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.
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.
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