Pop Travel Read online

  Crews sneered at the nasty little thing and shivered as he readied himself for the intense hangover that would slam into his brain like a sledgehammer. The sober pill didn’t erase the effects of alcohol; it just sped up the process, eradicating the foul liquid and its ramifications in ten minutes or so, depending on consumption. He held his nose and swallowed it down.

  Anticipating the onslaught of agony, Crews diverted himself by continuing his previous thoughts on upgrades.

  “Well now, Echo, listen and listen good.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He leaned on the droid, who guided him toward the rear of the ballroom while the cleanup crew herded the remaining live-animated guests out the front doors. The Colonel and Echo exited through a back door into a long, empty hallway. While they walked, Crews pointed at the ceiling and blurted out his revelation.

  “I’m going to live forever.”

  Echo gave no reaction. The android was more concerned with his master’s well-being, as he should be. Focusing on keeping the Colonel upright, Echo guided him along as the effects of the sober pill started to take hold of the elder man’s faculties. Crews’ head pulsed and throbbed with increasing intensity. He opened and closed his mouth, running his tongue across the roof of it to keep from sticking as his saliva turned into paste.

  “Would you like some water, sir?” Echo offered the Colonel a bottle, always prepared.

  Crews didn’t bother to thank him. He snatched the bottle and drank it down as if he’d been in the desert for weeks. He breathed a little easier, then elaborated on his intentions.

  “Now I know people pontificate putting off the inevitability of death as the years progress, doing drastic things to their frail bodies, which always decay and die in the end anyway. What I need is a new, young body to put my virile mind into. Then I could be my own political prospect.”

  The chuckle at his witticism turned into a cringe as a wave of pain crashed above his right ear. He squinted at the blurry exit door a few feet ahead. But the first strike was followed by more as the sharpness returned like blows from a hammer. The lights burned brighter, hurting his eyes, and each shuffle of his feet, each brush of fabric from the tiniest movement blasted in his ears. He also had an urgent need to see a man about a horse. But he fought it all back. He plowed ahead, as all the discomfort reminded him he still had a foul meeting to sit through. He could not show weakness.

  Pausing at a side table in the hallway, he steadied himself to let the sharpest stabs pass. As his head cleared and the pounds receded, his thoughts became more logical. He remembered the insane drivel he had just uttered to his recording device companion about planning to live forever. If that absurdity got out, Crews would be a laughing stock. He grabbed Echo’s tie to stop the droid from opening the door.

  It paused and looked at him. “Sir?”

  “Scan the area for webcams and recording devices.”

  “Yes, sir.” It took the android less than a moment. “There is one security camera at the door above. It is internal-only and has no audio, sir.”

  Crews released his desperate grip. Darn the vile, mind-altering alcohol. “Good. Put that conversation into a secure data file at the house with the others. Then erase it from your short-term memory, understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Though he wasn’t fully recovered, Crews needed closure. He pushed through the exit door and saw Jonas’ black plexiglass limo parked just outside with the driver standing by, waiting to let the Colonel in.

  To appear intoxicated, Crews shouted at Echo over his shoulder and stumbled on purpose as he walked away from the hotel door, straightening his jacket. “I don’t need any help. I’m perfectly fine. And don’t ever try to help me again!” Crews winked back at Echo, negating his last statement.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The driver shook his head at Crews and opened the passenger door. He was definitely human.

  Keeping up his façade, Crews smiled like an idiot and peeked inside before getting in.

  “There’s my favorite son.”

  But his efforts flew away on the breeze, wasted. Jonas sat focused on his Qnet Viewer, whispering dirty nothings to the hologram of a shapely female bust hovering over his wrist.

  Of course. Crews’ smile turned into a scowl.

  Jonas held up his finger for Crews to wait a minute. That audacious fool thought himself a big shot making Crews stand in line for an audience with him.

  Taking a seat across from Jonas, Crews wondered if he would survive the ride home without puking on the little punk. His mind felt completely sober now. The pain and cloudiness ebbed substantially. The time had come to conclude their business.

  “Shut your QV and let’s talk.”

  As the car pulled away, Jonas blinked at the Colonel’s sudden commanding and fluent bark. “I’ll have to call you back,” he said to the image and disconnected, shutting his QV with a light tap. Leaning back, he raised an eyebrow and judged the Colonel’s condition. He grinned annoyingly.

  “Right. Business. You never were one to waste time.”

  “I’m still not.” Ingrate.

  Waiting for Jonas to find the pluck to begin his speech, Crews considered all the events in his life that led him to this point, sitting in a plastic limo with a snot-nosed bureaucrat he produced. Flashes of Crews’ decorated military career and celebrated political achievements streamed through his consciousness in the moments before his unjust crucifixion.

  Jonas leaned forward and clasped his hands together, reminding Crews of a team manager sending a lame duck back to the minors. After a deep breath, the boy began.

