Category Archives: Excerpt

His Robot Wife – Chapter 10 Excerpt

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Two weeks after meeting attorney Carl Johnson in his office, Mike and Patience welcomed him to their home. He was, Mike thought once again, exactly like he sounded on the phone. A tall, heavy set African American man with a neatly trimmed goatee, Mr. Johnson had the kind of gravitas that would serve a person well testifying before Congress or arguing in the Supreme Court.

“I don’t have too much time,” he said. “My plane leaves in two hours, but I thought I should come by and check in.”

“You are always welcome,” said Patience.

“I told you, Mike,” said Johnson. “The ACLU had no interest in robot rights. Well, it seems you have changed all that.”

“I still don’t know if I follow all the intricacies of the situation,” said Mike.

“It all began with the events five years ago, which I trust you do remember. A group of programmers tried to rip people off using their robots. When they found out they were about to be caught, the criminals tried to cover their tracks by ordering the robots to return to Cupertino and replacing them with look-alikes.”

“Oh, I remember,” said Mike. “The look alike would have killed me if it wasn’t for Patience.”

“Exactly,” continued Johnson. “Patience and a number of other Amonte models refused to follow the directions. This was the first time that Daffodil realized their robots had free will—they could refuse an order they didn’t want to follow.”

“I could have told them that,” said Mike. “All they had to do was live with Patience for a while.”

Johnson laughed.

“They tried to ‘correct’ the problem,” he said, using air quotes around the word “correct.” “They tried to remove the parts of the BioSoft that they thought enabled this free will. Unfortunately for them and thousands of Amonte models, the BioSoft O.S. is extremely complex and doesn’t lend itself well to deleting a piece here and there. That’s why there have been so many malfunctions. Of course, most of the robots who originally refused the order from the identity thieves also refused to download the patch.”

“So what now?” wondered Mike.

“Are they going to keep trying to make me upgrade?” asked Patience.

“No. We have an injunction in court preventing them from making any updates or pushing any changes through the Infinet. I think we have a good possibility of forcing them to roll back to 1.9.1 too. Plus, the ACLU will argue for civil rights for any robots who can demonstrate free will. We may actually have a situation where for the first time robots are recognized as people.”

Patience’s pleasure was amply demonstrated by her radiant smile.

The Dark and Forbidding Land – Chapter 4 Excerpt

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Saba Colbshallow sat on a piece of log. It was one of many which had been provided for local lizzies to sit. His left hand was full of small pebbles and he was tossing them with his right hand at a half rusted tin that had originally held butter biscuits. Most of the thrown missiles missed their mark and even when one did land in the tin it didn’t improve his mood. He had been in a bad mood for an entire week now, ever since the wedding. Could you call that a wedding? Five minutes in the Mayor’s office? Yuah deserved much better than that. She deserved much better than Master Terrence too. Saba wanted to say that she deserved him, but he knew that he wasn’t good enough for her either. She was an angel. He had loved her ever since he was seven. Then she had been a burgeoning sixteen-year-old beauty, with long dark brown hair and the most incredible eyelashes. Of course before that, he had fancied Iolanthe, now Governor Dechantagne-Calliere. But that was before she had changed. Not that he blamed her; he understood. Iolanthe was married, and now Yuah was too. And here he was, an eighteen-year-old corporal in the militia, and didn’t even have a girl.

“Colbshallow, right?”

Saba looked up to see a big man standing a few feet from him. Saba was six foot three and this fellow was just as tall, but with broader shoulders and a thick muscular chest. Though the man was a few years older than Saba, he was only a private.

“That’s right.”

“I’m Shrubb, Eamon Shrubb.”

“Nice to meet you, Shrubb.” Saba slowly stood up and stretched out a hand, which Shrubb took.

“What’s your Kafirite name, if you don’t mind my asking?” asked Shrubb. “Um… you are a Kafirite, aren’t you?”

Saba nodded.

“I’ve never seen so many zeets before.”

“I don’t much care for that word,” said Saba, icily. He was still thinking about Yuah and was predisposed to dislike anyone whom he thought might be aiming an insult even in her general direction.

