Necropolis Alpha Sneak Peak

Paperback preorders are now live for Necropolis Alpha, the second book of the Jayu City Chronicles. To celebrate, here’s the first chapter just to wet your literary whistle.

Chapter One

“Mother of Corto, this is worse than getting a neural interface tuned,” Nox whispered over my comms. He was standing on the stage, dressed in a gold robe trimmed in dark blue, the hood so big that I couldn’t even see his face from my seat in the balcony. His dark hands held a box covered in ornate gold and blue carvings.

“Quiet on comms,” Solomon said from somewhere in the audience below. I couldn’t see him from my viewpoint in the front row of the balcony. The stage was brightly lit, a couple dozen meters wide, with navy curtains hanging from high above. The rest of the theatre was dark. Big enough for a few hundred people. The theatre itself wasn’t ornate, either. The design focused on clean, sweeping lines from the arch of the proscenium to the sweep of the balcony. The gold, swirling embroidery on the curtains, however, was quite lush. It matched the trim on Nox’s robe, the robes of the other four people on the stage, and the little box Nox was holding. “Sure,” Nox said. “Stand still. Hold the box. Be quiet. Do whatever Solomon and Elise tell me to—”

“Cut the chatter,” I whispered, careful to make sure the people sitting next to me couldn’t hear. “New person gets the boring jobs. Prove yourself.”

“But—” Nox started. “Silently,” I interrupted.

I glanced left and right to see if anyone heard me. They were all dressed to impress and thankfully too focused on the spectacle of Josephine Toinette-Deus, superstar preacher of Toinette Holdings. She was front and center on the stage, dressed in a glittering gold robe, open in the front to reveal a nearly glowing, high-necked dress. Her arms were spread wide, addressing the crowd.

“My dear friends,” she said. “I’m so pleased you’re joining me tonight, whether gathered here before me in person or streaming this to your homes. Tonight is a special, holy night. I get to personally welcome more than a dozen new believers to the blessed paths of Shainette and Aphnette. My friends, please come join me on stage.”

A dozen people filed up from the audience, each dressed in a flowing, unadorned, navy robe, their heads covered in voluminous hoods. I didn’t know which, but I knew one was Solomon. Giving each one a hand to the stage was one of the largest people I’d ever seen, his heavily armored hands easily visible despite the blue and gold robe. Vert “The Hurt” Toinette. Famous retired fighter and Josephine’s personal bodyguard.

“Raptor ready?” Solomon asked.

I refocused my attention on the stage, on the job at hand, and whispered, “Ready.”

“Adam ready?” Solomon said. “Finally,” Nox said.

Solomon audibly breathed in and out, loud enough for Nox to hear through comms. “Adam ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Nox said, hopefully not too loudly.

“Pull ready,” Solomon said, referring to himself. “We are go. On my cue.”

The new initiates lined up on the stage as the music changed. It had been basic, nonintrusive tunes before. I’d forgotten it was even there, but now the music sounded boisterous and loud, full of deep voices and shrill strings. Someone in a robe of the already initiated walked a slow circle around the new people, spinning a small device over their heads that poured out steam, filling the air of the theater with a heady perfume.

“It’s been a long journey for all of you,” Josephine said once Solomon and the other hooded figures were in a line upstage of her. “You come from all over Jayu City, outside of Toinette Holdings, from places horribly unbalanced between Shainette and Aphnette, fate and chaos. Huginn Industries and Nexus Neuronics, so chaotic, bowing only to Aphnette. Kotega Systems and Corto Corporation, ruled too heavily by Shainette. By fate. And now you come here, to Toinette, to find balance in your lives.

“Will you strive, above all else, to find a balance between fate and chaos, our twin deities, progenitors of creation?”

“I will,” the hooded figures said together, Solomon’s empty promise ringing in my comms as well.

“Will you look for the hand of Shainette and Aphnette in all that transpires, in all that you do?”

“I will.”

“Will you look to your superiors for spiritual guidance, defer to their wisdom, and recognize our CEOs, Pablo Toinette and Zurian Toinette, as the prophets of Shainette and Aphnette?”

“I will.”

