Overload Flux

by Carol Van Natta

  Beva reached out and patted Seshulla’s hand on the table. “Seshulla, mon bon ami, you’re two sheets to the wind. Are you sure you want to be telling us all this?”

  Seshulla laughed, but it sounded hollow to her ears. “I’d feel worse if I didn’t. You’re the closest thing I have to friends, and if that isn’t a telling commentary on my life, I don’t know what is.”

  She knew only Beva wasn’t astounded to be considered a friend. Luka, of the generous heart and insatiable curiosity, took it in stride. Adams was visibly startled. She hadn’t spent much time with him directly, but she admired how he’d come into his own after surviving the pharma case, settling in with his family, and helping Beva exceed the return on investment for the Personal Security Division. Unless she missed her guess, his daughter would be joining the “people with secrets” category. Seshulla still didn’t have a handle on what Morganthur was thinking, and maybe never would, but believed they had more in common than either of them might imagine.

  “Why…” asked Luka. “Oh, I see. Another part of the Ayorinn forecast came out.”

  There, thought Seshulla, was the brilliant investigator that Leo Balkovsky had sold her on, making those uncanny intuitive leaps.

  She tried to smile encouragingly at him, but the weight of what was in the newly unfolded piece of Ayorinn’s Legacy made it hard. The gathering storm clouds were dark and deadly. “Yes.”

  She was grateful he didn’t think to ask about how she came by the cryptogon to decode them, or he might guess more than was safe.

  “My talent doesn’t usually work well for individuals, but for groups, yes. Change is inevitable for us all. Some factions have been trying to prevent it or control it. When they’re cornered, they’ll be dangerous. You could try burying yourselves on some frontier planet to ride it out, but knowing who you all are, you won’t. You can’t.”

  The alcohol was making her maudlin. It was also making her shaky, because it interfered with her carefully tuned wake-sleep cycle. She’d crater soon, and pay for it for the next few days until she got back on schedule. But rare cognac and rare company were worth it.

  A single chime went off, then the very old, lovingly tended bell clock rang out thirteen perfectly pitched and timed notes in succession. A tone poem meditation on time slipping away.

  When the last bell’s harmonics finally faded, she raised her glass to her friends.

  “To a prosperous new year.”

  Beva, Luka, and Jerzi raised their glasses and touched rims. Morganthur watched them all with a slightly bemused expression, as if she’d never seen the ritual before. Seshulla occasionally wondered if the woman had been raised by wolves. She was slightly envious. It would have been much better than being raised in the rigidly proper, obscenely rich, and oppressively stultifying environment of her own youth. It was a good thing her family thought she was long dead.

  “La Plata did well this year, thanks in no small part to each of you.”

  Beva laughed. “It doesn’t hurt to have a forecaster at the helm, either.” She turned to the others. “Seshulla won’t tell you, but she saved this company seven years ago, and the board made her president.”

  “For my sins,” said Seshulla, with a self-deprecating smile.

  Everyone smiled at her humor, and relaxed a little.

  Luka turned to Jerzi. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Now that Dhorya and Pico have been here six months, are they missing her family?”

  Jerzi shook his head. “Not for a minute, but the family is sure missing Dhorya. Or rather, they’re missing her free accountant services, and the chance to meddle. She’s happier than I’ve ever seen her. Pico, too. If I’d known how bad things were…” He shrugged, guilt seeping into his expression.

  “Don’t kick yourself, cher,” said Beva. “They’re here now, and that’s what counts.”

  Luka nodded. “You can’t change the past, only the future.” He glanced at Morganthur in silent communication.

  “Speaking of the future,” said Beva, “our oldest kids are planning a huge party for our thirtieth wedding anniversary next month. It’s supposed to be a secret, so I hope you’ll let them think it still is when they invite you. Jen and I are practicing looking surprised.” She demonstrated, melodramatically gasping and clutching at imaginary pearls. Everyone laughed.