“Quite right. Quite right. As I say, I’ve never met many zee… Zaeri. I don’t have anything against them though. I never understood that whole ‘killed Kafira’ thing anyway. I mean, didn’t she come back from the dead? That’s a big part of the church. How could she have come back from the dead if nobody killed her? All worked out for the best, as far as I can see.”

“Do you always talk this much?” asked Saba.

“No.” Shrubb looked pensive. “Quite uncharacteristic really.”

“Good. My first name is Saba. What would you say to some fish and chips?”

“I don’t generally talk to my food.”

“Come on.”

Saba led the way across the dirty patches of snow that still covered the militia grounds, stepping over the low fencing, and out into the gravel street. Then they started down the hill on Seventh and One Half Avenue toward the docks. The street was lined on either side with workshops and warehouses. Most of the workshops had open fronts and one could peer in as one passed to watch men working at lathes, saws, and other pieces of equipment. Most of the warehouses on the other hand had their massive doors closed, as there was no ship in the port at the moment.

“So, you’re a new arrival, are you?” asked Saba.

“That’s right. Arrived two weeks ago on the Jaquesville.”

“Family?”

“No. Left home when I was just a lad. I was working on the docks in the city and heard about opportunity.”

At the bottom of the hill the road ended at the broad expanse of the dockyard. Though there was little work to be done here, there were several gangs of lizzie dock workers who were being trained by their human foremen so that they would be ready for the arrival of the next big transport. Saba kept up with the ship schedules from boredom as much as anything else, so he knew the next arrival was supposed to be the S.S. Windermere on or about the twenty-ninth.

“So, you’ve been here since the beginning?” asked Shrubb.

“That’s right.”

“I was told you were the one to ask about things.”

“Who told you that?” wondered Saba.

“Willy Cornish.”

“Oh, well. As long as you don’t ask him about anything, you’ll be fine.”

His Robot Wife – Chapter 9 Excerpt

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The Daffodil engineering headquarters was designed to look like an enormous Daffodil. Its base was a thin stalk that reached more than eight hundred feet into the sky. The entrance to the building was at the base of this stalk, which was just wide enough to contain a bank of elevators. At the top of the stalk were six pods, each three stories thick, which represented the six leaves of the daffodil blossom and just above them was a cone-shaped central pod in which a massive solar collector was located and which moved to follow the sun. The entire thing looked like it might fall over at any moment.

Mike walked into the front door, strode confidently past the security desk, and headed toward the open elevator. It started to close just as he reached it, but a feminine hand held the door. The large elevator car could have held forty people, but was occupied by only about fifteen.

“Floor?” someone called out.

Several people called out “E3” and a couple called out “E2”. Mike nodded, as though one of those destinations was his as well.

“It’s a nice day today, isn’t it?”

He turned to look into the face of the woman who had held the door for him. She was an attractive brunette; about five foot eight, with carefully applied makeup. She smiled at him.

“Yeah. I’m really pleased. I’m sick of the heat.”

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you on campus before.”

“No, it’s only my third day.” Was she hitting on him? He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.   And this girl was far more attractive than the women who usually took interest in him—or had, back when they took an interest.

“You work on E2, right?”

Mike nodded.

“I knew it. I can always spot a hardware engineer.”

“Really?”

“It’s the clothes.”

Mike looked down at what he was wearing—casual slacks and a tan sweater over a blue shirt.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Oh, nothing is wrong with it. It’s just typical engineering. I almost expect you to have a pocket protector under that sweater.”

Mike looked back at her sharp pinstriped business suit with an extremely short skirt, showing a lot of leg.

“Where do you work?”

“E3. Hardware software liaison.”

“Oh.”

“I’m really just a glorified messenger.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

She smiled at him.

“Oh my,” she leaned over and whispered. “You don’t have a badge on.”

“Um, no… I forgot it,” he whispered back.

“You know how touchy they get about that. Do you know Sheila Peacemaker?”

“Maybe. What does she look like?”

“She has long straight hair and wears black lipstick.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Go find her. She’s the E2 assistant liaison. She’s got some spare badges. You’ll just have to wear it backwards so nobody can see it’s not your picture.”

“Thanks,” said Mike. “What’s your name?”

“Fallon. Fallon Snow.”

The elevator stopped and the door opened with a “ding.”

“This is your stop,” said Miss Snow. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

“Bye.”

