This week marks the debut of my new science fiction action novella
BORDERLINE on
Amazon Kindle. To give you a taste of what to expect, I'm posting the complete first chapter here on the blog. Seatbelts fastened? Okay, here we go...
Finnegan
hooked an arm over the top of his windshield, wiped away the dust with frantic
strokes of his sleeve. A slight improvement, but he was barrelling at ninety
kph over rocky desert terrain. Even a slight headwind would throw enough sand
to blot his vision again in seconds, and tonight was a gusty bitch. Should have
been a breeze, sure as shit wasn’t. About as far from one as he’d ever
experienced, in fact, because every
single thing about this operation had gone south, except one.
He’d
escaped with the merchandise.
Alone.
Pursued. Thousands of miles from safety. But at least he had the Fleece.
A
blizzard of tiny rocks pelted the windshield; dust and sand quickly coated it.
An old hoverbike like Bess wasn’t much use at high speeds at night without her automapping,
and the laser incision had cut right through her appendix cell, disabling her shield
wipers too. Finnegan was driving blind.
Hell
with this. He drew his 8-yield Shelby pulse cannon from his leg holster, veered
Bess to one side and blasted the windshield off into the wind. It took two
shots. Then, as he watched his pursuers’ rose-coloured searchlights feel across
the desert for his caboose in the rearview, he gripped the handlebars with one
hand and leaned back. Touched the large pillion bag. It fluttered, and he heard
a smothered grunt from inside.
Good.
The condor was still there. Still alive. He would do anything to make sure it
lived through this. In the midst of this whole rad-suck operation, the condor
was the only one who’d shown any kind of class. A genetically modified monster,
maybe, but this bird had swooped out of its mangled cage like an avenging angel
to rip Finnegan’s enemies to shreds just as they’d been getting the upper hand
in the firefight. Why? It was a super smart flocker, yeah, a GenMod, but it had
never seen him before tonight. And for its troubles it had suffered severe
laser scarring to its right wing, so it could no longer fly.
A
strange intervention. Damned if he could figure it out. But the bird had earned
this chance to survive. It might never fly again, but as far and as long as he
could last, Finnegan would look after the poor brave fella.
No
sooner had he resumed his upright position when a blinding flash of orange rain
from a clear sky made him jump. Much more than a simple hallucination or some
superimposed fantasy brought on by tiredness, the orange rain was vivid,
ferocious, and real. He almost swerved, but gained control just in time. Took
several deep breaths to calm himself. Goddamn, he could’ve sworn that shit was
real. Orange? What the hell? He checked the sky, just to be sure.
Moonlight,
starlight, the roving pinprick twinkles of orbiting satellites.
He
adjusted his goggles. Upturned the collar of his duster to cover his mouth. Limbered
up in his seat, trying hard not to try too hard at predicting the road ahead. Take
what comes as it comes. He lengthened Bess’s headbeam, though, just in case. The
last thing he wanted was to barrel nosefirst into one of those statues mounted
on rock pedestals some ancient alien civilization had built along a precise
line of longitude. There weren’t that many, one every twelve-point-three miles—he’d
measured on his way in to the Core—but they could easily sneak up on someone
fuming this kind of speed at night. And anyway, this was all alien terrain,
formerly a shallow lake; who knew what surprises waited for him in these
wastelands. Or rather, what other surprises,
because Malesseur’s bullshit intel was a tough fucking act to follow.
One
he had no intention of forgetting.
The
op had called for Finnegan and six other mercs to infiltrate Iolchis Core, a
multi-billion-credit Genetics complex in the heart of the Iolchian desert.
Their mission: to retrieve the Golden Fleece—some kind of watershed lab
creation for rapid cell regeneration. A biotech bonanza, the patent for which
the top companies were already engaged in a violent bidding war. To achieve
this coup, Lori Malesseur, Finnegan’s employer for the op, had provided the
team with all the tech they required to breach the facility: scattershocks,
ghost points, nano-fluid cutters and other infiltration equipment, most of it
illegal.
But
none of that meant a limp goddamn clip when the facility itself housed its own
private army! At the first alarm, the entire complex had been surrounded, and
four of his six team members had been shot to bits while making for their
hoverbikes outside, including Manolo, an acquaintance of Finnegan’s from a few
previous ops. In the shitstorm that followed, half the east wing had been
damaged. Scattershock blasts had collapsed several massive aviaries.