  The conversation meandered a bit, and Seshulla let it breeze around her like a drift of butterflies until Luka mentioned that he and Mairwen were looking for a new place to live. One near running trails and that had a flitter pad, since their cases often took them out of town.

  Mairwen, whose chair had somehow ended up close to Luka’s, slid her hand into his and threaded their fingers together. “He just doesn’t want to drive in Etonver ground traffic.”

  He laughed. “Guilty as charged.” He squeezed her fingers playfully. “It’s gotten worse. I didn’t think that was even possible.”

  Seshulla was relieved her little party had finally made Mairwen feel comfortable enough to engage, even if it was just with Luka. Beva was right. They were good for each other.

  Seshulla smiled. “I had an uncle once who hated traffic jams so much that he bought a mixed-use highrise and moved his business there so his commute choices would be the lifts or the stairs. Of course, it may have been because the province revoked his permit permanently for causing so many accidents. He hated traffic rules, too.”

  They laughed, as she’d intended, and the others recounted their own traffic horror stories. Everyone who lived in Etonver had them.

  She hoped it hadn’t been too much of a nudge. Luka had finally begun seriously looking for an assistant, based on the idea seed she’d planted months ago. She could have wished he’d started sooner, but he’d been distracted by falling in love. It was nice to see.

  Like most forecasters, she tended to be too obsessed by tomorrow to pay attention to today, and none of her relationships had survived that.

  She needed to be slow and careful when dangling threads at smart people like Luka, or they’d see them. When chess pieces became self-aware, they sometimes went their own direction. La Plata had been a good place for Luka to recover from whatever had hurt him so badly, but both he and Mairwen, wildcard that she was, needed to get away from the corporate environment to flourish.

  La Plata would perform well in the coming year, barring catastrophes. Beva and Jerzi would grow the Personal Security Division enough to keep the board happy, even when Luka and Mairwen moved on. She’d make sure it was an amicable split, to preserve present alliances. La Plata was a useful tool in furthering bloody Ayorinn’s legacy, but she selfishly wanted her friends to be safe from people or organizations that wanted to hurt them.

  She was fading fast under the influence of the cognac. She served everyone another round of their selected drinks, then brought out the bag she’d discreetly left behind her desk.

  She pulled out twelve ancient coins with round edges and square holes in the center. They had little left of their original engraving, so their value was more sentimental than intrinsic. She stacked them on the table in front of her.

  “In pre-flight days on old Earth, there was a tradition of making way for good luck by making resolutions for the coming year. I’m going to be rudely presumptuous and offer some for you.”

  She carefully slid one coin to Beva, Luka, Adams, and Morganthur, making eye contact with each.

  “First. Know who your friends are, and keep them close.”

  She slid another coin to each of them.

  “Second. Have more than one way out of the city and off the planet, and safe landing places for yourselves and anyone you care about.”

  Her hand twitched uncontrollably, causing her to splash a bit of cognac on the hand-polished wood. She took a deep breath, centering herself, willing the shaking to stop. When it did, she slid the last of her coins to her friends.

  “Third. Never, ever trust the fucking Citizen Protection Service.”

  She hadn’t meant that last
resolution to be so vehement or pointed, and it went against the unofficial forecaster motto of softly softly, catchee monkey, but she didn’t think she was telling them anything they didn’t already believe. It felt good to be direct for once.

  “And on that happy note,” said Beva with a teasing twinkle in her eye, “I offer a toast to good friends.”

  She raised her glass in invitation, and they all clinked their glasses and drank.

  Jerzi held up his stein. “To having places to go.”

  The glasses clinked again.

  Luka raised his glass and gave Seshulla a crooked, slightly knowing smile. “To a good future.”

  They clinked their glasses one last time.

  Luka set his glass down, then drew Mairwen close for a kiss and muttered something to her too quiet for the others to hear. She smiled softly at him, love shining in her eyes, before drawing back. Jerzi smiled, and Beva sighed.

  Love between two people, or friends, or for what was right, would help them all survive the coming conflagration.

  For the first time what seemed like forever, Seshulla felt hope.