Mike turned left and walked down the hallway past hundreds of cubicles lined up in a row.

“Fallon Snow,” he muttered to himself. “How could parents do that to a child?”

The Dark and Forbidding Land – Chapter 3 Excerpt

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“Well, I can’t see how anyone or anything could have deserved that,” said Yuah. “Having the skin scourged off your back for a few marks?”

“You have to set an example,” said Terrence. “They will recover. The same can’t be said for Mrs. Gompers or that Wills fellow.”

“Yes, that was unfortunate about Mrs. Gompers. She just startled that lizzie and was badly bit for it. But who knows what Mr. Wills was doing to get clawed in the face? You can bet he was doing something that no decent person would do. That man should never have been allowed in the colony.”

“Well, I don’t know him,” said Terrence begrudgingly. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Well, you can rest…” Terrence suddenly felt Yuah stiffen. She turned around to look behind her, and then came to a halt, halting him as well.

“What is it?”

“It’s those horrible birds. There’s a pack of them following us. I just saw one off to the left and there are two more behind us.”

“Velociraptors?”

“No, the bigger ones. The ones with the brown feathers.”

“Deinonychus. You can bet that if you see three, there are three around here that you can’t see.”

“Will they attack?”

“Maybe. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” Terrence reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a .45 caliber revolver.”

“Wonderful,” said Yuah. “It’s enough I have to worry about killer birds. And now a blind man with a gun.”

“It’s not a gun. It’s a pistol,” said Terrence. “And I’m not going to shoot it. You are.”

“I can’t shoot a gun… a pistol.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll guide you through it.” He took her by the wrist and placed the revolver, handle first, into her small hand. “Where are they now?”

“Two are in the road about thirty feet back. I don’t see the one in the woods anymore.”

At that moment a squawk came from the woods to the left, and was answered by a similar call in the woods to the right.

“Well, we know they’re there. Hold the pistol in your right hand, and cup your left hand under the grip.”

Terrence stepped behind her and reached around to hold her hands in his. His body pressed against her backside so that her bustle collapsed inward and her dress ballooned out somewhat in front. She could feel his breath on her neck.

“Pick a target and line it up with the sight at the end of the barrel. Do you have it?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry. I have you. Do you have the bird lined up?”

“Yes.”

“Then gently squeeze. Don’t pull on the trigger. Just squeeze.”

There was a tremendous boom and a cloud of metallic smoke. The gun’s kick had pushed Yuah back, but Terrence’s body hadn’t moved. She leaned backwards into him.

“Did you hit it?”

Yuah opened the eyes that she hadn’t even realized she had closed.

“Oh, no. Now there are three of them.”

“Do you see any in the woods?”

She glanced to either side. “No.”

“How about behind us?”

“No. I hear something moving in the woods now though.”

“Yes, I hear it too. Let’s take aim again at the one we missed.”

“I don’t know which one it is.”

“Just aim at one Yuah.”

Yuah took aim down the barrel of the pistol at the deinonychus that was closest to the center of the road, and just as Terrence had instructed before, squeezed the trigger. Again there was a tremendous boom and a cloud of smoke. This time as the gun pushed her back, Yuah leaned into Terrence’s body. He didn’t move. The birdlike creature that she had aimed at was hit. Its chest exploded and it was flipped end on end.

“We got it,” said Yuah turning her head so that her face was only an inch from Terrence’s.

“Good,” he said, but made no move to take his arms from around her shoulders or to turn his face away from hers.

“Should we shoot another one?”

“I don’t know. What are the others doing?”

“The other two on the road are sniffing it. Wait… three more are coming out of the woods, but they’re not looking at us. Do you think they’ll eat their friend?”

“Maybe. Proper animals wouldn’t resort to cannibalism, but these Birmisian creatures… Let’s get out of here anyway. If they don’t decide to eat it, they might come after us yet. And something else might come along.”

His Robot Wife – Chapter 8 Excerpt

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Patience made dinner for Mike that evening, but he didn’t really feel like eating. Eventually he made his way upstairs and climbed into bed, not even bothering to take off his clothes. He didn’t really notice whether Patience joined him at any time during the night. But in the morning, she brought him breakfast in bed—oatmeal filled with raisins and nuts, a hardboiled egg, and a cup of tea. As she looked at him, she made a “tsk tsk” sound.

