For a long time Gray didn’t say anything. The rain had begun in a feeble mist and he pulled the car out into the thin Verge border traffic. The modern Seattle Metropolitan Zone was laid out like an irregular archery target; the bullseye was New City, what Gray considered civilization, the downtown core that radiated outward from Eliot Bay to the shore of Lake Washington. Beyond that was The Verge, a decaying urban area that was in many parts an anonymous slum – which Gray found detestable, but it was nothing compared to the outer rim of the metropolitan area. Stretching out toward Tacoma was the Old City, an urban ruin that had made a savage meal of what was once a vast stretch of suburbia; there the madmen and violent indigents of the city zone lived and preyed upon each other and on those living its side of the Verge. If the New City was civilization, the Old City was where the Devil lived. Not even Civil Protection went out there without a Federal whip laid against its back.
Gray drove the black whale of the Vectra through the crumbling streets; on the console, the CPN silently streamed data. “You know,” he finally said as they came to a flickering stoplight, “I think you’ve got the wrong idea about me, Carter.”
“Do I?” Carter eyed him from over the rim of his Coke.
“I think so.” Gray turned slightly in his seat. “You seem to think I don’t care about this job.”
Carter snorted and turned away. “On the contrary,” he said. “I think you care plenty about this job. It’s more that I don’t think you care much about the people involved.”
The light turned green; Gray started forward again. They passed a booth made from industrial scrap, great tanks filled with murky green liquid mounted on the roof like great glass heads. Street food, algal patties and such. The facade had been painted up like the American flag. “I don’t think that’s fair,” Gray said, as an old man in a stained smock emerged to watch them go. “There isn’t much left to care for when we arrive, is there?”
“Yeah, well,” said Carter, “I remember a time when this job used to be about public service. I mean, I still give a damn.”
“Times change,” Gray said, much more flatly than he really had meant to.
Perhaps Carter would have replied if he had the chance, but as Gray took the corner the monitor sprang to life. Its passive scroll vanished and a shrill alarm demanded their attention as the police traffic was replaced by a bank of tall orange capitals. ‘ALARM, CODE 17-C: HOMICIDE, VIOLENT. VICTIM CODE 107. PROCEED IMMDIATELY TO SCENE OF CRIME.’
“Victim code 107,” Gray repeated, arching his brows. “That’s company personnel. Non-duty.” Gray checked the address; it was on the western border of the sector, right where White Center bled over into Burien. “Jesus, it’s right next door.”
“Someone sure got their ticket punched.” The flippancy of Carter’s comment was crushed beneath the gravity which now settled over the man; as he did with every case they worked together, Gray watched as Carter’s face solidified into a grim mask and his shoulders hunched forward like an owl preparing to strike. Whatever their differences in politics or beliefs about the job, Carter was right about one thing: he did care about his cases.
Whatever Gray might say to the contrary, he did as well. Carter would never have ridden with him otherwise. Gray didn’t like his job, but he did care about it. When you got down to it, every time he got an assignment it meant someone’s end – not just a subscriber but a living, breathing person. And sure, plenty of them deserved what they got…but a lot of them didn’t, and as much as people irritated him, this sort of thing went on way the hell too often for his taste. Maybe that’s why he ended up in Homicide instead of Pacification Services, after all. Those guys didn’t give a shit for civilians.
As he confirmed with the Nexus that they were on their way, however, the questions began to appear in Gray’s head. A non-duty fatality of CivPro personnel in the Verge, and a homicide besides? Was somebody slumming and got themselves knifed by a hooker? Killed over gambling? Did they get shot over somebody’s wife? It wasn’t as if murders didn’t happen to CivPro personnel off-duty, but they sure as hell didn’t normally happen in the Land of Poors and Squatters. Gray frowned as he drove on, suppressing such speculation. In twenty minutes they’d find out just how horrible fate had decided to be.
The scene of the crime was an alleyway behind an abandoned Roziara Deli. Crowding the street outside the deli were a pair of patrol cars, white wedges of steel with ribbon lights that stained the nearby buildings red and blue. Street officers clustered around the mouth, black body armor over blue uniform fatigues; unlike the sidearms that Gray and Carter carried, the streeties carried the blunt, brutal shapes of submachine guns close to their plated chests. A cordon had been set up; the narrow yellow band of holographic tape that stretched across the alley mouth glowed as it cycled through baleful warning messages. “They used to have good subs here,” said Carter as they pulled up in front of the moldering delicatessen. “Slabs of capicola as thick as Annie Cruz’s ass. Just incredible.”
“Don’t know that name,” said Gray.
“Porn star,” said Carter, who produced his badge and flashed it at a streeter who was approaching them. “Way before your time. Put on your war face, here comes the Pacifier.”
