Free Book + an excerpt
Legit. I need beta readers for Relentless as the Sun, book 1 in my Psyborg series. It’s a space opera and has finished its first round of edits. If you’re interested in space opera, reply to this email and I will get a copy to you. If you would like to wait until it comes out and be an Alpha reader (those are committed author fans who purchase and review - you know who you are, you amazing people), don’t worry, I will send an email out when that happens!
Secondarily, below is an excerpt from Book 2 in my Psyborg series, The Quick and the Dead. It’s a very emotional scene between two people who don’t usually allow themselves to be emotional (so kind of dangerous as a writer). The main character, Ross, is captured and the heroine, Eloise, uploads some advanced AI programs into some droids in order to save him.
I would so much appreciate any feedback on this scene specifically in regard to how it made you feel, whether it was relatable, and if you were confused by the conversation at all. Thank you in advance!
Ross headed off the bridge and stopped by the conference room. Money and Eloise rose to their feet from the table where lulonga tiles were spread out in front of her.
“Hey, you’re back,” Money said. He, too, sounded relieved and Ross had a hard time believing that was faked. It helped to strengthen his faith in the man.
“Thank you for helping Eloise in her time of need.”
“Sure. I even taught her how to play lulonga. Good for the psy--- brain.” Money grabbed his jacket off the back of his seat, his lone eye bouncing back and forth between Ross and Eloise. “I’ve been holding out on hitting the head, though, so excuse me.”
The door closed behind him. Ross stared at the tall, young woman who stood before him in her gray, one piece mechanics coveralls.
“I think we have to get you a new –” The words were knocked out of him as she launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck in disregard for the uncomfortable bulk of his suit. He retracting most of it back into its spine, but didn’t step out of it, allowing himself to feel the comfort of her in his arms.
“Oh, my gosh. I thought you were going to die in there,” she said over his shoulder, squeezing the life out of his neck.
“No, you didn’t,” he murmured into her hair.
“I did. Because you went dark. I had no idea what was going on. How did they do that?”
“Some kind of energy rod. Knocks my nanites right out, knocks me out, and severs our connection.” He squeezed her back, feeling her breath against his chest and holding onto it like a lifeline.
“So they actually could have killed you.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“They were able to get your suit off.”
“With difficulty, I was told.”
She pulled back enough to see him, one hand still planted on the back of his neck, while with the other she searched his face, swiping her fingers along his jawline.
“Not even a scratch.”
“It was too easy.”
She rolled her eyes and pulled away from him. “Sorry for the excessive display of emotion.”
“You didn’t have an audience.”
“No.” She slapped her hands on her hips. “I was going to save that for Money’s sake, but then I just kind of froze up instead.”
Eloise? Ross asked silently.
She folded her arms and chewed her lip, studying him. “I want to avoid using our connection unless we absolutely have to. I, um,” she cleared her throat, “it’s too revealing. Especially if I can’t allow my nanites to interfere with my emotional processing.”
“Okay,” he said, sliding into a chair across from hers and inviting her to resume her seat. He moved a lulonga tile into position. “You want to tell me what happened with my psyborg programs.”
She sat down, wringing her fingers nervously. “So, about that. I had to save you and I figured that was the best way to make sure you actually survived. If those thirty androids hadn’t been incapacitated during their rewrite, they would have been hunting you down.”
“You couldn’t just do the virus thing like you mentioned?”
“Of course not. You know as well as I do that we didn’t have anything ready for that. The programs, however, were already prepped.”
He crossed his arms, growing angry again at the realization of what she had done. His nanites quieted the anger. “I have a serious problem with a breach of my privacy that egregious. Even if you have access to things like that, it doesn’t give you carte blanche to do what you want with my ship, my men, my data, or my person.”
“Would you rather I not have done it?” Eloise asked, clearly taken aback by his response.
Ross was silent a beat. He didn’t know. If she hadn’t, he would have had to fight his way out and who knows whether he would have been able to, especially with a passenger in tow. On the other hand, he didn’t know it was worth the risk to the world that these psyborg programs posed. Even though they didn’t have their human counterparts, they were the AI programming for the nanite system that worked in concert with the human neural processes.
Working with the significantly more limited android neural processes prevented them from being able to have anywhere near the autonomic responses of a psyborg, but as an advanced AI, he didn’t know that they wouldn’t pose a problem in the future.
“The Coalition Accords were created for what was ultimately a justifiable reason,” he said. “I don’t know that these programs won’t be able to achieve self-awareness and make that leap to AI sentience, throwing us into a similar problem that we had during the war. I almost wonder whether we should incinerate them all. I haven’t addressed their existence with the crew yet, except to tell Teeny that they were reprogrammed to obey our directives.”
