Wolfram Gamma by A.E. Williams - Kindle Vellys Entrant

 

Release date: July 7, 2024
Subgenre: Military SF, Space adventure, 

About Wolfram Gamma:

Dr. Selina Norden, survivor of The Culling, has sworn to take revenge on the people responsible for the death of her family. A genetically superior mutant, she labors to produce an evolved form of homo sapiens, one that will ultimately mean the extinction of humanity. Letting nothing stand in her way, she enlists the aid of Artificial Intelligences and rogue scientists to reach her goal. But Fate strands her on a lunar base, with rabid Scavengers bent on killing them all. Will she win?

Read the latest instalments on Kindle Vella here

About the Kindle Vellys:

"We are excited to announce our first Kindle Vella writing contest: The Vellys! The contest is open to all authors – whether you’re just writing your first story, or you’re an established author. We’re looking for great episodic fiction stories that resonate with readers. Submissions open today and will be open through August 20, 2024.

Stories with the most readers and followers will be considered for prizes, and a group of judges from the Vella team will select the winners based on the originality and creativity of the story, as well as the depth of character and plot development. Winners will be announced on September 17, 2024 with a total of 15 cash prizes amounting to $62,000 overall, including a $25,000 grand prize and $15,000 newcomer prize for the best story from a first time author. This contest is open to US-based authors and all entries will also be eligible for royalties and a monthly bonus.

For more information about how to nominate your story, the timeline and eligibility, visit www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/Vellys."

Thank you,

The Kindle Vella Team

Source: "Announcing The Vellys!" by the Kindle Vella Team, KDP Forum

About A. E. Williams:

A.E. Williams has a unique background of military experience, aerospace engineering and intelligence analysis. He has a varied career, from inventor to consultant, and pretty much everything in between.

Born near Pittsburgh, A.E. Williams is man of a mystery.
As a young man, Williams served the United States government in various capacities, which he then followed with fifteen years as a consultant. Williams currently resides in rural Central Florida.
He does his writing at night, usually accompanied by a bottle of Maker's Mark bourbon and a large supply of Classic Dr Pepper and ice.

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HYPO: Appetence (HYPO, Book 2) by D.L. Jones

Release date: October 1, 2018

Subgenre: Superhero serial

About HYPO: Appetence:

 

Chauncy was introduced to the experimental drug called HYPO when trying to escape from abduction. This drug gives him extraordinary physical abilities. He decides to use those abilities to catch the burglars that has robbed his store. What he doesn't know, there are mind altering side affects. Those side effects come into play in a bad way once he finds out about a secret his wife, Becca, has been keeping from him. Tre, his childhood friend once again shows up to lend a helping hand and and try solve the problem.

This is the second book in the HYPO Series. Make sure you read HYPO: Exordium first, as this is a continuation of that story - Part 2 in a 3 part series.

 

Excerpt:

 

 Chauncy and Rebecca arrived at home from the hospital late afternoon. Chauncy was still thinking about what happened the night before. He wondered how he ended up in the hospital, what it was that Tre had given him.
“Did I really run through a wall?” He thought to himself.
He went over the details of his capture and escape over and over in his mind. What he could remember. Everything was still a little fuzzy to him. His thoughts were cloudy. He didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.
Rebecca was grateful to have Chauncy back, safe. She went into the kitchen and grabbed a wineglass from the cabinet. After filling the glass, she went back to the livingroom and took a seat. She started taking sips of her wine. Chauncy paced back and forth, trying to figure things out in his head.
“Chauncy, come sit down, baby. You are making me nervous.” She said.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that last night…” Chauncy replied.
“Well, you are fine. That’s all I’m worried about.”
“Yea, I guess you’re right.” Chauncy responded.
Chauncy finally decided to take a seat and sat down beside Rebecca. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek while balancing her glass of wine. Chauncy was still nervous, he kept bouncing his knees while he sat, he couldn’t relax.
“I need to talk to Tre… last night… you just wouldn’t believe… I have to talk to Tre.” Chauncy said, almost incoherently.
“Well, why don’t you go talk to him? We just dropped him off at his hotel. Think he’s still there?” Rebecca said.
Chauncy picked up his phone and dialed Tre’s hotel. The phone rang and rang. He hangs up and puts the phone back in his pocket.
“No Answer.” Said Chauncy.
“I hope he’s alright.” Said Rebecca.
Chauncy waited about 10 minutes then tried to dial Tre’s hotel room again. Still no answer. Just as he was about to take a seat beside Rebecca, the doorbell rings. Chauncy looks over at Rebecca and Rebecca looks back. She gets up, still holding her glass of wine and walked over to answer the door. Chauncy started back pacing back and forth in front of the sofa.
“Heeey, Rebecca! Chauncy around? Just figured I’d stop by and check on you two.” Tre said as Rebecca opened the door.
Chauncy heard Tre at the door and rushed over to see him.
“Hey Chauncy. I know you probably have a few questions for me.” Tre said.
“Damn right I have some questions. What was that shi—”
“Shhhh” Tre stopped Chauncy.
“No one is supposed to know about what we took yesterday. It’s VERY experimental. You haven’t talked to the police, have you?” Tre continued, whispering.
“I didn’t say anything. I figured it was something you were working on… wanted to talk to you about it first. We can talk out here…” Chauncy said, motioning for Tre to follow.

 

Amazon

 

About D.L. Jones:

DL Jones was born in Brooklyn NY, grew up in Newport News VA and has spent the last 8 years in Charlotte NC. He has served time in the US Army and works as an IT Professional. His first love has always been tech, well computers and the web specifically, which has led to a lot of writing. He has had several websites/blogs and podcast over the years.

He started writing his first novel in 1998. There was no such thing as self-publishing as it is today. He had no end game, it was a hobby. He wrote on it for several years until a mishap caused him to lose the whole thing. It was a whole glass of soda and laptop issue, with no backups.  Currently he has 4 novels in the works and the 3 HYPO shorts. 2 of his novels are fiction with HYPO being sci-fi, and his upcoming novel, Billette Hall, being a Horror/Thriller based in American slavery times. A third novel in the works, I Used to be FAT, is non-fiction, based on his life before and after 150lb weight loss. The last novel in the works is also non-fiction. 

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HYPO: Exordium (HYPO, Book 1) by D.L. Jones

Release date: September 14, 2018

Subgenre: Superhero serial

About HYPO: Exordium: 

 

Chauncy and Tre were childhood friends. Tre, who works for a pharmaceutical company, is in town on business. Chauncy hadn’t seen Tre since college and decides they should catch up. After picking Tre up from the airport, they are ambushed and kidnapped. Held hostage in an old abandoned house. With hopes of escape, Tre and Chauncy use an experimental drug from Tre’s company that gives them extraordinary physical abilities.

This will be the first book in the Hypo Series, Hypo: Exordium. It is a Serial Short. There are 3 parts of an ongoing story. The second part will be released October 1, and the final part soon after!

 

Excerpt:

 

This morning, Chauncy didn’t just show up early because he had a boost of motivation. Someone called him in. Not by an employee or a customer, but the police. What awaits him was very disappointing. He put his whole life’s work into this store and it has done well for him. He lives a comfortable life with all the life lavishes that goes along with the fantasy of being a business owner. What he saw as he pulled up and got out of his car left him distraught.

The front window of the store is shattered. There’s a cinder block sitting on the floor, just inside the store. That cinder block was used to break the window and gain entry. Someone robbed the HD shop. Shattered glass covers the floor around the cinder block. A closed sign is hanging on its frame but still lit.

Through the broken storefront window, the view inside shows that there were no damaged items, but clearly missing items. Someone moved the display of the new large panel TVs around with several missing. Movie players and computers were missing from the shelves. Even cables and universal remotes were missing. The thieves had their pick of items and meticulously grabbed things they wanted and all the accessories that went with those things.

“It was like they had all night.” Chauncy thought to himself.

He also thought about how it looked like the thieves had a plan and a layout of the store.

“Could be an inside job, but anyone can walk in a few times and get a layout of the store.” Chauncy thought again.

A few Workers had surveyed the damage. A replacement window pane was staged nearby ready to install and replace the damaged one. Chauncy walked through the HD shop to the back of the store, to his office.

The back office of the HD shop is lush with an oversized leather couch. On the other side of the room sits a large mahogany executive style desk. The highest end personal computer is sitting on the desk. Mounted on the wall on the other side of the room were several surveillance monitors. Chauncy stood in his lush office and looked around. He looked at his computer for a few minutes then looked over at his surveillance monitors. Shaking his head, he tapped away at the keyboard on his desk while guiding his mouse around.

2 Police officers were already in Chauncy’s office waiting for him to come in. Chauncy didn’t acknowledged them. He walked past them as he came in as if they weren’t there. Officer Ryan, a 47-year-old black man was writing notes on his notepad while Officer Ford stood, impatiently, waiting for Chauncy to address her. Officer Ford was a 38-year-old white woman.

Chauncy types more on his computer and seems to grow with anger as he typed. He kept looking at the monitors. He would get writhe with anger at moments but kept a somewhat cool composure.

 

Amazon

 

About D.L. Jones:

DL Jones was born in Brooklyn NY, grew up in Newport News VA and has spent the last 8 years in Charlotte NC. He has served time in the US Army and works as an IT Professional. His first love has always been tech, well computers and the web specifically, which has led to a lot of writing. He has had several websites/blogs and podcast over the years.

He started writing his first novel in 1998. There was no such thing as self-publishing as it is today. He had no end game, it was a hobby. He wrote on it for several years until a mishap caused him to lose the whole thing. It was a whole glass of soda and laptop issue, with no backups.  Currently he has 4 novels in the works and the 3 HYPO shorts. 2 of his novels are fiction with HYPO being sci-fi, and his upcoming novel, Billette Hall, being a Horror/Thriller based in American slavery times. A third novel in the works, I Used to be FAT, is non-fiction, based on his life before and after 150lb weight loss. The last novel in the works is also non-fiction. 

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Using Kickstarter’s Drip Platform to Write a New Kind of Novel: guest blog by Craig Engler

The Last Days of Earth starts when everyone on the planet learns the world will be destroyed in six months. It follows the lives of six characters who are uniquely impacted by the news and who will find their lives changed and intertwined in unexpected ways.

It was inspired by a quote from Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, who said: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” 

I originally wrote The Last Days of Earth as a TV pilot, but realized when I was done it needed to be a novel first. But not just any novel. The story felt like it would be best told in serialized installments. So I decided to write a serial.

Then when I began working on it I saw that it was going to be bigger than just a single novel. So, not just one serial novel but three short serialized novels that would be delivered with breaks between them, like TV seasons.

That felt closer to the shape of the story but still wasn’t quite right. So I decided that as people read the story, they’d also receive physical objects in the mail timed to arrived at key points in the narrative. 

Wait, what?

That idea might sound odd, but it actually has its roots in narrative theory. Specifically with an idea called paratext. 

Paratext is anything that accompanies the main text of a work but isn’t directly a part of it. Like a foreword or a blurb or the cover art of a book. While paratext is separate from the primary work, it influences how we experience the text.  

Literary theorist Gerard Genette suggests paratext can create “a better reception for the text and a more pertinent reading of it.” Paratext also asks the question, where does narrative end and the “real world” begin?

With The Last Days of Earth I wanted to push paratext to the extreme and create physical objects that would influence how people read the main narrative and help put them into the story, which is a present day thriller about the end of the world. That felt like the last piece I was missing.

But now that I finally knew how the story needed to be told, there was no mechanism to publish a novel like that. Readers wouldn’t buy the book in the traditional sense. Instead they’d subscribe to it. I needed a platform for both payment and digital distribution, which I didn’t have.

