THE DARK MESSIAH – Snippet 08 of …
UNEDITED
South of Douglas Mountain, old Colorado (United States Post-Apoc)
The three men ate sitting around a tiny fire. It was a little chilly, but they dared not build anything larger. The stress up at the main house was already getting tense.
The size of the fire matched the size of their spirits. Small and not much help warming them up.
Jeremiah looked out at the landscape and blew out a heavy breath. He turned back and nodded to the two of them, “Todd, Dirk, I got to ask, and I’m going to lay it out right up front, I’m staying.”
Todd, about six foot two inches and thin as a sapling tree snorted, “You know it’s our death’s right? Sarah Jennifer ain’t going to go down for any man. She will take her size whatever-the-hell-they-are boots and shove them up Childers’ ass, guns blazing before she accepts any of his deals.”
“Seven,” Dirk answered. Both men looked at him, “What?” He shrugged, “Common size for women, it isn’t strange or anything.”
“She had you clean them, right?” Todd asked, “Caught you cussin’ around her?”
“Damn right she caught me cussing,” Dirk admitted, smiling at the memory, “I slipped and popped myself in the mouth trying to pull some leather. It hurt. So, I go off and say shit or something like that. I turn around and there she is, glaring at me like my mom or something. I figured, ‘what the hell’, so I went ahead and let loose with everything I could remember.”
“Got them all out of your system?” Jeremiah asked.
“Yeah,” Dirk admitted.
“So, did you screw up again?” Todd asked, “Just curious, took me three times to start looking around myself.”
Dirk smirked, “One other time.”
Todd turned to Jeremiah, “You?”
“Oh, no.” Jeremiah shook his head, “My mom was hell on wheels about cussing. So, I learned early to treat all women as ladies.”
Todd nodded in the direction of the house, “That why we all making our last stand?”
Jeremiah turned in the direction of the house, “No, not for me. Sometimes you realize that when civilization cratered, morality took a beating. Justice died and ethics took a sabbatical.” He turned back to the two men with him, “Ain’t ever gonna come back unless someone is willing to take a stand.”
Dirk pointed to Todd and then Jeremiah and finally at himself, “So, the three of us against thirty…or more right?”
“Well, say it like that and you make me want to tell Childers he needs to bring another twenty or so. Don’t forget Sarah Jennifer is worth probably ten of those sad sacks.”
“And her armament.”
“You ever seen it?” Dirk asked, looking between the two men.
“Her guns?” Jeremiah asked.
He never got to answer, a call came out of the night.
—
Michael had been walking for a day already. It had taken him three solid hours to figure out how to Myst again, and go through the damned hole up at the old base.
At least he had decent clothes again.
Bethany Anne had provided money. While he kept some, he figured it would probably be useless. He had on jeans, a black shirt, and for some insane reason, her guards had provided him a black leather trenchcoat.
It did help hide his two pistols, apparently Jean Dukes Specials. He read the instructions carefully before locking them to his palm print. With over five thousand rounds, he figured he would be good for a while. But, he had no idea how often this new world would require … attitude adjustments.
He practiced with the pistol, turning up the kinetic kick from one to ten and back down. Ten had impressive destruction. John’s note to him explained how the pistol used etheric generated magnetic something or another and how the rounds were made to replace them.
Basically, he figured out, he had a tiny rail-gun in his hand. Technology ahead of its time and probably still ahead of this time, as well.
Well, he sure hoped so. He was sure that rail-gun technology would be pretty nasty stuff to deal with if it was pointed at him.
Finally, she provided two Wakizashis and one Katana. He left the Katana behind as being too impractical and kept one Wakizashi, the two pistols, two sets of clothes and scrounged for soap and other stuff pushing it into a leather bag he slung over his shoulder.
He had no shampoo. He spent an extra hour looking for any damned shampoo but the base was dry. He passed a mirror at the hour mark and saw his reflection.
Making a face, he realized the soap was sufficient. He still had no damn hair.
It took him another two hours to once again attain his Myst form and make it back up and out of the base. He was pushing himself and had made it halfway down the mountain when he suddenly dropped out of Myst form. This resulted in an ass over appetite, arms and legs flailing, tumble down the slope. He travelled more than a hundred yards, introducing himself to hundreds of small rocks and stones and bouncing off of one damned large rock in the process.
He laid for a minute, just muttering “OOOOwwwww” over and over again.
Finally, he turned over and stood up, trudging back up the hill, grabbing his bag and thought about why he was having trouble with skills he had honed over a thousand years.
“Focus,” he muttered, “It’s got to be focus.” Some time later, he saw the campsite, the tiny fire burning like a lighthouse beacon for him.
>> FROM MICHAEL – THANK YOU EVERYONE who is helping w/ the Queen Bitch edits! The is SUCH a relief…believe me. Right now, we are about 9 days from releasing The Dark Messiah.
I have about 20,000 more words to write (I just gave Chapter 18 to Stephen Russell.) I always split my longer books up into 25 chapters…So, 6 chapters to go. 😉
We are releasing NOMAD FOUND in a few days…And we are looking to release (we hope) TS Pauls Book and Paul C. Middleton’s book “very, very soon” as well.
JUSTICE IS CALLING (With Justin Sloan) is doing very well. Thank you ALL who have bought it, enjoyed it and reviewed it (or bought it and enjoyed it, too!) You have already changed an author’s life. It’s been pretty cool being his partner, and seeing the possibilities open in his eyes for himself as an author, and his family as Valerie takes hold.
Not read it? Check it out HERE and see if you want to read it this weekend.
THE DARK MESSIAH – Snippet 07 of …
UNEDITED
The small town was less town as it was a stronghold. Men and women came in, some left again, others stayed. Either they were persuaded this was a safe location … or they stayed, as slaves.
The young woman, attractive, used her sense of touch to grab the next plate.
Others asked the Boss why he kept an obviously deficient girl in the camp?
Too many thought that a blind girl couldn’t listen and think for herself. But in that, they would be wrong. She hadn’t always been blind, that was a new development which had occurred when her group had been attacked. She had left her pack against her dad’s wishes and decided to travel the Fallen Lands. Seeking her fortune, he told her, was a damned fool’s journey.
She had yelled back that she would just be a damned fool then.
Now, she couldn’t see. For her kind, it was almost unheard of. She should have healed from the damage by now, or be dead.
She wasn’t dead. The hours in front of a tub of water washing dishes and occasionally in front of a tub washing clothes, was proof she was still alive.
But she could hear, much better than normal humans and she had heard the Boss’s answer.
He was just waiting until she was old enough so he could bed her. Didn’t the rest of them see how beautiful she was going to be? He was waiting, he told the men, for the flower to be as beautiful as she would ever be before plucking it.
Jacqueline always kept a knife secreted on her body.
This flower, she had decided, was going to have thorns.
Deep under the Denver base.
The E.I. woke up.
It had been in passive mode for almost eight-two years, by the records it kept. The normal intrusions into the base had been logged and it had obediently uploaded the information to the E.I. resources in outer space. Placed there by TQB Enterprises when they had used this base.
Well over a hundred and fifty years before.
