There was a flash of light, and the room-temperature pattern of the bunker receiving platform replaced the barn’s cold version. Wes stood at the control terminal facing the platform, while Lacy quickly took on her traditional role by fetching a thick, wool-like blanket. It remained unclear whether this gesture was meant as an accommodation for my naked arrival or as a sign of respect for my exposure to this world and its elements before reaching the teleportation platform. Regardless, while I appreciated the consideration, it wasn’t necessary. I had long since given up any anxiety over appearing naked in front of these people or anyone else, and thanks to the nanotech, I was impervious to all but the most extreme temperatures.

I noticed Lacy averting her eyes as she approached with the blanket and, this time, noted what might have been a coloring of her cheeks. That had never happened before. It was unusual because the people of Wild-Side had, at least until recently, no experience with sexuality and, as a result, no apprehension about this kind of male-female interaction.

Noticing how Lacy gave me a furtive glance before quickly exiting the room, I decided something had changed. I would either need to ask her about it… or perhaps bring up the subject with Doc Cormac would be better. Chances were, this had something to do with my social experiment. If that were the case, Cormac would be the better choice.

I noticed the smirk on Wes’s face and shot him a questioning glance. He’d seen Lacy’s response and found it unusual too. “It’s not just me, right?” I asked.

He shook his head. “She’s given you the same blanket at least a hundred times. I don’t know what’s different about today.”

Tossing the wrap over the console, I grabbed the jeans from the stack of folded clothes waiting in their usual spot. I slipped them on while keeping my eyes on the door Lacy had used for her hasty retreat. I pulled a black t-shirt over my head and stood on one leg as I slipped a sock onto my left foot. I’d gone through this process so many times that I could get fully dressed in under thirty seconds, all while standing.

“The Doc’s running late,” Wes said. “A meeting with Columbus was running long. Said he’d meet you in the Commons.”

I grinned at how he referred to Doctor Cormac simply as the Doc. When I first came here, everyone was stiff and formal. People were called by their given names, and slang was nonexistent. At the beginning, I was treated like an outcast. No one knew what to make of me. I wasn’t just a foreigner to them; I was like an alien. Now, I’ve done more than influence them. I’ve begun to impact their culture in significant ways.

This was done out of necessity. These people didn’t know how to defend themselves against a threat as hostile as the Elend. Breslin and his kind were preying on the people of Wild-Side, a group that, until my arrival, had been entirely unprepared to protect themselves.

I found Doc Cormac studying a tablet cradled in one arm. He sat on the amphitheater’s stair step, with the setting sun backlighting him. Maybe a dozen city residents shared the space, gathered in small groups or paired off as couples. Everyone noticed me as I entered from the back of the bowl-like area. Each of them shied away from my gaze. Some did so with awkward discomfort, while others with an unblemished loss of alacrity. Everyone knew who I was by now, even if they hadn’t met me. Most directly associated my arrival with the Elend threat, even if they didn’t grasp the dynamics and couldn’t connect one event to another beyond vague timing. In my mind, this only proved that the people of Wild-Side had much more in common with the people of Our-World than not. They might be intelligent and wise beyond our years, but they still filled the silence with their worst fears, suspicions, and doubts. I wasn’t one of them, so I must have more in common with the Scourge, as some had begun to call the Elend.

“Doc,” I said and dropped onto the bench beside him. “Wes said you needed to see me first thing?”

Cormac met my gaze with tired eyes, and I immediately saw that he hadn’t been sleeping again. His gaze swept across the room, absorbing the disapproval of those sharing the space. Everyone seemed to inch further away, as if what I had might be contagious. He shook his head, frowning with a mix of disapproval and frustration, but that was nothing new. Instead, he gestured to his tablet, swiping something away from the screen before putting it to sleep and tucking it under his arm. I could tell by the distant look in his eyes that he was checking his heads-up display. “Thirteen days?” he commented, referring to how long it had been since my last visit. “How long was it on your side this time?”