  ###

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Thanks for reading Overload Flux, and I hope you enjoyed it. This is the first of the series, and more are out now and coming soon. The next novel, Minder Rising, starts a year after the events in Overload Flux, with new characters and challenges. To entice you, there’s an excerpt at the end of this book. Luka’s and Mairwen’s adventures continue in Zero Flux, a short novella about a very cold case. Characters from Overload Flux and Minder Rising will make appearances in the upcoming Book 3, Pico’s Crush.

  If you liked Overload Flux, please post a review at your favorite e-book seller. Even if it’s short and sweet, it really helps. For independent authors, reviews help get our books noticed and read by others.

  For news of upcoming releases, please sign up for my occasional newsletter at http://bit.ly/CVN-news. I promise not to send photos of my cats or vacations (unless it’s somewhere off-planet).

  I’d love to know what you think about the story, and what you’d like to see in the future books. You can visit my website and blog at the cleverly named Author.CarolVanNatta.com and comment or drop me a line, or connect with me on Facebook at CarolVanNattaAuthor.

  I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Karen in Iceland, who patiently helped make Luka’s Icelandic accurate and realistic, and to my friends and beta readers Judy, Jill, T3, Ann, John, and Roger, who kindly pointed out myriad ways to improve, well, everything. I am also grateful for the professional editing services provided by Shelley Holloway of Holloway House, and a brilliant cover by illustrator Stephen Bryant of SRB Productions.

  In case you want to know something about me... I share my home in Fort Collins, Colorado with a sometime mad scientist and various cats. Any violations of the laws of physics in my books are the fault of the cats, not the mad scientist.

  OTHER WORKS – Available from your favorite ebook retailer

  Overload Flux (Book 1) – standalone

  Minder Rising (Book 2) – standalone

  Zero Flux (Novella 2.5) – sequel to Overload Flux

  Pico's Crush (Book 3) – coming Winter 2015

  If you’d like to read something completely different, look for Hooray for Holopticon, a retro science-fiction comedy, co-written with Ann Harbour. Trust me, it’s nothing like Overload Flux or Minder Rising, but it’s a fine, silly romp. Hooray for Holopticon is available in e-book and print.

  BONUS: Read on for an excerpt from Minder Rising, the second in the Central Galactic Concordance series.

  EXCERPT FROM MINDER RISING

  * * * * *

  DESCRIPTION

  A millennium into the future, all children are tested for minder talents, and the best are recruited for the Citizen Protection Service.

  Agent Lièrén Sòng is recovering from a near-fatal crash. He should want nothing more than to get back to interrogating criminals for his covert CPS field unit, but being sidelined gains new appeal when he makes friends with a woman and her son. Imara Sesay, road-crew chief and part-time bartender, breaks her ironclad rule never to get close to customers when she asks Lièrén to teach her son how to control his burgeoning minder talents.

  Unexpected deaths in his field unit make Lièrén suspect he isn’t a lucky survivor, he’s a loose end. He should pull away from Imara and Derrit to keep them safe, but when the local CPS Testing Center is entirely too interested in Derrit’s talents, Lièrén must make an impossible choice. Can he avoid whoever is trying to kill him long enough to save Imara and her prodigy son?

  * * * * *

  * Planet: Concordance Prime * GDAT 3238.203 *

  Minder Corps Field Agent Lièrén Sòng stared at his no-kick fizzy drink but didn’t see it. He had shrunk his world to as small as he could make it, but even from six meters away, he could feel the big bald man sitting at the bar broadcasting a prickly synaptic haze of barely contained violence as he stared at the dark-skinned woman behind the bar, as if trying to hypnotize her. Lièrén might have let it go, might have followed protocol to stay out of it, but he couldn’t. He counted the bartender as a friend, even if she didn’t know it.

  The bar had cleared out early that night. Only a half-dozen patrons occupied the booths and nursed their drinks, chems, and solitude. The piped-in music, a lilting jig in ancient British folk tradition, now jangled in his head like a wind chime warning of an approaching storm. It made him want to put his hands over his ears, but it wouldn’t shut off his sifter talent.