The base E.I. was hidden behind tons of rock that had been dropped before the old government could try to force their way into this hidden server room.
However, the E.I. was still connected, still recording, and still updating the records to the E.I.s in outer space.
It logged the human which had found the supply closet. Then, the human left for a couple of hours before it triggered the alarms which brought the E.I. online.
It was in front of Storage Location D.D. 2. The E.I. watched, patiently, as the human stayed in front of the door for three hours before it seemed to disappear off of it’s sensors.
The E.I. stayed on full alert for another twelve minutes, then it changed its parameters for wake up and went back to sleep.
Never realizing the human had gotten inside a secured room within the base.
FROM MICHAEL >>> Ok, about 50% done with the writing. Chapters 1-4 are w/ the final edit before they come back to me. I just sent chapter 13 (out of 25 to do) to Stephen Russell.
Lot’s of action going on and I have to admit, a real tear-jerker for me personally. I don’t know if others will find it so touching, but it got me right in the tear ducts and squeezed them for all it was worth…
I was seriously praying my wife didn’t walk in on my, wiping my face as I was type-type-typing on my laptop.
It looks like we should have a very Kurtherian Christmas this 2016. ;-).
WHAT’S BELOW?
Michael-Scott Earle is a really good friend I encountered through the 20BooksTo50k group. He has a new series (he is also a super-fast writer) coming out on Thursday and IS ON PRE-ORDER FOR $0.99 RIGHT NOW.
He is the author of many series. One he is very known for is the Destroyer series. This time, he isn’t doing stuff quite so dark 😉
He asked if I would mind mentioning his new series, as he has high hopes and knows my readers are freaking voracious… And let’s face it, most authors WANT to get in front of you. I answered of course, what are author buddy friends for…Well, ok, buying drinks, but OTHER than that, what else are they good for?
Yeah, ok, helping to decide where to bury the body…But WHAT ELSE…
Oh, for Pete’s sake, mentioning new series to their fans… (This could go on all night if I don’t stop here).
Till next snippet – Michael.
Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) Kindle Edition
Welcome to Petrasada. The City of Light. The City of Clouds. The City of Joy. It is the last bastion of human life floating miles above an endless desert world.
And a string of serial murders are threatening to tear the city apart.
Anelia Orba is the newest rookie in the magical winged police force of Petrasada. She is inexperienced, naive, paired with a resentful partner, and fully expected to fail. But when a strange clue takes Anelia off the procedural path, she’ll have to overcome the odds before the City of Light falls to darkness, and she loses everything she cares about.
CHECK OUT THE BOOK HERE ON AMAZON – AND PREORDER IF YOU LIKE
THE DARK MESSIAH – Snippet 06 of …
UNEDITED
OLD DENVER BASE FOR TQB
The front living room had the couches removed. There was a round table, with two chairs.
A table stood in the middle, a piece of paper in the middle. Michael walked past the table and went to the bedroom.
It had their bed, made up. He looked around but there was nothing else in the room. It looked like an empty room one might find at an old motel, it was so devoid of anything personal. He opened the closet, but it was empty.
“No clothes. Couldn’t you have at least left behind some clothes, baby?” he muttered. He stepped into the bathroom.
Clean.
He stepped out and made his way into the brighter main room. Heading straight for the table and the note, it was time to see what this was about.
“Dearest Michael,
Your clothes, if you should need them, are in the locked area near the Team BMW area. You should be able to Myst through the opening we left you at the top. I don’t know what you would want to wear, so I left you everything from suits to jeans and a few items in between.
John and the Group left you a surprise.
Further, there are weapons for you as well.
I leave you these things because you made me a promise, one I expect you to fulfill.
You had better return to me, or when I am done with the Kurtherians, I will figure out how to go back in time and kick your ass.
All my love and my heart,
Bethany Anne.”
Michael stood there for minutes, reading and re-reading the note. She expected him to return and she was waiting. He calmly folded the note and put it in the pocket on his chest. The outfit he had on might be ugly, but it had a lot of pockets.
He turned and walked out of the suite and took a slight left. He needed to go about a half mile around the front and to the other side of the airplane hangars where Team BMW’s area used to be. Obviously, his love had taken the fight out into space. And by the look of things, something must have happened here on Earth either before or after she left.
Something that had caused them to leave Earth, and apparently for her to lock up their area and make it look like it was dangerous to check out. He suspected they had washed it down with radioactivity sometime in the past so geiger counters would scream.
Well, there wasn’t anything he could feel floating here at this time. He sure hoped he wasn’t wrong and didn’t glow in the dark now. That’s all he needed to see in the mirror.
A bald head that reminded him of a light bulb at night.
South of Douglas Mountain, old Colorado (United States Pre-Apoc)
The seven men decided to camp away from the main house this evening. Two of them nodded to each other and the first, the one with dark hair, walked out away from the fire to guard against the chance of someone trying to sneak up on them.
It wasn’t likely to happen, but this evening, it was as much to protect against those from their own group coming up to the fire and listening to the talk as it was to protect from others who might wish them ill.
The second man, David Tellison, waited ten minutes to make sure his friend was properly down the path. Once the time was up, he walked beside the fire which the other five guys were sitting around, drinking a form of coffee that they made out of some bark off a tree and clapped his hands to get their attention.
“Ok, I know the rumors have been heard by everyone. So, I’m here to figure out what you guys are going to do when Boss Childers’ men attack Sarah Jennifer. I’ll tell you this straight up. She has been good to me, but she ain’t been good enough to me so that I take bullets for her. I ain’t waiting to be stuck there, guns in front and guns in back of me.”
Jackson spit over to the side, behind the log he was sitting on , “I figure he has what, forty guns?”
David nodded, “That’s the low count, he can afford more.”
Jackson chewed on a bit of jerky, “Wouldn’t be right to leave Sarah Jennifer and run over to Childers’ group.”
“I’m not suggesting we go join Childers, even I know that would be a dick move,” David retorted.
“Dick move or not,” Buddy spoke up, from his log next to Jackson, “It’d be easy money.”
David nodded to Buddy. The man was strictly out for himself and David figured if the best he could do was make sure six out of the seven men here didn’t join Childers, then that was something for Sarah Jennifer.
That night, five more decided to leave the employ of Sarah Jennifer and seek their fortune somewhere else.
Somewhere that didn’t have thirty or forty men gunning for them.
FROM MICHAEL >>> So, right now I’m about 25,000 words into the The Dark Messiah book (1/3 of the way.) I would / should be further, but holidays and collaboration release etc. etc.
So, not much here so I can go there and continue writing!
We have the following location(s) for snippets for the other series (or books out) right here!
Justin Sloan – Reclaiming Honor Series – Book 01 – Justice Is Calling
CHECK HIM OUT HERE: http://www.justinsloanauthor.com
BOOK IS LIVE HERE https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQM45QD
Facebook Page for the Series: https://www.facebook.com/ReclaimingHonor
TS Paul – The Etheric Academy – Alpha Group 01
CHECK SCOTT (and the snippet) OUT HERE: https://tspaul.blogspot.com
Craig Martelle – Terry Henry Walton Chronicles
CHECK CRAIG (and the snippets) OUT HERE: http://www.craigmartelle.com/apps/blog/
Facebook Page for the Series: https://www.facebook.com/TerryHenryWalton/
Paul C. Middleton – The Boris chronicles
CHECK PAUL (and the snippets) OUT HERE: https://betrayedbyfaith.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/revelations-snippet-1/
THE DARK MESSIAH – Snippet 05 of …
UNEDITED
Outside an old military Base – West of Old Denver, Colorado (United States)
Confusion was the first thought.
