Wild-Side

It took me four days to move Pemberton’s body to a location I believed would be safe for an extended period. Part of the effort required a cross-country drive. And since the first time I drifted off to sleep, I would likely end up in Wild-Side; I couldn’t risk even a brief nap. My otherworldly excursion would jeopardize Pemberton, and compromising his comatose body could also provide Breslin with the information he might use for a successful Crossing. I didn’t know if Pemberton fried his brain or Crossed, but until I knew for sure, keeping his body safe was the only prudent course of action.

Fortunately, I had now enlisted the support of Pike’s team. They were technically on the payroll. More importantly, they were personally invested in the effort. With their firsthand insight into what Breslin was trying to accomplish, I had skilled operators to help protect Pemberton while I returned to Wild-Side.

It was a long, exhausting four days. While I could control the nanotechnology in my body, overclocking myself to run nonstop for that duration was beyond my capability. Thankfully, Esker was there to help. Even the AI was reluctant to make the adjustments. Setting technology aside, the human body wasn’t designed to run continuously without rest, he warned. This was why I couldn’t adjust the tech on my own.

The Crossing to Wild-Side wasn’t usual. Fatigue made me feel a bit like a struck match, and dark skies laden with low-hanging, angry-looking clouds poured sheets of rain that didn’t make me smile. It was dusk, as close as I could tell. I gave my HUD a minute to come online, but when it didn’t, I confidently concluded I was in one of the numerous dead zones. Not the end of the world…but I was tired. More tired than I could ever remember being. Usually, I was fatigued when I fell asleep back on My-World, but when I Crossed, something about the transition left me energized, though temporarily sickened and a little worse for the wear. Yet, the effects were slowly improving with time. It was as if my body was building a tolerance for the negative repercussions of the Crossing. But this time?

Not good. Not good at all. I felt as if every ache and pain I experienced back home was amplified on this side.

I knelt in the mud as a cool, light rain fell on my shoulders.

Super.

I climbed to my feet and braced my flimsy knees against the cold wind. I found myself at the edge of a small clearing surrounded by towering conifers. They would at least provide a respite from the wind, so I quickly slipped behind the boughs of the nearest shelter. As soon as I did, the whistle of the wind became hushed, and the woods fell silent. Not just silent from the wind, but devoid of the rustle of natural habitation.

Something is wrong.

I held my breath and listened intently. At first, all I could hear was the rasp of my own ragged breathing and the rush of blood behind my ears. I fought against the chattering of my teeth. The cold and the loss of my heightened hearing were feelings I acutely experienced at that moment as I strained to sense the danger I knew was nearby. The forest fell silent in response to that danger. It was a primal, natural reaction—wildlife responding to a predator in the area.

(more…)

Wild-Side

Gray was overdue, and although Piper was concerned, she sensed that no one was more worried than Doctor Cormac. He and the rest of his team tried to hide it, but the Seeley were not skilled at concealing their underdeveloped emotions. While she knew less about the science behind dimensional crossing, Piper understood Gray better than anyone. If he was alive, he’d be back. They just needed to give him time and try to keep the wheels from coming off the Bus until that happened.

“You mentioned there was an operation on hold until Gray returned,” Piper said.

Lacy sat at a table in the open-air amphitheater, a space commonly used for recreation. It was the closest thing the Seeley had to a park since they didn’t possess many recreational areas. Nor did they have the same appreciation for nature as the people from her world. Pushing the plate and half-eaten sandwich aside, Lacy nodded. “When Mara came out of her coma, she was able to provide us with more information about the expedition that led to her condition. We thought there might be a connection to the Elend based solely on the coincidental timing, but her spotty recollection of events adds support to the theory.”

Lacy thumbed the edge of the plate and gazed into the distance, as if contemplating how to express what would come next. “Her expedition took place in the Badlands,” she said. “And aside from Mara, the entire team was lost. We have no idea what happened to the team that day. All the data was corrupted. Seismic activity opened up some new faults in the area. We believe a new cavern or cave might have been exposed. If that’s the case, a team would have been dispatched to search for artifacts.”

“Artifacts?”

Lacy waved a hand vaguely in the air. “We occasionally discover things in the wilds. Anachronistic relics that must be quarantined.”

Piper’s face twisted in confusion.

With a shrug, Lacy said, “Can we skip the twenty questions on this one? We already went through this with Gray. I’m happy to answer all I can for you… I’m just not sure I’m up to this topic today. If I’m honest, my heart just isn’t in it.”

Not knowing what that meant, Piper chose to move on. “Fair enough.” There were countless peculiarities associated with the Seeley. Some of them Piper found charming. Some were entertaining. Many were simply baffling. For a group that was advanced and mostly enlightened, they could be shortsighted and narrow-minded at times. “Tell me about the operation you need Gray to help with.”

“Mara helped us pinpoint the location of her expedition.” She raised a hand in the air and swayed it back and forth. “At least she provided us with a general location. It should be sufficient to find the site. Gray was planning to take a team out to explore. If there’s anything there that might help us understand the Elend, where they come from, or how to combat them, it could be worthwhile.”

Piper waited. It seemed like there was more Lacy wasn’t saying. “A team? Who’s going with when the time comes?”

(more…)

In preparation for brainstorming and outlining the next book in the Cyrus Cooper series, I’ve reread the series and made many notes. With six books so far, that’s a lot of material to cover! Considering how each book builds on the characters and events of the previous releases, and my less-than-stellar memory, there are potentially many ways I could miss plot threads that have been developing for a long time.

To address this, I’ve been experimenting with several AI tools designed to index the entirety of the series in a large language model (LLM) with a context entirely specific to my own fictional work. For those familiar with the AI chatbots that have been evolving over the last few years, these tools allow users to ask questions of the AI in a text-based chat window. The technology was initially designed to answer based on language models, or datasets, trained using nearly every available public-domain source of information on the internet.

The tools I was specifically impressed with were Notebook LM from Google and ChatGPT from OpenAI. While both tools make it easy to upload one or more manuscripts for this use case, Notebook LM (free for anyone with an equally free Google account) made it easy to turn that upload into a reusable reference tool. It was basically the core function of the AI tool. For ChatGPT, I needed the Plus version of the tool ($20 per month). ChatGPT required me to create a custom GPT to index my work. While this was easy, it required several steps and, therefore, constituted a learning curve.

Essentially, the newer tools enable authors to create an LLM focused on their book(s). I can ask the chatbot to describe a character, and the AI will refer to its index of my manuscripts and provide an answer, even citing the specific section of the work it used.

Authors with complex worlds, stories, or characters often spend countless hours creating Story Bibles (reference indexes) to achieve the same result manually. In this case, the technology accomplishes the same task for me in a matter of minutes.

As a side note, one of the tools can take the uploaded manuscript and generate a podcast discussing the material. Not only is the verbal back-and-forth conversation entirely generated by the AI, but so are the voices.

Spoiler Alert! Some of the conversations touch on reveals that take place throughout the series. Want to hear an example?

In short, while there is much controversy about AI tools and their impact on creative content, I’m excited to say that it’s not all bad news, doom, and gloom. Some of these tools make creative work easier or more efficient. This new ability to easily reference content buried in over a thousand total pages alleviates my anxiety going into book seven of the series because I no longer need to stress or struggle to find clarity in my material.

Our-World

Al Vincente waited for the mother of two to finish scolding the obnoxious six-year-old who refused to make room for him on his way to the window seat of the northbound red-eye. She literally had her hands full with the sobbing baby clutched to her chest. Vincente glanced at the narrow seat he would be forced to occupy in close quarters with the spirited family for the flight up the eastern seaboard and felt the tension headache begin to form behind his eyes.

The mother hissed something at the boy in the seat while Vincente waited to reach his assigned seat. The boy responded by hurling a tablet device with seemingly practiced skill. The mother swiftly turned in response to the attack, and Ingersoll heard what he believed was the sound of the device’s corner striking flesh and bone at high speed. The bulge of the mother’s eyes and her quick scowl was followed by a moment where she appeared to count briefly to herself.

Vincente was massaging the corners of his eyes when he felt a hand settle gently on his shoulder.

“Sir?” a woman called from behind him. Turning around, Vincente was met with the flight attendant’s polite smile. She cast a quick glance at the mother struggling with her pair of children a few feet in front of him and then motioned over her shoulder. “We have an opening over here,” she said quietly. “Maybe you would be more comfortable?”

Vincente smiled as he followed the woman to the unoccupied row of three seats. The tension was already easing behind his eyes, and a sense of claustrophobia he hadn’t acknowledged was dissipating. “I don’t know how to thank you,” he said dryly. “You may have just saved my sanity.”

The flight attendant smiled knowingly. “Happy to help. The aisle seat is reserved, but you’re welcome to choose the middle or window seat,” she clarified. “Either option should make for a much more comfortable trip.”

Vincente slipped into the window seat and took a deep breath. Reaching up, he adjusted the vent on the ceiling and felt the draft wash over the perspiration on his face. The Tampa humidity was overwhelming, even at this late hour. The air coming from the vent wasn’t cool, but at least it was circulating. Glancing at his watch, he verified the time. If the plane left on schedule, they would be taxiing in just a few minutes. Then, the cabin would cool down. The temperature up north would be better. He despised the heat.

Loosening his tie, Vincente contemplated the wisdom of this latest trip. Was he giving up on Tampa before exploring all possible leads? Probably. Grady Ledger had been spotted here just two days earlier. Video evidence showed he had been at Tampa International and had spent the night at the Hilton, although he had checked in under an alias, and the hotel registry did not list him. Surveillance footage captured him entering the hotel and a room, but the hotel had no record of his booking. That was a clever trick Vincente had seen the kid use before, and he still didn’t know how he had pulled it off. Presumably, it involved some kind of computer hack to remotely reserve the room.

(more…)

Our-World
Alison Springs, Maryland

An hour after the attack on the lab, I was sitting at a table at The Borderline. It was the same table I’d used last time, actually. It wasn’t the weekend, so the place wasn’t packed. I had my pick of the tables. A jukebox was belting out tunes in the background. It was country. Normally, that would be enough to send me looking for another place to drink, but after the events of the evening, I had enough on my mind to distract me from the music. As long as it wasn’t rap, I could keep the distraction in the back of my mind.

The waitress ambled up to the table, popped the top off a bottle of Modelo as she arrived, and slid it across the scarred surface with a smile. “Piper’s off tonight,” she said by way of greeting.

I nodded and glanced at the bottle. They didn’t carry the stuff. Either that had changed, or news about me had spread since my one and only visit to the place. I looked at the waitress’s name tag and confirmed she wasn’t one of the young women who worked during my last visit. Mindy. I didn’t recognize the name any more than the face.

Yup. There’d been gossip.

“I heard that might be true,” I said with my best disappointed shrug. “It did hurt to try anyway.” I tipped the beer and lowered my voice. “Do you mind if I ask how you knew?”

Mindy’s nose twitched in sync with the pursing of her lips and the crinkling of her brow. She hesitated somewhat transparently before glancing over her shoulder, then slipped onto the bench across the table from me. “Folks here are kind of tight-knit,” she said in a hushed tone as she leaned closer. “Piper’s really popular with the customers, as you might imagine, pretty girl and all. Young guys come in all the time to flirt. It’s fun most of the time. Piper has a bit of a reputation. She doesn’t encourage it. The fact is, she doesn’t have much patience for it.”

(more…)

Our-World
Alison Springs, Maryland

I woke up to the familiar electric tingle rippling from head to toe and pushed the thick, overstuffed comforter from my face. The unrelenting glare of the rising sun through the east-facing window felt like an icepick to the brain. I threw back the covers to my side and collapsed with disappointment. Piper hadn’t crossed back with me. Sinking back into her bed, I pulled the covers over my head and tried to regroup.

Admittedly, bringing her back this way had been wishful thinking. I’d returned from Oakland with Mara with time to spare. The plan was to lead Mara and a small team into the Darks to reopen the cave where we believed all of this started. With a little luck, the trip would jumpstart Mara’s memory, and the location would offer some insight into how Breslin had become whatever he was now. The logistics of that trip were complex. The cave was nowhere near Portland, and coordinating the effort in the Wastes wasn’t trivial.

Additionally, I was just hours away from bouncing back to My-World. The Doc and Tripp began organizing the expedition while Lacy and her team collaborated with Mara on further medical diagnostics. The idea was that the next time I landed on Wild-Side, as long as I had enough time on the clock, we would explore the cave.

That left me with downtime, finally. It was long overdue. I’d been awake for longer than I wanted to think about, and while the flight to Oakland was a hell of a lot of fun, it was also exhausting. I needed some rest. There was hope that if I was unconscious when I rebounded and Piper was with me, essentially recreating the circumstances that led to her being brought with me, she might rebound home the same way.

I patted the empty space on the mattress beside me and mumbled profanity.

The multiverse hates me.

“I hope that wasn’t aimed at me,” Esker said through the speaker on my smartphone. A quick glance confirmed it was sitting on the nightstand just two feet away.

“Piper is on Wild-Side,” I said without any preamble.

“I speculated that when she disappeared, it was at the exact same picosecond as you.”

It was times like this when it became painfully obvious that I was dealing with an artificial intelligence. His tone was too matter-of-fact for the subject at hand.

“Do you have any thoughts on how something like that could be possible?” I pressed.

“There isn’t enough data to draw a solid conclusion, but I suspect biological cross-contamination of your nanotech. Perhaps a coital adjustment of your biorhythms at a quantum level. I wasn’t scanning you at the time, so I don’t have a thorough analysis of the experiment.”

I rubbed my eyes. “It wasn’t an experiment.”

“Are you sure?” Esker asked with a tone of amusement that was unusual for the AI. “Considering the level of creativity shown in your ritual pair bonding, I believe some experimentation was—”

(more…)

I landed the Airbike in a park near the center of Oakland. After clearing the far end of the dead zone, I was able to open a channel and communicate with the city administrator. In this case, that was Sarah Hargrave. Short and thin, she looked somehow older than the other denizens, even though I knew that wasn’t possible. It wasn’t the first time I’d encountered Sarah, but her wizened appearance and an age that, at least visually, seemed to parallel Doc Cormac made me think for the first time that the difference in relative appearances might have more to do with one’s station in society than with conventional age.

“Gray,” Sarah said, extending her hand. It was a mannerism some had adopted from My World, and I recognized she was using it to break the ice. Sarah Hargrave had been one of the most vocal opponents of the point defense system I was working to implement on the perimeter walls of Portland. “You’re ahead of schedule,” she noted.

She was right. Once I discovered that Seeley tech worked in the dead zone as long as I was above 20,000 feet, I could reactivate my armor. This made higher speeds more comfortable, and I was able to more than make up for my lost time.

“Have you been able to reach Doctor Cormac?” I asked, trying to cut through the niceties. The ride had been a blast, but it was exhausting. Time was also limited. I needed to interview Mara and begin the return flight as soon as possible.

She shook her head. “The latest information suggests the storm front has settled in. It’s now stationary. There’s no reason to believe conditions will change anytime soon. It’s not the first time we’ve seen a Thonian weather front behave this way,” she said, looking uncomfortable with what she was describing. “We just hoped for the best, I suppose you could say.”

I followed Sarah across the park’s open green expanse and into a glass-covered greenhouse-like building while we talked. After that, we passed through a lobby and entered an elevator. She hadn’t yet explained where we were going, but I assumed it was the medical complex since she knew my reason for traveling to Oakland.

“You saw the video I forwarded?” I asked as we waited in the elevator.

Sarah didn’t respond at first. Her complexion suddenly grew more pallid, and she swayed on her feet. I watched her throat contract as she appeared to swallow something unpleasant with concerted effort. The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open, but Sarah Hargrave failed to move. After a few long seconds, her gaze met mine. She blinked away moist eyes, forced a smile, and led me from the elevator.

“Kind of you not to say, ‘I told you so,’” she said in a dry, husky voice as we treaded slowly down the next corridor. “That recording…” she almost mumbled. “They truly can fly?” She looked at me again and forced another smile. “If you can, I suppose, why not them?”

(more…)

Wild-Side

Piper sat on the edge of the table and rubbed the spot on her arm where blood had been drawn some twenty minutes before. There wasn’t so much as a mark left to indicate the bodily invasion and she hadn’t felt the sample as it had been extracted. Some kind of device was used to pull the blood from her body without so much as breaking the surface of her skin. No needle, no puncture, not even the slightest pain. Everywhere she turned, this place seemed infused with subtle yet unmistakable technological improvements that separated it from home in subtle but unmistakable ways. She looked at her hand resting on the table’s surface and made yet another observation. The table was made of stainless steel, but the texture and temperature didn’t feel right. She had been informed that it was a metallic-ceramic composite, which was, apparently, commonly used in construction here. It was lightweight, strong, and versatile. It could be formed in small amounts using a mobile fabrication device similar to the 3D printers she had seen at home, or it could be employed on a larger scale to create components for building-sized structures.

“Incredible,” she heard herself murmur.

“What’s that?” Lacy asked as she passed by, holding a circular ring the size of a dinner plate in her hands. She handed it to Gray.

“Your technology,” Piper said. “Everything from the augmented reality to the particle fabrication units. I’m just blown away by it all.”

Lacy’s face seemed to beam. She nodded to Gray and asked whether the ring-like device met his specifications. Gray appeared satisfied. Lacy then returned her attention to Piper. “Gray had the same reaction initially,” she said. “Your world is primitive in a lot of ways, but you have so many things we don’t.”

“What could we possibly have that you don’t?” Piper wondered.

“Art,” Gray said, slipping the collar around his neck. “Wild-Side has enough science to put Our-World to shame, but they have no understanding of the arts. No music, no painting, no poetry. They don’t even know what fiction is. They couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of writing something that wasn’t scientific or historic.”

Gray tapped a button or manipulated the corner of the ring he’d placed around his neck, and Piper gasped as a helmet materialized from the thin ring of material. In less than two seconds, particles grew, moved, and formed into a hard shell that surrounded his head in the shape of a conventional, albeit high-tech looking helmet.

Piper was on her feet, moving in for a closer look without realizing she had slid from the edge of the table. “That’s incredible,” she whispered, resting her hand on the side of Gray’s head.

Gray placed two fingers approximately where his temple would be. The smoky black visor dematerialized to reveal his eyes and nose. Only then did she notice how sleek and form-fitting the helmet really was. It added just about an inch to the overall diameter of his head while offering very little padding. Given what she had seen of the tech from this place already, she suspected the helmet was far more protective than anything from her world.

“Amazing,” Piper muttered.

Gray tapped a button on his wrist, and the helmet seemed to disintegrate. She quickly noticed that the material was deconstructing and receding back into the collar that originally housed it. While Gray seemed satisfied with the experience, he didn’t appear blown away by the exposure to the technology. “That’s good,” he said to Lacy. “The rest of the suit works the same way?”

(more…)

Wild-Side

My ears popped with a familiar change in elevation, my stomach flip-flopped, and the Doppler effect of a low, resonant gong echoed deep within my skull. I fought the urge to vomit and rolled onto my side. That’s when I felt the long, dry blades of grass crunch beneath me. It all added up to one thing.

I’m back on Wild-Side.

I squinted against the sun and took a deep breath. Sunlight meant no Seeley. Well, it didn’t mean I was entirely out of danger, but they were far more dangerous at night. There had only been rare attacks during the daytime, and no one had reported an attack in broad daylight. No evidence indicated they were a nocturnal race, but they certainly seemed to prefer the night. The worst of the creepy crawlies always seemed to share that trait, so I guess there was some degree of predictability there.

Have I mentioned that my mind tends to spin right after crossing?

The sound of someone coughing and retching snapped me back to alertness. I vaulted to my feet, spinning on my heels before digging my bare toes into the loamy soil and assuming a defensive stance. Admittedly, one loses some of his imposing edge while standing completely naked in a field of knee-high grass with his fists balled, no matter how aggressive the fighting posture.

That’s when I saw Piper sprawled face down in the same grass, gasping for breath and dry-heaving. She lay flat, her hands spread wide, just lifting her face out of the grass and dirt. Like me, she was completely naked. But unlike me, she wasn’t supposed to be there.

No one else had ever crossed over to Wild-Side before.

