‘I thought they didn’t need you?’ Amanda said without thinking.
Ichi nodded. ‘I was done, Amanda. I thought I’d failed. Again. You helped me see I have more to give; that, given the chance, I could be what they want me to be.’
‘A coding collective from the turn of the century,’ smirked Amanda.
‘Funny,’ said Ichi and she actually smiled.
Amanda embraced her again. ‘I wish you the best. You’ll be around when I need you, right?’
Ichi nodded and stepped to her side, taking her arm in the crook of her own. Amanda was grateful she wouldn’t face the world alone.
‘What about you, Tangle?’ asked Amanda.
He couldn’t meet her gaze. ‘You can’t rely on me, Dandy. But I’ll stay until this is all done. I could hardly let you keep Tatsu to yourself.’
‘Please don’t disappear completely. Send me something to know you’re not dead this time.’
He smiled without commitment. Amanda felt a flash of anger at him, but didn’t have time to say anything because Haber and Stornetta put their hands on his shoulders.
‘You’ll let him be,’ she said to them.
‘Sure,’ said Haber.
She had nothing to say to them. Ichi was a stranger she wanted to know; they were strangers she would never really understand.
‘I gave them some of the Russian’s currency,’ said Tatsu in her ear.
Stornetta pulled Tangle ever so gently away from Amanda, and with a slight dip of his head they were done. She suspected she’d never see them again.
‘Arrivals through there?’ she asked their escort, and he nodded, looking as if he was about to puke.
Amanda walked over, stopping just short of the sensors that would open them automatically.
What if it doesn’t work? she wondered. What if people are what Crisp believes? She imagined them charging at her, booing and shouting her down. Were there journalists out there waiting for her?
What if they agree, but the government decides to ignore them? She’d seen it dozens of times before, remembered being proud the government had the balls to ignore its public when they were plainly wrong about what was in their best interests.
She couldn’t take the last step, could feel Ichi by her side looking up at her.
‘I…’
‘It’s okay, Amanda,’ said Ichi.
‘The world is ready for you,’ said Tatsu in her ear.
Amanda patted Ichi’s hand.
‘I’m ready,’ she said, and they stepped into Arrivals.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Trained as a physicist, philosopher and economist in a nearish galaxy quite a long time ago, Stewart Hotston now works in high finance fiddling around with weapons of financial destruction. When he’s not doing that, he’s probably writing or hitting people with medieval European swords. His writing spans genres including sci‑fi, horror, fantasy and just plain weird with more than a dozen short stories published and two novels.
The Great Spa sits on the edge of London, a structure visible from space. The power of Britain on the world stage rests in its monopoly on “The Treatment,” a medical procedure which transforms the richest and most powerful into a state of permanent physical youth. The Great Spa is the place where the newly young immortals go to revitalise their aged souls.
In this most secure of facilities, a murder of one of the guests threatens to destabilise the new order, and DCI Oates of the Metropolitan police is called in to investigate. In a single day, Oates must unravel the secrets behind the Treatment and the long-ago disappearance of its creator, passing through a London riven with disorder and corruption.
As a night of widespread rioting takes hold of the city, he moves towards a climax which could lead to the destruction of the Great Spa, his own ruin, and the loss of everything he holds most dear.
‘Stourton can really write... his next move will certainly be worth watching’
Independent on Sunday on The Night Climbers
‘An amazingly accomplished debut... the writing is elegant, the story decadent’
The Observer on The Night Climbers
‘Stourton is a storyteller with perfect poise’
The Spectator on The Book Lover’s Tale
www.solarisbooks.com
DESIGNED.
MANUFACTURED.
EXPENDABLE...
The Overseers may call it Hell, but for Leila and the other clones, the mining base on asteroid Mizushima-00109 is the only home they’ve ever known. But then Leila’s sister Lily is murdered, and the Overseers seem less interested in solving the crime than in making their mining quota and returning to Earth.
Leila decides to find the murderer, just like the heroes of her old detective novels would. But Hell is a place of terrible secrets, and courage and determination—and a love of mysteries—may not be enough to keep Leila from ending up like her sister.
www.abaddonbooks.com
Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories was one of the first true children's books in the English language, a timeless classic that continues to delight readers to this day. Beautiful, evocative and playful, the stories of How the Whale Got His Throat or How the First Letter Was Written paint a world of magic and wonder.
It's also deeply rooted in British colonialism. Kipling saw the Empire as a benign, civilising force, in a way that's troubling to modern readers. Not So Stories attempts to redress the balance, bringing together new and established writers of colour from around the world to take the Just So Stories back, to interrogate, challenge and celebrate their legacy.
Including stories by Adiwijaya Iskandar, Joseph E. Cole, Raymond Gates, Stewart Hotston, Zina Hutton, Georgina Kamsika, Cassandra Khaw, Paul Krueger, Tauriq Moosa, Jeannette Ng, Ali Nouraei, Wayne Santos and Zedeck Siew, illustrations by Woodrow Phoenix and an introduction by Nikesh Shukla.
www.abaddonbooks.com
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