Michael looked around and considered confusion to be his second, third and damn near fourth thought as well.
What happened?
He walked, bare ass naked, through a base that had seen better days. When he pulled open a door and it dropped off of its hinges, he had to agree it was probably years or decades.
Perhaps a better century?
Michael walked into the old command center. It was dusty, a broken window in the front allowing the weather in. A few leaves were lodged in crevices.
Empty.
He pressed his lips together and moved further into the base inside the mountain trying to understand what had happened. Each room he checked was cleaned of anything relevant. He found no computer equipment and more than that, he found no lights which worked.
It was chilly, so the time of year had to be fall, at least. It took him an hour and the only thing he ran across was a small supply room. He did find clothes of a sort. They were old work clothes, a single suit. He snagged a tan pair, but made a face.
They weren’t his preferred style. However, he was clothed and that had to be worth something at the moment.
He walked across the base, the car parking lot empty and went to where he had lived with Bethany Anne. The building was not only empty; it was boarded up. Not a type of boarding because windows were busted, no, this was boarded up to keep people from going through something important inside.
This was professional and it had the faintest marks that shows warnings about radioactivity. Which seemed ludicrous. His time in the Etheric enhanced his ability to discern energy, and there was nothing related to Radioactivity he could feel.
Well, he hoped there wasn’t. His lack of hair was bothering him and all he needed to do was get a fresh dose of radiation of screw any chance of hair growing back. He could still regenerate from wounds, that he had figured out after falling out of the Etheric, using the limbs of a tree to slow his rapid descent.
He willed himself to turn into Myst, that amorphous state which allowed him to disappear and fly, moving through gaps that only air could flow through.
Except, he was still standing right in front of the boarded up living quarters, looking fairly stupid.
He turned to view around the area he was standing, but there was nothing but the old, time run-down base and a bird that was flying overhead about a quarter-mile to the north.
And, he wasn’t in his Myst form at all.
“Ok, something broke that used to work,” he muttered, “like my hair.”
He made a fist and tapped on the board where the door should be. Hollow.
He made a fast, sharp punch and the board cracked. He did this twice more and reached in with his left hand, pulling out pieces of the board noticing the thickness of the wood.
They really didn’t want anyone in here.
Tossing the chunks of wood behind him, he grabbed a few more pieces and pulled, yanking them off. He found a metal crossbeam and smiled. Something he could really get a grip on. He set his feet, his eyes glowed red and he pulled, the strain on his muscles felt good, felt warm, felt like…
CRACK!
A huge, ten-foot-tall by four-foot-wide chunk of the wood was breaking out of the protective surrounding. Michael frowned. He felt both stronger, and weaker at the same time. It was as if his energy was deeper. His connection to the Etheric was beyond his previous ability.
But his muscles didn’t work nearly as well. He flexed his arms, rolling his shoulders to test his body and had to agree.
“Now, this is damned embarrassing,“ He was out of shape for the first time in over a thousand years. “Can’t let Bethany Anne see me like this. I’m hairless, and in desperate need of a work-out, or five.”
He took a step to the side and yanked three more times on the steel beam and finally the huge chunk of the wall cracked and he tossed it to the side, dust coming up from the ground where it made a resounding crash.
Behind the opening was the door that went into his apartment.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he checked the door knob, and it was locked. “Of course it is,” he kicked it open. What was inside, surprised him.
FROM MICHAEL >>> I’m writing this on Wednesday afternoon. I’m sitting in Todd’s P.U.B. next to the Aria hotel after finishing the burger (only a handful of fries. The burger was fantastic, but NO…ROOM…LEFT!)
Anyway, I wanted to mention something that was really cool to wake up to yesterday morning. When I woke up, way early for here as I’m still on Central Time (2 hours ahead) I grabbed my phone and started seeing if there was anything I needed to deal with.
Well, I was on the Facebook Group and reading the posts when I got to the one below. I have to tell you, it was a super cool feeling to read the post that I copied below, and to see the huge amount of outpouring support for Brandon Barr and the people in the group really supporting one of our team.
Just like I think anyone in the Etheric Empire would do, for someone in their group.
I had nothing to do with the request, didn’t know about it, didn’t read anything for about ten (10) hours after it went live and all of this support happened.
I might have shed a tear.
Special thanks to my collaborator, Justin, who wrote the original post and to all of the fantastic authors who are supporting Brandon Barr as our way of helping him.
Feel free to do something, do nothing, or just send good wishes his way. There is a free book below, a book for sale and, for those interested, his Youtube channel.
I’m supposed to promote between the 11th and 17th, so I’ll put his book up in a snippet again next week. I did it early because it feels like giving a Christmas gift…I just want to do it now, not wait!
Take care until the NEXT Dark Messiah Snippet!
Michael
FROM JUSTIN SLOAN –
Team 20Books: We have an author going into the hospital tomorrow because his leukemia has returned, and a couple of us thought it would be an awesome sign of support — to show him we care and we 20Books authors stick together — to do one week of featuring him in our newsletters (also social media and all that, of course). The author is Brandon Barr, and I checked with him first to make sure this would be appropriate/ wouldn’t make him uncomfortable. He’s actually doing YouTube videos about it, which you can check out. (Link below)
So, would you be willing to sign up for a day, starting Sunday and going through that Saturday, that you’d be willing to share? It’d be great if we could have at least one author a day, preferably more. Let’s put an even bigger smile on his face!
Dates: 11-17 and CM Raymond will follow up with the sheet to sign up 
🙂 – if those dates don’t work, please still share when you can. It’s awesome that we can rally together like this! (But let’s try to do it together)
LINKS:
YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaQbFWrJcQD1VKG_Zeb-TXQ
Free book on Instafreebie: Ella Dethroned (Fantasy or Science Fantasy, or Fantasy Romance) https://www.instafreebie.com/free/MrVYO
First book ($2.99): https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Visions-Son…/…/ref=asap_bc…
THE DARK MESSIAH – Snippet 04 of …
South of Douglas Mountain, old Colorado (United States Pre-Apoc)
Jeremiah rode into the main yard about two hours before sunset. He pulled the saddle and rubbed down Black. Giving him some food, he stalled his horse after giving him a carrot.
He nodded towards Jake, one of the men who, in his opinion, was a question mark and headed towards the back of the house.
Towards the office.
Sarah Jennifer wasn’t some old maid willing to take in just anyone. No, she was an ex-tactical member of the FDG – the Force de Guerre. She had suffered some neurological damage during an operation, and they couldn’t get her back into prime reaction speed again. She wasn’t willing to be dead weight and refused to take an office job.
It just reminded her too much of what she couldn’t do, anymore.
