C.M. Simpson's Blog, page 88

Carlie's Chapter 11 - Dear Tiger: Don't Look Back

LAST WEEK, Simone told Tiger she and Odyssey were coming to rescue him. This week, Tiger reveals he's already left, and is about to try and sneak aboard an Odyssey cruiser on his own.Chapter 11 –  Travel Plans
Dear Simone  Your message got to me too late. I’m already off-world, and I don’t’ really know where I am. Don’t worry. That’s not because anything bad has happened to me. It’s because I stowed away.Yes, I did, and it’s not as hard as you’d think. The only problem is that I don’t know where I am, because I’m still hiding. I brought along a bunch of ration bars, but water’s going to be a problem in a couple of days. Fingers crossed we’ll have reached a docking bay, by then.And what do you mean have I forgotten you? I could never forget you!I mean, we haven’t seen each other in ages, but I have your letters and some photos stored in my implant, and the memories from when our mums and dads were working on the same world, so, yeah, I’m good. I remember you. I wouldn’t forget. You should never, ever worry about that.I’m glad your parents got off Sharvin, especially as I’ve worked out that the aliens aren’t chasing me. They’re just coming through on worlds where there are really old ruins like the ones on Sharvin and Deskeden. And only that kind of ruin.I looked.There are other worlds with other ruins, ones that are different to the ones on Sharvin. Those worlds are still okay. Deskeden and Sharvin’s ruins had the archaeologists all wound up, because they were so much the same, but there was no sign of there being any kind of space travel between them.And I did some research on Tarvesh. They’ve got ruins, too. Those ones are meant to be secret, but I’ve taken to following your example, and hacking into the databases I need.I mean, how can that go wrong? After all, you’re so popular, right now.So, the ruins on Tarvesh. Yes. They’ve got the same characteristics as the ones on Sharvin and Deskeden, and guess who’s helping fund the FedExplore research? You got it: the Tarvesh Historical Consortium. It makes me wonder what they think they can gain from it, but I haven’t had the time to hack into their databases, yet.Maybe you could give it a go. You know. In your spare time.So, I feel a lot better, knowing the aliens aren’t tracking me. It means that what happened above the ruins, in the settlement on Deskeden? That wasn’t my fault. And it means that I know that what happened on Tarvesh wasn’t my fault, either—especially when the freighter terminal was built right over the dig the Consortium were doing. It’s such a relief.I mean, I kinda knew it wasn’t my fault, before, but now I really know. That doesn’t change the fact that I still feel safer out here in space.I’m going to try and sneak my way onto an Odyssey cruise liner. They’ve put out a bulletin for me, so I’m hoping their crews will recognise me, and get in touch with the people you’re talking to. You know, instead of walking me out the nearest airlock as part of the on-board entertainment… not that they would.I’m just kinda nervous, is all.I’d better go. There’s no knowing what kind of monitoring systems they’ve got on board here.Wish me luck, okay?I could really do with more of that.  Best
T.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The complete series is available as short, individual ebooks, and will become available as an omnibus, later this year. In the meantime, you can find them on this blog, until one week after the last chapter in the last book of the series has been posted, at which point this series will be taken down, and a new series serialised on site.
books2read.com/u/4Awrze
books2read.com/u/mgrxdR




















books2read.com/u/4DoG8D books2read.com/u/b5Mng1
books2read.com/u/3GYBla books2read.com/u/4782k8

Wednesday's Verse - From the Lightning to the Stone

This week’s verse moves from science-fantasy poem about alien allies to an eerie speculative piece about a dangerous journey home. It is taken from 366 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2016.
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From the Lightning to the Stone

From the lightning to the stone,
we do not walk these paths alone.
We do not walk these paths alone.
Every step is shadowed, every one.
Every one in every way,
unless we walk in light of day.
For, in light of day, we are alone.
No ghostly footsteps echo our own.
No ghostly whispers call our names.
No ghostly fingers touch our face,
so, on stormy days beware,
that the thunder in the air,
is warning you of dangers close,
who in the shade ’neath clouds all rose,
to hunt us, as on the path we walk,
from the lightning to the stone,
an essential journey,
where each step takes us home,
and where we are our weakest
to the lies that they suggest,
for in storm of life and soul
does their traitorous nature rest,
so, be aware we’re not alone,
in our journey to the stone,
but if we want our homes,
and our loved ones to greet us there,
then we must travel on,
and of the voices be aware.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------You can find the first two poetry collections at the links below - although there are plans to reissue them with more genre-appropriate covers in the future. The third collection will be released later in the year. books2read.com/u/mVLQZb books2read.com/u/bxgyLd

Tuesday's Short - Memory's Vampire

This week’s short story takes us from the urban fantasy world of pixie-dust and paranormal investigations to the urban fantasy dreamscape of a vampire hunter and her nemesis. Welcome to Memory's Vampire.
Not all vampires feed on blood. The ones we hunt take your memories before they take your life—and now they are hunting back. We’ve been compromised, and I don’t know who to trust. That comes later. Right now, I just want to make it back to my body alive.Memory's Vampire


They say it is an extinct race, a cabal of creatures that do not exist, if they ever did. Mythical is one word, legendary another, but I prefer the term ‘nightmares’. For they exist; I have seen them. I see them every night, when I am supposed to be asleep. I hunt them, for they do not just threaten the existential stuff of dreams. They threaten our very physical existence, and we cannot touch them during the day, when the sun shines bright.

The portals to their lands lie hidden deep in our waking minds. Few there are, who can travel those corridors while they are awake, and none can remain aware of the world around them when they do. It is ironic that the protectors need to be protected, even more ironic that some folk claim the vampires are a good thing, mercy killers, because there is no memory of any of the bad events have been suffered, and people die in peace. But I say they are murderers, because if you don’t remember, then you don’t remember to resist, until the memories return.

Because they will; they always do. Because memories are like blood, and, just as blood replenishes itself, so, too, do the memories grow back—if the vampires give them time.