  “Colonel. Crews. You’ve been a valuable leader throughout my campaign…”

  And there it was. Tuning out Jonas’ words, Crews stared into those narrow-minded blue eyes. The Colonel taught Jonas how to intimidate with a cold stare, and he felt its power. But Crews would not succumb nor cower to Jonas. He still held a few aces he hadn’t shared with his pupil.

  As Jonas rambled, the Colonel’s thoughts wandered again to what he might do next. He would easily outlive this naïve novice’s career, but thinking of future prospects prickled his spine. He’d predicted this scenario. And though he’d seen it coming for weeks, this time he’d done nothing about it. He was tired of rummaging through the ignorant, impudent political hopefuls.

  Retirement was not an option either. The world still needed his influence and guidance. If only he could find a young soul with an ounce of respect and a pound of sense. Crews didn’t have the stomach to play out another scene like this one.

  “… and so, I’m afraid you won’t fit into our new direction.” As Jonas finished his speech, he wore a pitiful, patronizing pout. The sympathetic expression drove him mad, worse than the boy’s overconfident smile.

  Crews wanted an electrogun to zap the boy’s head off.

  “Pull over.”

  “But Crews…”

  “Pull. Over.” The Colonel’s glare, the original intimidator, beat Jonas’ ten to one and took no arguments.

  “Are you sure? We’re still downtown.”

  The Colonel responded in a low, guttural voice, growling from his clenched teeth like a mean junkyard dog. “I know where we are and I know where I’m going. Pull over the confounded car, right now.”

  The fear that jumped into the young man’s eyes comforted Crews. Jonas had crossed the wrong old man.

  The boy touched his armrest. “Stop the car.”

  Before the driver could reach the door, Crews stumbled out. Apparently, his body hadn’t quite caught up to his brain for sober yet. No matter.

  Gripping the door for support, Crews spoke his last words to Jonas. “You just doomed yourself. I could’ve made something of you, but your arrogance has blinded you. Your political career is but a splash, just enough to dampen the crowd, then be wiped off and forgotten. Your lack of judgment will cost you dearly.”

  Crews slammed the door shut on a bewildered Jonas.

  As the car
pulled away, Crews summoned his personal droid on his QV.

  “Echo, come get me.” His high-end, custom-built android was an extra right hand and remained close by at all times. Crews had even installed a homing device in himself so it could find him if he went missing. Echo would pull up at any moment.

  While he waited, Crews took in his surroundings. Dark, desolate, and deserted. He recognized the rows of huddled, abandoned buildings as part of an old warehouse district, unofficially given to the homeless by the city of Atlanta, and affectionately called the Unknown City. No cars parked along these corridors. No chattering citizens walked the gloomy sidewalk. A stark contrast to the hell raising, neon lit Plaza from whence he came.

  With one lonely, flickering streetlight to guide cars as they rushed by, rattling across the old railroad tracks, the alleys remained ominously dim. Trash blew around in the slight breeze and the abundant silence played tricks on Crews’ ears. He had a suspicious feeling someone watched him through cracks in the boarded up windows.

  Most people feared this area, describing it as a forbidden part of town, haunted by evil, lost souls. Some called it a disgusting cesspool of disease and vermin where one might not get out alive. Especially at night. No one knew the truth, so urban legends rose about it. Not even the street thugs ventured there after dark. They had nothing to gain and were ignorantly superstitious.

  Crews had no such illogical fears. He knew better. The Unknown City existed and thrived as a secure residence for the homeless and downtrodden, hidden from the general public. Blind eyes in the government absorbed the costs of electrical, water, and Qnet services that trickled into the Unknown City. No doubt someone had a few of those votes accounted for as well. These people were a new breed who no longer begged on the streets or lived out in the open under bridges. They kept to themselves, avoiding the attention of the general public. They existed with their own organized code of interdependence. And as long as they stayed invisible, they would be peacefully ignored.

  The Colonel’s old Marine buddy and on-call private investigator once told Crews the Unknown City welcomed newcomers, no questions asked, and erased their electronic histories. But anyone who rocked their steady boat disappeared. And no one missed them.

  That concept appealed to Crews. He climbed a crumbling cement staircase to the main entrance of the central building, where an office might have existed once. The rusty metal door was locked by a crude number keypad. Cupping his hands around his eyes, he peered through the still-intact, thick, square window at the top of the door. Inside, the haunting foyer funneled into a deep throat of a corridor, full of shadows and vastly empty, except for dust and spider webs—part of the eerie, abandoned façade.

  Crews nodded. The people who lived in the Unknown City relinquished their identities. They had no past, no links, no baggage. Each person who entered became a clean slate. Now that was something the Colonel could work with.