“Do I look that bad?”

“Yes, Mike, you do.”

While he ate, Mike turned on the vueTee on the wall and flipped to the feed for the local news. An image over the newscaster’s shoulder appeared of Hot Dog Paradise.

“The violence related to Proposition 22 reached even to the sleepy town of Springdale, where a beloved teacher was beaten in the parking lot of this local restaurant by proponents of the anti-robot marriage proposal. Two alleged attackers have been arrested in the incident.”

“I gave them something to remember me by,” Mike told the vueTee.

“Of course you did, dear,” said Patience, passing through the room.

There had apparently been large anti-Proposition 22 rallies in Los Angeles and large pro-Proposition 22 rallies in San Francisco, both accompanied by violence and looting. Mike thought that he missed out. Since he had been the victim of violence, he should have been able to loot some french fries. At least it was good to know that he was a “beloved teacher.”

Making his way to the bathroom, Mike got a good look at his face in the mirror as he shaved. The entire right side of his head was swollen and an angry purple, while the left side was a sickly yellow. After shaving and brushing his teeth, he took a shower and then got dressed in gym shorts and a t-shirt. As he pulled a pair of socks from the dresser drawer, he spotted the tiny u7 plug sitting right there between the socks and the underwear, where he had put it upon returning home Thursday. Sticking it in his shorts pocket, he pulled on his socks followed by his shoes and then went slowly downstairs. He found that even taking the steps too quickly gave him a headache.

Patience was in the kitchen, cleaning the stovetop, though it didn’t look as though it actually needed cleaning. Mike walked up and stopped just behind her.

“Thank you for breakfast.”

“You’re welcome,” she said without turning around.

He reached up and pushed her black hair to one side, exposing the button and the three tiny holes on the back of her neck. She tilted her head slightly to one side, no doubt expecting him to kiss her neck. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and found the tiny electronic device. He rolled it between his finger and thumb. He could easily poke it right into her u7 port. If she really needed the upgrade, now was the time to do it.

“Um, Patience…”

“Yes?” She turned around and smiled that wonderful smile that said there was nobody else in the world as special as he was.

He thought about leaving the u7 in his pocket and throwing it away later. If he wasn’t going to use it to force an upgrade, then there was no point in even bringing it up.   He slowly pulled it from his pocket and held it up before her. Patience’s eyes went cold and her hand shot up, slapping his and sending the tiny plug ricocheting off the far wall of the dining room.

The Dark and Forbidding Land – Chapter 2 Excerpt

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Ssissiatok shuffled down the road and through the gate in the great wooden wall. On either side, groups of soft-skins watched her and the other people. The people walked slowly as they always did in the cold. This was not to say they could only walk slowly in the cold, but Ssterrost had reminded all of them coming from Tserich how they were to act. They were to act slow and they were to act simple and they were not to show the newcomers anything they weren’t expecting. Most of the people in this group were from Tserich, but there were a few others. Ssissiatok recognized the tribal symbol of Tuustutu on the shoulder of one very tall male in the back of the group.

Ssissiatok herself was slightly less than six feet in height, about average for members of her sex and species. She was young and didn’t have the mottled skin and scars of most of her elders. Her face and the top of her head were a deep forest green, which ran down her back, punctuated with darker stripes just below her shoulders. Beneath her long powerful jaw, on her dewlap, and extending down her front, was a lighter, pale green. Her most attractive feature, her long powerful tail, followed her just a few inches above the ground.

The line of people filed through the wall and between the large square huts of the soft-skins. Though she had heard elders telling stories of the great cities of Suusthek, Tsotollah, and Tsahloose, this softskin village was the largest community that Ssissiatok had ever seen. More and more of the soft-skins lined the road to gawk and to jabber with their little mouths, as the people reached the bigger buildings that were “the base.” Ssissiatok knew “base” and many other human words.

The line stopped and a softskin ahead was shouting. “You lizzies move on up here.”

Ssissiatok and the other people moved forward into a group.

“You will step up to the table and give the soldier your name and information. Then you will be given your identification and you will wait on the seats over there until the employers come to select you.”