And they rarely do, but they don’t let their victims die in peace; they feed them enough of what they’ve lost that they die in terror, torn by agonies of what might have been.
The vampires are a sadistic lot, real, but rare, and rarely seen. Tonight, though, tonight we seem to have found ourselves in the centre of a plague, the dream portal opening up in the centre of a teeming mass of the creatures, and depositing us in their midst. Fortunately, this land follows the rules of dreaming, and we are able to draw cloaks around us, so that we blend in with those already gathered.
Or I thought we did, right up until the one closest me raises its cowled head and sniffs the air.
“Prey.”
The word echoes around us like distant thunder, ominous and not quite real. I stand my ground, turning my head towards it, and then looking in the direction it’s facing. I, too, raise my head slightly, and sniff. All around me, more of the creatures do the same. We are in a world of trouble.
I take the edges of the dream, and think of matching my scent with theirs, hoping they are hunting by smell and not some other sense. It works, for me, but some of the others do not think of it in time, and they vanish from sight beneath a seething mass of teeth and claws. From some of the writhing clusters, I hear screams, from others, come the sound of frustrated vampires. I pull the flame thrower from the ether, drawing fire-resistant armour around me, so the heavy tank, hose and nozzle settle over the top, and then I drop the cloak and cowl.
I am screaming as I fire, turning slowly on the spot and frying every living vampire in range. I douse them well, and then walk through them, until I find the crowd’s unburnt edge. Setting the next row on fire, I walk through them, each step taking me towards a screaming cluster that signals another protector, but one in need of help. When this tank empties, I discard it, and draw another from the connected dreaming I have prepared.
I doubt, though, that I have prepared for this. Perhaps, between us, there will be enough.
Flamethrowers are primitive, and not selective.
I fire a short burst, aiming high and setting stooped backs alight. It is enough to make them drop their prey. I hear whimpering, but fire a second burst as the vampires straighten and turn towards me. They run, screaming, setting others alight as they flee.
Flamethrowers are more effective than any other weapon I know.
Tanser looks up at me, eyes frightened.
“Go back to the other side,” I command, but he shakes his head.
“I don’t know how,” and I remember that the vampires have learned which of our memories to steal first. This is going to be a long night.
“Follow me.”
There is nothing else he can do, if he wants to get out of here alive. I only hope there are enough of us to get the wounded out successfully.
“Give me a weapon,” he says. “I can’t draw one for myself, but I still know how to use one.”
It’s a simple request.
“You need armour,” I reply. “Show me where you keep it.”
That memory is something they will have left intact, simply because they find it funny to toy with their victims. Apparently there’s nothing funnier than a protector who knows he has gear, but can’t remember how to access it. I really hate these creatures.
Tanser lets me into his head, and I pull his armour and weapons through. Now these fiends have two of us to deal with. Together, we fry our way to the next screaming knot of vamps, and pull Halley loose. Like Tanser, she’s lost any memory of how to get out of here, or fetch her gear. When she lets me into her head, it’s a mess, but I don’t let that out where she can see it. I just pull her gear and armour through, and we make for the next cluster of vampires.
By now, there are enough flaming vampires running around that most of them are alight, or looking to evacuate. I pull more flamethrowers through for Halley and Tanser, and then switch to white phosphorous and a grenade launcher. Seems neither of them have thought of that.
“But that’s…” Halley begins, and breaks off to deal with a vampire that’s seen the launcher and doesn’t think I should have it.
Tanser says nothing, but he’s dealing with three of the critters, and is a little busy.
We pull Kandy and Jess out from the centre of the next knot. They’re in better shape than the first two, simply because they were together. Even so, we were too late for them to retain their memories of how to relocate. I’m starting to worry, as I take out more distant vamps.
I’m careful to aim near the three remaining clusters so as not to risk frying the protector buried within, and the five of us work towards the closest, as a knot of fire and the source of airborne destruction. I’m very, very relieved to see that we’re not the only ones making our way across the battlefield. At least three other protectors have managed to pull off some sort of trick to keep the vampires from attacking them. I wonder if it was the same one I invoked.
I guess I’ll find out when we deal with the last of the gathering.
This time, it’s Tanser and Halley who pull the protectors free. They’re worse off than any of the others, looking at us like we’re unknown heroes—which is disturbing, because we know each other well. I give an inward sigh, and lead them over the battlefield towards the closest team. The guy leading them looks as tired as I feel, and his four rescues have the same blank-eyed stare as my last two.
Well, damn. This ain’t gonna be good.
At least he smiles when he sees me.
“Cinders!” he shouts, and I recognise who it is, and stop.
“Who wants to see if I can get them home?” I ask, turning to my tiny pack of humanity.
Their faces show puzzlement, but I’m not going to explain why I’m not talking to Deloigt.
“Tanser,” I say, but he looks nervously around.
“Are we done here?”
I follow his gaze.
“We’re about as done as we’re going to get,” I tell him, and hear footsteps behind me.
“Del,” I say, turning to face him.
“I can’t get mine home, either,” he says, and I wonder when he’s had time to try, while succeeding in rescuing four.
“Me neither,” and this time I swear, because I didn’t even notice Kaps coming over to join us—and that kind of inattention can get us killed.
“Feels like a trap,” says Halley, and Kaps, Deloigt and I reshuffle so that our rescues are inside a triangle formed by the three of us.
“I didn’t know there were such a lot of them,” I say, giving voice to something that’s been bothering me. “We killed so many.”
“We set them alight,” Kaps corrects. “Who says they all died?”
“I saw them fall.”
“Did they go to ash?”
Actually, now that he mentions it, no. None of them went to ash. I glance around the battlefield.
There are a lotof fallen vampires out there.
“Have we everseen them go to ash?” I ask, and even I can hear the quaver in my voice.
Behind us, the rescued shift uncomfortably, and I glance back, thinking I’ll reassure them, but it’s me who needs reassuring. They don’t look right, not even Halley, and she’s the one that made me look.
“What is this?” I whisper, and then I remember: I came in here alone; there’s no way Halley, or Tanser, or Kaps, Deloigt and the others should be in here.
I don’t think past that. I don’t look back out at the battlefield to see if the ‘corpses’ are starting to rise. I don’t need to, and I don’t have time. All I have time for are a few hasty steps back, as I angle the grenade launcher down, aiming at the ground in the middle of them. That, and firing, and hoping the guardian watching my body has my back, and can pull me out of here.
Thought moves like light, or faster, because, no sooner than I’ve thought it, than I’m back in the Ops Centre, lying on the bed, grenade launcher in hand, flamethrower nozzle sticking up beside my head, from where I’ve left it resting against the wall—except that’s not right.
I raise the grenade launcher’s muzzle and fire it at the ceiling in the centre of the room, ignoring the fact that a dozen protectors and their guardians are in here with me, because it’s just not true, not any of it. It can’t be.
