.”

“I don’t know,” Troy said, shaking his head.

“You don’t know what? Just go do your thing.”

He looked at Hannah. “You couldn’t take her to your meeting?”

Fiona huffed. “Troy, I’m old enough to go to the library by myself for a couple hours.”

“She’ll be fine, honey,” Hannah said.

Troy’s jaw tightened. “Fine. But you have your phone, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Fiona said.

Hannah stood, looking at her watch. “My meeting should be over in an hour and a half. You want a ride, Troy?”

“Sure.” Troy got to his feet, leaving some money on the table. “Keep your phone close by, Fiona.”

Fiona gave him a thumbs up and waved as they parted ways in the parking lot. She sighed with relief when they were gone. She walked to the library and went to the computer lab. She’d planned on doing some research, but the technician told her the lab didn’t open until one. Fiona didn’t understand why they didn’t open the computers with the rest of the library.

While she waited, she perused the periodicals. She dug through the old newspapers and found they didn’t keep newspapers for longer than two weeks. At Hannah’s house in Boston, she had the local newspaper from Mystic that had the article about her: the injured girl with only fuzzy memories of her childhood, waiting for someone to claim her.

Fiona walked through the aisles of the periodicals, running her fingers over the magazines and academic journals. She loved the smell of a library: the old, dusty books, the ink and paper.

Her gaze stopped on a journal called American Physics. The title sounded familiar. A social worker had suggested she take the SATs a couple months ago to see where she was academically. The science section of the test had been, without a doubt, the easiest section for her. She even had faint memories of learning those things, of working in a lab, of running experiments. She could explain certain concepts to Hannah.

She picked up the journal and flipped through it. She grabbed the last four issues before finding a seat. Some of the articles went straight over her head; some fascinated her. Her thriller novel hadn’t been able to keep her attention, but this could. Her mind made no sense sometimes.

On the last page was a short article. The black and white photos caught Fiona’s eyes first, and she gasped. A man and a woman, smiling in individual pictures. She knew them. She’d seen them in faint memories: the man’s deep set eyes and dark hair; the woman’s warm smile and bright eyes. Fiona had tried to describe their faces when she had access to facial composition software, but the faces never came out right. Yet here they were. Her parents. Real.

She sought out the name of the authors: Richard and Fiona Normans.

That was why the name Fiona had stuck out to her—it was her mother’s name.

The headline read, Human Replication—Is It Possible?

The article was only a page long and prefaced a longer study to come in the next issue. The two had studied the possibilities of human replication for nearly two decades. They worked primarily out of their lab in New York City while trying to replicate both organic and inorganic objects. On the surface, the theory sounded impossible, but Fiona found herself nodding along to their claims.

She swallowed, looking back at their pictures. She stood up quickly and checked to make sure this was the most recent issue. She looked at her watch. Still half an hour before the computers opened. She’d have to call American Physics. Maybe they could talk to Richard and Fiona for her. Maybe they’d tell them she was alive and well. Maybe she could actually be reunited with them.

Of course, the doubt that her parents were even alive hovered in the back of her mind. She remembered being so panicked when she ran through those flames, sobbing uncontrollably. She wasn’t sure if they’d survived the fire.

She started jogging for the door. She turned the corner of an aisle and ran straight into someone, dropping the journal. “Oh, I’m so. . .” she trailed off when she saw the guy standing in front of her. He was a few inches taller than her. He had black hair, and he stared at her unabashedly.

Fiona couldn’t believe how familiar he looked: the narrow face, the golden brown eyes. She knew him.

He slowly reached down and picked up the journal. He looked at the title, then stared at her again. She clenched her hands into fists, hardly daring to hope. Could it be? Could he really be someone from her past? Why else would he be staring at her like that?

“Elizabeth?”

Recognition exploded within her. She'd been called that before; she just knew it. Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away, embarrassed. “I. . .”

“Oh, my god. Is it really you?”

“I don’t know.” Fiona’s voice shook. “Who do you think I am?”

He stared at her. “You don’t. . .you don’t remember me?”

“I recognize you. What’s your name?”

“James.”