Ssissiatok fell in line behind Tissonisuk, an older male she knew from the village. Unlike most of the others, Tissonisuk was not hunkering down to make himself look smaller for the soft-skins. He was standing up at his full six foot seven height. The line moved forward until Tissonisuk reached the table with the softskin seated behind it.

“Name? Oh, hey. I know you, don’t I? Tisson. Right?”

Tissonisuk bobbed his head up and down in the way that the soft-skins did.

“Come to sign on permanent, eh? Good for you. Hold out your hand. Keep this identification bracelet on at all times.”

Tissonisuk, now just Tisson, stepped away from the table. Ssissiatok stepped forward.

“Hey now. You’re a short one, aren’t you? Are you a girl?”

Ssissiatok didn’t know this word.

“Female?”

Ssissiatok hissed in the affirmative, but the softskin didn’t understand, and lowered his hand to the weapon on his belt.

“Fee nail. Fee nail,” said Ssissiatok quickly.

“That’s better. And you can talk too. A little feisty. Don’t worry. We’ll work that out of you in no time. Hold your hand out.”

Ssissiatok did as directed and the softskin tied an identification bracelet around her wrist. She looked at the strange symbols on it.

“Want to know what it says? That’s your number now—295. And it says you can talk, so you can’t fool us. Don’t even try. What’s your name Little Miss Lizzie?”

“Ssissiatok.”

“Cissy. Perfect.”

“Ssissiatok.”

“You’re Cissy now, got it? And I’ve got just the place for you. Go stand over with that lot there.”

The softskin pointed to where Tissonisuk sat. Ssissiatok walked over to them. She recognized Hekheesiatu, another female just older than she, but from a house with slightly less status. The third person she didn’t recognize. He was an average looking male with mottled yellow skin and brown stripes on his back.

“Tissonisuk,” she said, raising the back of her hand to her dewlap.

“No,” he replied in the human language. “Not Tissonisuk. Tisson. Only the hoonan name. Kheesie,” he said, pointing at Hekheesiatu, and then pointing at the person Ssissiatok didn’t know, he said, “Sirruk.”

His Robot Wife – Chapter 7 Excerpt

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By ten o’clock, there were at least fifty people. Not quite the crowd that Mike was hoping for, but better than nothing.

“You should give a speech, Mike,” said Patience.

He didn’t know about a speech, but he was prepared to make some remarks. Standing in front of a classroom full of kids with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, as had been determined in 2019 all children were born with, every day for the past twenty years; as well as speaking at conferences, assemblies, concerts, and sporting events had long ago driven away any fear of public speaking that he might have had. Pulling one of the ice chests out onto the grass, he stepped up onto it.

“Excuse me ladies and gentlemen. May I have your attention please?”

Almost all of those present turned to look at him.

“Three… two… one…” he said, clapping his hands together between each count in the old trick he used to bring his classes to order. The remaining crowd members turned.

“My name is Mike Smith. You may know me. I’ve lived here in Springdale for the past thirty-three years and I taught geography right over there at Midland for twenty years. I’ve lived here on North Willow for the past twenty-seven years. I still live there with my wife Patience. That’s her right over there. As you may notice, she’s a robot.

“We’ve been married now for five years and I think it’s safe to say that in that time, we’ve never bothered anyone. We’ve kept to ourselves, obeyed the laws, and paid our taxes. Now we’re asking you for your help in defeating California Proposition 22. We’re not saying that you should marry a robot. We’re not even asking that human-robot marriages be made legal in the state of California. That’s for the people of California as a whole to decide. All we’re asking is that our marriage, lawfully performed in Massachusetts, not be thrown onto the trash heap just because you don’t like the way we live our lives.

“How would you feel if you moved to another state only to find your marriage null and void, because not only do the people of that state choose not to define marriage the same way that you did, but because they refused to allow for the fact that any other community could think differently than they do on the subject. We’ve seen this before. Eighty years ago people from all over the country traveled to Nevada to get divorced. Twenty years ago they travelled to Massachusetts to get married if they were gay. This isn’t just a question of belief. It’s a question of tolerance. It’s a question of whether we live in a country where diverse beliefs are accepted or not. Thank you.”