Josephine nodded to Nox, though if everything was going according to plan, she thought she was nodding to another faithful servant of Toinette, not a neophyte Intel Operative from Corto Corporation. Nox approached, taking measured steps and holding the ornate box out in front of him. He stopped a step away from her, and Josephine opened the box, reaching in. When she pulled her hands out, they were dripping with a bluish liquid that threw light all around the stage. She approached the hooded figure farthest to the right and said, “Your hood.”

The person pulled back their hood. It wasn’t Solomon. Not yet.

Josephine drew one hand across the side of the person’s face and said, “May Shainette set forth your path.” Then she painted the other side of the person’s face with her other hand and said, “May Aphnette fill that path with more boons than blights.”

Then Josephine placed a blue-tinted hand on either side of the person’s face and said, “And may you find balance in this holy paradox. Now and forever.” Then Josephine drew the person’s face down and kissed them on the forehead.

The audience erupted in applause, and I joined to keep my cover. Couldn’t let the gathered crowd believe I was an Intel Operative from Corto Corporation, after all. I was just another corporate citizen of Toinette Holdings, applauding the ascension of a new citizen under Josephine, the latest superstar evangelist. I could pretend as well as anyone.

Josephine repeated the sequence on the next hooded initiate. And the next. When the fourth person drew back their hood, I saw it was Solomon, his skin darker than any visible face on the stage. Gray stubble was visible on his jaw and head, even from here on the balcony. He looked like he belonged right there, his expression one of reverence and humility. Less than a foot from the preacher, and she had no idea who she was looking at. That was why Solomon was the Cloak of Corto, the best Intel Operative in the company. It was more than an honorary title, too. It placed him above the managers in our Intel division, on par with the directors, answerable only to the VP of Intel. In an entire industry of closely guarded secrets, the identity of the Cloak was guarded at all costs. When the Cloak was on a job, he was in charge. No questions asked.

Josephine painted one side of his face blue. Then the other. But as Josephine drew Solomon’s face down, the Cloak stumbled, arms dashing out, steadying himself against Josephine. Nox leaped toward them both, balancing the box in one hand and using the other to help Solomon to his feet.

Except Solomon wasn’t clumsy. He wasn’t prone to falling. He was the best pickpocket in the Corto Intel office, one of only a few who could cut a metaphorical purse on a stage in front of a live crowd and hundreds of thousands watching from home. The fall was planned, as was Nox’s reaction. Now I just had to wait for confirmation to begin my part of the plan.

“Are you all right, my friend?” Josephine asked once Solomon was steady again. Solomon nodded, and Josephine finished her ritual, saying the sacred words and planting the sacred kiss. Josephine re-dipped her hands and moved to the next initiate.

“Pull confirmed,” Solomon whispered through the comms. “Nasty dry lips.”

I bit my own lip to suppress a laugh before I said, “Noted.”

“Transfer secured,” Nox whispered once Josephine started her ritual on the next person.

“Understood,” I said, standing up from my seat and heading up the aisle to leave the auditorium. “In transit. Count them down.”

“Eight,” Nox said.

I was out the door in moments. I glanced left and right, but there was nobody in sight. I triple-tapped my ring finger and thumb on my left hand, and a keyboard appeared floating in front of my fingers. There wasn’t really a keyboard there, but since my eyes were cybernetic replacements, a keyboard appeared in augmented reality as though it was. Likewise, since I’d long ago replaced my arms with mods, my fingers delivered haptic feedback so it even felt like the keyboard was really there. I typed out, “Directions, please.”

“Gladly,” Bastion said via text on my display. Bastion was an artificial intelligence, which, strictly speaking, was illegal under Earth Space law. Not necessarily in Jayu City or on this planet, Little Sekhmet Settlement, but even we were under Earth Space laws. Bastion was secretly developed by the CEO of Corto Corporation, but she’d decided to let me keep him to myself. It wasn’t charity, though. Dr. Ariela Corto was going to call and cash in that particular chip at some point. Probably multiple points. But she hadn’t yet. I couldn’t have my fellow Intel Operatives knowing about him, either, hence the text conversation.

A glowing green line appeared on the floor below me, another AR projection, and I followed it with long strides. I crossed the foyer, lightly stepping on the plush carpet gaudily patterned in the hallmark blues and golds of Ibhalism, the Toinette Holdings religion that Josephine was going on and on about. I followed the glowing line down a hallway that ran the perimeter of the circular building two hundred and ten floors up. Outside the windows, the other skyscrapers of the Toinette borough were practically glowing with towering advertisements for herbal supplements, designer handbags, high-end narcotics, and so much more.

