“Lilly, why are
you wearing that space suit? This is a Terraformed planet, the likes of which
you have never seen.” Lyn asks. Mac, LaVerne, Lyn and Mary gaze at Lilly in her
bulky suit. They are dressed in lovely shimmering gowns, simple, yet
flattering.
Lilly
shakes her ample booty and grabs the dress Mac hands her. “I’ll be ready in a
jiffy. Oh, heck, wait! I can’t undo this thing. Help!
After all the
hostesses give it their best shot. Lilly is still stuck in the space suit and it’s
time to go to the party.
“Sorry, I didn’t know that Mars was so…alive.” Lilly
awkwardly makes her way from the space shuttle that took them to the purple
planet. “I always thought Mars was the red planet. It’s my favorite color.”
"Purple's mine, Lyn says, gazing around admiringly.
“Has she been
drinking?” Mary glances at Lilly again and elbows LaVerne who nods and shakes her head as she shrugs her
shoulders.
“Not yet, but
when she does, we’ll have to carry her out of here and that suit weighs a ton.”
LaVerne shivers. “Ouch, Lyn, watch where you step with those boats you have for
shoes. You nearly crushed my toes.
“Well if Mary
would stop shoving those ballast things she has on her chest into me, I
wouldn’t have stepped on your foot.” Lyn snickers.
“I think we
should act more professional.” Mac adds to the conversation as she twirls in
her dress.
“Professional?”
Mary chuckles. They all look at one another and crack up laughing. “Not on your
life.” Mary twirls with Mac.
“Uh, ladies," Lyn interrupts, A J Maguire author of Deviation stands in the doorway to the huge room where partiers
are already mingling. “If you wouldn’t mind. I’d like us to do the toast now if we
could.”
Aimee Jean looks lovely in her voluminous, floor length, exotic, dress.
The girls follow
her into the party.
“The women here seem different. Did you notice?” Lyn
wonders.
“Yes, they’re
cyber something enhanced. Not like us at all.” Mary adds as she scans the room
for Oliver.
“There’s Oliver, let’s all get one of those Pan Galactic Gargle
Blasters. I know they are kinda green, but I hear they pack a punch. And I
ain’t eatin’ no rat, I don’t care if it tastes like steak. I’ll eat the brownie
rat shaped thing. But, that’s my limit.”
“Since when have
you ever had a limit?” Lyn laughs.
Mac holds Mary
off of Lyn as they approach the drink table. Lyn with great ceremony raises her
glass. “To A J , may your sales be in the millions.” Cheers fill the room and
strange music echoes through the large chamber.
Mac a little shocked at how strong the drink tastes, then points to Mary as she downs the cosmic blend in one large gulp. “Uh,
Aimee Jean warned us. You were only supposed to sip that Mary.”
The hostesses look at Mary as the drink hits her. With a winsome smile she collapses into a chair and is out like a light.
“Well,” Mac sighs. “She always was a cheap date. She can’t cause trouble if she’s passed out.
Anyhow, let’s welcome everyone to A J Maguire’s roast and toast.” She raises her glass, “To a wonderful book and its author!”
The female race as we know it is extinct. In a last ditch effort for human survival, scientists altered the female genome, creating the mutated Novo Femina race. These deformed and cybernetic-enhanced women have been placed into tight subjugation by the religiously fanatic Makeem Loyalists. High Priestess Celeocia Prosser finds herself in the ultimate showdown of male versus female and sends her son careening through time to locate the one person in Earth’s history who might be able to tip the balance of war; Reesa Zimms.
Reesa, a science fiction novelist of some renown, is ill-prepared for her sudden appearance in the future. Accused of being either a prophet or a murderer, she comes face to face with the deformities she thrust onto the female race, and is forced to confront her own motivations for writing the atrocities in her books.
DEVIATION - EXCERPT
“This is your last book tour, Reesa Zimms.” The woman holding the gun said with such authority that Reesa’s stomach knotted in reaction. “I need to know who Patient Zero is and I need to know now.”
There were several different kinds of heroes, Reesa thought numbly as she stared at the gun. John Wayne’s no-nonsense, hit-‘em-with-the-butt of your weapon came to mind, but she had very little in common with the heroes he portrayed and she’d be the first to admit it.