I’ve screwed my eyes tight closed against the flare of phoz going off over my head, but I’m not afraid; I know it won’t burn. I wait, but the expected flash of light doesn’t come, so I open my eyes again, and, this time, I’m alone. I wonder where my defender is, my guardian, the one who should be keeping me safe while I sleep, and I scramble into a sitting position, remembering my fight with Deloigt.
“The guardians can’t be trusted,” he’d said, and I’d been furious.
“Your guardian in particular,” he’d added, going on before I could shut him up. “They’ve been compromised.”
“Compromised?” I’d managed, because that was all I’d been able to get out without shouting.
“In their dreams,” he said. “They protect us while we fight, but no-one watches over them while they sleep. It’s stupid when you think about it. Everyone knows wecan’t be gotten to when we sleep, but no-one’s thought to check that the guardians are built the same way.”
Built. That word echoes with significance for me. Deloigt has built a castle for his guardian, somewhere he can take him, once he falls asleep. Deloigt meets his guardian at the edge of sleep, and guides him to safety. I haven’t been doing the same for mine.
“Mina,” I whisper, but she does not reply, and that’s when I realise I haven’t heard from her for a while. “Mina?”
The voice that greets me from the dark is totally unexpected.
“She’s here,” it says. “We’ve been having tea.”
Tea. It sounds so civilised, except the voice is familiar, and not in a good way. I struggle to remember the vampire’s name, am horrified to find I can’t.
“You can come and join us if you wish.”
But Mina had been standing beside me when I’d gone into the dream realm. How could she be here? Why would she be having tea with… with… I struggle to find the memory, but only find its shadow.
“Give it back!” I command, and the vampire laughs across the dark.
“You know I can’t do that,” it says. “Besides, it was delicious.”
The reply makes me feel sick to the stomach.
“How many have you taken?” I ask.
I’d like to sound strong, but I sound like I’m in shock, which is about right. The vampire ignores how I feel, but answers from the dark.
“Not as many as I’m going to,” and that’s when I realise I am alone, that the vampire has only been able to eat one memory, or very few, that somehow my mind isn’t being devoured, even if he’d like to.
“Won’t you join us for tea?” it asks, sounding mildly plaintive.
I’m surprised when Mina’s voice joins in.
“Please, Cindy. It’s ever so lonely without you.”
Ah, yeah, I just bet it is.
“Where are you?” I ask, looking properly around, for the first time.
I’m not in a forest glade. That’s a bit of a shock, since I should be.
Actually, I’m not sure where I am, given there’s no light. I can feel grass beneath me, and tree bark at my back—and the puzzling scent of roses and lavender in the air. I look up, but the tree’s shadow is deep, deeper than the night-dark I can see at its edges. I wonder why the vampire can’t find me in here.
“Cindy.” Mina, again. “Cindy. Where are you?”
She sounds impatient, and I wonder why.
“Yes, Cindy,” the vampire echoes. “Where?”
“I don’t know.” I answer, before I can stop myself, and I see the wisdom of whoever put me here.
Usually vampire compulsion cannot touch me, but that thing has fed off my memories, left its hooks inside my head. I decide that maybe I’ll wait for dawn; it can’t be far away, even if time flows differently in the dreaming realm.
I open my eyes, my real ones this time, and find myself still sitting at the base of an enormous tree, with grass beneath me, and bark at my back. That, at least, is reassuring. I think about pushing to my feet, and walking out from the tree-shade to take a look at the stars—the stars would tell me where I was—but I decide against it. As long as I don’t know where I am, the vampire can’t know, either. I wonder where Mina is, as their voices come whispering out of the dark.
“Why don’tyou take a look at the stars?”
“How can I protect you if I don’t know where you are?”
I want to tell Mina that she hasn’t done such a good job of protecting me, as it is—and why, in the Heavens’ name would she be having tea with a vampire?
The vampire laughs.
“Tea, indeed,” it says, and I hear Mina gasp.
The gasp is quickly followed by a moan, and the vampire laughs, again, as the sounds Mina makes leave little to the imagination.
“Tea is one word for it.”
I put my hands over my ears. Deloigt was right about the guardians—a happy shriek pierces the night inside my head—well, my guardian, at least. They are well and truly compromised, and I don’t think Mina’s coming back from this. I wonder if memory vampires create other memory vampires, if they drain a person’s mind completely.
“Would you like to find out?” the vampire asks.
“No,” I say. “No, not at all.”
It’s silent, like it’s thinking about it, and then it sighs.
“No? Well, perhaps not yet.”
Mina cries out, less in pleasure and more in pain, but the vampire remains silent.
“Please, don’t,” I say. “Don’t.”
And Mina whimpers, before giving a long, satisfied sigh.
For a long moment, there is silence in the darkness, and I look out at the night beyond the shade. I hope dawn isn’t far away. Inside my head, I feel the vampire’s interest sharpen, and realise that the darkness is turning to grey, that its depth is explained by the walls I can see rising at the far end of a garden.
I close my eyes, not wanting to see more. I can feel the vampire willing them open, and then Deloigt’s voice intrudes.
“Let it see,” he says, and my eyes are open before I can stop them.
“Keep watching,” Deloigt instructs, and, this time, it is the vampire who doesn’t want to see.
I smile, and I study the garden beyond, extra hard. If the vampire doesn’t want to do it, then it must be done. I stare, focussing on the growing detail beyond the tree’s shadow. Inside my head, the vampire tries to turn away, but I can see a fountain, and a white, gravel path leading between the dark pink blooms of well-tended rose bushes.
A headache blooms behind my eyes, and my skull threatens to crack open, but I keep staring at the fountain, as the vampire starts to scream. Mina screams, too, and, suddenly, they are both there, the vampire standing in front of the fountain, with Mina in his arms. Two of them, in the garden, in front of the fountain, as the sun rises above the castle wall, and bathes the place in light.
It’s a good thing that memory vampires share that one vulnerability with their blood-drinking cousins, or I might have been in trouble. I watch as the monster explodes into a pillar of rapidly dissipating ash, and Mina starts to fall.
For a minute, I feel both alarmed and relieved, and then, with one final shriek, Mina’s body vanishes, as well, and my shout of horror mingles with hers.
“Damn,” Deloigt says, coming out from behind the tree, to wrap an arm around my shoulders and help me to my feet. “I was hoping we’d gotten to you both in time.”
I sag against him, not sure if I want to faint, throw up, or cry. Mostly, I’m feeling hollow.
Together, we walk to where the ash stains the whiteness of the path, watching as it swirls and disappears on a light morning breeze. When I stop, he stops beside me, but he waits until I find the words for speech.
“How many more?” I ask.
“You’re the last,” he replies, and I turn towards him in shock.
“You and Mina were the strongest,” he says. “I figured you’d hold out the longest.”
We both glance back at Mina’s disappearing remains.
“I’m sorry I was wrong.”
“Not entirely,” I say, and stop, looking at his face.
It takes me a moment to voice the suddenly emergent fear.
“Or is it too late for me, as well?”
He hugs me tight, and I wait, unsure if he’s actually hugging me, or preparing to drive a stake into my chest. It’s a very long moment, before he holds me at arm’s length and looks into my eyes.
“This time,” he says, “we made it.”
His eyes cloud, and I think I catch the tell-tale sparkle of tears forming, but he turns away. I barely catch his words as he heads out from under the tree.
“But it was close. Far too close.”
For who? I wonder, as I follow him into the light, and then I wonder if he’ll ever let me find out.
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Memory's Vampire is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/mdNJnd.
You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?