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Finding Fiona

2011-10-18T13:17:17Z

Product Description

The victim of a brutal attack, Fiona remembers little about her life until she meets someone who claims to be from her past. He tells her that her parents were killed for a human replication machine. He's shocked to discover she's still alive since her body was found in the wreckage of the fire. She soon travels to her old home in New York to figure out what happened to her and her family. She needs to find out who she is, but more importantly, confront the men who killed her parents. This coming-of-age scifi novella is full of mystery, action, and romance. At 45,000 words or about 180 pages, this book is a perfect weekend read.

Product Details

Ebook
File Size: 206 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Language: English
ASIN: B005P44Z5W

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble and Smashwords.

Check out the author’s websites here and here.

Read a sample chapter here.

The Dream Metropolis - Sample Chapter

2011-10-12T12:08:50Z

II: Leap

Ash fell down from a hazy, overcast sky and he coated the rooftops with a gray thickness; even as the sunlight filtered in it did little to warm the air, warm the people, bring the life back. He could smell fire, an intense fire that roasted and ached and called out to everything around it hoping for solace. He opened his eyes and for a second never thought he could feel alive again. The gunshot? Completely gone, only some residual scar still freshly fading. And even though the memories were hammer strikes upon the anvil, the pain of it all had begun to recede. Had he died? Was he in the afterlife? Nothing gave him an answer.

He stood up to survey his surroundings. The building he was on top of was alone, surrounded on all sides by a thick forest. However, peering deep into their green veils he could see other buildings, like a city.

I've gotta be in some sort of park. He had no shirt on, but the pants he was wearing at the time, shredded as they were when he fled, desperate to hold on to his life, still remained, just as destroyed as before. Voices began to sing in his ears like some sort of a Capella orchestra and it made him wince, made him fall to his knees in a vain attempt to try and narrow them down. Some of them made sense, some of them didn't.

"Keep running, you fuck! You've got the shit and if they find us we're gonna be sucking' dead, bullets in our heads and all that's left'll be us... fucking dead... and... and... shit, I wanna see Maryanne."

"You clumsy motherfucker. You got us into this, think of a fucking way to get out!"

"I wish I never met you."

I want to see her too. I want to see her and slap her for letting us do this. I want to see her and choke her for not blowing our brains out right then. What kind of stupid fuck steals from a notorious coke cartel just to get a fucking fix? This stupid fuck, right here.

He could picture a man named Smoke with him, skinhead tattooed white fuck mixed with caramel filling from his Latina mother. He had the makings of a man who would do something like this, who would convince a man like Ash to do something like this too.

The gunshot still rang loud and clear, as the memories circled 'round and 'round on the go-kart rally, and he wished time could go backwards.

The sun began to brighten, then darken, and the rain came. This was his fourth day on top of the rooftop, unsure of where to go, still submerged in his memories. It was on the fourth day that he felt the skip — now he was on top of another rooftop, nowhere near a park and no trees in sight. He wracked his brain trying to figure out what happened, but resigned to just letting it be an enigma. Now, though, he was surrounded by the city, the whites and blacks and colors and people; the rush of cars and the vibrancy. It almost felt like the city was changing by the minute, evolving or getting larger or at times downsizing, and he couldn't explain why. A nascent urge began to build, though. He had to get off the building.

I wonder... can I jump? You know, to that building over there? He asked himself. Just across the way, smokestacks puffed out large quantities of smoke that never looked like smoke, more like some fantastical multi-colored exhaust that shimmered and glowed. He imagined that he could see people or creatures flying out of them, dancing into the sky.

If that can happen, I can fucking jump this building.

He took a few steps backward, closing his hands together in some sort of prayer, before running forward as fast as he could. He reached the edge and leaped, his whole body thrown into it, and he found himself flying. Not with wings, or anything, but with sheer force of will. The building veered closer and closer as his leap covered the distance. Landing with a thud upon the concrete across the way, he coughed, blood bubbling out of his mouth, but he couldn't feel the pain.

I fucking did it. I jumped a god damn building. Where the hell am I? This has to be heaven, not nowhere else. Or maybe Hell is just Heaven without limits? That'd be great. Then I could snort all the fucking coke I want, make myself soar with the gods themselves.

Standing upright and dusting himself off, he turned to look back at where he jumped from, only to find it disappear.

"Someone wanted to destroy that building, so they did." A voice behind him spoke, calm and sensual.

