Excerpts. Samples. Teasers. Word play. Other fun bits. Etc.
Currently there are excerpts up from my short fiction, including FCI, Suspended Animation, and Mind Games.
NEW: excerpt from Blood and Glitter, Book 1
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Rachael had stopped to yell again, standing in the doorway of her bedroom this time.
“You little wing-ed vermin, where IS it?”
Her eyes raced around the room, floor to ceiling.
“I’ll BITE the next one of you I get my hands on.”
Rachael stood very still. It wasn’t easy for her, but it was much harder for Them.
She took slow breaths, in through her nose and back out.
She began to count to one hundred.
Somewhere in the twenties she heard the tiniest sound of one of them to her left, but it wasn’t enough.
Around the forties she started to fidget, but refocused on the breathing and made it through to the fifties. She knew there was probably one behind her, mocking her to the other fairies, but didn’t want to give it the satisfaction of making her twist one way and then the other while it kept diving behind her.
Around sixty-eight she got distracted and almost went to scratch an itch on her face, but stopped herself just in time.
Seventy-four. Seventy-five--
“Gotcha!”
She had caught a movement in her peripheral vision and grabbed for it. A very small but high-pitched shriek emerged from her closed hand and filled the room.
“Cease and desist, pest, or I’ll—Ouch!”
She opened the one hand and an out-of-focus patch of multicolored light tried to fly away. But Rachael had been through this enough times already. Her other hand was there to grasp the creature by the legs and hold it upside down before she inspected her smarting finger on the first one.
“Why? Why must you guys always hide the phone?”
The distorted sounds of a dozen different ringing phones erupted from various parts of the bedroom.
“Yes, my phone. Especially after the HUNDRETH time. I’d think even you’d get bored of it by now!”
Cheerfully dissenting noises floated back to her, except from the one hanging upside down.
She looked closer at it now and saw it was holding what looked like a miniature version of her cordless—shaped more like an ear. It held the ‘big’ electronic ear up to its own and performed a non-flattering imitation of Rachael talking on it.
Rachael gave the creature a shake and the ear disappeared.
It flitted its little wings and Rachael’s hand bounced up and down trying to hold on to it.
So she stopped trying to contain it and instead threw it down onto the floor.
It lay there as if it had been badly injured. Rachael rolled her eyes and picked up one foot. Her shoe descended, stomped once, and then ground into the hardwood. Then she lifted that foot and looked at the underside of her shoe. The creature grinned at her from the crevices of her Sketchers, its soft, squishy body filling all the crenulations and grooves of the rubber underside. Then it was just a blur of chartreuse zipping off and flying under the bed.
A second later a host of blurry little bodies zigged and zagged out from all the nooks and crannies of her bedroom.
Rachael hissed at them, canines elongating in a flash, and they suddenly shot out the door like a swarm of bees. She was all ready to have a second tantrum, a bigger one this time, when she espied the real cordless.
It was now sitting on her bed in full view, as if it had never been missing. Grabbing for it to place her call, hoping she could still remember the number she’d looked up, it started ringing before she could dial the Sheriff’s Department.
She listened to make sure the ring tone was right, and not another prank. The phone was all lit up and everything. Her face went back to normal as she hit the talk button.
“Hello?” she said uncertainly, but was talked over by someone on the other end announcing: “Good evening, Mrs. Normally—”
“Sorry,” gritted Rachael through her teeth, ‘Not interested.”
“But you could save—”
“I DON’T WANT TO.”
“If you sign up today, we can offer—”
“—to graciously end this conversation without a pushy sales spiel? Why thank you, telemarketer, you’ve personally triumphed today by bringing humanity to this interaction in a blood sucking world. Have a nice evening. Good-bye!”
Rachael had already forgotten why she had gone searching for the phone in the first place. It must have been important…because she’d come tromping up here like it was urgent… Downstairs she could hear her microwave beeping, then a smoke detector went off, and then her television started blaring and the doorbell rang like it was stuck.
Sighing, Rachael succumbed to the inevitable: there was no way they wouldn’t stop until she went down there and did something to distract them.
Having her house infested with Them wasn’t all bad. She had managed to convince them early on that she couldn’t stand clean dishes or clean clothes. As she had hoped they would, they snuck in and ran the dishwasher or washing machine almost every day while she was horizontal. She would open up either machine and let out a big sigh, and make a fuss about it and they were happy.
Rachael marched to the closet and got out her weapon of choice...the Dreaded Vacuum Cleaner. The little ones were afraid of it and she could usually get the place to herself for up to an hour by using it.
But they had also soon realized the importance of the Tellyfone and the Tellyfishin’ to her and took endless delight in hiding the former and the remote of the later. Was that ever a kick in the pants. Her thinking was interrupted when she had to detangle the cord from around a torchiere lamp and replug the vacuum cleaner into a different socket where it could reach the rest of the room—and from there she switched to singing a song that had been stuck in her head at that point.
After doing the hallway and living room, Rachael felt satisfied that they were gone. She put the machine back in the closet and set about turning things off and putting things back in their place. Now she could get out the LondoNipfeLand Gazette and read it in peace.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Rachael had stopped to yell again, standing in the doorway of her bedroom this time.
“You little wing-ed vermin, where IS it?”
Her eyes raced around the room, floor to ceiling.
“I’ll BITE the next one of you I get my hands on.”
Rachael stood very still. It wasn’t easy for her, but it was much harder for Them.
She took slow breaths, in through her nose and back out.
She began to count to one hundred.
Somewhere in the twenties she heard the tiniest sound of one of them to her left, but it wasn’t enough.
Around the forties she started to fidget, but refocused on the breathing and made it through to the fifties. She knew there was probably one behind her, mocking her to the other fairies, but didn’t want to give it the satisfaction of making her twist one way and then the other while it kept diving behind her.
Around sixty-eight she got distracted and almost went to scratch an itch on her face, but stopped herself just in time.
Seventy-four. Seventy-five--
“Gotcha!”
She had caught a movement in her peripheral vision and grabbed for it. A very small but high-pitched shriek emerged from her closed hand and filled the room.
“Cease and desist, pest, or I’ll—Ouch!”
She opened the one hand and an out-of-focus patch of multicolored light tried to fly away. But Rachael had been through this enough times already. Her other hand was there to grasp the creature by the legs and hold it upside down before she inspected her smarting finger on the first one.
“Why? Why must you guys always hide the phone?”
The distorted sounds of a dozen different ringing phones erupted from various parts of the bedroom.
“Yes, my phone. Especially after the HUNDRETH time. I’d think even you’d get bored of it by now!”
Cheerfully dissenting noises floated back to her, except from the one hanging upside down.
She looked closer at it now and saw it was holding what looked like a miniature version of her cordless—shaped more like an ear. It held the ‘big’ electronic ear up to its own and performed a non-flattering imitation of Rachael talking on it.
Rachael gave the creature a shake and the ear disappeared.
It flitted its little wings and Rachael’s hand bounced up and down trying to hold on to it.
So she stopped trying to contain it and instead threw it down onto the floor.
It lay there as if it had been badly injured. Rachael rolled her eyes and picked up one foot. Her shoe descended, stomped once, and then ground into the hardwood. Then she lifted that foot and looked at the underside of her shoe. The creature grinned at her from the crevices of her Sketchers, its soft, squishy body filling all the crenulations and grooves of the rubber underside. Then it was just a blur of chartreuse zipping off and flying under the bed.
A second later a host of blurry little bodies zigged and zagged out from all the nooks and crannies of her bedroom.
Rachael hissed at them, canines elongating in a flash, and they suddenly shot out the door like a swarm of bees. She was all ready to have a second tantrum, a bigger one this time, when she espied the real cordless.
It was now sitting on her bed in full view, as if it had never been missing. Grabbing for it to place her call, hoping she could still remember the number she’d looked up, it started ringing before she could dial the Sheriff’s Department.
She listened to make sure the ring tone was right, and not another prank. The phone was all lit up and everything. Her face went back to normal as she hit the talk button.
“Hello?” she said uncertainly, but was talked over by someone on the other end announcing: “Good evening, Mrs. Normally—”
“Sorry,” gritted Rachael through her teeth, ‘Not interested.”
“But you could save—”
“I DON’T WANT TO.”
“If you sign up today, we can offer—”
“—to graciously end this conversation without a pushy sales spiel? Why thank you, telemarketer, you’ve personally triumphed today by bringing humanity to this interaction in a blood sucking world. Have a nice evening. Good-bye!”
Rachael had already forgotten why she had gone searching for the phone in the first place. It must have been important…because she’d come tromping up here like it was urgent… Downstairs she could hear her microwave beeping, then a smoke detector went off, and then her television started blaring and the doorbell rang like it was stuck.
Sighing, Rachael succumbed to the inevitable: there was no way they wouldn’t stop until she went down there and did something to distract them.
Having her house infested with Them wasn’t all bad. She had managed to convince them early on that she couldn’t stand clean dishes or clean clothes. As she had hoped they would, they snuck in and ran the dishwasher or washing machine almost every day while she was horizontal. She would open up either machine and let out a big sigh, and make a fuss about it and they were happy.
Rachael marched to the closet and got out her weapon of choice...the Dreaded Vacuum Cleaner. The little ones were afraid of it and she could usually get the place to herself for up to an hour by using it.
But they had also soon realized the importance of the Tellyfone and the Tellyfishin’ to her and took endless delight in hiding the former and the remote of the later. Was that ever a kick in the pants. Her thinking was interrupted when she had to detangle the cord from around a torchiere lamp and replug the vacuum cleaner into a different socket where it could reach the rest of the room—and from there she switched to singing a song that had been stuck in her head at that point.
After doing the hallway and living room, Rachael felt satisfied that they were gone. She put the machine back in the closet and set about turning things off and putting things back in their place. Now she could get out the LondoNipfeLand Gazette and read it in peace.
1) The opening of 'FCI'
Good morning and welcome to the In Mind Daily broadcast. Please tune to Chemherz90012 for best reception. This is Christana Mozark, your right brain correspondent.
And I’m Kilvert Oregon, reporting for the left. We begin the show with a weekly segment on the hot-top of FCI. Now that we’ve isolated the genetic co-factors, the clamor for more information is a no brainer.
Christana: So let’s begin with what everybody knows. The warning signs of FCI: distractible, irritable moodiness and dissatisfaction, self-absorbed introversion, maudlin emotionality resulting in frequent outbursts, impractical and illogical views of the world, dependency on chemical infusions, and a need for ongoing external validation.
Kilvert: What you may not be aware of is the terrible toll sanctioned and untreated FCI has taken on artists through the ages, culminating, of course, in the excesses of the last two centuries. Did you know the number of early deaths in artistic types destroyed over a third of the individuals who practiced FCI? Even without drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning, enhancement mishaps, turf wars, fan and in-family murders, those who yield to fantasy, creativity and imagination are more likely to die before their genetic lifelines expire due to depression, suicide and disease.
Christana: And yet like many of the most highly pursued professions of the last century—drug dealer, successful artist and financial mogul, these people sacrificed integrity, self-respect and privacy for a shot at untenable wealth. And you know what, Kilvert? The vast majority rolled the dice, and lost.
Kilvert: Christana, even the winners were to be pitied. They spent most of their time in the spotlight lamenting pain and loneliness both through their chosen FCI vehicles, but also in public forums such as interviews, biographies and talk shows.
Christana: They believed that to live is to suffer, and that only through suffering comes edification and enlightenment. They filled our heads with tormented souls, hopelessly flawed personalities and tragic endings, reinforcing the idea that life is pain and full of unavoidable evil.
Kilvert: Or flooded our children with idealistic pictures of the world, resulting in tremendous let downs and therefore a mistrust of authority.
Christana: Fortunately, we’ve advanced as a society since then.
Kilvert: We understand that emotions on either end of the spectrum lead to dissatisfaction.
Christana: Tune in tomorrow when we’ll warn you about those most vulnerable to FCI.
Kilvert: And what you can do to keep FCI out of your head.
Christana: For more EarthCorp Dailies, think Index or go to Favorites.
Kilvert: Or allow your dominant emotion to guide you to a resonant broadcast.
Christana: Wishing you a productive day.
Kilvert: And signing off with a share of endorphins.
[end of excerpt]
2) How 'Suspended Animation' starts
Shae Brolly felt herself being awakened by the proper protocol. She waited with a drowsy impatience to be able to open her eyes and breathe normally, while another part of her already kicked and screamed to get out of the stasis chamber.
She knew to expect physical stimulus to rouse her further from the artificially-induced sleep: temperature fluctuations, increasing illumination, localized constrictions of her suit. Each one carefully regulated. Each one more uncomfortable than the next. Over-stimulation of the senses could be a form of torture, and hypersensitivity was a fact of reawakening from stasis. The automatic system helped flood her with endorphins, but painkillers could be deadly. Fortunately at this stage, her mind would be too dull to feel it fully.
Though Shae became increasingly conscious in that first minute with the aid of the suit’s peristaltic contractions working up and down her arms and legs, the upright tube she hung in did not seem to be draining, nor did the lights inside it brighten. Her eyes popped open in the fluid. They stung, so she shut them again.
Without being able to see, she felt helpless. Trapped. Before she knew it, she was struggling to free herself.
Her movements came sluggishly. Shae wished she could hammer on the window of her tank, but she couldn’t even reach the sides of the chamber inches away. Thin strands of bio-tubing running from the walls to different parts of her body stretched and strained until she remembered what they were connected to and how, and she forced the struggling part of her into temporary submission.
