Category: Fantasy

The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 30

Well…

Welcome to November.

Yee-fricken’-ha!

October was a fascinating month. Did a lot of work and got little done. Had two computers die (dishonorably, I might add), a major software kerfuffle, following up on a book release, editing my next release to get it to the editors, attending meetings, …

An author’s work is never done.

And now-a-days, with the advent of self-publishing and indie authors, books aren’t done even when published. It’s too easy to find errors that snuck past every freakin editor, first reader, and critiquer (dedicated they are, those tyops! at least persistent!).

Long story short, I got minimal work done on The Alibi, which means I’m taking some time to print out all I’ve written so far and give it a thorough edit.

Scary, yes?

And Hallowe’en was yesterday (as I type this).

But sharing what I’ve already written before inundating you with yet another set of edits…

Enjoy.

The Alibi – Chapter 30

 
Briggs Lane stood at the window of his Lane, Cuomo, and Greenberg top-floor corner office and held a pair of MIL710 Optical Enhancers to his eyes. He adjusted the focus so Innovation Square showed with such clarity building images could cut glass. “That stupid bastard. I should’ve insisted he clear his plan with me. Doesn’t he know enough not to shit where he eats?”

He placed the MIL710s back in their padded box, placed that in a desk drawer, closed the drawer, and pressed his thumb against a lock. The drawer hissed as the desk sucked it a microscopic inch or two further in and sealed it in place.

Lane stepped over to The Great Wave off Kanagawa. He lifted his fingers to his lips, kissed then touched his fingers to the carving’s frame.

The wall opened and revealed what Lane’s deep intimates referenced as variously “the weapons locker,” “the Predators’ trophy array,” and “Elon Musk’s wish list.”

That last one always gave Lane a chuckle.

Musk was an ass.

Never invited Briggs to any parties, never accepted Lane’s invitations to dinner when he was in Boston.

What a fucking ass.

Lane lifted a smallish disco dance club’s glitterball from its birth in the hidden compartment to reveal a small, gold nameplate with HIVE engraved on it.

Lane turned the glitterball over and placed his hand inside. A moment later the HIVE – a prototype Human Immersion Visual-audio Enhancer – hummed and Lane fitted it over his head.

The HIVE’s separate facets, much like an insect’s compound eyes, captured video and audio feeds from whatever was available – a newscast, a store camera, municipal video, people livestreaming, devices uploading to the cloud – and built a real-time 3D immersive environment for the wearer. Tilt your head forward and you walked forward, lean forward and you ran, turn your head and you saw from side to side, tilt your head back and you looked up, down was down and so on.

Lane ran the HIVE through traffic to SkyHook headquarters. Emergency vehicles were already on site. Police were detouring inbound traffic and searching outbound. Pedestrians were herded into Fan Pier Garage for questioning.

Something hummed overhead. Lane looked up.

Whose drone is that?

Lane stood on his toes.

The HIVE adjusted to tap into the drone’s feed.

Two channels active?

And one is blocked?

Lane smelled ozone and heard a soft crackling. The back of his head grew warm, then hot.

He pulled the HIVE from his head.

The back of the HIVE buzzed then popped, its electronics cooked. The ozone smell wafted up and he drove down the urge to sneeze, instead opening his eyes wide at the smoking HIVE. “Somebody blocked me?”

The HIVE fell from his hands. It rolled on the carpet and hid behind the reef tank like a dog knowing it’s about to be punished.

Lane watched it stop. “Somebody blocked me?”

He went back to his windows, reached up, placed his palms on the glass and yelled. “Nobody blocks Briggs Lane!”

His office, more like a penthouse suite than a business office, was soundproof for moments such as these.

No one heard him. No one entered.

He went back to his desk and tapped his intercom. “Ginni, please have that mute janitor report to me. And when he’s done, come in with your notepad. I have something I’d like you to review. Thank you.”

Previous entries in The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery)

Fran Tabor’s ‘The Greatest Danger’ in Writers Co-op Production’s The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey Anthology

I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

Let’s start with an introduction to the anthology as a whole:

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson’s point has been echoed by many, but in the Land of the Weird the question arises, “A journey to what destination?” At the same time, you might ask, “Is the journey therefore the destination?” The journey may well be an individual’s destination, because it will define them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And in the Land of the Weird, that journey can take twists and turns that amuse, sadden, or horrify.
This trip into the Land of the Weird offers you 39 unique trails to follow, assisted by 35 different guides, each leading you down their own singular paths, manifesting their own view of journey as destination, some laughing, some weeping, and some, eyes wide with fear, shaking as they point out the spectral footpath for you to follow on your way down The Rabbit Hole.

A Writers Co-op Production
Stories by: Chere Taylor, Brian R. Quinn, Arthur M. Doweyko, Donna J. W. Munro, Tom Howard, Kayla Whittle, Leslie Muzingo, Pete Barnstrom, Emmie Christie, Thomas Nicholson, GD Deckard, Richard DeRobertis, M.C. Schmidt, James Dorr, Rosalind Goldsmith, Margaret Karmazin, J.W.Wood, James Rumpel, Bill McCormick, v.f. thompson, Fran Tabor, David K. Slay, Joseph Carrabis, Jane Frankel, Alice Baburek, Susan R. Morritt, Bobby Rollins, Lee Clark Zumpe, Denice Penrose, Stephen McQuiggan, H. Donovan Lyón, Anna Ross, Michael Pudney, Beth Gaydon, and Tom Wolosz.