Jeremiah arrived at the back and pulled the string which rang a bell inside her office. Soon enough, her voice came out of a tube next to the door. “You got my attention, who is this and what do you need?”
He was pretty sure she knew exactly who was standing here, but her ability to keep secrets was legendary, and no one knew exactly how much tactical weapons she had from her days being a merc.
He grinned for anyone who might see, “It’s Jeremiah, SJ.” He lowered his voice, “I got a visit from TB’s goons to relay to you.”
Her voice, confused came back through the tube, “TB?…Oh, that jackass.” Jeremiah could almost picture her blue eyes rolling under her blond hair, “Come in, let’s discuss scuzzbucket’s latest threat.” With a clunk, the door unlocked, and Jeremiah pulled open the door and walked in, the door closing and a small bar locking behind him, it’s weight taking care to lock it after it closed.
The hallway was only ten foot long with a door at the other end which would open into the house proper. He took two steps and turned right. Inside the room, about twenty feet long and fifteen wide was a small round table to his right with three chairs for meetings. Sarah Jennifer, a pencil in her right-hand tap tap tapping the desk she was behind when he walked in.
She noticed his sand and sweat covered body and got to the point, “Ok, what’s bull-shittiest-Maximus want this time?”
“Your ass, or your land, probably both,” Jeremiah told her. He grabbed one of the two chairs in front of her desk and pulled it back to sit down, “Sucks to be you?”
She snorted, “I understand it used to be that women wanted men to appreciate them for their intellect, not their tits. Now, my intellect is third string behind my land.”
Jeremiah kept his mouth shut.
The tap tap tap of the pencil continued, “That’s not all, is it?” She asked him, watching his fidgeting hands. “You got something you don’t like admitting. What’s asshat Maximus got planned now?”
Jeremiah looked up and then back to Sarah Jennifer, “The two heavies told me you got a little time to make a decision, one week. You either decide to marry him, or sell to him. If you go past that, then he reduces what he is willing to buy it from you and the insinuation is it won’t be a wedding bed at the end of the deal, but there will be a physical consummation.” Jeremiah looked pissed he even had to pass on such a despicable threat.
Sarah Jennifer’s eyes narrowed, “So, sell or rape?” Jeremiah returned her gaze and nodded his head in agreement, “Well, at least the disgusting pig is finally showing his true colors.” She blew out a breath. “He’s got about thirty in his group?”
“Last I heard, it was thirty-two. But, if he decides that isn’t enough he could get some cheap hands willing to pull a trigger and maybe get ten more from closer to old Denver if he decides it’s going to be a pain in the ass to root us out. However,” Jeremiah turned to look out through her wall in the direction of the hands sleeping quarters, “I can’t promise you more than three for damned sure, and five if I’m giving a couple the benefit of the doubt.”
Her lips compressed and she followed his gaze where it lead.
Out to the building where her hands slept at night.
FROM MICHAEL >>> I’M CHEATING!
So, I really need to get some writing done and I can’t do that if I’m writing this…So, since I JUST put up another snippet today (and wrote a good amount – If you haven’t seen it, you should TOTALLY go read the first snippet of The Etheric Academy – Alpha with TS Paul (Bethany Anne is in the opening scene…and Marcus 😉
So, I’m going to pimp Martha Carr again for those who haven’t seen the previous pimp earlier today (it is below, check it out!)
It has EVERYTHING to do with how awesome Martha is, and very, very little lot do with how much I need to write on Michael’s story 😉
THANK YOU ALL FOR CONTINUING ON THIS CRAZY JOURNEY WITH ME!
Michael
Now, for a very tiny story (not because I couldn’t write more, but because I have to eat and get back here before Cox Cable shows up).
Martha Carr is an amazing person. I don’t want to ruin the enjoyment of learning her story (which you get to do as you read her books) but also, she is just so damned Zen. Like..I don’t know how to explain…a Mary Poppins for the 21st century?
No…probably not. She likes killing people too much in her stories. You see, she writes Thrillers and Conspiracy stuff. I would say “she grew up on it” but, for her, it’s the truth.
You know what makes her stuff scarier? The more you know about her background, the more it makes you wonder if the book is a story, or is it a carefully covered up truth she is trying to get us to understand.
Without upsetting the powers that be in Washington.
Check out her first in the Wallis Jones Series, and get ready for #2 due out this week…And #3 in two more weeks… They are all hitting hard, fast and continuously.
I’m a personal fan of Martha, and want her success more than I want my own. If you happen to enjoy this genre, check it out and let me know what you think, ok? If you like it enough to drop a review – please do so. Mind you, every freaking time you leave one…She will probably ping my ass on Facebook and let me know about it! So, the more she pings, the more I’ll probably have to stay writing in Scrivener and get the Michael Book done.
😉
Love you all! – Michael
The List Conspiracy (Wallis Jones Series 2016)
What would you do if you found out your child was involved in a shadow government conspiracy…that they can’t get out of?
Perhaps, just perhaps, you might know Wallis Jones.
If you don’t?
Then pray.
When you find out your entire life is the conspiracy…
When a stranger arrives in Wallis Jones’s driveway she learns of a daring enlistment strategy known as the Butterfly Project. With two secret factions secretly battling for control and actively recruiting new members at a young age families find out too late, there’s no out clause.
Caught in the crosshairs of two warring shadow governments, Wallis realizes she must uncover the hidden meaning behind the names on the list the stranger provided.
Can Wallis find a way to uncover the truth and expose the real powers before more lives are lost? Or will she lose the one case that matters most?
Follow Wallis Jones in Martha Carr’s intriguing new political thriller, The List Conspiracy – the first book in the Wallis Jones series!
Alpha Class – Etheric Academy 01 – Snippet 01 of …
UNEDITED
QBBS Merideth Reynolds
Bethany Anne was eating in the common Cafeteria. Her area was a little offset from most, allowing a few feet of extra space for her guards to react. Marcus, however, wasn’t frisked before he approached her table, “My Queen,” she glared at him, “I mean Bethany Anne, may I have a moment?” Marcus Cambridge was a bit frantic, which got her attention right away.
She raised an eyebrow and set her tablet aside, “Marcus, what’s wrong?” She tried to avoid reading the minds of her oldest friends.
“What is this memo I just received about teaching a class?” He was holding out his tablet, shaking it, “I asked Bobcat but he was laughing too hard to tell me. Since it came from your office I came to you first.”
Smiling, she decided to break it to him ever so gently. “That is a reminder about the Etheric Academy. You are slated to be one of the primary instructors.”
Marcus stood up straighter. “Academy? As in students? When did I sign up for that?” He looked back at the document, his eyes searching the words again for another clue.
Bethany Anne put her elbow on the table and laid her chin in her cupped hand, “If you remember, it was actually your idea to begin with. We were laying out the basic outline for the Meredith Reynolds and you said it would be great if we had some sort of science academy to train up our people. I took your basic idea and implemented it.” She opened her arms wide, a smile gracing her face with a gleam in her eye, “Surprise!”
Marcus’s face was all scrunched up. “I don’t remember saying any of that.” He stood there a moment, “Damn that Bobcat and his drinking parties!” He turned to her, a look of resignation on his face, “So I have to lecture or something?”