Genetically modified birds of all shapes and sizes were now perched on the facility’s
roof. Unable to fly away unless they found the doorway in the compound’s forcefield
that Finnegan’s team had shored up for their return run to the border.
Lori
Malesseur, then, had lied. A person with her connections—her dad was Simon
Malasseur, a former shack sheik from the border colonies turned interstellar
criminal entrepreneur—would know exactly how many personnel were in any
facility in any star system in the inner colonies, not to mention their eye colours,
mating habits, the number of times they showered in a week. That was the way
the Malesseurs and assholes like them worked. Finnegan had dealt with their ilk
most of his life, especially after Megan’s death, when he’d been glad to take any
job that came along. Anal bosses, mostly, clever, paranoid and anal. But this
was the first time he’d worked for the Malesseurs, witnessed their ruthless
manipulations firsthand.
They’d had
nothing to lose by arming his crew to the teeth and sending them into a hurricane.
Except the phrase Lori had used in her digital briefing, “mostly automated security”,
had painted the op as a hi-tech burglary, not the OK-freaking-Corral.
He
wrung Bess’s throttle up a gear so that she screamed at over a hundred-and-twenty
kph. Just over a thousand miles to his left, the border where Malesseur was
waiting for his return. Ahead, empty, unmapped wasteland all the way to the
giant dams over the Segado Lakes. At least there he might be able to find a
neutral port, a band of traders, some way to get offworld without triggering
the Interstellar Planetary Administration’s blockade satellites with their
ever-watchful arsenals ready to shoot down any
vessel that violated the no-fly sanction on this rock.
The
Iolchians would hound him every step of the way, but he’d made it this far, he
had enough clips to buy a cot on a shuttle, and anyway he had Bess. His beloved
Bess. She’d never let him down, not in eleven years. She could live without her
windshield. And as long as the sun came up in the morning—only a couple of
hours away—she had enough power to run indefinitely.
Enough
power to keep him alive long enough to find—and murder—that bitch, Lori Malesseur.
With
it being this gusty his enemies wouldn’t be able to track him out of sight, so
he turned sharply around a large conical rock—a hollow hive, in fact, home to
vicious steeler insects—and wound his way through a miles-long maze of similar
structures. That should lose his pursuers. Soon as he hit open space again he tore
to the only tree for miles around, an Aguarbor, at a faint crossroads in the
desert, hoping to procure water from the bulbous epiphytes wrapped around its
bark; every Aguarbor had them, and his throat had begun to peel. Irrigated
farmland far to the west boasted thousands of orchards devoted to cultivating
the various Aguarbor genera, mainly for off-world export; some produced water,
others natural oils used in herbology or fuel refinery, while the most precious
grew, through their symbiotic epiphytes, a kind of protoplasm amazingly
eloquent of fertility, in which scientists had begun to grow brand new alien
cells from scratch. Curious plants.
But
the only trees that grew out here produced water. Which was good, because right
now he just wanted to neck a few pints. It took him much longer to reach than
he’d guessed, though, because he’d underestimated the tree’s height. It was
gargantuan, at least a hundred feet.
Unfortunately,
it was also dead. The bulbs hung shrivelled and empty around its gnarled girth.
Shit.
He
stopped a few moments to stretch his legs. Slapped the dust off his black
jeans. Crouched to inspect the hole in Bess’s appendix cell. Jesus. He could
see right through the bike. If the laser had hit an inch or so behind it would
have TKO’d the servos and—
A
figure moved between the tree and the bike.
He
crouched on his heels. Lost his balance and had to backscrabble in the dust.
Then he flipped onto his side and in the same motion drew his Shelby, rising to
one knee. Just one glimpse and the sumbitch would be garnish, whoever it was.
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice. Breathless. Choked dry. “Who’s there? Rogers? Manolo?” she
said. “I need your help.”
He
tightened his grasp on the well-worn stock of his cannon. First, how could
anyone out here know the names of his team? Second, what was this person doing all the way out here? Third,
revisit one and two...closely.
“Who
are you, lady?”
“It’s
me, Lori. Lori Malesseur.”
Bullshit.
Bull. Shit.
“Try
again, sweetheart. You’ve got one more shot. I’ve got plenty.” He buzzed his
Shelby for effect.
After
a silence, she blurted out, “You’re Finnegan, aren’t you? The big
one...from...where are you from again?”
“I’m
asking the questions.”
“Okay,
yeah. Shoot. I mean...go ahead. Ask me anything.”
“If
you’re Malesseur, what the fuck are you doing out here?”