Then a chance encounter with my friend Margot Atwell, the Director of Publishing at Kickstarter, gave me just what I needed. Kickstarter was going to launch a new platform called Drip. While Kickstarter was designed for one-time funding, Drip was created as a venue for ongoing funding, such as recurring subscriptions.  

Even better, Kickstarter members can use their existing logins to seamlessly access Drip, giving Drip an installed base of more than 13 million members. Far more than something like Patreon.

So with the help of Kickstarter and Drip, The Last Days of Earth was born. It’s currently in its founding period, which means anyone who signs up now becomes a Founding Member. Founders get special rewards and will forever have a privileged status with the project. With The Last Days of Earth, Founders also become part of an advisory board for the project, able to influence how it develops.

You can sign up for The Last Days of Earth at https://d.rip/craigengler

About Craig Engler:

Craig Engler is a TV writer who co-created the hit Syfy series Z Nation, currently in its fourth season. He’s written articles for publications like The New York Times and Wired, as well as comics, short stories, a non-fiction book and films. His new project The Last Days of Earth can be found at https://d.rip/craigengler

Continue Online Together (Part 5 of Continue Online) by Stephan Morse

Release date: January 24, 2017

Subgenre: LitRPG, Cyberpunk

About Continue Online Together:

 

Since stepping through the gateway to Continue, Grant has been many things: a dying hero, a malevolent imp, a robotic space explorer, and felon seeking redemption. Now he’s added a new role to the list—married man to a virtual woman. In his mind, nothing could be more perfect, but his newlywedded bliss is in jeopardy.

Trillium pulled the trigger on a digital Armageddon and the games have changed. Virtual people are being hunted down then deleted forever. Players’ characters are removed if they die three times. The AIs have a plan to fight back and protect their citizens by storing as much data as possible into a haven, including Xin’s.

To help secure the survival of his friends and wife, Grant will seek the secrets to salvation left behind from the game’s first heroes and programming team. Along the way, Grant reunites with old companions, sets aside past grudges, and pulls out every trick he’s ever been taught to help him in the race against digital death.

Failure means Grant will lose Xin a second time, but success may cost him even more.

Excerpt:

Commencement
X-O This

Attention! Due to recent changes in the Trillium policy, this event is now being televised nationally. Any entity working on the event quests may be viewed by people who do not actively play Continue Online or might have been blocked from joining until the event is complete. Be aware that you may opt out of being observed directly. This does not prevent watchers from seeing your actions through other Travelers or certain skills and spells. However, allowing access to your character may provide bonuses if enough attention is received.

“Look at this.” The single mother pointed at a digital display screen. Elizabeth had spent the last hour trying to find the display feed for her slightly younger twin brother. The idiot was in the middle of his latest insane virtual life crisis.

“Really, Mom? You’re going to keep spying on him?” Her daughter stood in the front room with half a sandwich remaining. The other portion had been eaten in five large bites with little signs of chewing.

Liz’s front room was directly adjacent a wide open archway that went into the kitchen. Liz preferred working out here since it had the least cluttered wall space in her house. Larger projections made seeing finer details easier.

Half of the wall was currently taken up with an image of her brother, Grant. He was in game and busy working on setting up a campfire and tent. Beth and Liz both got a strange third-person view of the man as he moved around. A shovel, which had been used to dig a pit, lay to one side. Objects appeared in Grant’s hand and were driven into the ground.

“It’s not spying. It’s like watching the latest season of Biggest Loser,” Liz said.

Beth’s eyebrows slid downward while she chewed. Her nose wrinkled and one hand brought up the house’s digital display. She poked at the buttons to search for the show her mom had mentioned.

“Wasn’t that show canceled, like, when you and Uncle Grant were in diapers?” Beth said. Another portion of food went in her face.

“There’s a show for it?” Liz turned and took note of her daughter’s unsightly eating habits. “I always thought it was the story of the Legates’ life.”