Ash turned immediately, fists in a ball, seconds from colliding with a female face that made him jump.

"... Maryanne? The fuck you doing here?" He asked, staring at her deep emerald eyes. His primed fist fell loosely to his side.

She brushed long strands of brown hair out of her face before saying anything more. He found his eyes wandering down her body, stopping at her breasts for a time, continuing downward, as if ogling her body was somehow reaffirming her existence.

"Like what you see, asshole?" She said, snapping her fingers, gesturing his view back upward.

"I... just didn't expect you here, that's all. You know anything else about this place you'd be willing to share?"

"Well, you're dreaming, I guess. Though you got shot and I'm kind of standing above you right now wondering if you're gonna live. You aren't in a hospital because the ambulances are backed up by traffic and there's a lotta blood. So you're... here now. And I don't know how much time you got left."

Ash looked downwards, licking his lips, trying to make sense of it all. He looked to the right, a crestfallen expression on his face.

"You know, I would have liked to at least... y'know, try some of that coke we stole."

"I don't think you'll get the chance again, Ash."

There was a brief flash of light then as an intense aurora threatened the sky and overwhelmed Ash's senses. He clutched at his chest again, feeling a burning spread and consume him. He looked at Maryanne, whose brief glance belied the sadness she felt. He sank to the ground, falling over on his side, as everything fell out of place. Sinking through time and space, the building he was in began to change and shift, and he fell through the concrete as if it were sand, the building shattering in multiple pieces. When the world came back into place, Ash was on a lone street, clutching at his chest still. A man without a face was shaking him, his head moving in a frenetic, worried manner.

"Dude, dude! We have to get the fuck outta here!" The man slapped Ash across the face.

"Smoke? What are you... what happened to your face?" He replied.

"The fuck you talkin' about, dude? You already snort summa that coke?" Smoke picked him up, then pushed him backwards.

"Fucking run, bro!"

Gunfire began to light up the empty street with its noise and Ash began to run hard and fast. His feet hit the pavement with solid thumps and whumps and when he looked down he noticed that his shoes were missing. He couldn't feel the fact that they were gone. Some of the bullets struck the sidewalk near him, and slammed into fences and mailboxes of adjacent houses. A child had come outside, hearing the noise, then fell to the ground as a bullet found its way into the kid's chest. Ash looked at the kid in passing, as the world ground to a halt.

What can I say to you? I can't... make that better. You were in the way, kid. You were just... in the way. I'm sorry, kid. I really am.

Reality pressed the gas pedal and he tore through the streets searching for any place to hide, any place to run to or any car to break into to get away from whatever men were chasing them, away from whatever guns they were firing. But when Ash turned to look back at whoever was chasing them, he saw no one. He could see the bullets bite the pavement and bite the grass but there were no guns, no men holding them. He was running from invisible men with invisible guns.

"Dude, Smoke, who the fuck are we running from!?" Ash yelled at him, his breath becoming ragged from the intense chase.

"The fuckin' drug lords man! They fuckin' found us! Are you fuckin' sure you didn't take any of the candy while I wasn't looking?!" He kept looking back at Ash, paranoid and scared as his feet sang fear among the pavement.

Ash stopped in his tracks, then, turning to face their invisible pursuers. The bullets began to get closer and closer to him, and then he felt one shoot through him. No pain, nothing, but the blood ran thick and it ran hard. He looked down, touching it, feeling it pulse and flow, but there was nothing to feel. His face grew to encompass a small grin as he rolled the liquid around between his fingers.

"Ash, Ash, you motherfucker!!" Smoke yelled in the distance, before his voice faded entirely.

He felt the presence of multiple men with their guns trained on him, but they remained invisible. They began to talk to him, winded and angry, full of all manner of definite hate.

"You can't run anymore, you stupid fuck." The secret gun fired, and punctured him right between the eyes, yet still he felt nothing, even as he fell backwards to hit the ground.

The cloaked men left him there, bullet-ridden and bleeding, and it was only then that Ash began to feel no reason to stand up. He smiled and began to laugh, looking up at the dark sky. In that looming sky, he saw himself, covered in a pool of easily spread tomato sauce.

If they left me like this, why did Maryanne say she was there with me? Is she lying to me? Maybe... maybe this is how I wanted it to end. Maybe I didn't want anyone to stand over me all sad and shit wondering if I'll wake up to a new day with a kiss and a hug.