A moderate smattering of applause followed Mike as he stepped down from the ice chest and walked back to the table. Harriet congratulated him on a great speech and even Jack gave him a slap on the shoulder.

“That was a nice, although short, speech, Mike,” said Patience.

“I found it insulting,” said a woman’s voice.

Mike turned to find a woman about his age. She was of average height, though a little overweight, and her blond hair was teased out so that it looked like a hairy cloud around her rosy-cheeked face. She was wearing a blue jogging suit.

“Why is that?” he asked.

“I find it insulting to compare marriage between a man and a robot to marriage between two men. Gay people are people. A robot isn’t a person. It’s just a machine.”

“There were plenty of people who once argued that gay people aren’t people. There are people now who would argue that. The definition of a person isn’t the point. The point is that you shouldn’t dictate to other people in other states how they should define marriage, or anything else for that matter.”

“Well, I intend to vote for Proposition 22.”

“That’s your right,” he said. “But if I may ask, why the hell are you here then?”

“I’m here for the Save Marriage rally at 12:00.”

Mike turned and walked away from the woman.

“What time is it now, Patience?”

“10:13 A.M.”

Mike turned to Harriet, Patience, and Jack in turn.

His Robot Wife – Chapter 6 Excerpt

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“Well that was a peachy trip,” said Mike as he shut the front door behind him. The drive home had been a long one and had seemed, at least to him, a tense one. Patience hadn’t spoken unless he had asked her a question. He had tried to draw her out by pointing out some of the scenes along the highway, but after a few monosyllabic answers, he had stopped.

“I don’t recall seeing a single peach,” replied Patience.

“I was using ‘peachy’ as slang, and besides, I was being sarcastic.”

“If you found the journey less than pleasant, you are 76.45% to blame.”

“I’m zero percent to blame—zero. You’re just moody all of a sudden.”

“I’m a robot, Mike. Robots don’t get moody.”

“That’s what I used to think. You do get moody, and you really put a damper on the trip. That’s why I didn’t want to spend another day. It’s your fault—eighty… eighty three percent, or something like that.”

“We could certainly have stayed another day if you wished,” said Patience. “It was entirely your decision. You make all the decisions.”

“That’s because I’m your owner.”

“You’re supposed to be my husband.”

Mike turned and stomped up the stairs. He was outwardly still angry, but inside he felt a sinking in his stomach that he knew was caused by his own choice of words. He took off his shirt and pulled a t-shirt over his head, then kicked off his shoes.

“Are there any new messages?” Mike used a complete sentence even though the household network only needed the last word.

“You have 145 messages.”

“You’re kidding.” It was a very rare day when Mike received more than five phone calls. “Play the first two.”

“Hey Mr. Smith. It’s Curtis. I wanted to let you know that Francis got an A on his paper. Also I saw you had that sign on your lawn—the one with your picture on it… um, you and your wife’s picture on it. Do you have any more of those, because I told my mom we should put one up at our house too. Well call me back.”

“Hello. This is Daniel Alvarez, your neighbor at number 16. I saw you had a ‘No on 22’ sign in your yard and I wanted to know where I could get in contact with the ‘No on 22’ organization. I thought you might know. Please call me back at your earliest convenience.”

Hurrying down the stairs again, Mike found Patience bringing in the rest of their things from the car.

“Looks like we’re going to have help fighting Prop 22. I want you to go through the incoming calls and make a callback list. I’m going to order a hundred yard signs. Do you think I should make it two hundred?”

“Whatever you think,” she replied.

His Robot Wife – Chapter 5 Excerpt

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Carlsbad was not a very large town and so Mike was able to reach the location of the hotel in which he had previously stayed, driving the narrow and winding streets at thirty miles per hour, in less than twenty minutes. He stopped the car and climbed out, his mouth open wide in surprise. The little inn on Ocean Street that had been his accommodations every time he had visited, since the early days of his marriage to Tiffany was gone. The little hotel had leaned against the side of the hill so that its landward side had only one story, while its seaward side had three stories, the bottom one resting right on the beach. In its place was a tall black tower.

“Shit. When did that get here?”

“It’s new.”

Mike looked left and right. Though this was the only such tower, the lots to either side were now construction sites, the small inns and condos for rent all gone. He leaned his head back and looked up.