“I
was on my way to find you, to call off the op. We received intel about a new
security force at Iolchis, not longer after you left. We were trying to warn
you, to bring you back. But an armed patrol ambushed us, gave chase and I...our
truck flipped over. Then they opened fire on my crew. I was lucky to make it
out. Look, look, you dumb son of a
bitch; they shot the shit out of my leg.” She groaned—overdone? “See for
yourself if you don’t believe me. And anyway, why else would I be all the way
out here?”
Bullshit.
It’s a bunch of bullshit. Lori Malesseur hardly ever showed up in person, and
she would never risk herself like
that. Not for anyone. Least of all some suck-bait squall of mercs she’d never
even met.
Never
even met. Hmm...that might trip her up. “What was the last thing you said to my
face before I left?”
Another
pause—significant? “You thick ape, you know we’ve never shared face-time. What
do I have to do to convince you I am who I say I am?”
Finnegan
rose slowly to his feet, crept around Bess. His first glimpse of the injured
woman confirmed his supsicion. This was not Lori Malesseur. It couldn’t be,
could it? This woman was terrified; trying not to look it, but she was shaking
like a bled-out leaf under the dead tree. She also had soft, pink-and-white milk
features under her black head scarf, not at all the hard-and-sharp-as-glass
queen bitch he’d heard so much about. This woman reminded him of Megan, his
foster-sister, the only girl whose word he’d ever trusted; that had backfired,
too. He’d sworn to follow Megan anywhere, even when she’d signed for the Vike
Academy and a career in uniform. In comparison, Lori Malesseur was about as
trustworthy as a black widow inside his boxers.
But
she had a point. Why else would she
be out here, riddled full of bullets?
A
restless flutter from his pillion bag reminded him what was coming from
Iolchis. When Malesseur tried to get up, she crumpled in a dusty heap. “Christ,
lady.” He’d already made his mind up what he had to do, and hated himself for
it. An injured woman was an injured woman. “Twice as useless.” He plucked her
up and, ignoring her cries of pain, set her on the seat behind him. “Hang on.”
“Wait.
Which direction are we headed?”
“To
the dams. Why?”
“No,
no, no. That’s not allowed.”
“Not
allowed. What is this, playground tag?
I make the rules here, sweetheart.”
She
squirmed to slide off her seat, struggled more than the condor had when he’d
first stuffed it in the pillion bag. She bit his hand, even thumped his earhole
when he squeezed her arm to still her. “Let me go! I’d rather crawl back.”
“What
are you, nuts?” He leapt off, ended up hopping sideways to keep his balance.
“This ain’t a taxi service, honey. I’m saving your life. And count yourself
lucky—on the way here I swore I’d wring your bitch neck for what happened to
us.”
“I—I’m
sorry about that, truly. If I could have done anything more to...” Those words
and her reputation simply did not gel. He wasn’t buying it. Any of it.
“Get
off my bike. I’m dumping your double-crossing carcass right here. Lori
Malasseur or not. We’re done.”
She
glared at him with big moist wounded eyes, and slowly, pitifully adjusted her
head scarf. Colour drained from her face. She started shaking again.
Convulsing. Holding in violent sobs through sheer forceful pride. “You have to
help me, Finnegan. I’m—I’m nobody.”
“Ha!
I knew it. So what’s your real name?”
Her
gaze darted side to side, questing for the right respone. “I mean you need to
think of me as a nobody. Not as your boss. Right here, tonight, I’m just an
injured woman who’s going to die unless you take me back across the border.”
“Why?
So your people can double-cross me again? Take what I’ve got and dump my ass in the desert?”
“So
you managed to get it?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
She eyed him mistrustfully. “Well it doesn’t matter now. If you take me back
across the border to my people, I’ll triple your fee.”
He
thought for a moment, whether to trust this bizarre flip of events. She’d only
make trouble for him the whole way if he went east, and with things ostensibly patched
up between them—she’d at least attempted to uphold her end of the bargain by
venturing out here to warn him—a big payday couldn’t hurt. If she was who she said she was. “Quadruple.”
She
looked down into the sand, corking her hate with a lumpy swallow. “Classy,
Finnegan. You’re my freaking Lancelot.”
“I
get you safely across the border, I want five times my original fee.”
“Five?
But you said quadruple.”
He
got back on the bike, revved the throttle. “Is it your money or isn’t it?”
“Yeah,
but—”
“Then
it’s five.”
“All
right, five.”
“Good.”