Liz went toward one wall and pressed a button. Out popped a small circular machine designed to clear the floors after her daughter got done making a mess. The device was a gift from Liz’s mother—with a note that said no woman should be forced to slave away on cleaning.

“Mhm. Latest date didn’t work out? I told you a man named Ulrich probably wouldn’t be any good.” Beth finished her sandwich and looked around.

The small robot started vacuuming up crumbs.

“He wasn’t. I swear, I’m going to have to buy an ARC myself. Maybe there’s a program on there to remind me what a decent man feels like.” Liz left up the screen with her brother on it. With her other hand, she flipped through a website for work. Eventually she would find more than a short assignment. Employment was getting more difficult to find, even in her field.

Amazon

 

Part 1, Continue Online Memories will be free until February 23.

 

 

About Stephan Morse: 

Stephan Morse was born the year 1983 in San Diego. The next fifteen years were spent slowly escaping California and surviving a public education system. Thus far he's made it to the Seattle (WA) region with little desire to go further. When not trying to shove words together into sentences Stephan spends time reading, catching up on sleep, and otherwise living a mundane life.

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The Deep - Part 1 by Amanda Creiglow

Release date; September 25, 2016

Subgenre: Post-apocalyptic science fiction serial

About The Deep - Part 1: 

 

Anna was a psychologist before the world ended. Now, she's just a member of the not-yet-dead, waiting out the days until sickness takes her. But when an indecipherable signal from the depths of the sea hints at hope, she goes along on a mission to discover its source. She's supposed to keep the rest of the crew sane, and they're supposed to keep her alive. But not everything goes as planned...

Will the secrets of the deep hold hope for the future of the human race? Anna's adventure to discover the truth begins.

Excerpt:

 

First came the throbbing – a pulsing, piercing pain in her head. It was centered just under her temples, but radiated throughout her brain, along the line of her skull. It was insistent. Threatening. And it kept perfect time.

Second came the knowledge of the noise that caused it – a blaring alarm in echo. It made her bones vibrate and her pulse race, playing over an intense hiss and static that she couldn't place.

Third came the feeling of mist on her face, calling up a memory from when she was young. Biosphere two. She could still see it in a hazy montage – the domes under the death sparkle of the sun. The arid Arizona heat separated by glass from the warm, soft mist of the Rainforest Sector. She'd told herself she wanted to live there. She told that to the tour guide, too – a lean black woman with playful hair and long legs in short khakis – and the tour guide had laughed, and her parents had laughed and her brother had laughed.

The tour guide was dead. Her parents were dead. Her brother was dead. Biosphere 2 was dead. The Arizona sun had survived.

And the alarm and the mist meant that the Arizona sun would out-survive Anna, too.

She shouldn't have been asleep. She and the crew were supposed to be alert and awake for the whole of the descent, just in case something went wrong. The safety briefing and the hopes-and-dreams speech... It was all coming back, now. She forced her eyes open, the cold mist in the enclosed space threatening to force them shut again.

There was pressure. There was too much pressure. Her skin felt wrong and hot, and her breaths hard-fought. She tried to tune out the blaring alarm, but it had her nerves more scattered than anything else.

Her eyes searched the mist, looking for movement. Looking for someone to save her. They were supposed to keep her alive. That was the deal. The crew kept everyone alive, and she kept everyone sane. But someone hadn't held up their end of the bargain.

Her hot, numb hands fiddled with the straps, searching for the clasps. They were re-purposed seat-belts from long-grounded aircraft, and her half-lucid mind saw the safety demonstrations from long-ago flights as she fought for release.

She'd gotten the first one off and hung painfully from the second when the sub jerked to one side, nearly flinging her out of her standing bay, and dragging more of the pieces into place. She remembered, now, the terror she felt when the attack from Whatever It Was began. There had been no warning -- just a sudden impact to the side of the sub. Without a word, they'd all run to their standing bays and latched themselves in. All but the pilot, who went forward into the cockpit.

