The Debt Collector (Season 1)
Page 37
“I’ve got news for you, Flitstrom.” My voice is serious, but my heart is light. “You can’t guarantee my safety no matter what.”
His mouth pinches together, like he wants to say more, but I can see he’s running the calculations in his head, and the odds of convincing me aren’t coming up good. Which is just as well.
Something silent passes between him and Elena. Which I don’t care for. Then he says, “I’ll give you a chance to think about it. I need to make a coffee run anyway.”
He tips his head to me then strides out the door.
As soon as he’s gone, I pull Elena down to sit with me on the bed. The cute frown has taken over her face, but mine is stretched with a smile.
“Joe, you should go into Witness Protection.”
“Probably,” I say. “But then I’d miss the chance to do this.” I pull her towards me. I can’t chance leaning forward too much, and I don’t have the strength to bring her into my arms, but she obliges, and I spend some time running my bandage-free hand through her hair and kissing her. Not hurried, even though who knows how much time we have left. But softly. And like I mean it.
She pulls back before I’m ready, but I’m in no shape to stop her. “Joe, you can’t stay just for me.” Her hands are twisting in her lap, and she won’t meet my gaze. “I mean, I’d like you to, but it’s not safe—”
I stop her before she gets too far. “It’s not just for you.”
She looks up, questioning. I don’t like the worry on her face, so I reach up to smooth it, and it disappears under my touch. That alone would keep me from vanishing into Witness Protection, but I don’t tell her that.
“When you were shot at the safehouse,” I say, “I did something I didn’t even know was possible. You know the device that Dr. Brodsky used—the one that helped my mom?”
She nods.
“Well, I figured out how to do something similar.” I touch her shoulder lightly, where the silver sling still holds her arm captive. “I reached inside you to focus the life energy transfer.”
“Don’t you do that all the time?” she asks.
“No.” I smile. “This is something completely different. I was able to flood your wound with life energy and hold it there. I know that didn’t do all the healing, but I know it did something. Something different. Something that could change everything about how debt collecting works.”
Her eyes are wide, and the deep, soft brown draws me in, like it always does. “You can heal people?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure exactly how it works, or how much I can do it, but here’s the thing: Dr. Brodsky and I need to have some serious conversations about all of it. What it means. How it works. And what I should do with it.”
She nods as I speak, then a slow smile spreads across her face. “So, you might need to stick around for a little while?”
“Well, I’m kind of an idiot,” I say, grinning. “It might take longer than you think.”
She takes my face in both hands and kisses me, pushing me gently back into the cranked-up mattress of the hospital bed. And while dull aches prod me from my wound, and I’m still weak from my final encounter with Kolek’s mob, there’s no place I’d rather be than with Apple Girl’s hair falling around me, her lips eagerly pressed against mine.
I don’t know how much life I have left, but I know for certain that every moment of it will count for something.
The story continues with a new debt collector in Season Two:
Wraith haunts the bedrooms of rich "high potentials" by night while working by day to end debt collection as a whole… until Gehenna discovers her secret, and everything she loves may be destroyed by the one thing she can never fix—the sin of being a debt collector herself.
“Wraith is amazing and just as compelling as Lirium--once again I'm hooked!!”
“I loved being back in this world! Wraith has captivated me.”
Debt Collector (Season Two)
Watch the Debt Collector trailer on YouTube
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More Stories from Susan Kaye Quinn...
THE SINGULARITY SERIES
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What would you give to live forever?
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The Legacy Human (Book 1)
The Duality Bridge (Book 2)
The Stories of Singularity #1-4 (Novella Box Set)
The Illusory Prophet (Book 3)... coming 2016
Seventeen-year-old Elijah Brighton wants to become an ascender—a post-Singularity human/machine hybrid—after all, they’re smarter, more enlightened, more compassionate, and above all, achingly beautiful. But Eli is a legacy human, preserved and cherished for his unaltered genetic code, just like the rainforest he paints. When a fugue state possesses him and creates great art, Eli miraculously lands a sponsor for the creative Olympics. If he could just master the fugue, he could take the gold and win the right to ascend, bringing everything he’s yearned for within reach… including his beautiful ascender patron. But once Eli arrives at the Games, he finds the ascenders are playing games of their own. Everything he knows about the ascenders and the legacies they keep starts to unravel… until he’s running for his life and wondering who he truly is.
The Legacy Human is the first in Susan Kaye Quinn’s new young adult science fiction series that explores the intersection of mind, body, and soul in a post-Singularity world… and how technology will challenge us to remember what it means to be human.
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THE MINDJACK SAGA
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Open Minds (Book 1)
Closed Hearts (Book 2)
Free Souls (Book 3)
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Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can't read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can't be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf's mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she's dragged deep into a hidden underworld of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.
There are three novels in the original Mindjack trilogy (Open Minds, Closed Hearts, Free Souls), as well as five novellas that accompany the series... and plans for another trilogy in the works (see Susan’s latest novella, The Locksmith, for a peek at a new Mindjack character for the coming trilogy).
watch the live-action trailer
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Aniri is the Third Daughter of the Queen of Dharia—and she has zero royal duties. She’s just the backup daughter, in case her older sisters’ arranged marriages don’t quite work out. But then the impossible happens—a marriage proposal. From a barbarian prince in the north, no less. And if Aniri refuses, the threat of their new flying weapon might bring war. So she agrees, only to discover the prince has his own secrets… and that saving her country may end up breaking her heart.
This Bollywood-style royal romance takes you to an alternate East Indian world filled with skyships, saber duels, and lots of royal intrigue.
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THE DEBT COLLECTOR
sexy, gritty future-noir
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Season Two
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In this sexy, gritty future-noir, debt collectors take your life energy and give it to someone more "worthy"... all while paying the price with black marks on their souls. Intended for ages 17+.
Watch the Debt Collector trailer on YouTube.
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Writing this serial has been an adventure. My first thanks go to the readers who took the adventure with me, reading along and giving feedback—you truly inspired me, with every release of every episode (and all the in between times, too).
The idea for Debt Collector snuck up on me during a long car ride and refused to let go. Special thanks go to Dianne Salerni and Leigh Talbert Moore for their early encouragement to write this story, even though there was no place for it in the schedule. They were also my first critique partners, along with Matthew MacNish. All three helped keep this story on the rails as I wrote. Thanks also go to several writer friends who gave feedback on the early episodes, including Magan Vernon, Becca Campbell, Megg Jensen, and Tina Stoval. A big high five goes to Liz Searle for swapping pages with me all through the intense writing of the first season, and a special thanks to my SCBWI critique group for letting me bring Lirium to class, even though he was not a young adult.
Writing is always an act of faith—on the part of the writer, that the end result will be worth the agony and ecstasy of the writing process, and on the part of the reader, that time spent between the pages will be worthwhile. Thank you to everyone who has taken this leap of faith with me, whether you read episode-by-episode or waited for the full season to be complete. I hope you enjoyed the ride!
Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the bestselling Mindjack Trilogy, which is young adult science fiction. The Debt Collector series is her more grown-up SF.
Susan grew up in California, got a bunch of engineering degrees (B.S. Aerospace Engineering, M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering) and worked everywhere from NASA to NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research). She designed aircraft engines, studied global warming, and held elected office (as a school board member). Now that she writes novels, her business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist," but she mostly sits around in her pajamas in awe that she gets paid to make stuff up.
All her engineering skills come in handy when dreaming up dangerous mind powers, future dystopic worlds, and slightly plausible steampunk inventions. For her stories, of course. Just ignore that stuff in the basement.
Susan writes from the Chicago suburbs with her three boys, two cats, and one husband. Which, it turns out, is exactly as much as she can handle.
Susan loves to connect with readers online! Chat with her about our coming robot overlords in her Facebook group, like her Facebook Page, or check out her website to learn about all her books.