BIOCORE: A SHORT LOOK-SEE

Now that I am actively promoting Biocore, I figured I would post a short scene from the book to give people a taste of what they can expect from this standalone SciFi coming next year. Check it out, and it perks your interest! :)

Golden sunlight filtered in through the partially opened windows, dust particles exposed as they drifted through the air. The classroom was large, but cramped with so many books, files, and covered antiques of the past that one would never know it.

“Where do your students sit?” Luna only tapped her knuckles on the opened door after announcing her presence.

Professor Benoit sighed heavily, his bushy brows rising upward as his dark eyes stayed glued to the screen in front of him.

She gave him another moment to reply before speaking once more, “It’s cold in here.”

“It certainly is, and no one attends classrooms in person anymore, you know that. Haven’t for years.”

The sound of mechanical legs rhythmically moving through the crowded back revealed an aged, man-sized robot— it’s orange and black paint peeled and scratched, and a box sized head resting on thick cords and metal. It carried boxes in its clamped hands, and she watched quietly as it disappeared around another corner of junk.

“I’d be careful with that thing.” She pulled out a cigarette, letting it hang from her lips as she dug for her light.

“Older model. Quality engineering,” he replied, eyes narrowing as he watched her. “Ms. Ross, it does one well to understand before judgment is passed, and please do not smoke in my classroom.”

A half laugh escaped her throat as she lit. “Is this one of your, ‘criminal justice reform’ lectures?” She crinkled her nose as she looked about at the musty room. “You could use a new smell in here.”

“Why are you here, Margo?”

Luna raised a brow. She hadn’t been called that in a long time, or perhaps not at all. It was a name that brushed at the edges of her dreams, faces and voices so distant, so diluted that to lay claim to the name seemed a case of identity theft.

Even the Professor could see that to be true, the crestfallen look upon his face, the slight tremble to his lips as he looked away. Whoever Margo was, or had been, had meant something to him all those years ago. He wouldn’t tell her, and she no longer wished to know.

“Luna,” he tried with a softness that lent itself to the age rattling his voice. He would be of the last generation to live for so long, the advancements that allowed so many to capably function past a hundred years having faltered in quality, increased in price. In her measurement, humanity had flown too close to the sun, and now they were falling back to root.

A hard fall, but not a bad one.

“Please, out with your business.” His eyes cast towards the golden rays slipping into the dust-coasted classroom. “I have things I must attend to before long.”

You want to be alone. We’re not so different, Professor.

She let the thought pass as she moved on to business, “The other night, a Davis resident was found dead. Net-fried. She was very wealthy—”

“She lived on Davis. Please, only what I don’t know.”

“— She was very lonely. We were told she might have been talking to a young man, smart and attending the University for Neuronetics.”

A strangled laugh that turned to fits escaped the Professor, bringing his fist to partially catch the spit flying from his mouth. “Do you know how many students watch my lectures? Thousands. From across the American Territories. Forgive me, but I have nothing valuable to aid in your investigation of this poor, lonely woman.”

“We’re both a bit too old for insults, Professor,” Luna admonished, “Too old to play this game.” She knew more than she had let on, and he knew that, too.

Who are you protecting?

His gaze met her own, narrowed, a hint of bitterness bleeding in that was unfamiliar from him. “There are so few minds of talent these days.” He leaned his head back, staring upward at the ceiling. “So few that can see the use of the human brain beyond immediate gratification. Every student wants to be rich. They want to make fantasies for the lost souls of our world to drift in and out of. They want to make games so the lamest of us all can find the adventures they refuse to have outside their homes.”

“What’s his name, David?” She dropped formalities, not with the casualness of a friend, but with the edge of someone who could not be lied to. Who would not go away until they received what they wanted.

“Whatever happened, know that I believe his intentions were good. That he was only attempting to push the boundaries we’ve long receded from.”

She sensed the movement away from her sight, heard the sounds of its hydraulics and wires as an old blaster replaced its square shaped head, her in its sights. Before he had even finished speaking, she had her gun pointed directly at the supposed clerical Robot. Her eyes remained on the professor.

“Hmm. This feeling… I expected better from you. Why? I may never know.” She had long given up her quest for answers on her past, especially from the Professor.

There was a flicker in his eyes, a moment of disappointment, but whether it was for himself or for her she couldn’t say. Then it was gone. Replaced with a seething hatred, and she wondered how long it had been buried within him.

Her gun was back at her side when the rounds left the Robot, flying above her head as she stared him down, unblinking and without even a twitch. Holes peppered the wall to her right as sheets of paper flew through the air. Her back up was just down the hall, and she heard their steps hasten.

“How did you know?” he asked, his mouth parted. Below, his hands trembled, perhaps shocked that he had fired at all.

She smiled, and there was a trace of heartbreak on his wrinkled, weary face. “I may not know you as she did, but I know enough.” The Professor was not a man who would let artificial intelligence do his work for him. The Robot was simply an extension of his consciousness; a way for him to multi-task in two separate places. Through Neuronetics, he controlled everything the Robot saw and did. It was impressive. It was terrifying. She had known that from the start, but had still gambled— Betting her life on the notion that Professor David Benoit still had some care for the woman whose face she wore. The woman whose life Luna could never remember nor ever lay claim to.

The doors busted open, far more aggressively than was necessary. A team of TPD Officers suited up in SWAT gear fanned in, one quickly destroying the Robot with a few well-placed shots.

The Professor cried out, his hand holding his head as he grimaced.

So the severance is painful. Interesting.

“David Benoit,” Luna began as two officers hauled him to his feet by frail arms, “You’re under arrest for Obstruction of Justice, Aggravated Assault on a Law Officer, Unlawful Weaponized Robotics, and suspicions of Cyberterrorism.” She read the charges with neither glee nor regret. Rather, she almost felt relieved. A loose end from a life she had long let go, finally tied away.

They mostly carried him, his feet lifting off the floor as his head hung. Quietly he begged for a doctor, likely still reeling from the mental disruption of his Robot.

She looked around the classroom, somehow no less neater than it had been before. Were there keys to her former life hidden within here? Pictures, messages from a much older time? Deep within she felt a small glow of hope. A desire to seek as fervently as she had after the War.

I do not care.

It was a lie, but it was enough.

“Turn this place upside down,” she ordered, the remaining officers scurrying to work.

She needed to escape the temptation of knowing.