  It was yet another problem piled onto a truly lousy day. He’d awakened from his prescribed afternoon nap with a jolt, another dream of falling. Unsurprising, since only six weeks ago, he’d actually fallen several thousand meters out of a high-low flitter that was breaking apart and on its way to a fiery crash and burn.

  After three weeks of trauma care and reconstructive surgery, he checked into a long-term residence hotel for the duration of his continued rehabilitation, which included being treated by another sifter for his post-traumatic experience therapy. His recovery had been slowed due to withdrawal symptoms from his Citizen Protection Service-mandated program of enhancement drugs, which he couldn’t take while his new cloned liver integrated with his body. Beyond the headache, dry mouth, and sweat flashes, his primary minder talent felt thick and muddy. It didn’t help that he’d run out of the temporary replacement enhancement drugs they’d prescribed for him. He hadn’t noticed until he’d gotten back to his hotel room that day, which wasn’t like him. He was forgetful, but usually well organized.

  He wanted his ordinary, balanced life back, where he mostly stayed in ships and space stations, and where the weather was controlled and it didn’t rain whenever it felt like it. There were too many empty drawers to fill in the hotel room, a silent reminder that his few personal possessions had been destroyed along with the flitter. His replacement clothes, even though autotailored to his exact measurements and range of motion, felt too new.

  He shouldn’t be feeling sorry for himself, because at least he’d lived through it. His senior field unit partner and friend, Fiyon Machimata, hadn’t been so lucky.

  If Fiyon had been with him now, he’d have insisted on going someplace more upscale. The Quark and Quasar, which was a part of the residence hotel, was designed as a family-style pub and was much more congenial than the hotel’s restaurant, which had marginal food and surly service. The pub had two- and four-person booths and an eclectic mix of round tables of varying heights, suitable for adults and children alike. The decorator had lined the walls with mysterious metal pieces purporting to come from preflight Earth sailing ships and farm equipment, but Lièrén suspected they were copies of random machine parts that caught the designer’s eye. Behind the bar’s simulated wooden façade, the prep area and the dispensary were modern, if not exotic or extensive.

  When he’d first visited the bar after moving into his hotel suite, he wasn’t sure he liked the music, which was billed a
s “preflight British traditional,” even though whoever selected it had a rather elastic definition of the style. It had grown on him in subsequent visits, to the point that he looked forward to the live musician scheduled to perform the next week. It was… odd to be able to plan things like that. Usually his job kept him constantly traveling.

  The lowlight of his already zhào chū day had been being stuck in the metro station while the city figured out how to reroute the skytrams because of an accident. A ground hauler had crashed into the pillars of the passenger platform, killing at least thirty people outright and flooding the area trauma centers with the injured. If he hadn’t stopped to help an older couple with toppled packages and wayward grandchildren, he might have been back in the trauma center again himself, and back to waking hallucinations of falling. He was glad he didn’t have to go anywhere near the gruesome ground levels where the victims had landed.

  After the nightmare had terminated his too-short nap, Lièrén had been too irritable, thirsty, and unsettled to stay in his hotel room another minute, so he’d gone to the bar. It had been surprisingly crowded for an early weeknight, and he’d retreated to a back corner booth to get away from the pressure of the unknowingly broadcasting patrons. He was only a low-level telepath, so their actual thoughts didn’t bother him, but his high-level sifter talent meant he couldn’t avoid feeling the ebb and flow of them. Without the CPS enhancement drugs helping him control his talent, the active minds around him felt like constant raindrops on a sunburn.

  The usually boisterous server, Rayle Leviso, who chatted with and teased everyone, had thankfully left him alone that evening. Once the bar emptied, Rayle had slid out early, too, leaving only Bartender Sesay… Imara, she’d invited him to call her, to deal with the few remaining customers. She was cheerfully competent and wasn’t given to idle chatter, and it didn’t hurt that she was easy on the eyes. Even her outgoing son, Derrit, was thankfully quiet tonight.