Her gaze shot forward toward where she knew the cockpit was, but between the mist and her own rising panic, it was hard for her to even make out the hatch. Why weren't they moving forward? Why wasn't she feeling what the pilot was doing to get them away from Whatever it was?

The pilot is dead.

The thought hit her with a certainty it didn't deserve. She'd long ago accepted that death was the most common explanation.

Amazon

 

About Amanda Creiglow: 

Amanda Creiglow is an irredeemable wanderer, but she currently calls Greenville, South Carolina home. Aside from telling impossible tales to improbable people, she enjoyed spending way too much time playing video games for the amusement of strangers, and writing and performing depressing songs with cheerful melodies.

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High Pressure System: First Season Underground Box Set by K.D. Kinney

Release date: December 21, 2015

Subgenre: Post-apocalyptic science fiction

About High Pressure System: First Season Underground: 

 

No one knows why they have to evacuate. What they do know is people all over the world have died and it has something to do with the weather.

Rachel is a shy wallflower and typical college student when she’s evacuated with a bunch of people she doesn't know to an underground bunker in the desert. Her family is far away and she can't contact them anymore. The only comfort she brings with her are her dogs.

Everyone is struggling to settle in because they still don't understand exactly what they are hiding from. However, Rachel and her new father figure, Jim suspect it has something to do with technology controlled weather.

The genius guy in charge seems to know everything, but the only information he is giving out is apartment assignments and an expanding list of rules.

Rachel is determined to capture his attention to find out what it is they are hiding from. However, it might be more information than anyone can handle.

They could be all that's left of life on Earth. That is if the people don’t start a war with each other in the underground apartment building.

It will take a lot of inventiveness with limited resources for them to survive the Weather Wars.

The Complete Boxed Set of the First Season Underground. 

Excerpt:

Clear blue sky was overhead. If it hadn’t been, no one would have been going anywhere. That much I knew. The beautiful, warm, spring day wasn’t enough to settle anyone’s nerves. Not even mine. Families joined together in tight groups and I struggled to maneuver around their slow moving knots that tied up the flow of traffic. Armed National Guard troops lined the street. They really didn’t need their guns as they gave directions to distressed evacuees. I was one of those distressed, helpless people that needed directions when I got turned around. I was terrified I’d miss my bus. There was no backup plan for people who didn’t heed the order and make it on time. All the landmarks I was used to looking for were impossible to find with the people that filled the streets. A nice guardsman showed me where I took a wrong turn. I had to backtrack against the current of people for an entire block before I found my way again, rejoining the stream until I found South Evacuation Lot 73.

“Rachel Gardener,” I muttered, gripping the dog carrier handle tight, almost afraid to look the woman in the eye that asked for my name. She could have stopped my dogs from leaving with me. She nodded, allowing me to join the people in the parking lot waiting for the buses.

“Bus four fifty-seven. You might want to let your dogs walk a little. You have a long ride.” She gave me a pained smile. Obviously this wasn’t any easier for her. I let out a long slow breath of relief when I didn’t have to make a scene.

The dogs romped around in the grass briefly as the rapidly expanding crowd filled the parking lot. I found the sign for bus four fifty-seven and waited at the end of the line as our group was herded onto the bus by more armed guardsman. I smiled at the young girl in front of me that was trying to calm her yowling cat in a cardboard pet box. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one bringing my pets along. I also spotted a birdcage, a couple more pet carriers, and a beta fish in a bowl being carried by a kid with a wet shirt.

I muttered soothing words to the dogs on my lap even though I gripped the handle tight with sweaty hands and my shoulders knotted up as the overcrowded bus took me with one hundred fourteen strangers to Underground Bunker 3897. The more time we spent on the bus traveling further away from the city and heading deeper into the desert, the more I dreaded arriving where we were all going to live together.