Bethany Anne couldn’t hold it her humor in any longer. She shook her head and laughed just a little. “Not quite. Adam pull up the Academy layout for Marcus, please.”
The wall behind Bethany Anne lit up with a full color graphic design layout of the Academy built inside the Asteroid base Meredith Reynolds. She pointed to some numbers, “We tested all of the children; both Wechselbalg and human alike. The tests were hard since TOM and ADAM came up with some of the questions. Only the best of the best were good enough for this first trial. They needed to already be excelling in regular school and have a desire to advance themselves for the greater good.”
She turned around and reached for her fork, “We had thirty students pass the first time.”
Marcus’s eyes opened wide, “Thirty? I have to teach thirty?” Marcus was starting to panic.
She put up a hand, “We have broken them up into groups of five students. We mixed personalities and skills to make each group a possible working team. Using a block schedule, they will each spend six weeks on a topic or skill. What you will teach them is ultimately up to you. You will get them all eventually. But only five at any one time.”
“Oh. I guess there was a memo or something that I missed?” Marcus blushed a little bit.
“There was. Do I need to assign assistants down in the lab for you? Do not use the kids for that. I want them to learn stuff, not play fetch the left handed wrench because it’s funny.”
He nodded his head, his eyes getting his now infamous thinking look. “I think we can come up with some things to do.” He returned his focus to Bethany Anne, “What else are they learning?”
Bethany Anne shrugged and started counting on a hand, “Orbital mechanics, Navigation, Engineering, Weapons and tactics, Flight controls,” she closed the hand and started counting off once more. “Logistics, Space walking, computers and programming to begin with. We plan to add a few other skill sets as we go including Genetics, negotiation, and survival.” She looked at him, “These children are our future. Remember, eventually we are leaving Earth behind. They need to learn these skills.”
He put up a hand, “Oh, I agree!” He looked to be concentrating on something. “This was really my idea?”
“It was. You wanted Tina to have a place to learn that didn’t involve Earth and NASA.”
Marcus started backing up, “Good. I think. OK, then. Thank you my Queen I can make this work.” He turned around and bumped into a chair, never seeming to notice.
Bethany Anne waited until the scientist was out the door before breaking out in laughter. She turned to her guard, “Did he really not know?”
John Grimes had a look of disbelief on his face. “I think Bobcat may have neglected to tell him due to some sort of bet.”
Bethany Anne cocked her head to one side. “Yes, that is what ADAM says as well.”
“That I can see.” He turned around to stare at the Academy layout still on the wall. “Is everything ready to go down there for this?”
“They keep saying it is. Your niece was accepted you know.” She stabbed at some green beans, “I have an obligation to make sure she gets whatever she needs to succeed.”
The large man nodded his head. “I remember. Too bad Todd didn’t qualify. He hasn’t completely come around to our way of thinking yet.”
“He’ll get there. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum tell me he is obsessed with aircraft and spaceships right now. Maybe you can give him a nudge in the right direction.” She put a forkful of food in her mouth as ADAM and TOM bitched in her mind about her using Tabitha’s nicknames for Hirotoshi and Ryu.
“Maybe I can.” The big man stared off into space for a moment.
FROM MICHAEL >>> AND SO WE BEGIN!
Way back (some of you might remember?) between books 7 and 8, we had a Frank Kurns story about Cheryl Lynn, Tina and Todd. Then, Cheryl Lynn ends up becoming part of Bethany Anne’s team and Tina and Todd show up in the mercenary / terrorist event w/ Boris in It’s Hell to Choose.
I had readers ask me ‘what ever happened to the kids’ after that. Which was really, really cool to hear.
And really frightening.
Why? Because I don’t think I can WRITE Young Adult. The desire to write to an adult level is too ingrained. I have always spoken to my own kids this way as well. Even when they were young (ok, not the cussing part, but the treating them like them were older).
So, this concept of branching off into the massive amount of different areas readers (not all readers, just a good portion) cared to explore was born (plus egging from other associates in the 20BooksTo50k group, or my editors, beta readers, Amazon Forum Friends and Facebook followers…Basically my Peeps!
(Oh! Remind me to tell you why Son #3 got embarrassed some time when we meet up. Catch phrase “Street Cred.”)
So, TS (Scott) Paul graciously agreed to take on writing the core part of the book and allowing me to come along and help. Like all books, the author and I speak about it, but with Paul there isn’t so much I have to explain.
Because he was a reader from LOOOONNGG ago. Check out the credits in Book #6 and you will see his name. The whole concept of a Nazi Base in Antartica? Yeah, that was born out of a talk with him.
Now, we have a series during the 3 years between books 13 and 14 (My Ride is a Bitch and Don’t Cross This Line). We are answering the question(s), “What happened to the kids?”
Both Scott and myself hope you enjoy the ride… Because, what could POSSIBLY go wrong with a bunch of smart, rambunctious young adults with Bethany Anne and her team as role models?
Absolutely nothing… 😉
Now, for a very tiny story (not because I couldn’t write more, but because I have to eat and get back here before Cox Cable shows up).
Martha Carr is an amazing person. I don’t want to ruin the enjoyment of learning her story (which you get to do as you read her books) but also, she is just so damned Zen. Like..I don’t know how to explain…a Mary Poppins for the 21st century?
No…probably not. She likes killing people too much in her stories. You see, she writes Thrillers and Conspiracy stuff. I would say “she grew up on it” but, for her, it’s the truth.
You know what makes her stuff scarier? The more you know about her background, the more it makes you wonder if the book is a story, or is it a carefully covered up truth she is trying to get us to understand.
Without upsetting the powers that be in Washington.
Check out her first in the Wallis Jones Series, and get ready for #2 due out this week…And #3 in two more weeks… They are all hitting hard, fast and continuously.
I’m a personal fan of Martha, and want her success more than I want my own. If you happen to enjoy this genre, check it out and let me know what you think, ok? If you like it enough to drop a review – please do so. Mind you, every freaking time you leave one…She will probably ping my ass on Facebook and let me know about it! So, the more she pings, the more I’ll probably have to stay writing in Scrivener and get the Michael Book done.
😉
Love you all! – Michael
The List Conspiracy (Wallis Jones Series 2016)
What would you do if you found out your child was involved in a shadow government conspiracy…that they can’t get out of?
Perhaps, just perhaps, you might know Wallis Jones.
If you don’t?
Then pray.
When you find out your entire life is the conspiracy…
When a stranger arrives in Wallis Jones’s driveway she learns of a daring enlistment strategy known as the Butterfly Project. With two secret factions secretly battling for control and actively recruiting new members at a young age families find out too late, there’s no out clause.
Caught in the crosshairs of two warring shadow governments, Wallis realizes she must uncover the hidden meaning behind the names on the list the stranger provided.
Can Wallis find a way to uncover the truth and expose the real powers before more lives are lost? Or will she lose the one case that matters most?
Follow Wallis Jones in Martha Carr’s intriguing new political thriller, The List Conspiracy – the first book in the Wallis Jones series!
THE DARK MESSIAH Snippet 03 of …
UNEDITED
The Etheric Dimension
Stumped.