Taking out a small ampoule of the white nirvana he had stashed away in his coat pocket, he began to dump it on top of his nose, inhaling as much as he could. The sensation, the rush, hit him faster than anything else ever did. The sky above began to jump and sizzle with electricity, large bolt arcs flashing outward. There was a new energy now, a new reason to stand up again, but he remained there, a comatose man with infinite energy.

"You stopped running, ya know?" Maryanne's voice called out from the dark.

He looked over at her, as she stood above him, hair unfurling from her head, framing her face like a picture.

"Why did I stop running? Why did I let them shoot me?"

She smiled, running a soft finger along his lips.

"Because you couldn't keep it up forever. If you found yourself free from them today, you won't tomorrow. You'll run just as much as before, but then you'll find that there's a limit to how far you can run. And I'll be left here to mourn you, and I don't wanna mourn you. Or Smoke, for that matter. You two... never could stay away from this shit..."

He reached out to her, encasing her hand in his.

"You could have stopped us. You could have... made this better. You should have been the one with the gun."

"I can't kill a man I love. I can't kill a man just because he makes stupid decisions. If I could, I would have placed a gun to your head when you were born."

Running a finger along his cheek, she sighed.

"I only wish I could make you die now, rather than slowly watch you die later."

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The Dream Metropolis

2011-10-12T11:55:30Z

Product Description

The Dream Metropolis is a science fiction novel that posits the idea of dreams becoming reality, and reality fading away into obscurity. It explores the relationship people have between their real lives and the escape that only dreams can provide.

Inspired by Inception, The Dream Metropolis delves deeper into the mechanics of dreaming, all inside of an abstract, ever-changing city of dreams. The people inside this artificial dream world see everything before them as real, even though they do not know they are dreaming of each other, of other real people.

They are part of a project that works to exploit their limitless, dreaming imagination in an attempt to separate the mind from the body forever, to create a real world inside of the mind.

Although, not everyone wants to dream forever.

Product Details

Ebook
File Size: 248 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Language: English
ASIN: B005HK8XQ6

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble and Smashwords.

Paperback
Publication Date: Sep 16 2011
ISBN/EAN13: 1466293039 / 9781466293038
Page Count: 226
Binding Type: US Trade Paper
Trim Size: 6” x 9”
Language: English

Available at Createspace.

Read a sample chapter here.

Excelsior

2011-09-12T03:28:17Z

Product Description

Put down the pen. Pick up the sword. Unleash the hero within.

Matthew spent years creating the ultimate comic hero. He never dreamed the true hero would be within himself.

Amazon.com Review

Very original, engaging, and endearing/almost touching. A very solid entry, one of a handful of the best sci-fi entries I've read. Really enjoyed this and would look forward BOTH to the development of the Semminex character and Matthew's character.

and

A quick interesting hook was a very stong element in this exerpt. It is well developed in the short time and left me wanting more. The fact that I was hooked into not one but 2 storylines already is an added bonus. I like the characters so far (not sure of the name Semminex), and the world creates was great. The author did a good job of creating a world and new words without becoming confusing or dampening the flow of reading.

Product Details

Ebook
File Size: 287 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Infinity Publishing (June 24, 2010)
Language: English
ASIN: B003TXRYAY

Available at Amazon.com.

Paperback
207 pages
Publisher: Infinity Publishing (July 30, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0741460882
ISBN-13: 978-0741460882
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces

Available at Amazon.com.

Reviews

A great read!!!, September 6, 2010
By Haldsy31 (Kindle Edition)

Excelsior is an incredibly exciting read that is tough to put down! The characters are relatable, yet also deep, so it is tough not to get pulled in. Likewise, Sirois writes with excellent style and detail, but the book is truly a page turner. It is easy to see the story come to life in your mind's eye. The author presents us with a vivid glance into a faraway world, as well as a story unfolding in our very own. Personally, this was one of the best aspects of the book. Rather than strictly creating a fantasy world to escape to, we see these two worlds colliding to create an excellent story. Shortly after opening the cover, the reader will find him/herself thrust into the action, eager to see what will transpire next.

Video trailer is here.

Author's blog is here.