 

Amazon

 

About K.D. Kinney: 

K.D. Kinney moved a ridiculous number of times by the time she turned 18 and has a treasure trove of memories from living around the country to draw from, even traveling to and from Alaska by car. Living in the heart of Boise, Idaho, K.D.Kinney spends her days writing with her Chiweenies, Dobby and Yoda, sleeping at her feet. That is when they aren't chasing squirrels or barking at every thump in the house. K.D. Kinney is a mother of five daughters. Surrounded by far too much estrogen, shoes, and ponytail holders, they are the inspiration for many of her characters when writing for Young Adults. 

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House of the Healer (Pistols and Pyramids, Book 3) by Jim Johnson

Release date: December 25, 2015

Subgenre: Weird western

About House of the Healer: 

 

The Scales Are Out of Balance

After surviving a brutal cultist attack on her village, Ruia led the other survivors to the safety of Fort Sekhmet with the help of Tjety, a Ranger of Mayat. With Tjety's life now hanging in the balance, can Ruia gather enough help and learn to use her newfound hekau magic to heal Tjety before the forces of darkness close in and snuff out all hope?

House of the Healer is the third episode in PISTOLS AND PYRAMIDS, a monthly series best described as an ancient Egyptian-themed weird western with magic. And mummies. Lots of mummies.

Excerpt:

 

Tjety cracked open his eyes, heavy with fatigue and pain, and squinted at parched earth and sun-blasted dunes that glimmered in the haze. A bleak smudge of clouds gathered on the horizon and crept toward him. His entire body was on fire, radiating more heat than even the glowing orb of the sun god, Re, beating down on him from on high.

He shivered in spite of the heat, blinked, and then found himself standing several feet away from his own body, which was sprawled out naked in the sparkling sand. His body was covered in cuts and scrapes and his right arm hung awkwardly, splintered by a cruel gunshot wound. A thin ribbon of silver connected his ba—his spirit—to his body.

He glanced down. He was in his ba-bird form—a hawk's body with his head rather than that of a hawk. His right wing was shattered, hanging limp against his body. Many of his feathers were damaged or missing, and he had numerous other small wounds, echoing the damage evident on his human form.

Tjety tried to flap his broken appendage, but all that did was shove a spear of pain into his mind that trailed down the gossamer-like strand of silver and crashed into his mortal body.

He stared at the drab wasteland all around him as cruel realization struck home. "Is this it? Have I fuckin' died and fallen in to the Duat?"

He frowned and focused on the silver thread connecting his ba-form to his body. If he had died, that thing should have been severed.

He puzzled it over, but a series of inhuman growls from somewhere deep in the wasteland around him broke his ragged concentration. He staggered around in his broken bird form, his shattered wing flapping helplessly. Horrifying shapes pulled from his bird form, his shattered wing flapping helplessly. Horrifying shapes pulled from his darkest nightmares—jackal-like creatures and massive undulating snakes—formed in the distance, uttered unearthly sounds, and started moving toward him.

Out of reflex and long practice, he went for his pistol, but his broken wing crashed against his body. He cried out in pain.

He made to draw his khopesh, but of course he wore nothing in this form. He then tried to gather strength from his hekau, to prepare a defensive spell, but the image of a dried-out watering hole flashed in his mind. He had nothing left—his wellspring of arcane energies was drained.

He backed away from the encroaching shapes, feeling his silver thread spool out, keeping his ba connected to his fragile mortal shell. The shadowy forms started to pick up speed, as if they smelled his blood and fear. He turned and ran as fast as his little bird legs could propel him, trying desperately to achieve some speed but fearing that he would be too slow, far too slow.

Amazon 

 

About Jim Johnson:

 Jim Johnson is the author of the Pistols and Pyramids series as well as other prose fiction series currently under development. He has written sundry other pieces of fiction, including several stories published in the Star Trek universe, and has freelanced for pen and paper roleplaying game companies, including Decipher and White Wolf. Please visit www.SCRIBEINETI.com for more information on Jim and his interests and writing.

Jim lives in historic Alexandria, VA with his wife, newborn son, and several crazy cats.

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