“Fuck
you.”
“Fuck
you back.”
She
lashed her arms around his waist and squeezed a little as Bess washed a
northward path over a neverending expanse of untrodden dirt. Shortly a nib of
hot iron sun lit a slow-burning dawn, and the bruised sky grew blue and green,
then blue-green, ever lighter, ever less ominous, until the entirety of Iolchis
was unveiled. Nothing but sand, dust, and slow death.
They
wouldn’t be able to make out the border for another day or two, as it was still
almost a thousand miles away. A hazy upright colossus to the east, one of the
Segado dams, seemed to be part of a giant step up to another floor of the
planet itself. As far as the eye could see in every other direction, empty
desert save for those weird stone statues that a previous, now-extinct alien
civilization had erected along a perfect line through Iolchis. Towering,
intricately carved, weatherbeaten depictions of humanoid forms.
But—a
hoverbike wouldn’t be difficult to spot in the middle of this open expanse.
Tracking it, too, would be a kiddy’s dot-to-dot now that the winds had died
down. His best bet was to just keep on going until they absolutely had to stop.
“Did
you see that?” Malesseur yanked his shoulder. “That glint behind us? They’re gaining.”
“I
doubt it.”
“You
need to speed up, Finnegan.”
He
ignored her for the moment—hell, he couldn’t have the bitch giving orders to
him and Bess—but he, too, saw the flash in his rearview. More than one. It was
a single hover vehicle of some kind, way ahead of the convoy trailing him last
night. Maybe hours behind Bess, but unquestionably in pursuit. And as much as
he hated to admit it, she was right. It seemed to be gaining.
Shit.
He’d wasted too much time at the tree last night. What he needed was a
strategy...and fast. He thrust Bess into high gear, but even that might not be
enough. She was, after all, an old bike. Indefatigable but old. New tricks were
beyond her. And no doubt the Iolchians had new tricks up the wazoo. Bess’s
hidden specialty, the pyro boost, was good for one final hair-raising spurt of
acceleration; he daren’t use that with so much ground still to cover, not until
all else failed.
“Any
bright ideas, Your Highness?” he shouted back.
“What
about that ridgeline, two o’clock?”
What
the hell was she looking at? “Come again.”
“It
looks like a scar across bald rock. I’m telling you it’s a ridgeline. The
desert dips there. It’s a concavity about five or six square miles. Maybe a dry
lake.”
Damn,
she had good eyes. At first glance it was an optical illusion, the shape of the
ridgeline and the rocks surrounding the dry lake making the whole area appear
uniformly flat. It was like one of those image-within-an-image colour puzzles
you had to train your eyes to discern. “You’re the boss.”
He
grinned when she didn’t reply. Strangely, that silence raised her stock a few
points. He patted her good leg, and enjoyed the sensation, however fleeting, of
her re-clasping her hands against his abs.
So
she knew who was in charge. That was something.
***
A
half dozen of the twenty-odd smallish moons orbiting the world were still
visible at various points in the sky, like milky marbles behind frosted emerald
glass, by the time the hoverbike reached the ridgeline. Finnegan hadn’t said a
word for a while now, and though she’d tried
to stay upbeat about their chances of making it out of this alive, this was
likely the last ride either of them would ever take. If he knew the real story
of why she was out here, he’d turn and make for the dams immediately. Leave her
here. Maybe even kill her.
But
there was something about this big galoot the others hadn’t told her. A vestige
of a past life when perhaps money didn’t have the first and last word in his
moral vocabulary. She’d seen it lash through his contemptuous gaze like a solar
flare last night, awakening an old sense of right and wrong? This thug. This
son of a bitch. This cold-blooded killer she’d helped recruit for the
near-impossible Iolchian job. He had a code after all, damn it. Deep down
inside, a code of honour that wouldn’t leave a wounded woman to die at the
roadside.
Had
the others known that about him when they’d sent her out here to dupe him?
Shit,
of course they had! Why else would they have shot her—
Finnegan’s
tired hand slipped on the throttle, accidentally revving the engine. It barked
out over the valley. “—by water?” he said.
“Yes?”
He
looked at her askance, scowled as he hung his goggles on the handlebar. “Unless
that’s your name, lady, I was referring to the fact we’re dead in a day in this
heat unless we find something to drink. You said this is a dry lake? Does that
mean it’s covered by water for part of the year?”
“Um,
yeah, I guess. See that bracken down there, it follows a winding trail in the
sand. That’s probably a river in the wet season.”
