- Chapter-by-chapter release, Science fiction, Speculative Fiction, Team writing, The Epsilon Project, Wattpad
Chapter 6 – Jace
The evening morphed into the kind of late summer night that picks up seamlessly where day left off. In the fading light, students tossed Frisbees on the green. Others sat on the grass in small groups, speaking in hushed tones, an occasional laugh carried on the light breeze. “This is just so weird.” Clare gazed at the field in front of her, elbow planted firmly on a small table, chin cupped in hand. “Don’t you think, Jace? Everything looks so normal, right?” A few muffled piano notes drifted through the stone walls of Mathey College. Sick of being ignored, Clare sat up and banged a hand on the table. “Jace? … Jace!” “Oh,…
- Chapter-by-chapter release, New novel, Science fiction, Speculative Fiction, The Epsilon Project, Wattpad
Chapter 5 – The Drennan Brothers
SatSphere. Jack Drennan sat slumped on a barstool with his elbows propped on the bar and his chin resting on tightly closed fists. He stared hypnotically into his tumbler of 16-year-old Lagavulin scotch, the two sacrilegious cubes of ice floating around the rim like a pas de deux. He left its twin untouched on the bar in front of the empty seat next to him. Fucking SatSphere. A nudge at his elbow wrenched him from the depths of his melancholic reverie. “Brother. Sorry to keep you waiting. Is our table ready?” Jack looked up over his shoulder at his older brother, Peter. Drops of rain wound snakelike patterns down his…
Chapter 4 – Helios
It had all the appearances of a chance meeting, the kind that occurs repeatedly at these types of conferences, but it wasn’t, not by a long shot. Elizabeth Hunter was an unheralded genius of astrophysics. She had done multiple studies on coronal mass ejection (CME) events and solar flares but had published only a few, with most of her findings disseminated during conference lectures such as this one. Dr. Alan Somerville had found a picture of her on the McGill University’s website, and he arranged to follow her to Paris once he confirmed she’d be speaking. He was desperate to meet her, to pick her brain. If her prediction was…
Chapter 3 – Griff
It was too early for the moon and too late for the sun. Griffin Hunter jogged the last few steps to the Belvedere lookout on Mont-Royal and paused, gazing upon the city of Montreal. A picture-perfect nighttime vista normally filled the skyline from this vantage point, but not tonight, not for the last three nights. While a few lights flickered like mischievous fireflies, most everything else was fading to black and fading fast. Griff took a moment to catch his breath, flipped on his headlamp, and turned to run back down the hill. He needed to get back to the apartment. It wasn’t safe after dark anymore. Griff negotiated most…
Chapter 2 – Alice
“I am so dead!” Alice yanked off the sheet and swung her feet toward the ground. By the time she reached her dresser, the tee-shirt she’d been sleeping in was a crumbled afterthought in the corner. She wriggled into clean clothes, squeezed a blob of toothpaste onto a finger, and shot an angry look at her traitorous alarm clock which stared back, dark and blank. Her wristwatch flashed 7:37 AM, giving her exactly 23 minutes to get out of the apartment, catch the subway, travel the four stops to Columbia, and high-tail it across campus. First biology quiz of the year, and she was not about to jeopardize a perfect GPA over…
Chapter 1 – Helios
Alan knew he was in trouble as soon as he heard the vibrations from the passenger seat. The clock on the dash indicated it was already well past 7:30 PM, and he didn’t have to look at the cellphone’s screen to know that Liz was on the other end of that angry buzz. Alan hit the phone icon on the console. “Liz?” “Alan!” “Honey, I’m sorry I’m so late. I got stuck in the lab, and the guy behind the counter at the Chinese place was slower than molasses, and –” “Alan, listen to me –” “Please don’t cancel date night. I already have the food, and I can bring…
Backcover Blurb
Five college students. One message. A chance to save the world. “All is not as it seems …” At first glance, the enigmatic message from their MIA scientist parents looks like good news because everything seems really bad. A series of solar storms has knocked the world off the grid, food and water are in short supply, and a mysterious psychological illness is decimating the population. But the message suggests something more. It suggests that their parents may have figured out something the rest of the world did not, something that may prove to be the salvation of the human race. Their instructions are to head to a cloud bunker in Kansas…