Fran’s contribution is The Greatest Danger. Here’s the opening:

The front doorbell’s five-alarm-fire ring killed Sue-Ellen’s dream. She glanced at her alarm clock. “Two freaking a.m.”

 

     Our neighbor’s bratty kids promised no more doorbell games, Ever.

 

Sue-Ellen slapped the empty mattress beside her, demanded her husband do something… She sat up, fully alert. Her husband Todd and teenage son Evan were on a school sponsored camping trip, a Warrior’s Way ceremony. If something bad happened, there would be no phone calls; it would be an in person visit, no matter the time.
Pajama clad, not bothering to grab her robe, she ran downstairs; twisted the bolt lock open, flung the door wide.
Mrs. Elizabeth “Betsy” Smith stood alone. Betsy wore the same frumpy skirt and big-pocketed cardigan as she had the previous day when Sue-Ellen announced, “Congratulations, you are the new kindergarten teacher.”

How the story came about:
A true event inspired this story. Her oldest daughter heads a thriving Montessori school. The school continuously seeks great teachers. The best interviewee had marvelous references. Her daughter exchanged multiple emails with each reference. She looked up the most interesting one… He died the year before their email exchanges. After notifying the authorities about the attempted fraud, she lamented to Fran, “The woman was wonderful!” Naturally, Fran imagined an alternate-universe, time-traveling explanation how a wonderful teacher could accidentally have a dead person write a reference. Awesome editor Curtis Bausse polished Fran’s idea into a gem worthy of this anthology.
Continue reading “Fran Tabor’s ‘The Greatest Danger’ in Writers Co-op Production’s The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey Anthology”

Bill McCormick’s ‘Miggy’ in Writers Co-op Production’s The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey Anthology

I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

Let’s start with an introduction to the anthology as a whole:

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson’s point has been echoed by many, but in the Land of the Weird the question arises, “A journey to what destination?” At the same time, you might ask, “Is the journey therefore the destination?” The journey may well be an individual’s destination, because it will define them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And in the Land of the Weird, that journey can take twists and turns that amuse, sadden, or horrify.
This trip into the Land of the Weird offers you 39 unique trails to follow, assisted by 35 different guides, each leading you down their own singular paths, manifesting their own view of journey as destination, some laughing, some weeping, and some, eyes wide with fear, shaking as they point out the spectral footpath for you to follow on your way down The Rabbit Hole.

A Writers Co-op Production
Stories by: Chere Taylor, Brian R. Quinn, Arthur M. Doweyko, Donna J. W. Munro, Tom Howard, Kayla Whittle, Leslie Muzingo, Pete Barnstrom, Emmie Christie, Thomas Nicholson, GD Deckard, Richard DeRobertis, M.C. Schmidt, James Dorr, Rosalind Goldsmith, Margaret Karmazin, J.W.Wood, James Rumpel, Bill McCormick, v.f. thompson, Fran Tabor, David K. Slay, Joseph Carrabis, Jane Frankel, Alice Baburek, Susan R. Morritt, Bobby Rollins, Lee Clark Zumpe, Denice Penrose, Stephen McQuiggan, H. Donovan Lyón, Anna Ross, Michael Pudney, Beth Gaydon, and Tom Wolosz.

Bill’s contribution is Miggy. Here’s the opening:

Miggy was a toad thumper. Like his father. And his father’s father. And his father’s father’s father. And his father’s father’s father’s father.
And so on, ad infinitum.
And, like all good toad thumpers, he’d learned how to gently curve the edges of the sharp box of conformity. While society could barely hold its nose long enough to shower disdain on toad thumpers, they filled niches others would not.
So, toad thumpers were tolerated.
Barely.

How the story came about:
A common theme for me is how oppressed people survive in the real world. I wrote Miggy after finally seeing A Day Without A Mexican. While the movie is filled with promise and hope, I took a darker turn.
Continue reading “Bill McCormick’s ‘Miggy’ in Writers Co-op Production’s The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey Anthology”

The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 29

Yet one more not completely brand new. Pieces from previous chapters rearranged and edited for story flow and continuity.

I’ve learned to live with such things. Hope you can, too.

Enjoy.

The Alibi – Chapter 29

 
Cranston grabbed the railing as he jogged up the stairs to Precinct House 17. He may have been a linebacker in college, but that was thirty-five years ago and now he needed to pull himself up inclines when he jogged them.
He snapped his hand back as if he touched a high-tension line.
The railing was shaking?

Sure, ’17 was one of the oldest precinct houses in Boston, still brick-and-mortar as they say, and with wide-paneled hardwood floors and high ceilings and big fans hanging down because putting AC in a building about to be decommissioned was a waste of tax dollars, but that decommissioning order had been on the books for twenty years Cranston knew of. The city discovered it would cost more to put up a new precinct house rather than get rid of this old one, but somehow the money set aside for a new precinct house never made it into a working AC system.