Carter’s Amber Shield glowed like the very words of God Almighty in the low light. “Carter and Gray,” said Carter, keeping his identification held up so that the streeter could see it. “Homicide Solutions.”
“Lem Martin,” replied the streeter. “Pacification Officer, patrol region 927.”
“This is your beat then,” said Gray, who produced from the inside pocket of his suit coat a slim Sony microcomp and engaged its holographic display. Data from the Nexus sprang to life above the palm-sized slab. “What do you have for us, Martin?”
Martin winced a bit at the lack of ‘Officer’ before his surname – you got a lot of that with Pacification Services, of which street patrol was the biggest group. They didn’t like being talked down to. Gray outranked him, however, and didn’t give a shit besides. “Nasty stuff,” Martin said, jerking his head toward the alley mouth. “Victim’s name is Anderson, Ronald P.. Administration. His panic implant was set off about an hour ago and flatlined soon after; me and my partner were in the area, and when we found him…well. Real horror show back there, is all I can say. I called for backup. Dunno what they used, but…well. You’ll see.”
Carter and Gray looked at each other – streeters saw all sorts of things. If they said it was a nasty scene, they’d probably do well to get smocks and rain boots. “All right, Officer,” Carter said, at which Martin seemed to relax a bit. “Were there any witnesses, security footage, anything like that?”
“Nothing we could find,” said Martin. “This area’s been abandoned for years. Anyone who lives here cleared out as soon as they heard us coming. You know how it is.”
“Yeah,” said Gray. Don’t want to get arrested for just being around. “All right, thanks, Officer. If you and…”
“Conklin and Peavey,” Martin replied. “In the other car. Patel’s with me.”
“…Right,” Carter replied with a nod. “If you fellas can keep up the cordon on either side of the alley, we’ll have a look. Call the coroner while you’re at it.”
“On it,” barked Martin, who stepped away from the alley mouth while touching the side of his throat where a subvocal mic, standard issue for street patrol, had been implanted. Carter waited until Martin had backed up a few steps and was well into conversation before he gestured for Gray to follow him. The two men passed through the holographic cordon, the barrier no more solid than the air around it, and took a few steps into the feebly-lit alleyway.
The space behind the deli was dark and thick with shadows, lit only by the dying bulb of a lamp set over the shop’s sealed back door. A figure slumped or lay in the cone of dim light that spilled across the building’s crumbling facade. The air was faintly tinged with the smell of ozone and cooked meat. The two men approached; Gray held his computer in
one hand while Carter fished the flat, card-sized shape of a palm lamp from a coat pocket. Cupping the lamp in his hand, Carter threw a beam of bright blue-white light across the alleyway and clearly illuminated the corpse.
Lean and muscular in life, that which had been Ronald Anderson half-crouched, half-sprawled across the alleyway, his handsome face pointing down toward the filthy concrete. The corpse’s posture reminded Gray of an old girlfriend; she was a yoga fanatic and used to do something similar called the Child’s Pose. Anderson’s formerly clean white dress shirt had been cut open, straight down the back from collar to waist, and his belted slacks had also been cut down to the base of the pelvis. His back had been tattooed with a medieval Japanese wave scene.
Anderson’s flesh had been laid open. Arching upward and away in a v-shaped furrow, a deep channel now butterflied the man’s back half from the base of his skull to the top of his pelvis. Where his spine should have been there was only a bloodless, grayish-red channel. The red and ivory of cleanly clipped bone and cooked organs were clearly visible in its absence, his heart a gray and veined lump. It was as if the tattooed sea had somehow come alive, restless and roaring, and attempted to rise away from its host who could never have survived its rebellion.
Without the slightest drop of blood, Ronald Anderson had been boned like a fish.
“Damn,” muttered Carter, stepping forward so he could track with his light the awful wound. “Never seen that before. What do you make of it, Dan?”
For Gray, who had only experienced the more pedestrian horrors of stranglings, stabbings and gunshot wounds in his brief career, there was no clean reply. “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” he breathed instead, staring down at the carved gutter. Gray had said ‘strangest’ – however, what he had truly wanted to say was ‘most horrible’. Looking down at the murdered man, Gray knew that his ‘sexy’ case had arrived, just as he had wished for it, but the only thing he could wish for now was to be anywhere else.
As if sensing the truth behind Gray’s words, Carter snorted softly. “Lucky you, kid,” he replied in a wry and vaguely weary tone. “Lucky you.”
Purchase your copy of Bone Wires, by Michael Shean at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and more.