Michael was frustrated, his lips compressed into a tiny line cutting across the horizontal plane of a face irritated with oneself.
“How does she do this?” he mumbled for the hundredth time, if he had mumbled it once.
Michael had been standing here what seemed like forever. He knew he merely needed to take a step and he should be on the other side. He should be… He took another testing step, and dropped out of the grayness into nighttime on the side of a hill, falling through limbs, cracking two in the process as he slipped and tumbled twice head over ass.
“Gott Verdammt!” he cursed before his legs hit a low branch and twisted him radically turning him over to land hard, His breath exploded out of his mouth, his eyes open in surprise and pain.
He was now on the ground, laying on his back looking up into the branches of a tree above him, the moonlight caressing its branches.
“Oooouuuch,” he moaned, laying there a moment to collect his thoughts.
Michael reached towards his back and rolled to his left. His right hand grabbed a small rock and yanked it out from underneath him. He pulled it up in front of him and looked at it in the moonlight. He opened his mouth to say something, but then shook his head and tossed the rock ten feet away to land in the bushes.
He listened for a second, not hearing anything or feeling anything dangerous. Twenty feet above him, something silvery and translucent seemed to close slowly.
The silver expanse, he would later swear, snickered at him when it closed off, and the tree limbs behind it were now all he saw.
He was losing it. He rolled forward and stood up, knocking the pine needles and other dirt and detritus off his body.
He looked around and snatches from a run came back into his memory. He had a bag, a package. NO! He had a bomb. He had been running to return it to someone who had attacked the…
Michael turned, looking up the mountain. He had been running away from the base.
Michael took his first step in the moonlight, up towards the location where there should be a base.
A base … and answers.
FROM MICHAEL >>> Well, we start again, don’t we? Michael has made it back to the place on Earth he last left. The problem? This Earth is vastly different from the one he left.
Decades have passed, and the unthinkable has happened. Now, those who have been risen in this time are focused on how to survive, it is what they have lived. The UnknownWorld, while still staying in the shadows, have groups preying on the humans. Additionally, there is a sickness that is afflicting the humans with each new generation…
The world needs help, it needs a savior that can help them learn how to treat those around them better.
The problem? What they receive is the Dark Messiah and he has rarely been known to turn the other cheek. The last time that happened, there was a woman involved
And she isn’t around at the moment…
NEW BOOK OUT!
JN Chaney (I just found out his real first name a couple of days ago…I was always wondering if I should call him “JN” or something else) is one of the Author’s I’ve meet in the 20BooksTo50k group who has been doing his own thing, and climbing the charts himself with his series THE VARIANT SAGA.
Recently, he cracked the top 100 Authors in Science Fiction (Woot!) As of this post, he is #84 in Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
For those who have started his series, I’m announcing BOOK 03 IS OUT! For those who HAVEN’T started it, well then click on the link and go check it out if you want some weekend reading! (Well, you need to finish by the 8th, just a suggestion for getting ready for when Michael makes a cameo BEFORE his book comes out DECEMBER 25TH, 2016 😉 )
Hope Everlasting: A Dystopian Sci-fi Novel (The Variant Saga Book 3)
Terry is on the run, having escaped from prison and killed its overseer. He and his friend Ludo need to find a way to get to the northern border. That’s where Ludo’s wife is being held, but time is of the essence. If they don’t hurry, she’ll be sacrificed to the gods as part of some barbaric ceremony.
With an army at their heels and a continent to cross, Terry and Ludo will need all the help they can get.
Meanwhile, Mei Curie has opened a portal to another world…and it isn’t what she expected. There are worms the size of cars, animals with bulletproof hides,and an advanced alien race unlike anything mankind has ever witnessed.
Not to worry, though. Johnathan Finn has just the ticket: a rifle stocked with bullets, ready to deal with whatever threats come knocking.
Along with his team of soldiers, John is here for a single purpose–to find his missing friend and bring him home–but in a world as strange as this one, a simple search and rescue mission could prove deadly.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE!
THE DARK MESSIAH – Snippet 02 of …
UNEDITED
South of Douglas Mountain, old Colorado (A State in the United States Pre-Apoc)
Jeremiah kicked the horse in the shanks, “Ktch ktch, let’s go Black,” he spoke as he and the horse left the shallow stream and climbed up out of the bed to the rise above
It was just twelve feet up.
It hadn’t been much cover, but it had been enough to hide Jeremiah as he and Black walked down the stream bed, so it had been enough for him.
Five minutes later, he pulled on the reins and put a hand on the horses shoulder, “Still, stay still.” He had finally caught on to why Black had been nervous for the last minute.
He loosened the gun in it’s holster, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t a shooting conversation. “You know,” he spoke conversationally, throwing his voice out ahead of him, “If you want to talk, let’s talk. It’s damned hot out here.”
He looked east and could see the east bound Zeppelin rising over the remains of old Denver, heading God knows where and taking God knew who out of these Fallen Lands.
Even a century and a half after the world went to shit, protecting yourself first was the rule of the day. Justice hadn’t made it’s face known again, at least not out here.
Five seconds later, two horses and their riders broke from cover about a hundred feet ahead of him on the trail.
One of the guys, black hair and a scar across his nose, spit out to the side as he and his partner rode towards Jeremiah.
“Plenty close,” Jeremiah commented and the two pulled up ten yards away. “Can I help you?” he asked, eyeing each one of them.
Scar nose rested both hands on his pommel as he looked around, the sun beating down on all three of them. He turned back to Jeremiah, “We’ve been told to deliver a message from the Boss, so we are here delivering it.”
Jeremiah nodded for him to continue. He watched the talking man’s partner, a thin and wiry guy, his eyes darting about the area. He was the one who would possibly fly off the handle and just start shooting.
“The boss is tired of Sarah Jennifer telling him to take a hike,” Scar nose continued, “So tell her she’s got one week to reconsider either selling, or bedding. Each day she continues to be obstinate?” he shrugged and spit off to the side again, “Well, the price goes down and the pleasure is decreased. At some point, even gentleman don’t give a rat’s ass anymore and the Boss will stop trying to be civil in this uncivilized land.”
Jeremiah nodded his understanding.
The two turned, with Scar-nose turning over his shoulder to give a parting shot, “You might mention to the other guys she got helping her on her land, those that don’t fire on us? We won’t fire upon.”
This time, it was Jeremiah’s turn to make a face of disgust and spit off into the weeds.
Sarah Jennifer had fourteen hands helping her with the land. There were only three others, including himself, he was positive would be willing to shoot back in her defense.
Jack “the Boss” Childers had thirty-two.
Even with Sarah Jennifer’s mercenary skills and weapons from her time before, that still left them outgunned at least two to one, and that was the best case.
“Ktch Ktch,” he called to Black, pulling on the reins to go to their right, “Let’s get home, I’ve got to report back to the Lady.”
The two started moving off into the shrubs.
He ducked under a tree limb, “Cause shit just got too damned real,” he murmured.