(more…)

O’Hare Airport
Chicago Illinois

Special Agent Chris Ingersoll followed the TSA officer through the winding cinderblock corridors until his sense of direction became hopelessly muddled. Institutional placards marked every intersection with confusing acronyms that meant nothing to him. They seemed designed to make the facility unnecessarily challenging to navigate, adding to his suspicion that it was intended to discourage outside visitors. Finally, the officer swiped a card at an expansive glass door that led to a room heavily invested in flat-panel monitors. The screens were arranged to cover every inch of the three windowless walls, and the six rows of closely placed workstations were each equipped with an array of twenty-seven-inch screens.

“Agent Ingersoll,” said a small, disheveled man with short-cropped gray hair as he approached with an outstretched hand. “I’m Timothy Saunders. How can I assist the FBI today?”

Ingersoll took in Saunders’s coffee-spotted tie, threadbare shirt cuffs, and slightly askew glasses, fighting the urge to grind his teeth. Given how anxiously the man pumped his hand and his grip’s moist, clammy feel, at least he was eager to please. “Thanks for your time, Mister Saunders. I need access to surveillance feeds from last Tuesday afternoon. Could one of your people help me with that?”

“Certainly—certainly,” Saunders said with a rapid nod. He pushed his glasses backward on his nose and gestured toward a workstation on the far side of the room. “As requested, Niles has the footage prepared for your review. I also have the ticket agent standing by in an interview room per your office’s request.”

Ingersoll smiled and gestured for Saunders to lead the way to the computer terminal. He was enthusiastic to finish reviewing the video and move on to the interview as soon as possible, in case Saunders noticed that the call with the FBI field office secretary matched Ingersoll’s voice. He didn’t think the eager little man would piece the deception together on his own, but it was better to keep things moving along quickly.

“Do you need the timestamps?” Ingersoll asked as he leaned over the technician’s shoulder. The tech was operating the complex video control system in front of an array of computer displays. A traditional computer keyboard and mouse were complemented by a large, knob-like device surrounded by specialized buttons. A stubby joystick was also nearby.

“It’s already queued up,” the technician said, gesturing vaguely toward the top center most of the six displays. One screen showed a full-screen image of a concourse somewhere in the airport, while all the other screens displayed dozens of freeze-frame shots, presumably from all over the complex, arranged in three-inch squares. “I used the suspect photo your office provided,” he continued.

“You found him?” Ingersoll asked, surprise entering his tone.

Saunders interrupted, “I’m surprised you wanted to review this on-site. We make all our footage available in real-time via the fusion center, but you also have access to the cold storage archives.”

Ingersoll had hoped to avoid this particular conversation. The keenness of Saunders’s demeanor made him confident that the man would be so anxious to please that the question would be overlooked. Tapping the technician on the shoulder, Ingersoll said, “Play through the video, please.” As the recording of the pedestrian traffic on the crowded concourse began to play in real-time, he spoke without taking his eyes off the screen. “I’m told the video we have access to was corrupted. It’s only a copy, so I need to review the footage to see the original. The suspect in this case has an accomplice impressively adept at covering his digital footprints.”

Saunders chuckled, a squeaky, wheezy laugh shockingly fitting for the cartoon character that Ingersoll had quickly judged him to be. “He’s not that smart if we still have the local footage. I guess it’s like we see on TV—all the bad guys make mistakes.”

(more…)

I was in the lab early the next morning, feeling unusually anxious. Stresses of one type or another became second nature when my whole “tripping worlds” adventure began. Not to pat myself on the back, but I’d long since learned to roll with the punches. I’m introverted at my core, which isn’t practical when your mission in life is to undermine plans for world domination implemented by a creature from another plane of reality. One becomes good at being someone else when required. I think of it as playing a role and believe I can be anyone I need to be.

The problem with my trip to Alison Springs University was that I could only be myself. I had a past with Piper, and since Piper was part of ASU, there was too much of a chance someone I knew from our time together would overlap and blow my cover. I had laid enough of a false trail to keep the FBI chasing inconsequential leads in other parts of the world. If I could wrap up my work in Maryland quickly enough, I could stay ahead of the manhunt.

