Title:
Bone Wires
Author:
Michael Shean
Genre:
Dark, Mystery, Science Fiction,
Publisher:
Curiosity Quills/Whampa, LLC
Paperback/Ebook
Pages:
380 (paperback)
Purchase:
Book
Description:
In the
wasteland of commercial culture that is future America, police are
operated not by government but by private companies.
In
Seattle, that role is filled by Civil Protection, and Daniel Gray is
a detective in Homicide Solutions. What used to be considered an
important - even glamorous - department for public police is very
different for the corporate species, and Gray finds himself stuck in
a dead end job. That is, until the Spine Thief arrives.
When a
serial killer begins harvesting the spinal tissue of corporate
employees all over the city, Detective Gray finds himself plunged
into the first truly major case of his career. Caught in a dangerous
mix of murder, betrayal and conflicting corporate interest, Gray will
find himself not only matching wits with a diabolical murderer but
grapple with his growing doubt toward his employers in the dawning
months of the American tricentennial.
A
thrilling mystery set in the same world as the Wonderland Cycle, Bone
Wires is a grim trip into the streets of the empty future.
Excerpt:
The
scene of the crime was an alleyway behind an abandoned Roziara Deli.
Crowding the street outside the deli were a pair of patrol cars,
white wedges of steel with ribbon lights that stained the nearby
buildings red and blue. Street officers clustered around the mouth,
black body armor over blue uniform fatigues; unlike the sidearms that
Gray and Carter carried, the streeties carried the blunt, brutal
shapes of submachine guns close to their plated chests. A cordon had
been set up; the narrow yellow band of holographic tape that
stretched across the alley mouth glowed as it cycled through baleful
warning messages.
“They
used to have good subs here,” said Carter as they pulled up in
front of the moldering delicatessen. “Slabs of capicola as thick as
Annie Cruz’s ass. Just incredible.”
“Don’t
know that name,” said Gray.
“Porn
star,” said Carter, who produced his badge and flashed it at a
streeter who was approaching them. “Way before your time. Put on
your war face, here comes the Pacifier.”
Carter’s
Amber Shield glowed like the very words of God Almighty in the low
light. “Carter and Gray,” said Carter, keeping his identification
held up so that the streeter could see it. “Homicide Solutions.”
“Lem
Martin,” replied the streeter. “Pacification Officer, patrol
region 927.”
“This
is your beat then,” said Gray, who produced from the inside pocket
of his suit coat a slim Sony microcomp and engaged its holographic
display. Data from the Nexus sprang to life above the palm-sized
slab. “What do you have for us, Martin?”
Martin
winced a bit at the lack of ‘Officer’ before his surname – you
got a lot of that with Pacification Services, of which street patrol
was the biggest group. They didn’t like being talked down to. Gray
outranked him, however, and didn’t give a shit besides. “Nasty
stuff,” Martin said, jerking his head toward the alley mouth.
“Victim’s name is Anderson, Ronald P.. Administration. His panic
implant was set off about an hour ago and flatlined soon after; me
and my partner were in the area, and when we found him…well. Real
horror show back there, is all I can say. I called for backup. Dunno
what they used, but…well. You’ll see.”
Carter
and Gray looked at each other – streeters saw all sorts of things.
If they said it was a nasty scene, they’d probably do well to get
smocks and rain boots. “All right, Officer,” Carter said, at
which Martin seemed to relax a bit. “Were there any witnesses,
security footage, anything like that?”
“Nothing
we could find,” said Martin. “This area’s been abandoned for
years. Anyone who lives here cleared out as soon as they heard us
coming. You know how it is.”
“Yeah,”
said Gray. Don’t
want to get arrested for just being around.
“All right, thanks, Officer. If you and…”
“Conklin
and Peavey,” Martin replied. “In the other car. Patel’s with
me.”
“…Right,”
Carter replied with a nod. “If you fellas can keep up the cordon on
either side of the alley, we’ll have a look. Call the coroner while
you’re at it.”
