Tick Tack Tick

A day or so ago, I gave you a little foreshadowing about blowing up Rei and starting the book out with a bang. You need to recall that after Rei swallowed OMCOM's magic yellow pill, he developed a series of new abilities. One of them was sonar vision, aka super-hearing. However, it only works when Rei's eyes are closed and when his head is vertical. The images he receives are so clear that if he didn't have some way to shut it off, he'd never be able to sleep.

Well, in this case, it was a good thing he has this special ability because if he didn't, he wouldn't have heard that strange tick-tack-tick sound coming from the kitchen. And it would have been a very short book. Here is that scene:

     “All right, mau emir. I will see you shortly.” With that, Rome cut the connection.
     Rei looked around the kitchen. Something smelled funny. It was faint but had an acrid, almost electrical odor to it. Remembering the odd ticking sound he heard when he first entered the house, Rei closed his eyes and performed an aural sweep again. He determined that the sound was coming from under the sink. He stooped down, opened the cabinet and found a large black box sitting there, with elaborate electrical circuitry and wires hanging from it. Mounted on the side was a digital timer that was counting down: 007, 006, 005. Rei leaped up and raced for the front door. He barely made it out when a tremendous explosion tore the front of their house apart. Rei was lifted from his feet and flung through the air like a rag doll. Something heavy hit his back then his head then everything went black.

Arg, that sounds like it really hurts.

Over the next two days, I'll show you some still frames from my brother Bruce's animatics. He did an amazing job but midway through , we realized that book trailers serve no purpose so we put a halt to the project. Too bad. It was really good.

Here is the scene where Rei lands on the front lawn prior to entering the house: