Our-World
Shelbyville, Tennessee

For obvious reasons, Alison Springs wasn’t safe for us anymore. Besides, that unprecedented thunderstorm proved we needed to take immediate action to prevent another storm like it from revealing our position or affecting our general location with the same catastrophic consequences. We doubled back to Piper’s apartment to gather the few items needed for a road trip, but then we didn’t hit the road…

We took to the skies.

Derek Smallwood agreed to meet us just outside Shelbyville, Tennessee. With the Quad-Airbike cruising at an average of one hundred sixty miles an hour, we could make the trip in a little over three and a half hours. This was assuming we could fly the shortest possible distance, which was, of course, a straight line. This was more or less achievable, with some minor adjustments. We had to climb to extreme altitudes around densely populated rural areas and avoid a few commuter flight paths by diverting slightly.

Ultimately, we completed the trip in just over four and a half hours. Our gear was packed into overstuffed backpacks that hung like saddlebags across the seat behind Piper. We wore our armored suits, allowing us to transition to high altitude and back down to our more comfortable cruising level of around twelve thousand feet without making the trip unnecessarily tricky or fatiguing.

Smallwood had parked his rig in a small clearing in the woods, beyond what appeared to be a long-fallow field, two additional cornfields, and about a mile down a dirt road from an ancient-looking farmstead. He must have traversed the rutted, rocky, overgrown trail that skirted the barren field to reach the back and enter the tree line. It was no small feat considering what he was driving. I approached from the south and made a pass, searching for signs that the meeting location might have been compromised. Thermal and IR scans of the field and the canopy beyond the tree line revealed only the outline of Smallwood’s RV and what seemed to be a single human presence. The forest registered multiple life signs of various sizes, all too small to be human.

Circling again, I approached low and slow—buzzing quietly just five feet above the path’s surface. We traced the route Smallwood likely took as he drove in. The rough terrain would have been tough on his suspension. Piper laughed behind me, clearly sharing the same thought. “The last stretch of his drive must have been incredibly uncomfortable,” she mused.

(more…)

Our-World

My senses spun wildly with vertigo, accompanied by a Doppler-shifting thunder that struck me like a bolt of high voltage and made me feel as if I were being circled by a ten-foot-wide boomerang traveling at fifty miles an hour. The sensation could have lasted for two seconds or thirty. There was also a feeling reminiscent of the first few moments spent tumbling uncontrollably out of an aircraft—when the one-hundred-mile-an-hour slipstream slams into you and completely scrambles your orientation in space. In the next instant, I felt the down comforter, soft and gentle beneath the bare skin of my back.

“The fuck!” Piper croaked in a hoarse voice beside me and sat up with a jolt.

I cracked an eye and looked at her. She was completely naked, the same as me. We were positioned mostly parallel but askew on the bed in her room back on Our-World. The morning sun appeared to be just cresting the horizon, gradually backlighting the drawn blinds of the windows across the room. She was gently probing her right ear with the tip of her finger. As she worked her jaw, she quickly moved her finger to her left ear and shot me an accusing glance. That’s when I became aware of the pressure building up in my ears and worked my jaw to relieve it.

“Do you taste waffles?” Piper said, her voice loud. She was still having trouble with her hearing.

I ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth and smiled. “Maple syrup?”

She raised an eyebrow. Honestly, if she didn’t have an explanation for it, what could I offer? By that point, she was figuring this stuff out far quicker than I was, and we both knew it. I could only shrug.

Piper’s gaze shifted to the foot of the bed. At first, I thought she was just now realizing we were both naked. That wouldn’t be a good sign since that had been part of the plan. If her mind had been scrambled during the Crossing, I needed to assess the extent of her condition and how long it would take for her to recover.

“Did we just break the bed?” She said.

Her attention wasn’t on her physical condition; rather, it focused on the state of the bed. The bed was inclined, with the head raised at a noticeable pitch because the footboard had collapsed, leaving the bottom of the mattress resting on the floor.

(more…)

Wild-Side

I woke up lying on an anachronistic wheeled gurney, at least by the standards of the Seeley. The blankets draped across me were made of a material that felt like a cotton and wool blend. While this reminded me of home, it was unlike anything I had experienced during my hundreds of Wild-Side trips. I also noted two other key points. First, I was still naked—or maybe naked again? Umm, and second—I was completely clean.

Both observations were disconcerting because a third point surfaced in my mind… I didn’t know how I’d ended up in this bunk. My last memory was teleporting to a strange white room on the Airbike with Piper.

After that…

Piper slipped through the narrow gap in the hanging privacy curtain, and I watched as it sealed itself behind her. Aside from that neat little trick, the curtain reminded me of those draping the beds in every emergency room I had ever visited. Here, at least, I wasn’t surrounded by a chorus of chirping and beeping medical devices. With only a tall nightstand and a stool, it was just me and the bed. “Welcome back,” Piper said. Although her words were succinct and her tone upbeat, the concern in her pinched expression was unmistakable. “Nap time finally over?”

I felt she was asking the wrong person. “How did I get here?” I tried to push myself higher against the slight incline of the bed but discovered I had little strength for the effort.

Piper swiped at something in her private AR display and quickly turned her attention back to me. “I’m bringing your tech back up to full, but at incremental levels. Your strength will return.” Her eyes shifted to the empty space over my bed, and I knew she was reviewing information only she could see. “Your diagnostics are out of the red…finally. You should be on your feet in a matter of hours.”

I rubbed my eyes against the migraine that was gaining steady traction behind my right eye. “I’m gone for a few days, and you got your PhD in nanotechnology?”

(more…)

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…)