Slow Burn Dark

by A. B. Keuser

  SLOW BURN DARK

  BY A. B. KEUSER

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Dedication

  One - Flynn

  Two - Sophia

  Three - Flynn

  Four - Kathrynn

  Five - Flynn

  Six - Sophia

  Seven - Flynn

  Eight - Kathrynn

  Nine - Flynn

  Ten - Kathrynn

  Eleven - Flynn

  Twelve - Sophia

  Thirteen - Kathrynn

  Fourteen- Flynn

  Fifteen - Sophia

  Sixteen - Kathrynn

  Seventeen - Flynn

  Eighteen - Sophia

  Nineteen - Flynn

  Twenty - Sophia

  Twenty-One - Flynn

  Twenty-Two - Kathrynn

  Twenty-Three- Sophia

  Twenty-Four - Flynn

  Twenty-Five - Kathrynn

  Twenty-Six - Flynn

  Twenty-Seven - Flynn

  Twenty-Eight - Kathrynn

  Twenty-Nine - Flynn

  Thirty - Sophia

  Thirty-One - Flynn

  Thirty-Two – Kathrynn

  Thirty-Three - Flynn

  Thirty-Four - Sophia

  Thirty-Five - Flynn

  Thirty-Six – Kathrynn

  Thirty-Seven- Sophia

  Thirty-Eight - Flynn

  Thirty-Nine - Kathrynn

  Forty - Sophia

  Forty-One - Flynn

  Forty-Two - Sophia

  Forty-Three - Flynn

  Forty-Four- Sophia

  Forty-Five - Flynn

  Forty-Six - Kathrynn

  Forty-Seven - Sophia

  Forty-Eight - Kathrynn

  THANK YOU!

  Other Books By A.B. Keuser

  Books Written as Amelia VanBassett

  Books Written as Elise Jae

  About the Author

  Copyright

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In 2013, I released a little novella by the title of Enemies of a Sort. It was a good book and garnered some praise, but it wasn’t the right book. I pulled it from publishing venues.

  After a massive tear-down-and-rebuild edit, that book is a full-length novel that is leaps and bounds beyond what the novella ever was.

  That is what you will find in the following ~ 460 pages.

  I want to be as transparent as possible for readers who previously enjoyed Enemies of a Sort, and I hope that you will enjoy this deeper look into the world I have created as much as those who are only now discovering Flynn Monroe and his antics.

  Dedication

  For My Father

  At an early age, you gave me an appreciation of Country Western Music, Star Trek, John Wayne, and the joy that comes from a day of honest work in the deep of a silent forest. I’ve never been the same, and I can’t thank you enough.

  One - Flynn

  1337 PD

  When the first settlers discovered Sukiyaki, they must have pissed themselves.

  On a scale measuring luck, they’d found a leprechaun struck by lightning while it was fucking a god-damned unicorn.

  The planet was that magical thing that didn’t happen.

  Ever.

  A habitable equatorial zone and two dozen low-orbit moons perfect for terraform staging platforms….

  Those void-drunk kids had hit a proverbial gold mine.

  Except drilling rigs hadn’t pulled up anything as worthless as that yellow metal; it gave them something the galaxy actually needed.

  Something it would pay for.

  Uranium PD-5.

  UPD-5 was the most powerful—and dirtiest—way to fuel a spaceship. Mining it was a pain in the ass, but the rewards….

  Flynn honestly didn’t know what those were.

  He wasn’t standing in the main shaft of the Tahina Well mine in the middle of an otherwise uneventful Tuesday to get his hands on the toxic substance.

  He wasn’t even there to escape the bone-sucking heat on the surface.

  He was there because someone thirty-two trillion miles away had nefarious plans for the planet. Plans he may have inadvertently set in motion.

  And his momma taught him to clean up his messes.

  The discarded odds and ends in the soft dirt around his feet reminded him that his brother had never taken to that particular lesson.

  Their mother had named him Patrick, but their sister had dubbed him Putty, and the latter had stuck… rather like putty.

  “Why,” Putty glared at him over a red-and-green-flannel shoulder before he turned back to his work, “Do I get the feeling I’ve been talking to no one but this weigh belt feeder for the last half hour.”

  Putty had torn the machine in question open, its enormous conveyer belt exposed to the thick air. Its wiring spilled out like distended entrails. The memory of gore forced him to look away.

  “Because I haven’t been listening.”

  Snorting a laugh, Putty threw a rusty bolt at him. “Asshole.”

  Flynn couldn’t argue with that, and Putty didn’t give him time anyway.

  “If you listened to me once in a while, you wouldn’t be the idiot in the family.”

  “Which one of us failed Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos?” Flynn could practically hear the eyeroll in his brother’s sigh.

  “That was a glitch in the software!” Putty wrestled off the feeder’s internal aluminum covering and set it aside. “And you didn’t even take it.”

  Flynn took one end of a strut support and helped pop out the edge sticking in place. “Because I was smart enough to know better.”

  The mechanics of reactor cores weren’t necessarily a mystery. Attention required caring, and practical applications didn’t always translate to passing grades.