Carlie's Chapter 10 - Dear Tiger: Don't Look Back

LAST WEEK, Tiger revealed someone had tried to assassinate him. This week, Simone tells him Odyssey are coming for him, and she's coming with them.Chapter 10 – I'm Coming
Dear Tiger
Oh no! Of course, they didn’t come after you. They wouldn’t. I asked them nicely, and then I wormed my way into each of their heads and made sure they were telling the truth.I was in so much trouble, until I explained myself… and even then.I’m not exactly popular, right now.But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are safe and that I know Odyssey didn’t send anybody after you to hurt you. As a matter of fact, I don’t think they’ve sent anyone after you at all.They will, now, though.
And I mean that in a good way.They said to tell you, they’ll have someone on-world inside two rotations. (I’m not sure what ‘rotations’ means, so I’m going to assume it means a day cycle and a night cycle, if the world you’re on has them.) I’m only hoping that they mean two of your rotations, and not somewhere else’s.Hang on, Tiger.They’re coming.And I’m coming, too. I told them I had to, and that I had to bring my mum and dad with me so you’d know it was safe to come out of hiding. I told them it would be better for them to take along someone you knew, rather than expect you to trust a perfect stranger—and you know me, right?I mean, you haven’t forgotten me, have you?I still look the same.And my mum and dad, you remember them, don’t you? I’ve seen the pictures Odyssey took of them when they smuggled them off Sharvin, and they don’t look different to the last time our parents worked together.Unfortunately, they couldn’t get everyone off Sharvin. They only rescued my folks—and they’re still looking for proof that FedExplore are doing anything wrong on the world.They’re in a better position to do that, now, though. My mum brought out several data sticks’ worth of messages that were sent, but which never left the server.Guess I know where I got my criminal tendencies from, hey? Because I don’t think she asked for FedExplore’s permission, before she rifled through their data.In fact, I think she’s kind of mad at them, which evens things out, because they are plenty mad at her. Last time I spoke to Odyssey, they said my parents were meeting with one of their top legal teams to discuss how they were going to keep FedExplore from pressing charges.I don’t even want to think what that might entail, but I have to admit, I’m worried.So, there you go. Odyssey is coming, and I am coming, too.Hold on, Tiges. We’ll be there, soon.
Love,
Simone.
P.S. Odyssey are trying to work out what to do about the facility that Marrietta and the others were taken to. Good news, right?
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The complete series is available as short, individual ebooks, and will become available as an omnibus, later this year. In the meantime, you can find them on this blog, until one week after the last chapter in the last book of the series has been posted, at which point this series will be taken down, and a new series serialised on site.
books2read.com/u/4Awrze
books2read.com/u/mgrxdR




















books2read.com/u/4DoG8D books2read.com/u/b5Mng1
books2read.com/u/3GYBla books2read.com/u/4782k8

Wednesday's Verse - Winged Salvation

This week’s verse moves from a science fiction poem about colony oversight to a science-fantasy poem about alien allies. It is taken from Another 365 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2019.
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Winged Salvation

Long-lived, the Rogel call

Their voices echo from the sky

Migration has arrived.



And we are waiting for their call,

for their wingbeats’ rise and fall.