The law had nothing to do with my stress levels shortly before eight o’clock that Monday. It was the fast one I was about to pull by ambushing Piper for a second time in two days. I was pulling a fresh pair of replacement wires through the tangle of intricate sensor leads under the table when I heard multiple voices coming down the hall. A group of people appeared to be talking simultaneously.

“The team has arrived,” Esker said through my earpiece.

“Everyone?” I asked, keeping my voice low so my face remained obscured below the surface of the high-tech medical table. I knew Esker was using the facility’s surveillance system to track the team as they finished reviewing the two storage rooms allocated for the project. They were headed to the medical suite specifically designed for the experiment, located down the hall from the storage rooms on the rarely-used basement level of the recently opened Experimental Sciences building.

“Affirmative. The entire team is present,” Esker paused for dramatic effect. “Including Piper.” He was an artificial intelligence, but if I didn’t know better, there were times I would bet money that the dramas of my life amused him.

“Very funny, but you know I’m more concerned with Omar.”

“Insisting on that won’t make it a reality,” the AI’s dry voice insisted.

I rolled my eyes.

“And last but not least,” a new voice boomed as a group bustled into the room. “Welcome to our state-of-the-art laboratory.” The man had a sonorous baritone, and I recognized it as the tweed-toting Doctor Kramer Fulbright. He was the head of the project and the man I had seen in the news clipping, shaking hands with the financier from the front company representing Kilmer Breslin’s interests.

I kept my head down and waited. My cover was that of a technician, and any good cover requires commitment, so I plunged ahead with my work. I pulled the cable through the grommet, separated the central instrument cluster from the port assembly, and started stripping the ends of the delicate wires. It would take only a few seconds to solder them into the housing. Still, I was putting that off until after the uncomfortable introductions, misdirections, and possible recriminations that needed to come first. I might be playing a part, but I hated to do anything more than once, even if it was part of a project I ultimately needed to sabotage.

“Our team is still one short,” I heard a husky feminine voice say from the far side of the room. “You said we would meet everyone first thing.” This was from Piper. It was a voice I would recognize in my sleep…and yes, I frequently did hear it in my sleep. Our time apart was not without its personal challenges for me.

(more…)

Wild-Side
20 months ago

The Bus easily traveled the rocky terrain of the Badlands. With three oversized wheels on each side of the cargo compartment at the back of the sleek, van-like utility vehicle, it could crawl with nimble agility across the vastly uneven surfaces. The pair of equally large wheels at the front were suspended at the end of long struts, giving the vehicle both a tight turning radius and extra resilience over surfaces like those it currently traversed.

Kilmer Fenn sat on the bench seat in the cargo space and watched with trepidation as the stowed stacks of hard-shelled crates heaved and strained against the tie–down straps binding them to the cabin floor. The left side of the cab tipped at nearly a forty–degree slant as the vehicle traversed another of the endless fields of man-sized boulders standing shoulder to shoulder and littering the expanse.

The figure on the opposite side of the cabin had been caught off guard, causing Kilmer to laugh. Mara struggled to secure herself in the safe embrace of the shoulder restraints. It was anyone’s guess what she was thinking when she took the device off. Like him, she wore a full-body environment suit. It had a form-fitting shell made of thin, plastic-like protective armor. The material was about an inch thicker than his usual daily uniform. This offered incredible protection, considering that, with the helmet on and the internal breathing system engaged, he could survive a grade-four rock slide.

“If you remove your restraints, you better put your helmet on first. We’re a long way from anything other than automated medical care,” Kilmer warned with a grin.

Mara tried to look nonplussed but was more likely fighting not to lose her lunch. “Is it just me, or is the ride getting rougher?” she said after taking a hard swallow.