FROM MICHAEL >>> I’m going to continue with the theme “Shit just got real!” I’ve been talking about doing more collaborations for a few months with other authors, and now it is starting to come together. I put this up on FB – But I’ll duplicate it here for the Awesome Amazon Forum readers:
JUSTICE IS CALLING (With Justin Sloan) – Reclaiming Honor Book 01 – 12/8/2016 (Preorder available – WILL go up in price upon release – Just FYI) – This book just hit #662 (out of all books) on Amazon so both of us are pretty jazzed about this…Well, we were pretty jazzed until Amazon sent the “YOU HAVE TO HAVE EVERYTHING UPLOADED BY 12/4/2016” email and both of us are looking for a calendar! “OH FUJEEZERS!” So, the book was Word’s Complete a couple of nights ago, we are just in editing. WHEW!
REVELATIONS (With Paul C. Middleton) – The Boris Chronicles Book 03 (moved from November due to life 
🙁 ) – 12/25/2016 OR EARLIER (hopefully, earlier.) Paul has a few pages, but life (see above) kicked him in the shins and he is later than he was hoping. It happens and we wish him the best health as he get’s his calendar back on track!
ALPHA CLASS ONE (With TS Paul) – Etheric Academy Book 01 – December 2016 – Scott has already written the first chapter and then THANKSGIVING hit (well, that and he was enjoying a nice Vacation with his wife…At least, that’s the story I’m believing.) Since we are both kinda back on the horse again this week, I’ll get caught up where he is at.
THE DARK MESSIAH (With little ol me)- The Second Dark Ages 01 – Michael’s Return – 12/25/2016
NOMAD FOUND (With Craig Martelle) – Terry Henry “TH” Walton Chronicles 01 – Dec / Jan – Craig and I are talking this out this week. He is a beast of a writer (I’m in awe) and will probably have his story finished before I have mine done. But, then, he is in Alaska and it’s -02 degrees there. What the hell else does he have to do but type and keep his fingers working? (ROFL).
CLAIMED BY HONOR (With Justin Sloan) – Reclaiming Honor Book 02 – January 2017 – Justin has the outline of book 02 already finished and I think he might have already started writing it…Like, 2 or 3 days after finishing book #01 😉
These are the expected dates – since we Indie Authors (all of us) are pedal to the metal, life can derail us occasionally. We don’t state dates six months away knowing it will take two….Nope, not us! So, this is the beginning of the New Indie Outlaw bunch and I’m super excited you are along for the ride.
This above WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE without your support and enjoyment of the books. I hope we do you proud!
Michael
The Dark Messiah – Snippet 01 of …
UNEDITED
The Etheric Dimension
The numbness was ever present. The darkness a cocoon of protection against the pain of remembering.
The guilt building up over the days, weeks, months, years and decades of selfishly resting in the knowledge which pleasured his soul.
She was out there.
His connection to her feeding the emotional craving his heart needed filled.
Until the pain.
The pain he felt through the connection within the womb of Etheric energy his body was using to repair itself.
His eyes snapped open to see nothing, clearly. Then, the Grayness, a void as he turned his head first left, then right as his eyes adjusted and focused. Finally, he looked down at this body. He frowned, he was naked the day he was born.
Worse, he was hairless.
He slowly stood up off of the ground, feeling the little crystals that had been clinging to his back evaporate. He was, he admitted as he turned, looking in all directions, clueless.
The shock of pain that had jolted him from his mental stupor was receding into the grayness itself.
Was the pain real, or had he imagined it? The man stood in the mist and waved his hand through it. Like a fog on a New England coastline, it swirled in the light. Neither transparent nor solid, it merely created eddies of diffusion. Candy to his eyes.
He frowned, like the calories from candy, they didn’t help him one damned bit.
He turned around and considered what he remembered from the dreams, from the nightmares.
His eyes drew together into a mask of concentration. Piecing together the remnants of a time before his sleep, his eyes flashed once, twice, then three times red and on their third time they stayed red.
Now, the fog in front of swirled, and the glow from his eyes twisted the area around him, pushing a new color into the gray.
He turned his head, his mind seeking back to the time, the time when life wasn’t strictly Honor, Responsibility and Loneliness.
The time of the woman. The woman he felt still, in his soul, the connection he had strong here in this … He looked around, this Etheric Dimension. He had been here before.
With her.
She had…has; he corrected, black hair and a sharp tongue.
He smiled, the first time in how long he couldn’t know. Her name would come back to him. He did remember her sarcastic and occasionally caustic verbal skills.
She was a fighter! She was the one… The one who had made him desire to live again, and now a second time she brought him back from being a dead man, living.
He started walking, taking determined steps unerringly towards where he needed to get out of this dimension and return to Earth.
He had the promise to keep. While he might not remember the details, he was sure he wasn’t going to accomplish his promise in this place.
No, He needed to step out into the world of the humans again and find her.
His sense of honor demanded it.
He slowed his walk, feeling the rightness of the location he had come upon as being the entrance he had used so long ago to escape the pain. Now, he needed to figure out how to leave this dimension.
His eyes flashed brightly a fourth time, a glee written in the shadows that fell across his face.
Her name was Bethany Anne.
FROM MICHAEL >>> If there was ever a time the World needed Michael back, it is now. One hundred and fifty years after Bethany Anne and the Etheric Empire have left to take the fight to the Kurtherians ‘out there’, the Earth has devolved…
Justice has reached across the dimensions and chosen a savior…a Messiah… to stop the injustice on Earth.
She who is blind, is bringing back he who is not.
The Dark Messiah will release on Christmas Day, 2016!
If you would like to read a little about Michael early, he appears in the last couple of chapters of Justice Is Calling, a collaboration with Justin Sloan we are writing which will release on December 8th. You can read about and Pre-Order that book, HERE
Don’t Cross This Line – The Hidden Snippet
T-MINUS 48 HOURS…
QBBS Merideth Reynolds – Inside Bethany Anne’s Suite
Bethany Anne, Ashur, John, Darryl, and Jean Dukes appeared in the specially built Queen’s transference room. It was a thirty-foot diameter, fourteen-foot high room with a simple rubber flooring and two sets of doors. One set went into her private chambers, the other led out into the guarded hallway.
The rubber floor was there to help soften the fall if someone had too much momentum when appearing, and it was easy to clean should blood be a problem.
Ashur shot forward coming to a halt at the outside door and barked.
“Welcome home, Ashur,” Merideth, the Operations E.I. for the base station said through the speakers. Ashur bolted out as soon as the E.I. opened the doors.
“Don’t be getting into a fight with Bellatrix!” Bethany Anne called out. “And kiss the puppies for me!” she followed up. The four of them heard his chuff in response, and John and Jean snickered.
“It’s a lot easier,” Jean admitted as the four of them headed towards the meeting room through the same set of doors, “to think you aren’t crazy when I can understand his communication.”
“I don’t know,” Bethany Anne commented as the doors slid shut behind them. John took care of the security details as the small group went through the Guards’ area, “I kind of enjoyed it when no one but me knew he could communicate. You guys should have seen the look on your faces.”
“Oh, uh, I always thought we hid it well,” Jean admitted.
Bethany Anne chuckled.
“You do realize besides reading minds, even if she isn’t trying, she gets a feeling for what you are thinking?” Darryl asked Jean.