Clinging to Jake’s belt, Reesa tried to work up the courage to at least think straight. Because if she didn’t think of something very quickly, her publicist of eight years was going to be shot right in the middle of Brady’s Belfue Bookstore. Her immediate instinct to run was curtailed by the chest-high bookshelves boxing them in and her legs refused to move.
Jake’s shoulder blocked part of her view, shielding her from the gun. He stood poised and unmoving, his six foot frame a solid presence in the store front. His attention never wavered from the threat in front of them. Reesa’s chest went tight;who would’ve thought Jake had it in him? Her mind ticked off several reasons why he’d place himself in danger for her, most of them dealing with their business relationship. She was his client, after all, but a publicist was a far cry from a bodyguard.
When Reesa still hadn’t answered, Jake shifted just-so, bringing more of his body between her and the gun. He hesitated, but finally managed to speak; “She already told you she doesn’t know.”
Reesa heard the slight waver in his usually self-assured tone – even if the woman couldn’t – and felt the muscles in his back coil. He almost sounded normal, as though there was nothing strange about a woman with a tattoo in her eyeball pointing a gun at them.
Hero, Reesa thought, her fingers tightening on his belt so hard she could feel the leather edge bite into her skin; maybe not John Wayne, but a hero just the same.
“In the first book, Martian Tribulation, page eighty-five, you wrote that the Mavirus had a starting point, a Patient Zero, but that scientists never found her.” Tattoo woman continued to speak to Reesa, ignoring Jake’s presence completely. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t know who she is.”
Internally, Reesa decided she was going to try her hand at the young adult market. She doubted J.K. Rowling had ever been held up by a fan demanding to know where Diagon Alley really was. For that matter, Reesa had never known her fan base included the cult-like insane until two minutes ago.
The blonde woman was dressed in an overly plush jacket that seemed to swallow her in cadet-blue, stained fabric. Her face, however, was clearly visible – all smooth contours and elegant features, and Reesa was struck with a strange sense of recognition. She was familiar, even with the tattooed eyeball, but Reesa couldn’t place her in her memory. She was beautiful like a diamond, Reesa thought; pretty to look at but cold and hard to touch.
For half a heartbeat Reesa hoped she saw conflict in Tattoo Woman’s gray-green eyes. And then those eyes hardened, slitting into a glare that froze Reesa’s blood. Tattoo depressed the trigger and the shot cracked into the little bookstore, echoed by the barely stifled screams of those unfortunate customers who’d come in for Reesa’s autograph. Jake grunted in painful surprise, slamming back against her.
Scrambling to catch him, Reesa released his belt and wrapped her arms around his lean torso. But he was three inches taller than she was and at least fifty pounds heavier. They toppled backward, crashing into the book signing table, which promptly slid into the nearest bookshelf. Reesa’s head connected with the hardwood floor an instant later, sharp lights bursting into her vision on impact. Jake landed heavily on top of her, his head smacking into her shoulder so hard that her fingers went numb.
Books showered around them, paperbacks plunking to the ground, their titles reflecting the halogen lights in a strangely innocuous way. Shocked out of the present, Reesa blinked at one cover in particular.
Ender’s Game, it read, Orson Scott Card’s novel. Next to it was a copy of her third novel:
The Jupiter Invasion, a Tale of the Lothogy. Its copper lettering taunted her from the floor just before Tattoo stepped back into view.
Tattoo’s perfect mouth twisted into a scowl. “I tried to avoid this.”
Author Bio:
A.J. (Aimee Jean) Maguire is a mountain-climbing, martial arts loving, published author with one child and one cat and a borderline unhealthy fixation with the written word.
Currently she has five books out for sale. The first two books are Sedition and Saboteur, which are a part of a series and were published through Wings ePress. Witch-Born and it’s sequel Dead Magic are published by
Double Dragon Publishing. Her very first science fiction, Deviation, hit virtual shelves in August 2014.
***GIVEAWAY***
To win a copy of A J Maguire's book, all you have to do is just leave a comment and your e-mail address.
Contest ends on Sunday and everyone who comments is eligible.
(We reserve the right to waive the prize in any week when there are not enough contestants for a draw to be deemed fair and unbiased)