“Seven.” Nox’s voice carried through my comms.

The halls were blessedly empty, but that was the reason for the timing. Why were we doing all this during Josephine’s livestreamed sermon? Her entire operation was in that auditorium right now. It was maximum effort for Josephine’s big show, from camera operators to designers to computer techs to PR specialists. So this floor and the two below it were practically barren. The glowing line led to a nondescript door with a simple lock. No keypad or scanner, just a jagged little spot for a key. I deployed a pair of equally simple lock-picks from my right forefinger, and the door was open in a second. I closed the door behind me and flipped on the light, illuminating the small janitorial closet, reeking of a woody cleaning chemical. Hanging next to a pair of mops was my carbon nanoweave jumpsuit.

“Six,” Nox said.

I quickly stripped out of the long skirt and billowing, long-sleeve blouse that were very much not my style. I kicked off the boots, too. No need for shoes when your legs from the hips down are cybernetic mods. The carbon-polymer skin didn’t mind what I stepped on. I pulled on the black jumpsuit, which covered all of my biological flesh from the crotch to the neck, magnetically sealing to my modded limbs at the hips and shoulders. Once I had it zipped up completely, the jumpsuit sucked in, clinging to and protecting my flesh.

Now I was ready for work. Black, carbon nanoweave jumpsuit with my equally black, carbon-polymer limbs fully exposed, free to move in any direction unimpeded. My black hair was combed back and plastered to my head, the sides shaved close against my brown skin. Elise Corto-Intel. Intel Operative. Professional burglar. I finished double-checking all my systems and supplies right as Nox told me there were only two initiates left for Josephine to kiss.

“You ready?” I said to Bastion via text.

“Of course,” he said.

I opened the door, glancing both ways to confirm the hall was still empty, and a new glowing line appeared on the floor. I followed it, checking my corners as I moved from hall to hall. I was no longer dressed like another citizen of Toinette Holdings, so I needed to be more careful. I turned one last corner, and the glowing line terminated at a bank of elevators.

I flattened myself against the wall opposite the elevator doors, sliding along until I was directly underneath the pair of security cameras keeping watch. I reached up one hand and snapped my fingers, triggering a mini-EMP that shorted out both of them.

“One,” Nox said.

I checked the elevators. Of the three, the one on the right was the only one parked on a floor above me, so I quickly moved to those doors and pulled them open. Cybernetic arms: not just for picking locks. A burst of wind immediately hit me in the face, drying out my eyes and forcing my legs to compensate to keep me upright. I was looking out at the Jayu City night. No windows. No floor. These elevators were on the outside of the building, offering a tremendous view as they moved, but offering no protection for an industrious thief prone to climbing elevator shafts.

But I knew that before I opened the doors. I stepped out, holding onto the door and spinning to magnetize my hand to a thick, metal railing against the side of the building. Once I had both hands and feet on it, the door closed, and I started climbing like an insect.

“Elevator nine,” I said in my comms, telling both Nox and Bastion which elevator “shaft” I was in.

“Nine,” Nox said. “Understood. Leaving the stage now.”

I was climbing to meet the elevator car, which seemed impossibly far above me. I kept glancing up, climbing, glancing, climbing, glancing—

Suddenly the car was much bigger than it had just been. And bigger still. The elevator car was moving down. I should have known the evening was going too well. I needed to move to the next shaft, and quickly.

My hip joints swiveled, and my knees bent in ways biological limbs never could, wrapping around the rail to which I was magnetized and sticking to the other side. I released my hands, and my legs did the work of whipping me out of the way of the oncoming elevator, though I felt the little hairs on my neck vibrate as it whizzed past. So much for elevator nine. I looked up shaft eight, and then down, spotting the car at least two dozen floors below. The drop was too far for my legs, and probably for the ceiling of the elevator car.

“I feel the need to remind you,” Bastion said on my display, “that you are not a spider, no matter how hard you pretend.”

Very funny. Clinging to the side of a building was practically a hobby at this point. Not that I didn’t enjoy it at least a little. I thought of half a dozen retorts, but my hands were busy keeping me from falling. No texting.

“Offstage,” Nox said, louder than a whisper for the first time all night.

“Correction,” I said. “Elevator eight.”