  But Putty wasn’t giving a pop quiz, and Flynn knew more than enough about the importance around him.

  He could thank the bastard who’d given him the soon-to-be necklace scar for that. The wound was slowly desiccating beneath the cloth he’d fashioned to keep it mostly clean.

  Being on the actual planet had been an odd crash course, and far and away more interesting than any nexus-based text.

  But that was completely his brother’s fault.

  He hadn’t shut up since Flynn arrived—unannounced and probably unwanted—two weeks ago.

  Putty, for his part, didn’t actually seem to care if Flynn was listening or not.

  At some point in the dust bucket’s long life circling Sola-778F, a meteor shower destroyed Sukiyaki’s surface, pelting it with enough UPD-5 that after fifty years, the mining union who owned the equatorial regions still had no accurate estimate of the planet’s potential yield.

  The miners had bored down deep, every thousand miles or so, working their way around the uneven belly of the planet. They’d sold off parcel rights to terrafarmers willing to break their backs and bank accounts to turn the dirt on the far sides of the subsolar points into something that might—one day—yield food outside an agri-shield dome.

  And the Colarium governed it all... however absent their influence might seem.

  He’d spent years trying to tear apart their bureaucratic hold on planets like this one. And now, here he was, trying to help them. One moment’s recognition away from a trip across bent space to a lethal injection.

  But losing the war had changed the Lazarai. Flynn wasn’t sure what they’d do anymore.

  “Go away. Last I checked, I don’t need your muscle to get this guy back up and running.” Putty thrust the pry bar back, waggling it without looking, until Flynn plucked it from his hand and set it against the mess that passed for a tool box.

  “Sure you do.” He tapped the housing and smiled when his brother glared at him through one of the ventilation slats. “Who�
�s going to be here to help you out when this thing decides to blow up in your face?”

  “That’s physically impossible.”

  Leaning against the housing, Flynn shrugged his free shoulder. “I can think of four ways to rig it up right now.”

  “Yes, but I can think of twenty, and I’ve already checked.”

  Putty tossed something that had once been a bolt to the ground where it carved a trail and finally disappeared under the dirt.

  “Besides, no one gains anything by blowing up one feeder belt in one mine shaft. They’d have to destroy half of the planet’s facilities to cause anything worth taking the trouble.”

  Flynn stared at his brother, but Putty didn’t seem to notice he’d gone silent at the words. Words that were a hair's breadth from courting treason.

  “Who told you that?”

  His brother looked out and then away, a little too quickly. “Phee.”

  “Ah, yes, the mystery woman. When do I get to meet her?”

  Putty spared him a momentary glance. “After the wedding. I’m not giving you a chance to scare her off.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Not on purpose.

  “Phee’s a law abiding Colarium citizen, and I don’t want her anywhere near your anarchist bullshit. It makes people uncomfortable.” Shaking his head, Putty muttered, “It makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Some things don’t change.”

  Putty looked up at him and glared. “If you’re not going to be useful, you know the way out.”

  “Alright, fine. I won’t make you ask a third time.” Flynn held up his hands and backed away, a smile creeping to his lips despite his best efforts. “Don’t stab me with that screwdriver. I’ll take a walk.”

  They were in the far end of the top level of a spiral slope shaft that had been temporarily closed, while the Captains waited for Putty to fix the feeder.

  The dust in the air only got thicker the further he went, but as he walked around the power supply core at the corkscrew’s center, the draft of current sweeping through the ventilation pipes broke the eerie silence. A shiver sliced down his spine, set goosebumps sprouting over his flesh.

  Unnatural ghosts lived down here.

  Ones he didn’t want to meet.

  He had enough of his own.

  This shaft was only a mile deep. Others were nearly three. Getting to the bottom of any of them was not on his to-do list.

  Dual rails ran beside his boots in a half inch of thick, viscous dust.

  Carbon.

  Drab, rust colored, and gritty.

  Half sand, half whetrock.

  Footprints disappeared as quick as a breath of wind could flutter down the shaft. But there was something there. He squatted down, certain he was paranoid. The depression wasn’t clear enough to discern anything.

  The dirt fell from between Flynn’s fingers, glinting—even in the dim light—like granules of red sugar.

  He pulled one of Putty’s discarded rags from his pocket to wipe the clingy stuff from his hands, and the dust puffed in front of him.

  A shadow fluttered in his periphery and he looked up as something… someone disappeared around the corner of a spider-webbed tunnel that branched off the screw-like path.

  The mine wasn’t technically off limits, but no one had any reason to be down there if they weren’t working. And none of the equipment would power back up until Putty plugged the feeder back in and reenergized the circuits. Some of the smaller tunnels would be suffocating.

  So, why was….

  He’d started toward the tunnel entrance when the floor shook and particles fell from the ceiling. They hung as though gravity had decided to clock out for the day.

  “Flynn!”

  He’d heard his name called in that tone enough to know he didn’t have time for hesitation.

  Sliding in the dirt as he spun around, he ignored the jarring pain in his neck as his boots hit the ground and the shockwaves laced straight up to his throat.

  Putty wasn’t where he’d left him.

  On his knees in the soft dirt, his brother frantically pulled cording out from beneath the machine--the machine that should have been dead.

  Flynn skidded to a stop and slammed the side of his fist against the red emergency disconnect.

  It blew sparks instead of doing its job.

  The energy load readings pegged in the red and the feeder looked ready to shake off its mountings.

  “Where’s the backup power cable?” Flynn’s shouted words were half-drowned by the screeching wail. He grabbed hold of the machine a moment before it would have toppled and crushed his brother.

  “There shouldn’t be a backup power c— Motherfucker.”

  Putty wrenched the cord, tearing the wiring from its receptacle.

  A grinding crunch echoed through the cavern and the ground shook as the machinery finally whirred to a shuddering stop. The air filled with the noxious scent of burning metal and Putty kicked the feeder.

  Flynn was still catching his breath when his brother stormed off, muttering things that would likely have made his mysterious “nice woman” run the other way.

  Screaming.

  Gingerly touching his neck, Flynn felt the cold wet of his reopened wound.

  He chose his favorite of the many words Putty had used and glanced back toward the screw, wondering if the person he’d seen was somehow involved.

  Whoever they were, they were long gone by now.

  In the semi-darkness, he knew the smallest things could play tricks on his mind, but he hadn’t imagined them. And as soon as he dealt with his brother—and his neck—he’d be back to figure out exactly what was going on.

  Putty waited at the surface gate, knuckles white as he held the boards. He stared into middle distance, his mouth a flat scowl.

  He didn’t say a word as Flynn took the locks from him and closed the entrance up tight.

  Didn’t say a word as they walked to the little two-man buggy Putty had rented and slung themselves in through the scaffold-style frame.

  The seat’s restraints cut into Flynn’s neck as they took the dusty road back to town at twice the posted limit. He wanted nothing more than to tear them from their bolts and throw them away like vipers.

  If it wouldn’t have incurred a massive penalty from the rental company—and encouraged more questions from the already suspicious mines’ captains—he might have.

  Beneath the already constraining collar he’d fashioned to hide the wound, pain clawed its way down from the too-slowly healing laceration that encircled his neck. He shifted his shirt lapels to hide the darkening line.

  Putty slammed the buggy to a stop and was out of the vehicle before Flynn could unclip the cursed belts.

  He ignored his brother and managed to extricate himself. The ride had him moving like an eighty-year-old.

  Damn, he hated the ways his body chose to fail him.

  Pacing back to the buggy, Putty grabbed hold of the roof bars and glared down at the driver’s seat. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

  Flynn pretended he didn’t feel like shit, slowly making his way around the buggy. “Accidents are called accidents for a reason. If you were perfect all the time, it’d just make me look shittier than I already do.”

  Shaking his head, Putty finally looked up and then grabbed him in a bear hug that would have sent them both to the ground if Flynn’s back hadn’t been supported by the buggy’s A-pillar.

  Putty growled something unintelligible before he managed a “Thank you.”

  His brother’s violent mood swings were starting to feel normal again. And despite the pain slashing through Flynn’s neck, he didn’t push his brother away.

  “It’s been a very long time since someone’s been happy I was around.”

  Putty finally let up and with a hand on each shoulder, held him at arm's length. His brother looked him over with a scrutinizing glare. “That’s not true. And it hasn’t been since you got back.”

  He shook Flynn as he said i
t, and Flynn had to grit his teeth against the pain.

  “I have someone I have to go yell at.” He let go and jabbed a finger toward Flynn’s throat. “You go deal with that mess.”

  Without anything resembling a good bye, Putty turned on his heel and disappeared around the corner, his shirt a garish streak of cherry and olive in the harsh light of day. Leaving Flynn alone with his thoughts. The very worst place to be.

  Two - Sophia

  Sophia Refuti had been back on Capo for less than a standard day, and already the mess of her so-called vacation was catching up to her.

  She leaned back in her plush, wingback chair, idly tapping through the pages of her latest holdings reports. These particular accounts were well established. She trusted the women who managed them. But the numbers needed a brief audit before they could be sent off to her analysis team for final upload and archival.

  Running a corporation the size she’d built took the majority of her time, and all of her energy.

  More so when she sat at this desk, under these lights.

  If she hadn’t just taken that working vacation, she might have told herself she could put off the reports for another day.

  Her door opened without a knock and she didn’t look up as Banks—the only one on the planet with the ability to open all her locked doors—strode in.

  He paused in front of her and in the reflection of her desk screen, she saw him give her a stern look, assessing her like she was an errant child he had to keep tabs on, instead of his employer.

  “You slipped your security detail.”

  “I gave myself a birthday present.” Finishing up her scan, she shifted, hooking one knee over the other and moving into a position he’d register as “comfortable,” before she sent her head of security a genuine smile.

  “Would I know your birthday present’s name? Or is she a secret?” The smile twisted and she considered teasing him. But there was no point.

  “I was working with a competitor and that’s always easier if their employees have no idea who I am. An environmental risk assessor doesn’t need a bodyguard.”

  “So you left yourself at their mercy?”

  Banks had never believed in trusting thine enemy--no matter how far he could throw them.

  “Sophia, they could have killed you.”