Kilmer suddenly understood her reluctance to use the helmet. They had excellent filtration, but for all their technology, no one had bothered to integrate gelatinous, half-chewed food processing into the hardware. He looked at the virtual display on the back of his wrist. “We’re two point two kilometers out, but Drew doesn’t think we’ll make it to the site. Too much debris between us and the target. Looks like we’ll have to stop and walk the rest of the way.”

Fighting back a gasp that was likely partially solid matter, Mara pressed her hands hard on the knees of her suit. She spread her feet more widely for stability. “Maybe I can walk now?”

Kilmer laughed and tapped a button on his wrist display to open a private channel to their team leader. “You better slow it down a bit, boss. Either that or we’ll have to rinse the cargo space.”

“You’re joking,” an accusatory voice sounded in reply.

(more…)

I opened my eyes when I heard wildlife skittering through the underbrush. The sound brought an instant sense of awareness, which was odd because usually the transition was accompanied by really strange sensory effects. Most often, this felt like a kind of Doppler force that differed between my left ear and my right, along with an unexplainable shift in gravity, no matter how many times I tried to describe it. It’s like going weightless one second and then having my mass triple a half second later. Then the process repeats, but while you’re spinning and trying to sort out that Doppler ear thing simultaneously. The process seems to last ten to twenty seconds, but according to my implants, the transition between Branes takes less than a single second.

As I mentioned, it’s difficult to explain. It doesn’t make much sense, and I don’t think it matters in the end. Maybe it would if I were trying to understand and replicate the transition process, but since my ultimate goal is to stop it altogether and ensure no one can cross the barrier between worlds in the future, I really don’t care to analyze the experience. It’s sufficient to say that it’s unpleasant, and I believe that makes sense because it’s entirely unnatural for a human to shift between planes of reality.

I sat up with a start and felt the squish of damp leaves and vegetation underneath my bare ass. Vaulting to my feet and spinning quickly in a circle, I performed a threat assessment, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. I was standing in a small clearing in dense woodland, and it was dark—middle of the night kind of dark. The sounds of the woods had gone silent, but I sensed this was more in response to my sudden movement. I saw no immediate danger, at least not in the woodland surrounding my small clearing. Ten feet away, the forest became a black curtain. I blinked to activate the light-enhancing optics in my contacts, but nothing happened.

I glanced at the holographic display on my wrist. It should engage when I look at it or when I raise my arm to my eyes. In both cases, the display remained dark. This makes some sense since the display doesn’t truly project across my wrist; it is just superimposed there in three-dimensional space. Whatever impacted my vision enhancements also disabled my heads-up display.

Staggering a step, I scanned the tree line more carefully. I heard and felt my barefoot squish through the leaf litter and the mud beneath. I understood two things instantly. First, I was standing in one of the many dead zones that pockmarked the wilds of Wild-Side. Technology didn’t work out here. Second, I’d arrived with the typical telltale sensory scramble that came with the Crossing due to my fatigue. I’d crashed hard after leaving The Borderline and been in such a deep sleep that it affected my Transition. It was an observation Doctor Cormac would be interested in since he’d long theorized that a particular sleep state was the key to my transitioning to his Brane. I didn’t know if this would support his theory or set the idea back, but I knew he would want to know.

I wiped muddy hands on my thighs and sighed. Completely naked. Every crossing had this in common. It didn’t matter what I wore when I fell asleep—every time I woke up on Wild-Side, I was entirely without clothing. There were multiple theories about why this was the case, but until one of them could be proven, it didn’t matter to me.

I mention this because it wasn’t just inconvenient. Whenever I woke up on Wild-Side following the Transition, I found myself in a different location… I mean, geographically speaking. For example, I was standing in the wilderness with absolutely no idea where I was. Luckily for me, the vast majority of Wild-Side is temperate. Specific weather systems vary depending on which part of the continent I land on, but generally speaking, I see daytime highs in the low nineties and nighttime lows down to fifty degrees. We’re talking Fahrenheit for all those not raised in the good old US of A.

On this trip, my luck held on multiple fronts. The temperature was in the low sixties, if I had to guess. More importantly, the sounds of wildlife around me suggested no Elend in the area. This was the actual risk associated with each crossing, as noted previously: the nasty creatures with teeth and claws roaming the wilderness of Wild-Side all day, every day. No one in their right mind ventures outside the city walls.

Except for me, every time I Cross, I end up somewhere different. There’s no predicting where, just like there’s no correlation between the passage of time here and the time in my world. For example, for me, it had been six days since I was on Wild-Side. The only thing I know for sure is that six days haven’t passed here. It might be more, and there’s a minuscule chance that it’s less, but there’s no way that it’s only been six days.

Why? Good question. I can’t say. Even Doc Cormac can’t be sure, and if he’s stumped, there’s no chance I’ll come up with the answer. I hate being that guy, but it’s how it works—something you just have to roll with. You won’t survive the big stuff if you sweat the little. And by the big stuff, I mean the seven-foot-tall monsters that tear people limb from limb and could attack from any direction at any time.

(more…)

Unknown location Kansas
Thursday, 10:48am

Chris Ingersoll kicked the 9mm shell casing with the toe of his shoe, dislodging it from the cracked, dry mud. “Forensics missed this one,” he said, “but it won’t matter. Like the rest, we won’t find any prints.”

His partner, Al Vincente, whistled for one of the FBI crime scene technicians and waved. He pointed at the ground, and they both saw the approaching technician nod. “Any word on what was stolen yet?” Al asked as he tracked the oncoming agent over the open expanse.

Ingersoll shook his head. “Still waiting for a callback. Two of their big brains are proving hard to find.” He was referring to a pair of missing research leads, both of whom had been unaccounted for since the attack on the facility. “Either, one of them took off with the experimental hardware to keep it safe, or our guy got away with it. We’re still not sure.”

“You think our guy kidnapped the research leads?” Vincente struggled to hide the skepticism in his tone.

The question made Ingersoll pause, concluding with a shrug. “That wouldn’t fit with his MO, but who can say? He’s never taken anyone before. He’s never killed anyone on the technical team before, either. Still, there’s a first time for everything.”

“More likely they ran,” Vincente said quietly. “I sure as hell would.”

Ingersoll grunted in agreement and swept his gaze across the dozens of flags marking the locations where evidence was still being collected throughout the visible acres of the compound. At least a dozen additional technicians were working at the underground facility to gather similar forensic evidence.

At six and a half feet tall, Ingersoll had broad shoulders and blonde hair buzzed short in a military style, although he’d never served in the military. He’d joined the FBI straight out of the University of Michigan. At the age of forty-two, he specialized in hunting fugitives.

“The on-site tech just confirmed,” Vincente said as he watched the technician begin photographing the shell casing and start the collection process. “The surveillance system is a complete wash.”

“Trashed?”

Vincente gestured toward the cinderblock building housing the elevator. “No, it’s completely functional; it’s just blank. The time codes even show it was working all night. The recordings only display black screens with no audio.”

Al Vincente was an Italian-American cop turned FBI agent. After making a name for himself on an anti-terrorism task force on the West Coast, he completed a night school degree and joined the FBI. At 45, though a couple of years older than his partner, he was technically the junior agent on their team. He stood stout at five feet eight inches, powerfully built with a short, thick neck and cauliflower ears. His thinning dark hair and inability to grow anything but patchy facial hair, even with months of effort, meant he had been cursed with a baby face all his life.

Ingersoll walked across the hard-packed dirt, which had shown signs of being mud just a few hours earlier but was already drying and cracking in the early morning sun. He looked up at the clear blue sky and reflected on the ferocity of the storm the night before. “It’s not the first time we’ve experienced something like that,” Ingersoll admitted.

“Same goes for the ordinance,” Vincente said, holding out a handful of spent 9mm cases. “Same MO. He didn’t police his brass. No one was injured—at least not seriously. And I’ll give you two guesses as to who owns the place.”

Ingersoll stopped short of the service door to the underground complex and consulted one of the file folders tucked under his arm. “I thought it was the Woodlawn Research Group?”

Holding his cell phone aloft, Vincente grinned. “This just in: Woodlawn is a subsidiary of…” he offered a dramatic pause.

“Arlington Technologies Global?” Ingersoll finished, rolling his eyes. “Son of a bitch. How’d I see that coming? Our guy has a serious axe to grind with ATG.”

(more…)

If I’m honest, in the early days, I was exceedingly annoyed with the widespread unwillingness the population of Wild-Side had to physically combat the malevolent force attacking the fringes of their society. In the first month following my arrival, the creatures we’d come to refer to as the Elend grew bolder. Farms closer to the five main cities had seen the hulking, savage creatures with increasing regularity. Farmers were soon noticed to be missing.

No matter what came, none of the Seeley would fight. No one would join me in the hunt. Worse, most looked at me as if I were as dangerous as the massive reptilian creatures. I’d been willing to fight and even kill the vicious monsters from the start, but it brought me little favor from the Seeley. Some even claimed the very first sightings of the Elend coincided suspiciously with my appearance on Wild-Side.

We eventually determined that my arrival was related to that of the Elend. We were linked, but not in a way that made sense to me.

As a people, the Seeley didn’t trust or like me, but thankfully, they let me use their technology.

It was almost two hours past sunset, and I continued to slip noiselessly through the overgrowth of the forest. According to the small countdown timer in the corner of my heads-up display, I had just over thirty-six hours left on Wild-Side. It was one of my longer trips, and I was making the most of it. I’d explored this quadrant of the forest for the last two days and was confident the tracks I was following were fresh. Judging by the spacing of the stride and the shape of the more distinctive prints I’d seen in the mud, I was stalking what my team had recently started referring to as a Jay. Most of that breed was half again taller than a man, about twice as wide at the chest, had wicked triangular-shaped teeth that can bite through almost anything, and…did I mention they have wings?

Yeah. Freaking wings.

They can’t fly, though. At least, that’s what everyone kept telling me. I remain unconvinced. What’s the point of wings if you can’t fly, right? Still, the Doc and his people are far more intelligent than me, so I assumed they knew what they were talking about. It was something about weight and mass, lift ratios, and coefficients: they could be right. There are flightless birds in the world, so why not these things?

Still, the Elend are the closest I’ve seen to real-life dragons, though with human intelligence and what I can only describe as the instincts of serial killers. They couldn’t talk, at least in any language I understood. But they could communicate. I had never seen them in a group of more than two or three, but they absolutely communicated. I won’t describe them as social creatures, but they can organize at least so far as it’s convenient to try and kill me.

I’ve had more than one close call.

Thankfully, they don’t typically gather. They prowl the wilderness as solo, predatory hunters. They attack humans. I just can’t figure out what they do with them when they catch them. There are rarely signs of bloodshed. Signs of attack? Absolutely. But rarely signs of a mauling. Either the creatures are ambush hunters that take their prey back to a nest for feeding, or they consume them whole and leave little or no mess.

I’ll admit, I knew so little about the Elend back then. Sometimes, I wish I could return to those times because what I learned later was far more unsettling. It complicated my life and the future of Wild-Side in ways no one could have predicted.

(more…)

Unknown location Kansas
Wednesday, 2:18am

The Cessna flew at just over fourteen thousand feet in a turbulent, moonless sky. The time and timing were no coincidence. I’d planned the night’s operation around the new moon, but the weather system was entirely unexpected. An unpredicted storm front was moving in quickly from the west, playing havoc with the small aircraft. Everything about the night’s operation was planned and coordinated using every bit of intelligence I could beg, borrow, or steal. In this case, mostly steal. Everything except for the storm… and while it came out of nowhere and baffled meteorologists, I knew with certainty what it foretold.

More on that later.

Double Vision Gary was at the controls of the small four-seater plane. The rest of the seats had been removed since Double Vision’s day job was hauling machine parts anywhere in the greater tri-state area. If you’re wondering what kind of business there is flying tractor parts all over the state, there isn’t. Double Vision was a smuggler. Think Han Solo minus the Wookie, and replace the Millennium Falcon with a worn-out and past-its-prime patched-up aircraft that should have been sold for scrap back when I was in diapers.

Not surprisingly, Double Vision’s flexible moral compass made him perfect for my late-night rollercoaster ride through the clouds. For a price, he didn’t ask questions, and he followed instructions no matter how unorthodox they might seem to any sane—or sober—pilot.

Did I mention Double Vision was a bit of a drinker? As I watched him fight the control stick, there was a devil-may-care grin on his face, and the rummy gleam in his eye suggested he was enjoying this ride a little too much.

Lightning flashed across the window to the left, and I had to blink the blindness away. There was less than a second of delay before the accompanying thunderclap impacted the aircraft with a force I felt like a slap to the head.

“Hoo-wee!” Double Vision cackled. “It’s getting thick out there, hoss. It might be time to rethink this plan of yours.”

(more…)

Wild-Side
Today

I was moving fast. Far faster than was safe, given the three-quarter moon, the rough terrain, and the dangers of the creatures stalking the wilderness. They called it the Forbidden Zone for a reason. Actually, they had a lot of names for it, but none captured the horror that the people of that world felt for the untold miles of untouched forest surrounding one of their few small cities. The city walls had been enough to keep the denizens of Wild-Side safe until recently, and I still didn’t know if the few who had gone missing had somehow been taken or had just wandered off before falling prey to creatures from their darkest nightmares.

While I still had hope that the city walls held integrity, there was no question the Elend were growing bolder as they became more organized. They were also expanding in numbers; the truth of the correlation was still only a suspicion as I plowed through the thick brush and vegetation. The wilds of the Reaches resembled those of the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest of home. Tall trees consisted of everything from conifers to massive oaks, redwoods, and elms. But it was like the size restrictions of my world—Our-World—didn’t apply there. It was common for hardwoods to be bigger around at the base than the bedroom I had as a child. Maybe it had something to do with the population of Wild-Side. Though the people were unquestionably more technologically advanced, somehow, they had evolved in small numbers and managed not to overpopulate their world. They never became a burden on their natural resources, and it seemed their technology evolved quickly enough to keep them from making the same mistakes as Our-World.

Nearly the entire population lived in five small cities situated across two large continents. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles of virgin wilderness separated each city. And somehow, it worked. The people, for the most part, lived healthier and more content lives than the people of Our-World. They were intelligent, had resources, and their technology benefited them without damaging their environment.

Unfortunately, they were no longer at the top of their food chain. Something happened just over a year before that day in the woods. It shifted the balance of power, not only for the Seeley but for Our-World, too. Looking back, stopping it was obviously beyond my ability. A doorway was opened, and though I played a part, from what I’m told, it was certain to happen sooner or later. If not for me at that time, it would have been someone like me, perhaps generations later.

It was only ever a matter of time. Regardless, what happens next is on me. I can and will bring balance to both worlds… even if it is the last thing I ever do.

(more…)

My new book is tentatively called Worlds Collide. While the name and content are subject to change, I’ll use this site to publish a new chapter each week. As of today, that’s a 29-week commitment. That’s intimidating, but it will motivate me to hammer out the second draft and maybe get some eyeballs on it along the way.

Unlike my other books, Worlds Collide is intended to be a one-and-done release. This isn’t the start of a new series. And for better or worse, the page count reflects that. Like the rest of my books to date, readers can expect action and suspense with a liberal splash of science fiction. And while the subject matter could be seen to trend slightly more toward the horror genre than is typical of my work, that is more than offset by what I hope to be a tone of humor from the first-person character driving the narrative.

Anyone reading these releases as posted can expect typos, glitches, and mistakes common to a work’s second draft. I’ll publish the story to this site, warts and all, before the book is sent to my editor or even my beta readers.

(more…)