“Eight?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“I assume you have a plan?” Bastion said.

I nodded, a gesture lost on the AI that lived on an advanced neural interface chip hidden in a secret compartment in my right shoulder. Merely being in contact with him was enough to enable our interactions, but I hadn’t brought myself to install the chip at the base of my brain. I had grown to trust Bastion, to become friends, but installation felt a step too far. Even though he’s told me about all the benefits like reduced lag, I just couldn’t do it. At least I’d had a special compartment added to my arm for him.

“Are you above or below?” Nox asked. “Going to be above,” I said.

“Going to be?”

“Funny story,” I said. “Just give me your turn-by-turn.”

“Should we abort?” Solomon asked, still in a whisper. “Are you compromised?”

“No,” I said. “Please do not abort. I just need to time this.”

“Elevators in sight,” Nox said.

I lined up my hands and feet for an even release from the rail, stretching my shoulders and keeping my focus on the elevator car far below.

“Pressing the button,” Nox said.

After only a moment, car eight was moving up while the wind buffeted me.

“Car is here. Stepping on. Do you—?”

“You’re three floors below,” I said.

And then the car was moving, picking up speed as it closed the distance. In a blink, it was only two meters below me. Then one. I launched myself up and slightly away from the rail. In less than a breath, the top of the elevator car was under me, colliding with my feet as my legs absorbed the sudden lift.

I heard a shrill scream in my comms and through the ceiling of the elevator car at the same time.

“That was me,” I said.

“Are you still spinning?” Nox said, his voice shaky.

“Spinning?” I asked.

Nox sighed loudly. “Are you okay?”

“I am.” My legs did their work, compressing and compensating, finding balance before my fingers even came down to meet the top of the car. After a few moments, a panel on the roof of the elevator jostled. I grabbed it and pulled it open to find Nox’s hand reaching up. I peered down inside, and there was the rest of him. A head shorter and almost a decade younger than me, he was standing on that ornate box he’d been carrying just so he could reach the ceiling. His skin was even darker than Solomon’s, though his head and chin were shiny with a fresh shave. The Toinette robe was in a heap on the floor, revealing his black pin-stripe suit, complete with vest and silky tie. A ridiculous getup for an Intel Operative on a job.

“Hey, nice weave,” Nox said, grinning like he’d already completed the job.

“The key?” I said. Spinning? Weave? It’s like he was just making up words. I thought he was talking about my jumpsuit but didn’t have time to decipher what he meant.

“Oh! Right!” Nox’s eyes went wide. He jumped down off the box, turned it over, and slid open a hidden compartment on the bottom. Out came what Solomon had lifted from the preacher: a decryption key. Half the size of my hand, it was pinkish orange with visible circuitry inside. Nox gave me another goofy smile before he stood back up on his box and handed the key to me.

I grabbed it as I opened a compartment in my left thigh, the faux muscles sliding back on magnetic tracks. Nox was still looking at me like I was going to give him a cookie or something as I stowed the key. I just rolled my eyes and closed the roof hatch back up. I was never that annoying when I was the new operative. No way.

I barely had time to reorient myself to face the building when the elevator began to slow.

“What do I—?” Nox began to say in my comms. “Handoff complete,” I said over comms.

“Thank you, handoff,” Solomon barked. “Continue.”

Seriously. I was surprised Gustin, my manager, ever thought Nox was ready for fieldwork. Whatever. He made his delivery between Solomon and me, so he was no longer my problem.

The elevator stopped, and I yanked the doors open, rolling into the building and across the hallway as quickly as I could. The doors were already closed again as I rose to my feet, pressed against the wall below another set of security cameras. I stood there silent and still, breathing in and out, waiting to see if any security guards came running. I had only been on camera for a second or two, but better to be safe. After a full minute, the hallway was still dim and silent.

“No open channel alarms. No emergency calls,” Bastion said in my display.

With that assurance, I crept along the wall until I was clear of the cameras and then texted Bastion to ask for directions again. The familiar glowing line appeared, and I started following it in full stride, down the corridor that ran the perimeter. I turned a corner left and before I could even focus on what lay ahead of me, a human ball of muscle slammed into me, knocking me on my back and sending every particle of air out of my lungs.

I’m so excited to share the rest of the book with you on January 23, 2024. Stay tuned for more updates and more excerpts!