The Rogel shine so bright

we can see them in darkest night

Their eerie song delights



We rush to meet them on the sands

For between us and death they stand



Our shining armoured knights

they swords of lightning wield for us

Driving away the shades



Our foes from landing’s dawn when we

first came between the shadows and the sea.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------You can find the first two poetry collections at the links below - although there are plans to reissue them with more genre-appropriate covers in the future. The third collection will be released later in the year. books2read.com/u/mVLQZb books2read.com/u/bxgyLd

Tuesday's Short - Memory's Return

This week’s short story takes us from the creation of a science fiction vigilante to the urban fantasy world of pixie-dust crime and paranormal investigation. Welcome to Memory's Return.
I don’t remember how I got in the alley, at least, not when I first wake up—and I don’t remember the names of these friendly faces making sure I’m okay, but it’s coming back. I just wish it would come back faster, because one of these faces is all kinds of wrong underneath the friendly veneer, with an agenda all their own, and they don’t mind putting my team in danger. If I don’t remember the whos and whats and whys real soon, one, or all, of us is going to end up dead, and who’s going to save the pixies then?Memory's Return


Hands caressed me in the dark, strong hands, narrow fingered and callous palmed, but gentle.

“She’ll live.”
And I realised the hands had not been caressing me, so much as checking for injuries, and it was dark because my eyes were closed. A finger lifted one of my eyelids, and I caught sight of a blurry face.
“You back?” the same voice asked, and my eye was allowed to close, again.
“Sure,” I said, and my voice sounded like I’d been breathing night club smoke and singing at the top of my lungs all night.
Actually, that sounded right, and also kinda wrong. I didn’t go to nightclubs. Never… ever… oh wait a minute. I sat up, and wrapped my arms around my knees, forcing my eyes to open as I did so. Smokey smell, minor injuries, smoke-scalded throat, and bruised. I rested my chin on my knees, and watched as my friends and colleagues shuffled around into view.
“We didn’t stop them, did we?” I asked, and, even to me, my voice sounded bleak.
I didn’t care. My voice matched my mood, crashing depression, an inexorable sense of loss. I wish I could explain why… or maybe not. Maybe that last feeling was something I needed to explore on my own. Yeah, definitely maybe.
I stared at the half circle of solemn faces in front of me, and tried to put names to them. The dark one right in front of me, the one belonging to the guy holding me by both shoulders, that face was one I really should remember. I stared at him, feeling my eyebrows coming together in a frown as I tried to place him.
His dark eyes stared back into mine. They were brown, a brown so dark it was almost black. I loved those eyes… and that brought back another association: those hands—narrow fingered, callous palmed, and gentle, so very, very gentle. I reached out and touched my fingertips to his cheek.
“I love you,” I said, and his eyes widened in utter, terrible surprise.
His reaction made me wonder, as I watched the expressions crossing his face, I identified fear, wonder, sheer delight, and unspoken horror. It made me want to laugh and cry and apologise all at once—and, judging from the reactions of those around us, we weren’t alone.
I took my hand away from his cheek, and wrapped it back around my knees. I kept staring, frowning harder as I tried to rediscover his name—and maybe something more, like what he was when he wasn’t rescuing damsels in distress, or confusing the hell out of me.
“Hey, Oni, you okay?”
I saw his mouth move, heard the words come out, and the world shuddered.
I saw him see the shudder cross my face, and then watched as he glanced back over his shoulder. Not only that, but the blonde to his left, and the red-head beside the blonde, also looked over their shoulders. To the right of him, the mousy guy and the albino one also looked back.
Oh shit. It wasn’t just me.
And all of a sudden, they scattered. Dark Eyes and the red-head reached back and grabbed me, yanking me in two different directions, before deciding to follow the mousy guy into the shadow of a doorstop. I saw the blonde and the albino one make another doorstop on the other side of the street I’d been lying in, and then the wind hit.
The wind, like a solid wall, sweeping the street clean, hurling rubbish before it. I saw a dumpster fly past, and a motorcycle, watched as a car slid past, metal screaming against the bitumen. I saw humans… bits of humans follow, and then the sound came.
It didn’t howl, or roar; it was just loud, pure unadulterated loud. It defied description. I knew what this was, but I couldn’t name it. Couldn’t name it, like I couldn’t name the beautiful man holding me safe, or his red-headed companion.
None of us moved, when it stopped. We sat, braced in the doorway, trying to remember how to breathe.
“What the hell did you do?” the beautiful man asked.
“Yeah, babe,” the red-head repeated. “Just what did you do?”
Babe? I looked across at him, and then stood, took a couple steps into the scoured street, where I let my legs fold beneath me. When I had wrapped my arms around my knees once more, I went back to staring. This time I was staring at him.
Babe. It felt uncomfortable, and kinda right, all at once. So, who was he?
This time both men were looking at me strangely, as they crouched in front of me.
“You remember the mission?” the dark one asked.
And I nodded. Of course, I remembered the mission: infiltrate the nightclub, find out where they were holding the pixies, plant the tracer, and get back out. Maybe get a map of the place while I was at it. I certainly hadn’t been told to dance my way as close to the stage as I could because I was under close surveillance by two of the goons, get dragged into a bit of impromptu karaoke with the leader of the band we were pretty sure was into the dust distribution trade, orto get blown up and almost burned alive when something went wrong in the dust distillery in the basement.
Basement. I giggled. We were in Australia, and I’d found a basement… in Canberra… in a suburban night club. Basement… That was important, but I couldn’t remember why.
“Why can’t I remember?” I whispered.
“I thought you said you did?” deep, dark and sexy said.
“The mission. I remember the mission, but I don’t know why the basement is important.”
“What basement?” Red was onto that like a fly on shit.
Ah, that’swhy it was important. My team hadn’t known about the basement.
My team. I looked again at the faces gathering around me.
“Team,” I said, looking at each one, and they suddenly grew tense.
“Oni?’ Tall-Dark again. “You okay?”
“What can’t you remember?” Red, demanding, to the point.
Trust Red to get to the point. Always Red.
“We need to get back,” I said, pushing to my feet.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Red again, obstreperous as usual, giving me a shove that set me back on my butt. “We’re not going anywhere, until you spill.”
I tried for innocent.
“Spill what?”
“What can’t you remember?”
I looked at them again, each of them, one at a time. I tried really hard to put names to those faces, to remember anything at all about the people I’d spent the last two years working with. Two years? Yes! I felt a grin stretch my face.
“What?” Red sounded exasperated.
“We’ve been working together for two years,” I said, and then my gaze fell on the albino. “Except for him. He’s only been with us for two months.”
Ha! Another new fact. Except that Red didn’t seem too impressed.
“You can’t remember us, can you?” he asked, and I shook my head. “Not a single thing?”
I shook my head again.
“Then how do you know we’re the right people?”
Oh no, he wasn’t getting it that easy.
“Look!” I said, and I managed to sound even crankier than I felt. “I remember we’re on the same team, we’ve been working together for two years, and spent the last six months on this case. I remember we were pretty close to breaking it, and the only way was for me to go into the night club.”
I stopped. Other things were clicking into place in my head.
“And things have been going wrong with the investigation for around two months.”
The Albino looked horrified, like he expected me to start pointing the finger at him, but I didn’t, even if Tall-Dark, Red, Blondie and The Mouse all turned their heads to give him a good hard look.
“And then I went dancing, alone… because you”—and here I turned, and pointed at Tall-Dark—“absolutely refused to let The Mouse, here, go dancing with me.”
“He’s not the type,” Tall-Dark protested, but he didn’t know I could see right through him.
“Like you know,” The Mouse muttered, and Blondie giggled.
I ignored them and got on with it.
“Anyway, I went dancing. My cover was suspect, because I had to dance with some of the club stooges we’ve been following, and then Kyrios looked out from the stage and called me up to do a duet duelling thing, and that went just fine, apart from the strange smell that started seeping up from under the stage, which was right before things went boom.”
“You were on the stage?” Tall-Dark had gone a funny shade of grey.
I glanced around at the others and they weren’t looking too crash hot, either.
“What?” I asked, and Blondie started to fidget.
I zone in on her.
“What?” and it wasn’t really a question, more a demand, and a shout, and I’m not known for either.
“It’s just that there’s nothing left of the stage,” Mouse replied —and then he glanced back at the direction the wind and noise had come from. “Nothing much left of the club, now, either.”
“That was the club?” I asked, and we all knew I was talking about the wall of wind and sound.
“Crap!” I said, remembering. “We’d better look for survivors.”
Which took us pretty much to midday, and then the paperwork had us all working back. My memory returned, in bits and pieces, and it wasn’t pretty, or real forgiving. There’s a reason I can’t be in love with Tall-Dark—his name is Dylan, by the way. I can’t be in love with him because I’m his boss, which is why we’ve been having a quiet affair, all on our lonesome, on the side.
And by affair, I don’t mean either of us are married; I just mean it’s quiet and on the sly, and not meant to be public knowledge with the rest of the team. Well, I really blew that one, didn’t I? At least, I know what the looks on their faces meant. Realising it, I called a temporary halt to my typing and headed for the staff coffee room. It took him a minute, and then Dylan followed me. I knewthe move was noted by the rest of the team, but I didn’t care.
“Well, I guess that secret’s out,” he said, coming to stand beside me, as we spooned instant and sugar into our cups.
“Eyup,” I said, and leant up to kiss his cheek.
I watched as he smiled, and then he said, “I guess that means I can do this, now, hey?”
He turned to face me and kissed me full on the lips. I didn’t need any encouragement to kiss him right back, either. There was a school-kid round of ‘oooh’ from the doorway, and we broke apart, laughing—talk about caught in the act. When they had our full attention, Blondie sashayed into the room, the rest of the team on her heels.
Blondie’s real name is Diana, just so you know, and she was really kinda sweet—unless you went around keeping secrets from her, like Tall-Dark-Dylan and I. She was waggling her cup by the handle, as she approached, so we cleared a space for her to get to the coffee, and lined up at the urn, while she made her brew, then we fled ahead of her for milk, or, at least, I did.