Cranston made it a point to dig deep whenever he had to investigate a city or state official. He was going to write a book once he retired and call it “Fuckers I Have Known.”

Old or not, ’17 was still solid. Granite anchored the railings. They could shake? Like that?

He looked up and down the street. No fifty-three foot TT or heavy construction vehicles in sight, but dogs barked and pulled on their leashes. Pigeons, robins, and starlings took flight. The leaves on sidewalk maples, willows, and elms shivered as if chilled by a late October wind.

He touched the railing tentatively, one finger stretched forward, his body slightly turned and ready to pull away.

Nothing.

He shrugged and continued up the stairs. The desk sergeant looked up and nodded as he entered.

Cranston returned her nod. “You feel that?”

The desk sergeant shook her head. “Feel what?”

Cranston continued up the next flight to the offices. Leddy’s ring on his mobile stopped him at the doors to the precinct’s central office.

“POP?”

He went cold. Something happened to Leddy. That’s what he felt that nobody else felt.

Her ring again. “U OK?”

Cold yielded to confusion. “K U?”

The precinct’s wall mounted blues flashed ON-ON-off ON-ON-off. Chairs screeched across the hardwood floor.

Leddy TXTed “C THS?” and Cranston’s attention returned to his phone. Leddy sent her video through. “SIMON GOT IT ALL!”

She’d sent him pictures at every stage of SIMON’s development and had them made into a tshirt collage with the heading “Leddy’s Little Project.” She gave them to her friends, people on their street, people on the subway, and a 4XL for him.

She loved it.

But “SIMON GOT IT ALL!”?

SIMON’s cameras moved through hazy clouds flecked with ash. Cranston wasn’t sure what he was seeing until the drone cleared the clouds. It flew just above street level and revealed the clouds as billowing smoke.

“WRU”

“BPL Johnson w Pen.”

Captain Marete opened the central office door. “Bill. SkyHook just blew up. We need all hands on deck.”

Cranston followed Marete back into the office. Most uniforms and plainclothes had their mobiles in one hand, their landlines in the other, and held two or more conversations at once checking up on allies and reassuring family. A small group stood by the east facing windows. A puff of smoke seemed to hover above their heads before slowly dispersing.

Somebody called out, “Channel 5’s got it already.”

Cranston glanced at the wall screen. “That’s Leddy’s feed.”

Marete looked up from his phones. “Your daughter got this?”

Leddy’s TXT dinged in Cranston’s hand. “SLD 2 NTWRKS!”

“Yep.”

A uniform at a far desk announced, “4 and 7’s got it. And NECN.”

Another uniform added, “So do Fox and the CW.”

Marete snorted. “Busy girl you got there. Maybe UAS should hire her. She got there faster than our own drones did. Tell her we’ll want that video. And anything else she got.”

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Previous entries in The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery)

The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 28

Another not completely brand new chapter. Pieces from previous chapters rearranged and edited for story flow and continuity. Again.

As noted previously, I’ve learned to live with such things. Hope you can, too.

Enjoy.

The Alibi – Chapter 28

 
Thorne let the Lady Eglesia‘s systems bring it into the harbor while she dozed on the deck, barely moving from where she slept through the night. She headed out to deep water after hallucinating being back home and visited by the Wergaia mythical water being, the Bunyip, and assumed overwork and stress.

But her hallucinations were becoming more frequent. She’d been visited by Galaru Snakes and Wadjinas, Rain People, several times since then, and it didn’t matter how much work or play or sex she’d had, they persisted.

She wondered. Maybe they weren’t hallucinations after all? Usually a quick trip home cured such things. She’d take SkyHook’s corporate jet and be there and back in four day’s time. One day to get there, two days with her people, one day to get back.

But her last trip home she visited the Mandjilwa, a traditional Sickness Dreaming place, despite warnings from her father’s people.

That trip took a week. She left Shaul in charge, not her next-in-command but capable never-the-less.

The Eglesia‘s alarms sounded. A shoreside distress signal. Somebody breaking into SkyHook HQ and caught in her team’s latest tech gadgets?

She sighed and her eyes fluttered open to the Boston skyline, the morning sun at her back.

A man bobbed in front of her boat about fifty yards out. Like her, he focused on the Boston skyline.

The man turned towards the Eglesia as if suddenly realizing it was there. The sunlight shone off the water making him difficult to see.

Thorne shaded her eyes then opened them wide. “What the – ”

It wasn’t a man. Same shape, same outline, but not human.

Her mobile alarmed.

The thing in the water dove and was gone.

Thorne read the message on her mobile. She shaded her eyes and looked towards SkyHook HQ.

A cloud of gray smoke climbed the thirty story Innovation Square tower. Swirls of denser smoke pulled and pushed the cloud up the side of the building like some Ngolngol King Kong, a Cyclone Wind Spirit larger than she’d ever seen before, waving its arms and legs.

Previous entries in The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery)

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