“Piper,” I said, rolling her over and pulling her into my arms. Her eyes fluttered, and her breathing was shallow and rapid. Her body seemed to tremble from head to toe. “Piper, can you hear me?” I tapped her gently on the cheek, but it didn’t seem to matter. Pressing two fingers against the side of her neck, her racing pulse was unmistakable.

We found ourselves in the middle of a meadow that spanned maybe five or six square acres. I didn’t like being out in the open, but I wasn’t sure the distant tree line looked any better. Piper just shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t right. Me landing here was problematic. Her landing here with me like this…it was—fuck! I didn’t know how to protect her in a place like this.

My HUD flickered to life, but communications were still down. Luckily, cartography loaded quickly this time. There was a farm with an active transport platform 2.8 kilometers northeast of my location. I was just about to grab Piper and head for the farm when I felt her pulse slow and saw her eyes begin to stabilize.

She took a deep breath and looked up at me from where she lay cradled in my arms, blinking slowly. Squinting, she said, “What the hell? Turn the lights down.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. That only made her more confused. She rubbed her head and attempted to sit up. It must have hurt because she sagged back into my arms. I think that’s when she noticed the grass and grime beneath her. She turned to stare at me. There was confusion in her eyes. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused but seemed to settle on my lap.

“Huh…” she mumbled. I think it was to herself, but she was still sort of out of it, so I wasn’t sure. “My sex dreams are usually more creative.” Her eyes finally left my crotch and found my face. “And you’re always having more fun than that,” she tipped her head back to my groin.

(more…)

Our-World
Borderline Bar and Grill

Two days passed before I saw Piper again. My stunt in the lab had the unintended consequence of prompting Doctor Fulbright to instill the fear of God in building maintenance, the University administration, and anyone willing to listen. He seemed not to appreciate being assigned a laboratory that was, as he described it, a deathtrap just waiting to claim its first victims. He insisted that all building systems and infrastructure be inspected before his project team began working in earnest.

That was fine with me. Delaying, or even better, derailing the project was my ultimate goal. But the outcome was amusing because it was unexpected. I had partially achieved one of my objectives without even trying. It gave me a day to set up a base of operations in the corner of a warehouse I had just rented on the outskirts of the town’s business district, plus a fallback safe house in the sticks outside of town. It was a lot to accomplish in twenty-four hours, but it kept me busy and distracted from obsessing over Piper, who had been on my mind since seeing that news clip just a week earlier.

I maintain that obsession is too strong a term, and I’ll admit to being distracted since she entered my life, but Esker disagreed. He went on to define obsession as, and I quote, an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on one’s mind. However, since arguing with artificial intelligence is like ice skating uphill, you can bet I didn’t make any progress in changing his mind.

And considering I was sitting at what was quickly becoming my table at the Borderline, watching Piper pour drinks behind the bar at the first opportunity I had, maybe he wasn’t too far from the mark. I’d been there for twenty minutes, and Piper had yet to make eye contact, though I was certain she’d been checking me out from the corner of her eye at regular, if not constant, intervals.

Music played from the jukebox next to a small stage set up at the end of the room. Patrons could select songs using a phone app. All three selections I had entered played immediately. Either no one in the semi-crowded joint was vying for playtime, or someone was prioritizing my picks. Since my songs were favorites from the playlist curated by Piper Hudson and me, I suspected the fix was in.

I had never actually ordered a drink, yet they arrived at my table with only a coy smile and a wink from the waitress. She knew something I didn’t, and she seemed to be enjoying it. I tried to ask about the secret, but she silently shook her head and left without a word. The first round was a double shot of tequila served in a rocks glass. The second round was the same, and by the time I finished it, I was buzzed and feeling no pain.

The rocks glass was the key. This was what I drank on the boat when Piper and I first met. And the rocks glass was the best part. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the glass was almost exactly the same style. The memory made me smile. I think I was still grinning when I looked up to see Piper standing at the end of my booth. Her work attire had been replaced with a pale yellow sundress that had thin spaghetti straps and a plunging neckline. She was holding a tray with two more rocks glasses. She set the glasses on the table, placed the tray on the seat opposite me, and then slipped into the seat at my side.

(more…)