I like mine light and creamy. Tall-Dark likes his black. We took our cups back out to the office, and set back to work. I remembered to put in a recommendation for Tall-Dark to join another team, or to head up another one. There was a vacancy or two in the squad, and he could fill any one of them easy. I emailed that request, right after my report on the night-club explosion. Officially, I’ve been on duty since midnight. There was one more report to type, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
I got started on that one, making sure to lock it down access-wise. No way, did I want this beastie free and easy out on the range. It’s not for public consumption. The team is down enough as it is, but they seem to have forgotten my mention of things going wrong in the last coupla months. Just as I started into it, Blondie gave a whoop.
“Gotcha!” she cried, banging on the keyboard, and then charging over to the printer just as it fired up.
“Got what?” Red wanted to know, and I felt a frisson of unease.
You see, I’d remembered why ‘Babe’ sounded so right coming out of his mouth, and that was because we’d been dating a while back, way before Tall-Dark and I developed a thing, and not the cause of it. Tall-Dark and I had been sneaking around together for a few months before we started to have suspicions about things going wrong.
We both figured The Albino was just a convenient excuse. He was new, and he was being set up. The thing was, neither Tall-Dark nor I could figure out why.
Well, since having the night-club stage blown away beneath me, I was beginning to have a fair idea. It wasn’t exactly that things were going wrong because we had a plant from some dust syndicate. Quite the opposite, in fact, since the person who was busy seeing us screw up, was doing it because he wanted the syndicate to go down, in a worse way than the law would allow, and he didn’t want to get caught doing it, or to let his job get in the way.
Tall-Dark and I hadn’t been able to narrow the mishaps down to a particular information set, but we had been able to narrow it down to a person who’d had access to all the information sets—someone who stuck his nose into everything everyone on the team was doing.
It would have been easy to blame it on The Albino, who was learning the ropes, and who didtalk to every member the team, but he hadn’t had access to everything. Tall-Dark and I had made damn sure of that. We’d had the team members fill out training sheets for their performance reports, and we’d had The Albino fill one out, too. By cross-referencing the two sets, we’d narrowed out vengeful traitor down to one of two people—Blondie or Red.
They were both at the printer, Blondie excitedly sharing her latest puzzle piece with Red, who was doing his usual thing of connecting the dots. I was pretty surprised when The Mouse packed up his desk, signed out of his computer, and headed for the door.
“What?” he asked, when we all turned and looked at him… and then he yawned. “I’ve been on duty since eleven, and I’m going home to bed.”
He’d been in the surveillance car, while I’d been singing my throat raw. I’d forgotten to debrief him, but I figured I could do that tomorrow. The poor guy looked beat.
“You want me to drive you?” Tall-Dark was already acting like a team leader.
Actually, he’d been doing that for a while, now, so it didn’t matter that we’d been sprung—I’d have had to let him go, soon, anyway. The Mouse brushed away his offer, though.
“I’m catching the bus,” he said. “Always do. I’ll be fine.”
He caught the bus? And I’d thought he drove to work every day. It struck me, then, that I really didn’t know a lot about The Mouse, but he was gone, before I could think of an excuse to walk him to the stop. I shrugged, and went back to the report, thinking that, suddenly, things didn’t seem quite as straight forward as they had before. After all, The Mouse had been in easy earshot of the copier conversation.
Blondie went back to her desk, copy paper clasped tightly in one hand. She brought up her screen again, and began typing furiously, stopping occasionally to make notes on the papers she’d just printed. I worked on the report, aware that Tall-Dark was keeping a close eye on me. He had just started checking his watch in the most obvious way possible, when Blondie bounced out of her chair, and came over to my desk.
I shut down the screen and turned to see what she’d found.
“I’ve got a warehouse,” she said, and she was beaming.
A warehouse was exactly what we needed, and she knew it.
“Where?”
“Up by Old Palmerville, where the CSIRO used to be.”
“What are our chances of getting to this one without it blowing up?” I asked, seeing my chances at sleep vanishing at a rapid rate of knots. No wonder The Mouse had hit the door so fast. I guess he’d known what was coming.
“Well, we need to get someone out there to check it out,” Blondie began. She glanced over at The Albino. “It’d be the perfect job for Deloit, there, to cut his teeth on.”
“Not on his own.” Red was quick to protest, and I wondered when he’d ever started to care about someone apart from himself. He must have caught my thought, because he continued, with, “Someone should go with him, in case things go pear-shaped.”
“Thanks for volunteering,” I said, and Red’s jaw dropped, almost like he hadn’t seen it coming. Hell, the man had surely worked with me long enough to know exactly how I’d react, right? I kept going before he could protest. “I’m out of hours. I’ll catch four in the bunk room, and then come relieve you.”
I avoided Dylan’s eyes, when I said this. We both knew sending the Albino out with Red was like giving the hen to the fox. I looked over at Blondie, who looked like she was going to have a melt-down; it was her clue, after all.
“I want you to see what you can find out about the place. Plans, if they still exist. Any recent security. Traffic cams”—not that we were likely to have any luck with that one—“Check for an increase in activity at the Gold Creek Maccas. It might give us a clue. And at the pub. I’m pretty sure there’s one of those nearby. Any new road works, walking tracks. See what comes up from the traffic copter overflights, yeah?”
Blondie settled back down to her computer. She was the best person for this job, and she knew it. I was glad she’d figured out I wasn’t keeping her out of the loop. She was gonna be mighty pissed when she found out, just how bad Dylan and I hadkept her in the dark.
I shut down my terminal, and pushed back my chair, taking the time to glare at Red as I stood.
“Why are you still here?” I asked. “Get the details from Blondie, and get your tails out to the site. If we’re gonna hit it tonight, I want some intel. You think you and the kid can handle it?”
Given he’d been the one to tell me the Albino shouldn’t do it on his own, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t protest. The pair of them was heading for Dianne’s desk, as I headed for the staff showers and the bunk room. Good thing, I kept a spare set of clothes here.
Actually, I kept several; this place was my now my home away from home. Nature of the job; I was glad I’d found a guy who could understand that. And speaking of which…
Dylan had followed me out of the staff room. He was leaning against the wall next to my bunk, when I got back from the showers.
“You know what you’re doing, right?” he asked, and I glanced past him, making sure the hall was clear, as I walked into the room.
“Sure do,” I said, sitting on the bunk. “You get any sleep last night?”
“Right up until Shay said you’d gone into the nightclub alone… through the back door…”
Shay. The Mouse. Right. He’d seemed pretty sure something was going to happen, and he hadn’t been able to get a hold of Blakeney.”
Shay—The Mouse. Blakeney—Red. I made the translations in my head, not wanting to tell Dylan I had a whole new way of thinking about the team, since I’d temporarily forgotten their names.
“So, you’re out of time, too, huh?”
Dylan shrugged.
“The whole team is,” he said. “None of us should be going out tonight.”
“But we’ll miss the bust!” I protested.
“We could hand it over to another team.”
“We don’t haveanother team!”
“Yeah. So… Are you really?”
“Am I really what?”
“Planning on going to sleep.”
I’d been wondering when he’d pick up on the fact I was wearing night cam and still in my boots.
“After the warehouse.”
“You think the kid will be okay?”
“Nope, but I need Dianne’s data, and we need to cut her in.”
“Agreed.”
We headed back to the office, but Blondie wasn’t at her desk. She’d left a note on mine.
Had to go. Shay says he thinks the kid’s in trouble, and we need to talk to Red.
Had to go. I had that sinking feeling we all get just as our world goes to pieces. I handed the note to Tall-Dark, and headed for the door. Halfway there, I realised I’d left behind my gear. Maybe I was too tired to be doing this.
I turned back to get my stuff, just in time to catch the vest, Dylan tossed at me. The keys to our car were dangling from his teeth, and he was carrying the rest of what I’d left behind. He was also talking to someone over a head comms—probably the team. I caught the head set he tossed me, after I’d shrugged on the vest. Yeah. He was going to make a great team leader. And I was kinda miffed about losing him.
We made it, in double-quick time, to where Shay had parked his car—caught a bus, my ass! Dylan knew a back way onto the old CSIRO grounds, and we were hoping it was something Blondie hadn’t had time to tell the team about. Our luck wasn’t holding that well.
Dylan pulled up under a stand of pines, sans headlights, and we got out, night goggles in place. He still hadn’t been able to raise Blondie, or The Mouse, or any of the rest of the team, but he said he had back-up on the way.
Back-up, hey? I liked the sound of that.
I liked it even more, about ten seconds later, as a half dozen black-suited figures stepped out from the pine shadows.
“Not a muscle,” one ordered, her voice as close to a growl as I’ve heard coming from a human throat.
I slowly raised my hands. I had two guns pointed at my chest, could see the third one in the speaker’s grip. Behind me, from the other side of the car, I could hear more of them closing in on Dylan. Well, damn! This was one short-lived raid.
“P.O.S.?” we were asked, after a fifteen minute hike into the warehouse.
Don’t ask me which way we’d come; the dust runners had blindfolded us, just as soon as they’d disarmed us. And none of us were happy.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Small team for an op like this.”
I glared at Blondie, Mouse, and the Albino. The Albino looked mortified, and a little bit defiant, but neither the Mouse nor Blondie would meet my eye. They knew they were in it—but deep.
“Some of us went off half-cocked.”
What I really wanted to know was where Red had ended up… and if Tall-Dark’s back-up was going to arrive anytime soon. I didn’t dare ask him, and he was giving nothing away. Our captors turned away, going right back to work. The fact they’d stuck us in the warehouse proper, where we could see the still, the pixies, and the cauldrons they were going to cook the little creatures down in, was not a good sign. If Red or Dylan’s help didn’t arrive soon, we were all dead.
I experimented with the handcuffs around my wrists, but all I succeeded in doing was making them rattle against the bollard and chain they’d been attached to. That earned me a swift look, a double check of the cuffs, and a slap upside the head.
“Don’t.”
