Chained Reflections early draft sneak peak

Chapter 1

It’s funny what comes to mind when you’re feeling stressed. A few years ago I was in a, near fatal, accident and I thought about how horrible being the perfect subject for an experimental brain transplant was. That and “God help me.”

Now, here I was getting booked into jail. Printed, photographed, and so on. The two things that occurred to me were, God did help me and wanted me to pay it forward and what would my father think if he could see me now.

For once, in my nearly fifty years, I was glad my dad wasn’t still around to see this. Dad was Lieutenant Herschel, of the Denver, Colorado bomb squad. That’s right, the one standing in front of the memorial statue you see in all the pictures. Yes, that makes me Todd Herschel, the freak.

If dad had lived to see me here, getting booked, his first reaction would probably be to tell me how disappointed he was that I was on the wrong side of the law. Then, he would probably start to wonder what his son was doing in the women's wing of the jail. Then, he’d wonder who this furry, feline amazon was that was claiming to be his son.

Technically, I haven’t been his son since my brain was transplanted into a felis neo-person's body. Strictly speaking, I became his daughter after that. It took me a while to adjust to my involuntary change in gender and species. In the process, I lost my marriage, many of my friends, and some of my civil rights. I gained, a new lease on life, insight, and a missing piece of my soul.

What, you may wonder is this offspring, however freakish, of a national hero doing getting booked in the Dallas, Texas jail? Again. I’d been here before, long story. Now, I was being booked for theft of government property.

I'd started a new life out in the Libertarian Colonies. I'd remarried and started a family. Only to have my new home brutally attacked and my husband, Goliath, kidnapped by members of the U.S. Military. They justified their actions as retrieving stolen neos. The fact that the neos in question, like my husband, had escaped from their legalized slavery was a moot point. The army wanted guinea pigs, to test ways to fight a bio-engineered disease that was ravaging the neo population and the Colonies were too weak to fight off their assault. Ironically, it wasn't even necessary. We found the cure in the Colonies, inside my bloodstream. The gene therapy, used to prevent my new immune system from rejecting my brain, also increased my resistance to the disease.