“On
it,” barked Martin, who stepped away from the alley mouth while
touching the side of his throat where a subvocal mic, standard issue
for street patrol, had been implanted. Carter waited until Martin had
backed up a few steps and was well into conversation before he
gestured for Gray to follow him. The two men passed through the
holographic cordon, the barrier no more solid than the air around it,
and took a few steps into the feebly-lit alleyway. The space behind
the deli was dark and thick with shadows, lit only by the dying bulb
of a lamp set over the shop’s sealed back door. A figure slumped or
lay in the cone of dim light that spilled across the building’s
crumbling facade. The air was faintly tinged with the smell of ozone
and cooked meat. The two men approached; Gray held his computer in
one hand while Carter fished the flat, card-sized shape of a palm
lamp from a coat pocket. Cupping the lamp in his hand, Carter threw a
beam of bright blue- white light across the alleyway and clearly
illuminated the corpse.
Lean
and muscular in life, that which had been Ronald Anderson
half-crouched, half-sprawled across the alleyway, his handsome face
pointing down toward the filthy concrete. The corpse’s posture
reminded Gray of an old girlfriend; she was a yoga fanatic and used
to do something similar called the Child’s Pose. Anderson’s
formerly clean white dress shirt had been cut open, straight down the
back from collar to waist, and his belted slacks had also been cut
down to the base of the pelvis. His back had been tattooed with a
medieval Japanese wave scene.
Anderson’s
flesh had been laid open. Arching upward and away in a v-shaped
furrow, a deep channel now butterflied the man’s back half from the
base of his skull to the top of his pelvis. Where his spine should
have been there was only a bloodless, grayish-red channel. The red
and ivory of cleanly clipped bone and cooked organs were clearly
visible in its absence, his heart a gray and veined lump. It was as
if the tattooed sea had somehow come alive, restless and roaring, and
attempted to rise away from its host who could never have survived
its rebellion.
Without
the slightest drop of blood, Ronald Anderson had been boned like a
fish.
“Damn,”
muttered Carter, stepping forward so he could track with his light
the awful wound. “Never seen that before. What do you make of it,
Dan?” For Gray, who had only experienced the more pedestrian
horrors of stranglings, stabbings and gunshot wounds in his brief
career, there was no clean reply. “That’s the strangest thing
I’ve ever seen,” he breathed instead, staring down at the carved
gutter. Gray had said ‘strangest’ – however, what he had truly
wanted to say was ‘most horrible’. Looking down at the murdered
man, Gray knew that his ‘sexy’ case had arrived, just as he had
wished for it, but the only thing he could wish for now was to be
anywhere else.
As
if sensing the truth behind Gray’s words, Carter snorted softly.
“Lucky you, kid,” he replied in a wry and vaguely weary tone.
“Lucky you.”
About
the Author:
Michael
Shean was born amongst the sleepy hills and coal mines of southern
West Virginia in 1978. Taught to read by his parents at a very early
age, he has had a great love of the written word since the very
beginning of his life. Growing up, he was often plagued with feelings
of isolation and loneliness; he began writing off and on to help
deflect this, though these themes are often explored in his work as a
consequence. At the age of 16, Michael began to experience a chain of
vivid nightmares that has continued to this day; it is from these
aberrant dreams that he draws inspiration.
In 2001
Michael left West Virginia to pursue a career in the tech industry,
and he settled in the Washington, DC area as a web designer and
graphic artist. As a result his writing was put aside and not
revisited until five years later. In 2006 he met his current fiancee,
who urged him to pick up his writing once more. Several years of work
and experimentation yielded the core of what would become his first
novel, Shadow of a Dead Star (2011). Michael is currently signed with
Curiosity Quills Press, who has overtaken publication of Shadow of a
Dead Star and the other books of his Wonderland Cycle.
Find
the Author:
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Title:
Bone WiresMichael
Shean was born amongst the sleepy hills and coal mines of southern
West Virginia in 1978. Taught to read by his parents at a very early
age, he has had a great love of the written word since the very
beginning of his life. Growing up, he was often plagued with feelings
of isolation and loneliness; he began writing off and on to help
deflect this, though these themes are often explored in his work as a
consequence. At the age of 16, Michael began to experience a chain of
vivid nightmares that has continued to this day; it is from these
aberrant dreams that he draws inspiration.
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