That instruction told me all I needed to know. It was delivered without rancour or rage. There was nothing personal in the cuff check, or the slap. What we saw, or didn’t, didn’t matter. Our fates were already set; we were dead.
I glanced over at Dylan, but he gave no sign he’d seen, or understood the meaning of it. I looked across at Blondie, who was cuffed to a row of bollards opposite. She was frowning, and I knew she was onto the implications. The Albino, cuffed next to her was looking worried. He knew it was bad, just not exactly how bad, so of course he was thinking the worst.
Poor kid. I wished I could reassure him, but the worst was about the size of it. Mouse was sitting, propped up against the bollard beside The Albino, his legs stretched out in front of him, his head tilted slightly back, eyes closed. If I hadn’t known him better, I’da thought he was catching a few zees, but that wasn’t like him.
He was either unconscious, aping sleep, or dead. I stared at The Mouse a little harder, holding my breath, until I saw his chest rise and fall. Even then, I watched it do that another two or three times, before I relaxed. He was waiting, conserving his energy for whatever chance he had. I decided to keep an eye on what was going on. The least I could do was see the danger coming.
I watched as dust runners tatted up like bikers, hefted boxes and carried them over to where these great, metal cauldrons were all lined up in a row. And then I watched as each one of them gave the box he was carrying a series of hard shakes designed to disorient or concuss any pixie inside. These guys knew what they were doing all right.
The bikers worked in teams. When the boxes they were holding had been well-shaken, one of them lifted the lid to the cauldron, and the one right behind him upended the box over the top. I caught glimpses of glittering wings and tiny bodies tumbling into each pot. The biker holding the lid kept a close eye on the contents of the pot, standing ready to slam the lid down, the minute any of their victims showed signs of escaping.
None of them did, and I watched box, after box, after box, carried, shaken, and tipped, before being tossed into a growing pile at the end of the warehouse. It made me feel sick. I took a good look around, taking note of how many workers, how many boxes, and the size of this particular still. It was one of the most professional operations I’d ever seen—and one of the largest.
When I’d had a good look at it all, I sighed and tilted my head back, and that was when I realised there were narrow windows set high in the walls, and a catwalk that ran around the entire building. There were more dust runners on the catwalk, patrolling. I watched them look out over the warehouse floor, and then out the windows.
Well, thatwas going to make things awkward for anyone approaching the outside.
Once I’d made one inspection of the building, I set about trying to keep tabs on everything going on inside it. Across from me, Blondie was doing the same, and The Albino was proving a quick learner. I saw him glance around the team, and then follow where Blondie and I were looking. If we could get him out of this, he might turn out okay.
The slow burn of my handcuffs heating up came as a bit of a surprise, and I ducked my head to hide my surprise, also to hide the look of pain, I was pretty sure I couldn’t conceal.
“Sh!” Blondie’s short, sharp hiss of reprimand, made me glance over at her.
She was glaring at The Albino, whose eyes were as wide as saucers. He looked across at me, as though for confirmation, and I pressed my lips together and shook my head. Beside him, The Mouse’s eyes suddenly flew open, and he sucked air in a gasp of shock.
The sudden tension and short exchange between us did not go unnoticed. Two of the dust runners came down and walked between us, staring at us intently. I looked up at the nearest one, and managed a respectable glare. He smiled in a way that sent chills down my spine, and then he stooped towards me.
“Don’t worry, officer,” he murmured. “When we’re done with the pixies, we’ll start on you—the distillery works on people just as good as pixies.”
I felt the fear cross my face, and he straightened up, laughing.
“Come on,” he said, nudging his companion, and they sauntered away, the leader of the pair turning to make a pistol movement with his hand as he left. He mimed shooting each and every one of us, before turning the corner of an enormous crate.
I was trying to think of something comforting to say, when the burning sensation resumed, to be followed shortly after by a faint tugging. I felt the handcuffs shift, loosen, and finally give. Before I could bring them out in front of me, I felt two small palms press down on my wrists, as though someone was trying to tell me to stay still.
I leant back against the bollard and tilted my head up to scan the catwalks. As I did so, the familiar shape of the squad MP5 was placed in my palms. Again, small hands rested on my wrists, as though signalling me to wait.
I looked across at Mouse, Albino and Blondie, and noticed they were sitting very still, with their heads bowed forward. Every now and then, one of them would sneak a glance up at me, and I risked the idea that they, too, had been freed and armed. A sidewards glance at Dylan, earned me a slight smile and a wink. Him, too, then.
I waited, watching as the row of cauldrons was filled, imagining I could hear faint cries, right up until they fired up the burners. And that was when I caught the slightest hint of an all-too-familiar smell.
“Shit!” I muttered, struggling not to shout a warning. “Shitshitshitshitshit!”
I looked up, and saw The Mouse, The Albino, and Blondie looking at me with mild alarm. I glanced sidewards and Tall-Dark was doing the same.
“Shit.”
“What is it?” Dylan’s voice was little more than a murmur, but I caught it.
“That smell.” I must have spoken louder than I thought, because Blondie raised her head and took a sniff, with The Albino mirroring her every move. Watching him, I saw Dylan’s nostrils flare.
“Yeah?”
“That’s what I smelt before the night club blew.” This time, I didn’t keep my voice down at all, and my words carried to one of the dust runners standing near another pile of pixie crates. He turned towards me.
“What did you say?” he demanded.
“I said, that I smelt that smell just before the night club stage I was standing on blew up,” I repeated, raising my voice, so that it carried.
Help was nearby, I remembered, and it probably needed to be warned just as much as anyone else.
I watched as the dust runner raised his head, and sniffed. He frowned and then sniffed again, and, this time, his eyes widened in alarm.
“Clostrel!” he screamed. “Everybody out! Grab a crate and go! Go! Go!”
Clostrel—an elven explosive ignited by heat.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, as the warehouse erupted into a hive of activity. “Hey! What about us!”
“Too bad!” the dust runner yelled, as he headed for the door, a crate of pixies under each arm.
I waited until the immediate area was clear, and the dust runners were too busy making for the exits to take any notice of the rest of us.
“Go!” I said, bringing my hands out from behind my back, and settling the MP5 in front of me.
“Go!” said a small voice in my ear. “Get out of here!”
“Go! Go! Go!” came another voice, one that didn’t belong to the dust runners, or me, or the pixie standing on my shoulder with his hands entwined in my hair.
“Grab a crate!” I ordered. “Grab two, if you can!”
I wanted to save more, but I wasn’t sure if we’d get out of the building as it was. I figured the dust runners wouldn’t be looking too closely at anyone carrying a crate, not when what was in the crates was so important to their business. I was banking on it, to get us out of the building and to the perimeter without being stopped.
It should have worked. It would have worked, if The Albino hadn’t stopped beside me as we grabbed pixie crates.
“Blake’s an elf,” he said, keeping his voice low. “And he hates these guys.”
And he grabbed two crates and about faced, heading for the door.
An elf! Shit! Why hadn’t I picked that, before? It explained why he was using the intel we found to do damage instead of help make an arrest. I followed The Albino’s example and lifted from two crates down. Dayum but these little guys were heavy… and then it struck me that I could save a lot more of them if I just opened the crates.
Lowering my load to the ground, I pulled off the lid.
“Go!” I shouted. “Get out of here. The place is going to blow!”
I didn’t stop, I unstacked crates and lifted lids as fast as I could. When I looked up and saw the rest of the team doing the same, I almost cried.
“Get out of here!” I screamed. “Get clear! You don’t have to die here!”
“Right with you, boss!” Blondie quipped back, and Dylan just laughed.
The Mouse didn’t say anything, just worked as fast as he could to get the pixies free.
“You’re all crazy! You know that, right?” But the truth was I was glad they were there, glad we could get more pixies out than we could if we ran. I didn’t remember how long it had taken from the first whiff of clostrel, to the big bang on stage, and I wasn’t thinking about it. All I wanted to do was make every second count—and that’s when I realised the pixies weren’t leaving.
They weren’t leaving, but they were hauling lids off crates, just as fast as we were. Sure, it took four of them to lift a lid, but they did it fast. Soon, the team and I were just unstacking the crates, working in an ever-growing swarm of pixies to clear the warehouse before the clostrel went up.
It wasn’t until we’d cleared most of one stack that I realised we were still there, that there’d been no earth-shattering kaboom, no wall of wind and sound… and that there was no longer the smell of clostrel growing in the air. All we could see was the cloud of pixies surrounding us. All we could hear was the deafening buzz of their wings, the high-pitched shouts of encouragement that passed between them as they worked… and the crack of semi-automatic fire from outside.
Somewhere in all that, I thought of the burners, and headed over to where I thought I remembered seeing the control panel. Failing that, I was going to find the power leads and pull them out of the wall. The burners couldn’t run without the power, and the clostrel wouldn’t explode without the heat of the distillery at full flood. If I could stop it from reaching full flood… If it wasn’t already too late.
But the smell of clostrel was already fading. Someone else had reached the controls and power leads before me. No one was going to use this distillery without some serious repairs. I thought of Red. Surely he hadn’t left the success of his operation to chance?
Ignoring the sound of small arms fire outside, ignoring the buzz of a myriad of wings, and a thousand chattering voices—even ignoring Dylan and The Albino’s shouts, I couldn’t find him. Finally, I resorted to calling.
“Blakeney!” I shouted, turning on the spot, and trying to see past the whirling pixie swarm.
He did not answer, at least, not straight away.
By the time Dylan’s back-up had finally worked their way through the dust runners, and made it inside, I still had not found him, but we made the arrests, and shut down the operations, and then we repatriated the pixies.
I found Blakeney’s response on my desk when I got back to the office.
Hey Babe. You saved them and, so, I saved you. Thank you for the two years past. It was most instructive. I will not be returning. I have other work to do.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Memory's Return is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/bxgP8q.
You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?

Carlie's Chapter 9 - Dear Tiger: Don't Look Back

LAST WEEK, Simone told Tiger just how angry FedExplore were with him. This week, Tiger reveals that someone sent an assassin after him, and he's running scared.Chapter 9 – They Tried to Shoot Me
Dear Simone,
Today, someone tried to shoot me. I think it was with a stunner, but I can’t be sure, even if the bounty FedExplore are offering is for bringing me in alive. Now, I’m wondering if there’s another one out there that just wants me dead.Tell me it’s not Odyssey.Tell me they’re okay with me, that they’re not going to hurt me when they bring me in—because I don’t know what’s going on.It all started when we got to the end of the run.They did the usual download at the comms node, and then the captain called me in.“Have you seen this?” he wanted to know, and I shook my head. I’d been down in the hold making sure things were lined up for off-loading. So then he told me to take a look.I sat down when I saw what he was pointing at. I’m worth the cost of two pallets of luxury goods—which is what we’re carrying, in case you didn’t know. First thing I did was check the door, and then take another look at the captain’s face.He was giving me this real serious stare, and I just had to ask him what he was going to do about it. That made him smile.“Nothing,” he said, “and my crew won’t, either. Not if they want to keep their jobs.”I didn’t know what to say, but he wasn’t done talking.“The question is,” he tells me, “what are you going to do about it.”And I still didn’t know what to say.He waited, so I offered to leave the ship, but he said he didn’t think that was a good idea. For one thing, people probably weren’t going to wait until I disembarked, and, for another, bounty hunters have been known to kidnap crew just to try to find out where a target is going next.I’ve never been called a target before. The whole idea just turns me cold inside. I asked him what I can do, seeing as he seemed to know a whole lot more about this situation than I did.At first, he told me I should just stay aboard, and do my job from on the ship. He figured that if no-one saw me, then no-one would know where I was—and that’s when things got weird. Someone got on board the ship.I don’t even know how they managed it.One minute, I was working, perfectly safely, inside the cargo hold, well out of camera range, and out of sight of the docks. The next thing I know the loadie shouted at me to duck. It was a good thing I was between crates. I mean, if I’d been carrying one, they’d have had to dock my pay—and I’d have been hit for sure.I ducked, and the metal frame of the crate above me lit up. It was like lightning was dancing all over its surface. Right where my head had been before I ducked. What makes me think it was a stunner is the fact there was still a side of the crate left. No dent. No scorch mark. Just the lightning dance to show anything had happened at all.Of course, I didn’t stop to wonder what was happening. I was already crawling backwards between the stacks. At the same time, I was also trying to work out where the shot had come from, and where the shooter might move to, next.I’m not like a soldier, Sims. I don’t even have the training of your average security guard. I haven’t played any of those first-person sim games, so I only had a vague idea of what to do next—and that was from listening to the others talk about this war simulation, or that tactical shooter game, or one of those plague-apocalypse things that are so popular.Right then, all I knew was that I had to hide, and try and guess what the dude might do next.It’s a good thing the loadie, and the shuttle pilot had a clue.I listened to the sound of their footsteps as they ran across the deck and along the walkway, and I kept my head down just as low as it could go. I figured if I could keep out of sight, then I might be able to hide somewhere the shooter didn’t know. The loadie said I did the right thing.But, I don’t know.They shot him—the intruder, not the loadie.And then they dumped him out the airlock.Without a suit.I don’t get it. Why not just hand him over to the authorities? Why did they have to kill him?I was still shaking when they came and found me. I was hiding in a box of frillies—and I know you just snorted whatever it was you were drinking, so stop laughing, because this is nowhere near as funny as you think it is.The captain put me off the ship.He said he was sorry, and he paid me an extra bonus, and then he left the cabin while the loadie gave me the address of someone who could fix me up with a brand new I.D. Said the guy stuck to that line of work, and didn’t shop his customers, which is a reputation that keeps him alive.Well, it has so far.Anyway, if Odyssey didn’t shoot at me, maybe it would be better if they stayed away from me for a while, because everyone has me spooked, right now. Maybe it would be better if they waited until I said it was safe to see me.I haven’t even had time to check if they have an office here.And that does mean exactly what you think it does.The loadie’s friend was on-world, which is a good thing because after they made a big show about putting me off the ship, the captain and the loadie got me to come round to the loading dock, and stuffed me back in that case of frilly underwear. After that, they shipped me planet-side.They said it was the only way they could be sure I got off the station without being caught.I won’t say what kind of establishment they were shipping the underwear to, but its boss was kind, and she got me out of the box and into a spare room in the closest café without anyone finding out.So, now, I’m terrified of two things: that the aliens might find me, and that some bounty hunter looking to earn the FedExplore bounty might get to me, before I can get back into space.Keep your fingers crossed for me.If you say they didn’t come after me, then I’ll contact Odyssey as soon as I can.

Tiger.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The complete series is available as short, individual ebooks, and will become available as an omnibus, later this year. In the meantime, you can find them on this blog, until one week after the last chapter in the last book of the series has been posted, at which point this series will be taken down, and a new series serialised on site.
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books2read.com/u/4DoG8D books2read.com/u/b5Mng1
books2read.com/u/3GYBla books2read.com/u/4782k8

Wednesday's Verse - Taking Care

This week’s verse moves from  a poem about city traffic to a science fiction verse about colony oversight. It is taken from 365 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2014.
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Taking Care

They live within the star-filled dark,
fearing neither night nor day.
They sing their songs in voices stark,
teaching us their way.


Teaching us their way,
as tirelessly as suns,
repeating every lesson
until they know we’ve learned.


Until they know we’ve learned just how
to live and give the planet care,
so that long upon this world we’ll dwell,
beneath their unforgiving stare.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------You can find the first two poetry collections at the links below - although there are plans to reissue them with more genre-appropriate covers in the future. The third collection will be released later in the year. books2read.com/u/mVLQZb books2read.com/u/bxgyLd

Tuesday's Short - Melerom Leads the Dance

This week’s short story takes us from the fantasy world of Tallameera and two siblings discovering the power of magic to the creation story for a science-fiction vigilante. Welcome to Melerom Leads the Dance.
When Melerom escapes the aftermath of his people’s massacre of the humans on Jehornak, he sets himself up as a wealthy wanderer on the Odyssey luxury liners, and acquires the one thing every gentleman needs—a valet—but when his valet begins showing unusually perceptive spurts of initiative, Melerom realises the man is not everything he seems. The only question is, can the man be trusted to help him survive multi-billionaire, Frederico Coleman’s, next party, or betray him?



Melerom Leads the Dance is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/bMG9a7.
You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?

Carlie's Chapter 8 - Dear Tiger: Don't Look Back

LAST WEEK, Tiger revealed he had barely escaped another alien incursion with his life. This week, Simone lets him know how much trouble he's in with FedExplore, and says she is very worried for her parents.Chapter 8 – Catastrophes
Dear Tiger,


Glad you are okay—and safe. So glad you are safe.
Odyssey made it onto Deskeden with GalPol. Said they had an anonymous tip-off that there’d been a catastrophic event on the colony there, and had the FedExplore indictment overturned.
And a catastrophic event would have been the only way they could have overturned it. They passed on the tip, and GalPol insisted on an investigation, and what they found there put FedExplore in a lot of hot water.
There was no sign of a portal, or that there had ever been one, but they had the evidence from Tarvesh, so it helped a lot in proving there had been one. Actually, they proved there’d been two: one in the caverns like you said, and one that opened up in the middle of the settlement at the comms centre, also like you said.
You’re earning yourself a reputation as a ‘credible source’, in all kinds of places.
Oh, and you are definitely persona non-grata with FedExplore, because GalPol removed the world from their ownership, and have them marked for ‘lack of due care’. They found records about keeping people on the world against their will, and a lot of the scientists and their families had written about not being allowed to leave.
GalPol found the emails trapped in the server, where FedExplore were sorting through them so they could make notes of people’s records and dock their pay for ‘disloyalty to the company’. Apparently it’s a thing with them. GalPol weren’t impressed and charged them with tampering with personal communications, as well ‘unlawful detainment’.
Yeah, FedExplore are in a world of hurt. There are compensation claims up the wazoo from off-world relatives, so FedExplore have taken a really big hit. Unfortunately, my economics teacher says it’s a hit they’ll be able to survive, unless they mess up again.
Also, GalPol indicted Deskeden, again. This time, it’s been listed as a complete ‘no-go’ zone, until they can be sure there won’t be another portal opening up—and you know how long that could take. So, be careful, Tiger, because there are some really powerful people who are really unhappy with you, right now.
You might be right about staying in space, but not just from the alien perspective. It might be a good idea from the FedExplore perspective, too.
And, speaking of FedExplore, I can’t reach my parents any more. FedExplore have cut off all communications to the planet, except for a couple people in the orbital above—and I haven’t managed to work out who they are.
All I know is that Odyssey can detect transmissions between the orbital and the planetary surface, but they can’t intercept them. It’s how I know there’s communication goin on. I need to know there’s communication going on, because that’s the only way I can tell if my parents might be okay.
I’m really worried about them, Tiger. Really worried.
Anyway, Odyssey are opening up an investigation into Sharvin. They asked GalPol, but GalPol said there was nothing they could do, because there’s been no complaints. They can’t investigate every world FedExplore control, without a tip-off relating to a catastrophic event or similar… and we don’t have that, yet.
I don’t want to wait for a catastrophic event to happen, Tiges.
I mean, if what happened on Deskeden is a catastrophic event, it might be too late to save my parents if we wait until one happens on Sharvin.
So, Odyssey are investigating, and I just have to wait.
And keep up with my classes.
And hope you are okay.
Please be okay.




Love




Simone.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The complete series is available as short, individual ebooks, and will become available as an omnibus, later this year. In the meantime, you can find them on this blog, until one week after the last chapter in the last book of the series has been posted, at which point this series will be taken down, and a new series serialised on site.
books2read.com/u/4Awrze
books2read.com/u/mgrxdR




















books2read.com/u/4DoG8D books2read.com/u/b5Mng1
books2read.com/u/3GYBla books2read.com/u/4782k8