“Nooo,” Jean drew the answer out, “but that might be a little embarrassing to learn now!” She shot a dark look up at her man, who shrugged as he kept watching down the hall as they walked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Bethany Anne told Jean, “we don’t advertise the fact because it would only freak people out. I try to push it down as it feels like I’m a peeping Bethany Anne. Sometimes, though, like when Ashur was talking to me, it was fun,” she looked over to Jean, “You do need to get your fun where you can, sometimes.”
Bethany Anne chuckled when Jean’s cheeks colored, “Not like that, you nympho.” Now, Jean’s cheeks colored more as the two guys chuckled louder than the sound of Jean’s punch on John’s shoulder as it echoed down the hall.
—
Five minutes later, the four of them entered the Special Legation meeting room. This one was inside the base, as opposed to the one connected to the docks area which was used for security reasons.
Bethany Anne nodded to Omar Kolan, previously in charge of the hotel operations for the Asteroid Belt, and elevated up to help run the human operations side of the base station. Dr. April Keelson from Medical and Dr. Michelle S. Brown-Williams in charge of Food was on the side of the table with Mr. Kolan.
She greeted the tag team of Kevin McCoullagh and Yamauchi Stephanie. Lance had pulled them up from the Colorado Base, and they had helped oversee the beginning of the excavation and building of the Merideth Reynolds. They were on her right with Marcus, Bobcat, and William down that side. The smelting area out in the belt had finally been disassembled, and the massive amount of raw materials from excavation were stored wherever the hell they could find room. The miners, accustomed to the difficulties mining in space, appreciated mining out the inside of the Asteroid with the new Yollin Drilling Machines.
It had been a tough, but good, three years.
“First up,” Bethany Anne asked, “the artificial sun?”
Marcus grimaced, he preferred not to call anything artificial, but he had been ruled against with finality when Bethany Anne asked him his preferred name.
His official choice had been a long group of scientific words which made one want to use it for a drinking game.
Screw up saying the name, take a drink People would get plastered in minutes.
He answered her question, “We have tested all three levels, and they are working. We tested what might happen in seven different catastrophic scenarios including,” he looked over at his two friends, “If an idiot got drunk and ran a small pod into the main Etheric Energy collector and overcharged the system.”
Bobcat shrugged, “Always assume alcohol can take your worst catastrophe and magnify it.”
“Preach it, Brother Bobcat,” William agreed.
“And?” Bethany Anne interrupted the trio.
Marcus turned back to Bethany Anne, “It degraded effectively in all instances, and we did not have any unfortunate accidents.”
“What, pray tell, would have been the likelihood of an unfortunate accident, and what would it have been, again?”
“Ah,” Marcus scratched his cheek, “less than dying in an airplane crash and instant annihilation for everyone inside the asteroid.”
“So,” Bethany Anne confirmed, “the only survivors would have been those outside in the docks area?”
“Yes,” Marcus admitted.
“Then always assume alcohol is available and sprinkle it everywhere like pixie dust when you conceive of problems with the system. My whole effort to save that backstabbing blue ball back there would immediately ceased being terribly effective if our whole damned base was vaporized.”
She paused a moment, then added, “By us.”
Bethany Anne looked at Marcus, tapping her nails on the table to get him to look up at her, “We have had these discussions before, Marcus. I understand you work in probabilities and the chances of a mistake after you, ADAM, ArchAngel, Merideth, the Defense E.I. Reynolds and TOM all going through the design might be vanishingly small, but I can’t have a mistake if we can help it.” Marcus nodded his understanding.
“Ok, so when do you want to turn on the main system?” she followed up.
Marcus’s eyebrows rose, “Ah, what?”
Bethany Anne smiled, “I believe you have tested the Arti-Sun effectively, when do you want to fire it up?”
Inside Schwabenland Base, Antarctica
The American group had been speaking with Maria now for well over an hour and Barnabas only had one issue nagging at him.
He couldn’t read Dr. Abesimmons.
His mind was a blank to him. He was a cipher, a problem, a puzzle.
Barnabas enjoyed a puzzle because it promised new knowledge at the end when you finished putting the puzzle together. That he couldn’t read his mind was curious, and extremely rare, but was just a hint something could be wrong, not proof so far.
The Americans had pretty much promised Schwabenland their own small area of the country, similar to how they had finally provided American Indians with their own land. Unfortunately for the Americans, Maria had read up on them, and the American Indian’s life hadn’t seemed to be going too well until they figured out that gambling was the ultimate equalizer. Now, reservations all across the country were pulling in the white man’s money legally.
Hell, the white man was driving hours to drop their money in the American Indian coffers.
Should the Indian management and government manage it well, the Indian people were going to do well for a long while, perhaps generations to come. If they didn’t succumb to greed just like almost every other human group in existence.
Maria nodded towards Dr. Abesimmons who held up his hand, “I apologize, Ms. Orsitsch, but I have a couple of rather unique questions if I may?”
“Certainly, Dr. Abesimmons.”
“We understand you have spoken with aliens living in Alpha Centauri, and I am not questioning that in any way whatsoever. However, we are curious if you have perhaps had contact with another group of aliens, the Grays?”
All faces turned to Maria, “No,” she replied, “I’m aware of the aliens called Grays and do not believe I’ve spoken with any of them.” She smiled benevolently towards Dr. Abesimmons, who had been nothing but incredibly respectful the whole discussion when he had asked any questions so far.
“Thank you, the second question, is whether you have every heard of a group of aliens called Kurtherians?”
“SNEEZE!” Barnabas ordered into Maria’s mind, and she immediately held up a hand, turned her head away from those at the table and sneezed loudly.
“Please do not recognize the name Kurtherians, Maria,” Barnabas suggested, leaving the final decision in Maria’s lap.
Either way, this man was now suspect number one on his list of leads.
Maria fanned her face, closing her eyes and turning her head back away from the table again. This time in Barnabas’s direction and her eyes opened when she saw him sitting in the chair.
Then they narrowed as she looked at him before she sneezed once more and turned back towards the table.
She smiled to the table, “I’m terribly sorry, I’m usually not very allergic, but perhaps something came in with your clothes. I do apologize again.” She turned towards Abesimmons, “I’m sorry good Doctor, you asked about an alien species? A Kurthurans?”
“No, madam, Kurtherians,” he corrected.
“No, I have not. Are they important?” She asked him, “I’ve heard of maybe a dozen different species but Kurtherians,” she stopped to make sure she was pronouncing the name correctly, “Is not one of them.”
“I understand. They are,” he told those in the group who had written the name down in their notes, “a rumored group and a passion of mine. My apologies for taking a gamble and asking during this limited availability of your time.”
At least three heads nodded in understanding. All researchers Barnabas knew, having read their surface thoughts.
The group continued talking for another twenty minutes when there was a knock on the door, before Hans and Horst opened it and walked in. Soon, the American group had been herded out of the room with Maria walking out at the end of the group to see them to the exit. She turned and whispered towards the room before she closed the door behind her.
“We will talk later, Barnabas.”
SEE YOU IN DON’T CROSS THIS LINE…T-MINUS 48 HOURS OR LESS …
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