  As thoughts of a promising new strategy coalesced, a barely legal, converted electric Rolls Royce pulled up next to him. Echo stepped out to greet him.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Fine, Echo. Fine.” A sinister smile smoothed out his thin lips. What started out as a lynching would end in a resurrection.

  Echo opened the passenger door for the Colonel.

  Crews held up his hand. “Not just yet, Echo. You must help me select our new house guest.”

  Thanks to my wonderful critique artists―Angela Cothran, Elizabeth Arroyo, and Vikki Biram. They taught me so much.

  Special thanks to Andrew Buckley for giving me a chance with Curiosity Quills―and to all the staff who guided me through the process. They are the BEST!

  And a last thank you to my sweet neighbor, Jagruti Khandhadia for giving me a glimpse of the busy city of Mumbai, India.

  Tara Tyler came out of college as a math teacher to prove learning it is not so bad―anyone can do it! She went on to have a hand in everything from waitressing to rocket engineering.

  Living up and down the Eastern US and traveling worldwide has given her many alternate perspectives. Now she resides in Ohio with her three active boys and Coach Husband. Atlanta is the most dear as her parents live there and that’s where she got married. So many stories to tell. In addition to her novels, she has published short stories and poetry.

  Her favorite genres to read and write are Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller, and Humor, have to have humor! She is also working on a non-fiction book of tips for women who hate housework.

  Now that you have completed this book, we hope you will leave a review so that other readers may benefit from your perspective. Authors like Tara Tyler live and die by your reviews, after all!

  Please visit http://curiosityquills.com/reader-survey/ to share your reading experience with the author of this book!

  Simulation, by Tara Tyler

  (http://bit.ly/1INz11s)

  In 2082, androids are an essential part of daily life. Some are helpful, some would make better toasters, and some are so human-like they’re creepy. Back in Atlanta, Detective Cooper’s latest client has him searching for her boyfriend who she thinks was replaced by a simulation, an illegal clone android. The guy also happens to be a popular new congressman.

  To make matters more complicated, Cooper keeps crossing paths with his ex, FBI Agent Geri Harper, as they seem to be looking for the same guy. Cooper knows he’s getting close when Geri is kidnapped, but when she resurfaces in Washington and goes on a killing spree, he knows it isn’t her. Now under suspicion himself, Cooper must find the real Geri to prove her innocence, not to mention hunt down the powerful villain behind it all. Never a dull moment.

  The Dead Detective, by J.R. Rain & Rod Kierkegaard, Jr.

  (http://bit.ly/1twVfzr)

  Medical-school-dropout police detective Richelle Dadd is… well, dead. But that won’t stop her from trying to hold on to her house in a divorce battle with a bitter husband. Or keep her from digging into her own murder, to discover who put the bullet into her heart. And it certainly won’t stand in the way of finding out the reason she’s been reanimated as a zombie assassin, no longer in control of her life.

  Richelle will face off against Gypsy shamans, double-crossing ghosts, a partner she can’t trust, and her own undead nature in a journey into the depths of the occult world and out the other side.

  Division Zero, by Matt Cox

  (http://j.mp/1ggujIv)

  Most cops get to deal with living criminals, but Agent Kirsten Wren is not most cops.

  Shunned by a society that does not understand psionics and feared by those who know what she can do, Kirsten feels alone in a city of millions.

  Unexplained killings by human-like androids known as dolls leave the Division 1 police baffled, causing them to punt the case to Division 0. She tries to hold on to the belief that no one is beyond redemption as she pursues a killer desperate to claim at least one more innocent soul – that might just be hers.

  The Mussorgsky Riddle, by Darin Kennedy

  (http://bit.ly/1uLF3GB)

  The Mussorgsky Riddle is Alice in Wonderland meets Law and Order. Called in to awaken an autistic boy left catatonic after witnessing a grisly murder, psychic Mira Tejedor is pulled into young Anthony’s mind and discovers the cause of his strange malady. The crime has left his fragile psyche shattered into the various movements of composer Modest Mussorgsky’s classical music suite, Pictures at an Exhibition. Mira must help heal the boy’s fractured mind and unmask the murderer before the killer can discover the secrets hidden in the boys mind and silence both of them forever.

  Virtual Immortality, by Matthew Cox

  (http://bit.ly/1hSXIMP)

  Nina Duchenne walked away from a perfect life to pursue a noble idea, but one tragic night shatters her dreams.

  Joey Dillon lives on a perpetual adrenaline rush. A self-styled cyber cowboy chasing thrills wherever he can find them, he is unconcerned with what will happen twenty minutes into the future.

  Voices fro
m beyond the grave distract Nina from her pursuit of two international terrorists, and send Joey on a mission to find out who is playing games. Joey falls square in her sights with the fate of the entire West City, as well as Nina’s humanity, at risk.

  Bone Wires, by Michael Shean

  (http://bit.ly/1LfODdx)

  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.

  Appetizer:

  Book Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Main Course:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen