Release date: May 4, 2015
Subgenre: Cyberpunk
About Emergence:
Still recovering from the events that befell her in Los Angeles, Mesa Everitt is learning how to rebuild her life.
The murder of a memorialist enclave changes all of that and sets into motion a series of violence that forces her into hiding. Hunted by a squad of corporate mercenaries, with the lives of her friends and family in danger, Mesa has no one to turn to, but she holds a dark secret inside her skull. She has no knowledge of that secret, but it is worth killing for.
The ghosts of her haunted, forgotten past are about to emerge.
The murder of a memorialist enclave changes all of that and sets into motion a series of violence that forces her into hiding. Hunted by a squad of corporate mercenaries, with the lives of her friends and family in danger, Mesa has no one to turn to, but she holds a dark secret inside her skull. She has no knowledge of that secret, but it is worth killing for.
The ghosts of her haunted, forgotten past are about to emerge.
Excerpt:
Sex and death flowed freely, amped up across
the nightclub’s bio-fi. The emotions and sensations were intoxicating. The
music was loud; the bodies, sweaty. Strangers ground against one another,
riding the waves of euphoria.
Mesa Everitt felt
a body press against her, and she tilted her hips back, swiveling her waist,
waving her hands above her head. The response was instant, and she smiled,
leaning her weight against the handsome stranger. With a sloppy-drunk grin
plastered on his face, her boyfriend, Kaizhou, watched Mesa dancing. Eyes wide,
pupils small, he enjoyed the show. Then he stepped up and embraced her,
stealing her back from the strange man.
“This is
amazing,” she said.
His tongue
flicked against hers, nearly in sync with the strumming pound of an electric
cello and the blasted riff of a synthetic piano. She locked her arms around his
neck, staving off a wave of dizziness. Strange hands moved across her hips, but
she didn’t care. Couldn’t care.
Watching, their
friend Jade danced with an easy rhythm, her skin glistening under the pulsating
lights. She disappeared briefly as a wave of artificial smoke crossed over her.
Moving bodies generated air currents strong enough to part the foggy vapor
before it could fully enshroud her. In those few seconds of her slight
disappearance, she had found a companion.
Center stage, on
a large floating platform above them, Muzyakimo Aki sang. His voice was
powerful for such a slim, meek-looking man. He wore thick black frames, and his
hair had been dyed multiple colors—purple, yellow, and red—against his natural
black. His eyebrows were bushy, nearly a unibrow, and his gaunt face was
pockmarked. But his voice… the rich timbre lulled listeners, ensnaring them in
a rapture that demanded attention and seriousness. Like Aki himself, his music
was a study of contrasts. Every verse, every chorus, each solo, and the chords
themselves meant something different to each listener.
The DRMRs on the
dance floor were transmitting freely, their lithe figures awash in the
experiences of varied pasts. For the last hour and a half, Mesa had been
submerged in the lives of others. Aki’s music pulsed through her, and she swam
through the crowd’s associated memory cues streaming across the bio-fi. The
sadness and joy of more than a hundred strangers pushed through her DRMR
implant. She mourned the loss of a beloved pet then was caught up in the throes
of a first orgasm and the loss of virginity. She felt the pride of a first A in
school and the crushing defeat of a first F after the tedium of studying for a
complex exam. She remembered the first time this particular Aki song came
across the entertainment comm, but only a snippet had played before Mom
interrupted with a list of chores. Then she shared outrage over illegal whale hunts
and fishery raids by corpo suits, and Aki’s music was very nearly a call to
arms.
She soaked up the
experiences and memories, none of them hers.
On sale for 99 cents until Friday, May 8!
Amazon
Also check out:
Convergence (DRMR book 1)
About Convergence:
Memories are the most dangerous drug.
Jonah Everitt is a killer, an addict, and a memory thief.
After being hired to kill a ranking officer of the Pacific Rim Coalition and download his memories, Everitt finds himself caught in the crosshairs of a terror cell, a rogue military squadron, and a Chinese gangster named Alice Xie. Xie is a profiteer of street drugs, primarily DRMR, a powerful narcotic made from the memories of the dead. With his daughter, Mesa, missing in post-war Los Angeles, Everitt is forced into an uneasy alliance with Alice to find her.
Mesa's abduction is wrapped up in the secrets of a brutal murder during the war's early days, a murder that Alice Xie wants revenged. In order to find her, Jonah will have to sift through the memories of dead men that could destroy what little he has left.
In a city where peace is tenuous and loyalties are ever shifting, the past and the present are about to converge.
Jonah Everitt is a killer, an addict, and a memory thief.
After being hired to kill a ranking officer of the Pacific Rim Coalition and download his memories, Everitt finds himself caught in the crosshairs of a terror cell, a rogue military squadron, and a Chinese gangster named Alice Xie. Xie is a profiteer of street drugs, primarily DRMR, a powerful narcotic made from the memories of the dead. With his daughter, Mesa, missing in post-war Los Angeles, Everitt is forced into an uneasy alliance with Alice to find her.
Mesa's abduction is wrapped up in the secrets of a brutal murder during the war's early days, a murder that Alice Xie wants revenged. In order to find her, Jonah will have to sift through the memories of dead men that could destroy what little he has left.
In a city where peace is tenuous and loyalties are ever shifting, the past and the present are about to converge.
Free until Friday, May 8!
Amazon
About Michael Patrick Hicks:
Michael Patrick Hicks is the author of the science fiction novel
Convergence, an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2013 Quarter-Finalist.
He is also the author of the short horror story, Consumption, and his
work appears in the science fiction anthology, No Way Home. He lives in
Michigan and is hard at work on his next story.
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