“So
if we dig down, we’ll find water?”
She
shrugged. Finnegan walked away, removed his grey duster, and stretched his
solid muscular form, one limb at a time. His dark, blood-spattered T-shirt made
her wince. He’d been through hell last night. So had she. But seriously, how
stupid could a person be—almost giving the game away like that. By water. So
close to her maiden name that she’d answered to it without thinking. Words were
life and death now. The wrong one at the wrong time and those four strategic bullet
holes in her leg would be the least of her worries.
Lindsay
Bywater.
That
had been her name once. Two marriages and a couple dozen light-years ago. A
galaxy of possibilities before her. All of them bright and exciting. None of
them remotely leading here...to this. But here she was. And this was Lindsay
now. A lifetime of five bad choices for every good one had finally exhausted
her right to choose.
Lindsay
Polotovsky.
That
was her name now. Her legal one anyway. Her ex, Yuri, had maintained she had a
habit of shitting on any good thing in her life, shortly before he’d split for
Mars with that trophy slut from Ferrer. Maybe he had a point. But she still had
his name. A solid one in underworld circles from way back when, from Yuri’s
shack-sheik ancestors in the border colonies. It had given her a bit of
currency, at least, in applying for off-the-books admin jobs. Lori Malesseur
had grudgingly taken her on because there’d been no one else available at short
notice to replace her previous assistant who’d “accidentally fallen out of an
airlock on her way to the powder room.” Lindsay’s dubious name had given her
that dubious opportunity, then.
Only
now she didn’t even have that. Lori Malesseur had dropped her, just like her
predecessor, out of an airlock. The difference this time was that she’d given
Lindsay a parachute, Lori’s expensive gear to wear, Lori’s own name to use, and
four bullets in her leg to help convince whoever this asshole was who’d escaped
Iolchis with the Fleece, to bring her—and the merchandise—back across the
border. They were tracking the Fleece container’s unique code signature from
orbit. So, an injured woman, a bribe, a sob story about trying to warn him of
the superior forces: these were the tricks designed to persuade Finnegan to fulfil
his mission and not do something stupid...like flee on his own.
And
he’d fallen for it, the poor, heroic sucker.
He
had no idea he was saving Malesseur’s secretary.
After
so long sat in one position, and with a leg full of bullet holes and
trancs—both courtesy of Lori in low orbit—Lindsay collapsed in a heap as she
stepped off the hoverbike. On her way down she caught the pillion bag and
dragged it with her. An almighty ruckus flapped about her ears, as if a hundred
bats had just woken from a nightmare and were blaming her personally for it.
“Freaking
hell is that?” She scrambled away in time to see the huge bird batter its way
out of the bag and hop across the bare rock. It opened its wings to a
frightening span—maybe eight or ten feet—and looked at them in turn, flexing,
moving them up and down slowly, methodically, with such cool intelligence it
bordered on supernatural. Its left wing was scarred, ragged, clearly the least
flexible. The bird didn’t even attempt to take flight. “Finnegan, what is that thing?”
“A
condor. GenMod. It saved my life last night, attacked the Iolchians and took my
side.”
“Why?”
“Beats
me. But it’s coming with us.”
The
idea of being pecked to death one chunk at a time while she rode behind
Finnegan only compounded her woes. The pain from her bullet wounds began to
flare, so that she could no longer hide her pathetic hisses of discomfort
whenever she tried to move.
“Who
put those bandages on?” He strode over, crouched beside her, inspected the
dressings one of Malesseur’s goons had applied with remorseless efficiency. She
saw Finnegan’s full, weatherworn face for the first time. A little craggy
around the eyes, which were narrow, blue-grey, and brilliant. He was older than
she’d guessed. Early to mid forties. But he was chiselled for an older guy, and
had to have been clean-shaven for the mission; last night’s ordeal had begun to
draw out his age a little, though, especially the silver in his stubble. His
hair was a sand-blasted mess, but might be slightly on the longish side and mousy
brown at its best.
It
was good to see the man behind the fearsome resume. They somehow didn’t quite fit
together. He had the manners of a blunt groin-kick, true, but he didn’t look particularly threatening. Not that
she’d trust him as far as she could throw his bike...and his goddamn bird.
But
she had no choice.
“I
took first aid,” she said lamely.
He
undid two bandages. The cumulative release of pressure sent her a little dizzy.
“Not bad,” he replied.
“Thanks.”
“Redo
them.”
Eh?
