| ||||||||||||
| Category: Fiction:SciFi Fantasy Horror |
(requires Adobe Reader)
|
| About the Book | |
|
The last day of his three-month shift Mason Dash, operator of Kite, Earth Orbit Maintenance street sweeper, looks forward to getting back "downstairs" for some fishing and drinking. Half awake he saves some joy riders from an ugly hunk of debris. No big deal. It’s what he does. And in another, more personal, near miss, Dash juggles calls from the two women in his life: Janet, his brilliant artificial intelligence researcher spouse, and Sheila, a beautiful virtual personality. Dash would like to think his pastime of customizing her is a secret but Janet knows more about Sheila than Dash suspects. Then Dash spots some motion in a derelict space station where there should be none. On his way Earthward in his shuttle he detours, closing with the dark station. He sees something moving in there. Spooked by the sighting, Dash spends his Earth-bound three months researching and preparing, and drinking and fishing. What could hijackers want with an abandoned orbital platform? At Earth Orbit Maintenance HQ Dash's supervisor Martin threatens to hold him back from his next shift and leave his workplace rival, Christine, aloft. This raises Dash's suspicions further. Could his own department be involved in this shady business? Janet lets on that she knows all about Sheila, and that she's plugged in some of her experimental "adaptive" modules. Sheila exhibits some puzzling independence. Then, while helping Dash research and prepare a simulation "scenario" to bring into orbit next shift, he dozes off and Sheila stows away in the code. Curiosity piqued, there's no way Sheila will be left behind this time. After his next "toss" into orbit Dash plays through the scenario to smoke out the hijackers, while inside the Kite computer systems there's turmoil. An entity has evolved from deep in the data depths. He_Ra has taken over most of the system except for the control module, slow-moving old Main Process. Sheila splits her attention between assisting Dash on the outside and striking out on her own adventure on the inside, getting a taste of romance and revolution. The dictator He_Ra has taken a fancy to her. After a pitched battle, Sheila mediates the conflict and He_Ra is anxious to expand his power to other orbital structures, like the nearby space casino, or perhaps even to Earth itself. Dash sends Sheila over to the space station to scout and recon. What they discover there is not exactly what Dash had suspected. A team of inept and, to Dash's mind, naïve diplomats prepare for humankind's first unearthly visitor. Dash is about to leave them to their fate when the visitor appears in orbit in its own interstellar utility craft. The alien, name of Troy, is a working stiff and has more in common with Dash than not, though in quite a different physical form. Troy feels threatened and sees the whole situation as interference with his own job. He deploys some powerful weapons. Earth's fate is in the balance and only Dash, Sheila, Janet...and Kite can prevent disaster.
|
|
| About the Author | |
 |
Bill Shears is a science fiction writer living in Pennsylvania. |
Our
Ebooks are in PDF. All you need to read them is
Adobe Reader, which is free. (And you probably have it already!)
Copyright © 1998 - 2012 Booklocker.com, Inc. - All rights reserved. Privacy Policy