“Well, these droids will have muuuch more personality than the average droid, but most of what we comprehend still won’t compute. They might have some imprintation of the human they augmented, but they won’t be able to function and reason on their own,” Eloise argued.
Ross was silent, trying to properly convey his thoughts without antagonizing her. “You say that with the same blithe assurances that Stave and DeepSpace gave the system when they first rolled out the psyborg and handler combination.”
“You know, it’s not fair for me to respond without the support of my nanites, while you make use of them,” she said shortly. “If we are going to have an honest conversation, I have to insist that you do me the courtesy of responding the way you would without nanite interference.”
“I can’t. You don’t understand how deeply betrayed I feel by what you did. I am… furious and I am afraid of myself and my anger.”
“That doesn’t make it okay. You can’t use your nanites like a crutch. All that anger has to go somewhere and I’d rather have it directed at me than eating you up inside, though ignored.”
Ross closed his eyes tightly as he dismissed the nanite control over his emotions. Fury. Sadness. Betrayal. Loss. Hope. Relief. Desire. Dare he dismiss his nanites? He was a walking bomb of emotions. Were all men so complex, so formed as to feel a multitude of simultaneous emotions all at once?
On the one hand, he wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her forever and never let go, he was so relieved to have survived to see her again. On the other, he wanted to shake the life out of her for unilaterally taking it upon herself to potentially change the trajectory of system history using programs that he and he alone was responsible for. He wanted to lash out like a wounded animal for the betrayal he felt at her taking these potentially lethal entities he was responsible for and making free to embody them in androids.
“I can’t even allow myself to start discussing my… feelings on the matter of what you did. If I let go of the tail on that dragon, I’m going to have a hard time reigning it back in,” Ross said to her savagely.
She watched him, buttoning up her lip as she blinked back tears. He ignored the opposing ways her tears made him feel as well – a mix of outrage that she should be crying under the scourge of his tongue, and sadness for her that she was hurting.
“I need to think about a solution precisely because I haven’t had the chance to understand what they are capable of. We have to shut them down,” he concluded. “I can’t take the risk of them becoming more, or learning to become more.”
“If we shut them down, there’s no going back. We lose the programs completely.”
“What are you talking about? Why can’t we just download their data?” Ross snapped.
“The systems these androids use are made to self-destruct if a download is attempted. It was a way to protect them from intellectual piracy. However, we can put them to sleep until, if ever, they need to be used.”
Ross sat back in his chair and folded his arms again. “I still don’t like it.”
“Aren’t you, didn’t you, download them from the mainframe because you were intrigued by them in the first place? Aren’t some of them like, old friends, kind of?” Eloise asked.
“Don’t you understand, Eloise?” Ross said, jabbing the table with his finger. “There are certain things you just don’t do. And this? This is one of them. Setting aside the whole end of humanity, death-bringer potential of this, you took something that was mine, and used it.”
“It wasn’t yours. They never were,” Eloise leaned forward to say, her chin tightening as she gritted her teeth and locked her fingers onto the end of the table.
“They weren’t your responsibility, they were mine!” he growled out.
“And you were mine! I was prepared to use any means necessary to save you, Ross, and I would do it again!” Tears stood her in eyes as she finished speaking, but Ross shook his head slowly.
“That’s the difference between you and me, Eloise, and it’s a difference that terrifies me because you haven’t had to learn from a trail of bodies and blood what it means when we say the ends don’t justify the means.”
Eloise shook her head, silent for a long moment before lifting her hands in frustration. “I can’t believe it. I save you, and you hate me for it.”
“I don’t hate you. Don’t you get it? I can’t trust you. I can’t trust you. Because if you’ll justify doing this….” Ross shook his head again and rose to his feet. “I… need to think.”
Eloise put her elbows on the table and covered her eyes with her hands. Ross went around the table and stood there a moment before reaching out a hand. He paused in indecision, torn by his anger at her on the one hand and his compassion for her on the other. She had done it because she was afraid he would die if she didn’t. Would he have done differently if the situation had been reversed? He liked to think he would have found another way. Any other way but that. But in reality, he couldn’t know until he was faced with that situation.
The fact that she was willing to do something so extreme exhibited either an alarming disregard for the danger posed in these programs, or the strength of her fear for his person. If the latter, then it spoke to the depth of her regard for him, which could not but give him hope. Yet, he could not think too deeply on that considering there were so many unanswered questions and questions he feared to have answered lest they irrevocably cement his unhappiness.
“I am… not without gratitude for what you were trying to do,” he said quietly, laying a hand on the side of her head. He dropped his head to hers, wishing that he could convey his confusion and his sentiments through their connection, but respecting her wishes enough not to force it upon her.
Her shoulders shook with a silent sob. He stood upright and left the room.