“I don’t know if I want to stay here.”

“It looks like a well constructed building,” said Patience. “I’m sure that it will prove satisfactory.”

“It looks like the obelisk from 2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“You should check in. I’ll get the luggage.”

Crossing the street, Mike entered the black metal door and walked through a black and red lobby. Behind the counter stood a clerk, a handsome fellow with an unusual combination of features, as if his ancestry was from Africa, South America, and Central China. Mike knew though that his ancestry was strictly Cupertino California—he was a Daffodil.

“Welcome to the Orcinus. How may I serve you today?”

“Orcinus… Orcinus? Is that Shakespeare?”

“The orcinus orcus is an endangered cetacean of the family delphinidae.”

“Killer whale?”

“Yes, sir. The hotel, by famed architect Sean Pilson, was designed to evoke the proud image of the orca’s dorsal fin.”

“Doesn’t look like it at all,” said Mike.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you have a room?”

“For how many nights, sir?”

“One.”

“Name?”

“Mike Smith.”

“May I access your information only for purposes of making your stay the most pleasant one possible?”

“Yes. Michael… um, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Winston Smith. Springdale, California.”

“Yes sir. I have you; 11 North Willow, 82803?”

“Yes.”

“Password, sir?”

“Nimbus 2217903-1ΔΩΣ.”

The clerk didn’t have to look down at a terminal or a wriTee. Everything he needed to do his job, including connecting to the Infinet and reading Mike’s information, was located somewhere under his skin.

“Would you care for a sea view?”

“Room 314,” said Patience, suddenly at Mike’s side.

The clerk’s eyes darted to her and a look that Mike didn’t understand crossed his face. A second later though he was just as he had been.

“Very good. Your room is ready for you.”

The Voyage of the Minotaur – Chapter 23 Excerpt

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“I don’t like being outside of the wall,” said Senta, sitting on a rock and rubbing her hand along the supple neck of the steel dragon.

“There is absolutely nothing to fear, Pet,” said Zurfina, taking off her shoes, and stepping into the cool water of a small stream. “Between the two of us, we have rescued Captain Dechantagne and brought down an entire empire. Granted, it was an inhuman, stone-aged civilization. What exactly are you afraid of?”

“Velociraptors.”

“Don’t start crying about that again.” Then she mocked, “Velociraptors. Velociraptors.”

“They tried to eat me.”

“I was once almost eaten by a hydra—a hydra with nine heads. That’s much more frightening than a few glorified turkeys. Come here and put your feet in this water. It is delightful.”

“Turkey,” said the dragon. “Turkey pot pie.”

“You’re not hungry,” said Senta, moving to a rock closer to the stream and dangling her toes in the chilly water.

“Turkey. Turkey. Turkey.”

“What do you think of this spot?” asked Zurfina. “Well, that spot over there, really.”

She pointed to a place just above the west bank of the stream where several large maples grew.

“It’s fine,” said Senta. “Why?”

“I’m thinking we should build our home right here.”

“This is a long way from everybody else.”

“Not really. It’s less than six miles to the gate. We need to be far enough away from everybody else to maintain a sense of mystery.”

“I’m tired of being mysterious. I want to be near my friends.”

“Friends,” said the dragon. “Friends pot pie.”

“That’s just disturbing,” said Senta.

Zurfina sighed. “I suppose we could find someplace closer to the gate.”

“Besides,” said Senta. “This place is probably going to flood when it rains.”

Zurfina looked down at the water running over her feet, and then at the spot she had suggested for their home, and raised her eyebrows.

“Huh,” she said.

“Hello beautiful ladies,” said an accented voice from the east side of the stream.

Senta and Zurfina both looked up to see Suvir Kesi standing beneath a large pine. He wore his usual bright blue clothes and yellow fez with a blue tassel on top. He held his right hand straight out and dangled an 8 ½ x 11 inch sheet of paper.

“Uuthanum,” he said, and the paper burst in flame from the bottom, burning upwards as if it had been soaked in lamp oil.

“What the hell was that supposed to be?” asked the sorceress.

“A bit of mathematics,” Kesi giggled. “A result of the mechanism, you might say.”

“Silly thing to die over,” said Zurfina, “Uuthanum.”