Even that much movement had been a strain to her system in this state and she went rag doll limp while panting.
No one was supposed to be fully awake while breathing the oxygenated fluid. Each intake of liquid into her lungs made her feel like she was starting to drown. The original crew of seven made this trip regularly, and were unimpressed when her position had been added for reasons of ‘morale and safety.’ So her only experience had been in the lab, where repeated panic attacks had impressed the others less and less. Reminded of her training, she let it kick in. She focused on breathing and not what she was breathing until her respiration rate eased—in time to remember the injections.
Shae felt the first needle make contact with her skin, pierce flesh, push its way deeper into her tissue until it found a vein. She could feel the fluid swelling the blood vessel. The shots contained chemical stimuli to prepare her brain for waking the rest of her body up. She felt each one pierce, push, introduce and withdraw.
Needing to see the world outside her semi-viscous prison, Shae prepared to open her eyes again. As she braced for the feel of the liquid pressing back against her eyeballs, and the sting it would give them, the Stasis AI spoke to her in her tank.
“Brolly. Remain inactive.”
Fearing a system error, Shae wondered if the waking sequence was off and if she needed to play dead until the artificial intelligence could deal with it. But the picture of herself in a dead man’s float reanimated her perfectly reasonable desire to kick and break and climb out. An arm muscle twitched involuntarily.
“Brolly. You must remain…completely…inactive.”
Shae’s eyes shot open again. At first all she saw was a soft blue-green, the suspension fluid around her tinged like a swimming pool or aquarium by the lights inside her tank. Then her eyes focused. Instead of gazing out of her fish tank window into the main deck of the ship, they had focused much closer. Right outside the chamber. On a face.
[end of excerpt]
3) The beginning of 'Mind Games'
Therapy has changed a lot since the days of Sigmund Freud.
Martina reset the program to a higher difficulty setting, while I lay on the bed in the lab and slept to specification. I had a moment to anticipate my next challenge during the transition from level 8 to level 9.
I’m no psychology major, but I took intro to psych last term so I knew this much: from the early Freud-inspired analysts, to university educated psychologists, and all the licensed therapists and self-help books working from a ton of different beliefs and philosophies, it seems like it had mostly been a safe and plodding field of practice. Couches and clipboards. Talking and tissue boxes. Prescription pills.
I felt sorry for their patients. How dull.
In the guise of my favorite avatar, Tangie, I was dressed for action, and ready for adventure. Meatier than Barbie, she was way stronger than Ken. Tangie stood among towering shapes my mind took for trees without actually looking at them. We were doing a night setting this time, starting outdoors.
People running the experiment didn’t know it yet, but I was probably going to be kicked out of college at the end of the term. I spent more time playing vid games than studying because you can’t slack off or you’ll fall too far behind and lose the Intimidation Factor with the guys – and then you’ll just be another girl. When I saw the flyer on campus for this paid sleep lab in the psych department, it was like my last chance for easy money before getting the boot and having to face the real world.
All things bow to trends, and the big thing in therapy these days was to embrace old folk wisdom. Instead of ignoring the accumulated experience of centuries, the theory was to go ahead and slay your dragons. Defeat your demons. These old phrases were being put to the test.
We hadn’t actually done demonic figures yet, or gone up against any dragons for that matter – I assumed I would be encountering them at higher levels. My programmer-therapist, Martina, had explained that the game needed to work up slowly, to minimize emotional trauma when a patient hit their ‘fear mark.’ I told her not to worry, me being made of stern-enough stuff, but she insisted on following protocol.
Communicating with my mind in the dream-state, Martina facilitated the game in a setting borne both of her programming and my mind’s subconscious. She began the short checklist to make sure my brain and her equipment were simpatico in the new dream scenario, quizzing me on what I saw of my surroundings and my avatar.
“Do you still feel six feet tall?”
I do.
“Are you fully equipped?”
I am.
“What is the Insight you acquired last level?”
That the bad guys usually come in fours, like I have four older brothers? Yeah, sure.
“Remember, this is about confronting your fears.”
What fears.
I could hear her exhale, but she didn’t argue with me. Instead, she reminded me, “Fear is what holds us back – keeps us small, silent, and isolated. Anywhere in your life where you experience feelings you are embarrassed about, limitations you’re secretly ashamed of, and disconnection from other people, there is fear behind it.”
I’ll keep an eye out, and tell you if I see any.
But Martina couldn’t be goaded. She spoke smoothly over my last words, “Everything checks. Are you ready, Angie?”
I rolled my eyes in the game, but since she couldn’t see Tangie, I answered, Yeah, ready to TAKE this level.
[end of excerpt]
