Date Published: March 15, 2021
Publisher: Del Sol Press
In the course of a morning, Dungsten Crease resurrects his neighbor’s dog, is arrested by TSA for carrying a weapon which never existed, and drowns a woman at an airline ticket counter—or could he be hallucinating? In his panic he locks himself in the men's room of a coffee shop only to find a strange man in cycling togs sharing the space. The lanky intruder claims to be Dungsten’s neurally implanted concierge unit who has two disturbing messages. Dungsten is a Shaper—an obsolete, genetically programmed tool created by a bankrupt galactic corporation to terraform planetary experiences for vacationing clients; and the woman he inadvertently killed at the airport with his Shaper abilities will be the love of his life. Attracting government agents who want to weaponize him and Galactic Business Council assassins who want to terminate him, fear drives the Shaper within to inadvertently bifurcate, a second Dungsten also now running from his pursuers. But bifurcation comes at a price: loss of appetite, swelling of the hands and feet, an erection lasting longer than four hours, loss of bladder control, rectal bleeding, psychosis, convulsions, and sudden death. To pull himself back together and if he’s lucky, survive, he must master his Shaper abilities before he becomes a victim, or worse, accidentally destroys Earth and everyone he loves along with it.
Excerpt:
Hiding in the
darkness, door locked, he wanted to feel safe, but he couldn’t shake the
feeling he wasn’t alone. As if to ward off the demons, he spoke aloud.
“I am not
being followed. They don’t even know where I am.”
“Did they get a
good look at you?”
A voice, someone
else’s voice, had echoed off the bathroom walls.
Dungsten
scrambled away in terror, his movement switching the lights back on and
revealing the source of the voice. “Aaah! Who the hell are you? How did you get
in here?”
His bathroom
companion, for lack of a better term, was tall and lean with an Adam’s apple
giving his neck the appearance of being double-jointed. He wore a black Rolling
Stones “Sticky Fingers” T-shirt, black baggy biking shorts, emerald green
leggings covering long, spindly, knobbed-kneed legs, and gold bike shoes. Atop
his head sat a red cycling helmet aerodynamically constructed to give the
impression of forward motion. The entire ensemble gave him the appearance of a
deformed giant leprechaun.
He smiled a big
toothy grin. “Calm down.”
Dungsten moved to
a corner by the sink, looking to no avail for a weapon.
“Calm down? You
pop in here like Captain Picard and I’m supposed to calm down? How did you get
in here?”
“You let me in,
Dungsten.”
Let him in. No, I
didn’t let him in. I’ve been curled up in this bathroom scared shitless. I
haven’t moved an inch. “Let you in?”
“Yes.”
“How? And you
better do some explaining because, well, my day so far has been off the chart
weird. I’ve killed…I think. Yeah, I’ve killed, and I imagine it will be pretty
easy to kill again. So, don’t mess with me.”
“Dungsten.” The
giant leprechaun balanced against a wall with one hand, grabbing his foot from
behind to stretch his quads. “I guess I could say you let me in here with your
mind.”
About the Author
Del Sol Press books by Richard Hacker are available at Amazon
The Alchimeía Series
DIEBACK: Book One
VENGEANCE OF GRIMBALD: Book Two
Other books by Richard Hacker:
Nick Sibelius Crime Series
KILL’T DEAD OR WORSE
BUZZARD BAIT
ALL HAT AND NO CATTLE
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