She squinted at him. What did he know? She couldn’t do a field dressing if her
life depended on it. “I—I’m feeling a bit faint.” She lay down, faked a cough.
“I must have lost too much blood.”
He
rebandaged the wounds for her, then carried her on his shoulder to a cave he’d
spotted about thirty feet below the ridgeline. Set her gently on the cold sand
inside. It had the gloomy, musty ambience of a windowless anteroom in a
church—one very special church in particular she hadn’t thought about in years.
And for good reason. It clenched her heart to think of it even now. That
soaring music. Those safe, solemn hours waiting for Dad to finish playing...
As
refugees from ISPA’s liquidation of the 100z border, the Bywater family had had
to rely on Neo Christian charities while being bumped from world to world,
colony to colony for over five years when Lindsay had been little. But when
they’d finally settled in the carbon mining colony on Rurenabaque, and the
colonists had been offered the chance to purchase the mining rights from the
controlling corporation for themselves, the overwhelming majority had opted not to co-op the franchise. Within a few
years, the corporation had sealed up the mines until galactic demand for carbon
increased—but it never did. Jobless, homeless and almost penniless, the
colonists who’d inflicted that misery on themselves had no choice but to
migrate to other worlds, other colonies, losing their community forever.
Oh,
she knew the price of personal greed. Knew it well. Mum and Dad had been no
different. Rather than ante up the capital to ensure their own futures on
Rurenabaque, not to mention those of their children and grandchildren, the
sanctimonious colonists (and the Bywaters) had chosen to keep their individual
savings intact. See how well that turned out.
As
well as being a psammeticum drill operator, Dad had become the organist in
their local church on Rurenabaque, even though he wasn’t religious. Lindsay,
with her mum and three brothers, used to wait in the vaulted anteroom during
vespers, and play backgammon and Cydonia Face with the proviso that they pack
up the moment Dad’s organ sounded the final hymn, or “exit music”, as she used
to call it. The priest did catch them gambling one time and blew his top. Mum
called him a “self-righteous toe-rag”, and that was the last time they were
ever admitted. But Lindsay had never forgotten how important Dad had seemed,
perched on his stool, gazed at adoringly by a full congregation, or his lovely
playing as it bled through the walls and the vaulted ceiling with an aching
reverence that had always fascinated her because no one in her family regarded
religion that way.
She’d
had nightmares for years about that empty organ stool, her life that could have
been if Mum and Dad had settled there and not drifted apart over years of
searching for a better place, a place they never found. Were those other
families from Rurenabaque still together? She’d always thought so. Maybe because
they had something the Bywaters didn’t.
If
she’d been brought up religious, would she be here now, abetting a crime for a
criminal’s criminal employer, a few kph ahead of certain death? If those
colonists had chosen solidarity over individual wealth, would she have become
such an irredeemable loner?
Questions
not worth the glob of phlegm she spat out in self-disgust. Nope, this was all her
doing, no one else’s.
Soon
Finnegan retrieved his bike and the bird, the latter making surprisingly little
fuss. It seemed to know he had its best interest at heart. Two invalids, then, nursing
their wounds side by side, under the care of one of the deadliest mercenaries
in the inner colonies. And he had no idea who or what either of them really
were.
“Are
you going to look for water?” she asked.
“After
I’ve had a lie down.” He curled up on his duster, using the empty pillion bag
for a pillow.
“How
long are we going to stay here? You do know the Iolchians are still after us.”
“No
shit, lady.”
“Then
how long—”
“An
hour. For Christ’s sake, an hour or so. Just leave me in peace.”
“What
about me?”
“What
about you?”
She
groaned as she shifted position, mostly for his benefit. “This is
uncomfortable, you know.”
“Mm.”
“There
are rocks everywhere. How about giving me the coat?”
He
kicked a bootload of sand at her. “Get creative.” His grim chuckle quickly gave
way to quiet, peaceful snoring that lasted exactly eighteen minutes. The alarm
on his hoverbike woke him with a beep,
bee-beep, beep forty-two minutes earlier than it should have. Yes, Lindsay
had reprogrammed the timer. No, he didn’t suspect a thing as he sleepwalked to
his bike and gathered the equipment for collecting water: two six-pint plastic
containers, rubber tubing, an emergency distiller. And no, she didn’t feel bad
one bit.
The
oaf wanted to play rough. She could play rough.
Borderline is available now, priced $2.99 on
Amazon Kindle, and will be coming soon to all other ebook formats.