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Michael Shean was born amongst the sleepy hills and coal mines of southern West Virginia in 1978. Taught to read by his parents at a very early age, he has had a great love of the written word since the very beginning of his life. Growing up, he was often plagued with feelings of isolation and loneliness; he began writing off and on to help deflect this, though these themes are often explored in his work as a consequence. At the age of 16, Michael began to experience a chain of vivid nightmares that has continued to this day; it is from these aberrant dreams that he draws inspiration.
In 2001 his grandfather, whom he idolized in many ways, died. The event moved him to leave West Virginia to pursue a career in the tech industry, and he settled in the Washington, DC area as a web designer and graphic artist. As a result his writing was put aside and not revisited until five years later. In 2006 he met his current fiancee, who urged him to pick up his writing once more. Though the process was very frustrating at first, in time the process of polishing and experimentation yielded the core of what would become his first novel, Shadow of a Dead Star. In 2009 the first draft of book was finished, though it would be 2011 until he would be satisfied enough with the book to release it.
His work is extensively character-driven, but also focuses on building engaging worlds in which those characters interact. His influences include H.P. Lovecraft, William Gibson, Cormac McCarthy, Philip K. Dick, and Clark Ashton Smith.
Michael's debut novel, Shadow of a Dead Star, was published via Curiosity Quills Press in November, 2011.
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© 2011 Michael Shean
http://www.michael-shean.com
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information about Subsidiary Rights, Bulk Purchases, Live Events, or any other questions - please contact Curiosity Quills Press at [email protected], or visit http://curiosityquills.com
Cover design by Michael Shean
ISBN 978-1-62007-000-0 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-62007-001-7 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-62007-002-4 (hardcover)
Redeye, by Michael Shean
(http://curiosityquills.com/redeye/)
Two years have passed since Agent Thomas Walken and Bobbi January found themselves at the heart of a conspiracy of unimaginable greed and cruelty.
Now, Bobbi will find herself newly equipped to discover the truth – about Walken, about Genefex, and finally, about the Yathi – and the key to unlocking those secrets rests in the hands of a cyborg terrorist known only as Redeye. Drenched in blood and neon, Redeye is a tale of humanity on the edge of a new and terrible reality.
Bone Wires, by Michael Shean
(http://curiosityquills.com/bone-wires/)
In the wasteland of commercial culture that is future America, police are operated not by government but by private companies. In Seattle, that role is filled by Civil Protection, and Daniel Gray is a detective in Homicide Solutions.
What used to be considered an important – even glamorous – department for public police is very different for the corporate species, and Gray finds himself stuck in a dead end job.
That is, until the Spine Thief arrives.
The Space Whiskey Death Chronicles, by William Vitka
(http://curiosityquills.com/the-space-whiskey-death-chronicles/)
A collection of horrific and bizarre tales from the creator of The Kulture Vultures & the Plot to Steal the Universe
From cloned Elvis-monsters wreaking havoc to the depths of Brooklyn, where slender things wait to prey on New Yorkers in their sleep.
And even to the near future, where God isn’t dead, but two brothers need to find a way to kill Him to save existence as we know it.
Space Whiskey Death Chronicles is packed full of adventures through time, blood and nightmares.
Paradise Earth, Vol. 1: Day Zero, by Anthony Mathenia
(http://curiosityquills.com/paradise-earth/)
When the ground quakes and blazing balls of fire fall from the sky, a religious sect interprets it as the fulfillment of long-held prophecies foretelling the end of the world. The members flee to their religious sanctuary, believing that this global cataclysm is the portent of a new paradise of eternal happiness.
Inside, one cold and starving man struggles to hold onto his hope for the future and grapples with a lifetime of beliefs, and expectations.
If he survives to see the paradise earth, will it be worth it?
Prolongment, by Grace Eyre
(http://curiosityquills.com/prolongment/)
Would you like to live forever? B&E Labs has created a commercial process called Prolongment, letting their very old and very wealthy clients extend their consciousness beyond death using time travel technology, then return with new memories. Postmortem memories. Memories of the future.
Prolongment touches everyone, from the victim of a haunting, to a wealthy client, to a rogue scientist experimenting with her own brain, and finally, to B&E’s CEO Ken Muerta, whose moral boundaries grow increasingly murky as he struggles to hold the company together. The fate of the living, the dead, and Time itself is in their hands.
Beginning of Book
Dedication
Part One: Wonderland Calling
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Two: Circling the Drain
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part Three: The Bottom
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Closing
Bonus Content
Sample: Redeye, by Michael Shean
Sample: Bone Wires, by Michael Shean
About the Author
Copyright & Publisher
More Books from Curiosity Quills Press
Shadow of a Dead Star (The Wonderland Cycle) Page 31
