“What about security?” Kevin asked.
Lance’s face became grim. “I’m torn on that one, Kevin. On the one hand, we hide and hope we aren’t found. On the other, we put up enough that we get warned and we bolt straight up. From ground to space in a go. On the last hand…”
Stephanie interrupted, “Wait, isn’t that three hands?”
Lance looked at her while Kevin said, “General’s prerogative, they take as many hands as they need.”
Lance continued, “On the third hand, we can try to build up another fortress that we really can’t defend against should the country come against us. So, I’m thinking hide is better than outright defense. We will need another group to run that base.”
“Should be easier to get people now.” Kevin said.
“Maybe,” Lance agreed, “But not everyone knows the reason we are doing all of this at the moment. We are going to have a lot of people trying to get inside for their own reasons, spy, subterfuge, you name it.”
Kevin grunted, “Michael is not going to like this.”
“Yes, we are going to need another solution, or at least a better solution. At some point, those two are going to get into a tiff and they won’t want to talk for a little while.”
“Two headstrong people?” Stephanie asked.
“No, two people in love always have a tiff. It’s mandatory.” Lance replied.
“Sounds like wisdom speaking.” Stephanie agreed.
Kevin chuckled, “Sounds like recent personal experience.”
Lance agreed, “Yeah. It was ugly.”
“When do we start?” Kevin asked.
Lance looked at his watch, “I want you two to get together over lunch and think about all of the pieces that you need for a base. Put those pieces into container sized parcels and then let’s review. We will pull Jeffrey into that meeting. Don’t forget to get with Tom about communications and computers and stuff. He’s going to need some serious cooling in his area and air purification and creation is a big deal.”
Lance looked up to the two of them and grinned, “So, yesterday?”
The Dark Web
At seven minutes to midnight, in every time zone as the night rolled across the world certain hackers found their machines hacked.
If they had virtual machines, they were deleted.
If they had hidden server farms, they were trashed.
If they had emails to communicate back and forth, they were spammed.
The web was rife with noise, some of the chatter was reaching others who traveled the dark web, those who weren't into the despicable deeds of many who surfed the dangerous waters.
The muttering grew in intensity. Certain groups found out about a lone vigilante taking on the terrorists by himself.
A name was whispered ... then spoken about. Finally, it was held up, like a beacon, by those who wanted society to move forward. People who fought for what is right, even from behind a mask of anonymity.
The private messages were found out; the spammed emails were shared. Many who hated their darker cousins on the web were excited about someone new, a new lone ranger.
The message was the same, no matter the medium.
“I am watching you.
Where you go, I’ll find you.
Where you hide, I’ll seek you out.
Where you try to harm, I’ll fix it.
Where you live, I’ll find your address and release it.
MyNam3isADAM and you are my BITCH!”
Outside Denver, Colorado
Jonathan Silvers was drinking a whiskey, neat, in the small library in his ranch home in Colorado. The house had seven rooms, but often seemed empty to him. His wife had passed away and so he had focused his whole life on his son, Pete.
Almost to his death.
Trying to give his son everything, he almost failed to give him the one thing he needed the most in life. A chance to grow out of the stupidity of youth.
As the Pack leader here in Colorado, Jonathan hadn't worried too much about making sure Pete followed the Rules handed down by Michael so long ago. Unfortunately, Pete thought the rules could be ignored with the same immunity he held for most of his misdeeds due to his father’s name and stature.
Until he made an almost fatal display of his Wechselbalg nature to two females in an effort to impress them in a drunken stupor one night. Fast forward a week of hell and worry culminating with Jonathan taking the biggest chance with Pete’s life he had ever done.
He had trusted a Vampire with his only son.
A son that had left a spoiled brat and was coming back as more than a man. More than even the love of a father could possibly imagine. He had come back a leader, a protector, and the most rare of Wechselbalg - a Procilici.
Now, that same son was coming home. Coming here to the house he had left as a spoiled brat, a child in an adult’s body. Someone who had a death sentence hanging over his head and was too clueless about how the world worked to even know it.
A son who had been abandoned on the Tarmac of an airfield and left to suffer for the lack of discipline his father had failed to provide at home. A son who couldn't understand the love it took to watch his only child be slammed to the ground with a punch Jonathan could feel. A son who, for the first time in his life, was feeling the repercussions for his own actions without dad there to ‘make it all better’.
A son who needed the love of an adult that wasn't his only parent and the discipline of a man willing to see something in a boy and do what was necessary each and every day to force the boy to grow a little more, seek a little more, want a little more.
To find love, love in the form of respect. Love enough to stand toe-to-toe with a beast of a Werewolf and take excruciating pain because he refused to fail his queen, his people, and himself.
Jonathan thought about the story he had finally been told of Pete’s first time to transfer, the gift that same Vampire gave him. Gave him due to his own accomplishments and the trust in him that she had, having nothing to do with Jonathan himself. How Pete had stood and taken the Vampire coming over the rail in his grip and slammed him down on the ship’s deck before killing him and becoming the first Wechselbalg to kill a vampire in combat in hundreds of years.
Again, Pete fought in Turkey with his team, beside Nathan Lowell and Ecaterina, with Bethany Anne and Michael against hundreds of Nosferatu and held. He didn't run, he didn't waver.
Finally, to the night Jonathan came to grips with the fact that even the leader of all the packs in the Americas had to agree that Jonathan’s son was better able to protect him than Gerry himself. Jonathan smiled back on that memory and how he had been proud of the man his son had become.
Now, his son was coming for a visit, in the dark of the night so the chance his craft would be seen was minimal.
It was at this time the doorbell rang and the front door opened and a deeper voice, a man’s voice came from the front, “Dad?” The voice called out.
Jonathan quickly finished his drink and stood up and wiped the tear away. It was time Jonathan went and welcomed his son Peter home for the first time.
Emails to certain people across the world
This is a personal email for your eyes only. While I can’t, and won’t, stop you from sharing, sharing won’t help the Earth’s future.
We are doing this to protect the world from what is coming.
We are doing this to make a future for all.
We are doing this to stand our ground.
We are doing this apart from countries, from nationalities, from races, creed or color. Neither sex, nor preferences nor religion will stop us.
We speak as one voice, with one goal and one focus.
We Will Build to Protect.
We Will Build to Prepare.
We Will Build to Progress.
If you are interested, Share #WEWILLBUILD on a social account.
If you do, then continue to watch this account.
Because if you do?
Then We
Will Be in Contact.
Michael’s Notes (We Will Build - The Kurtherian Gambit 08): Written April 21st, 2016
Thank you, I cannot express my appreciation enough that not only did you pick up the EIGHTH book, but you read it all the way to the end and NOW, your reading this as well.
I’m writing this about 6 weeks and 3 days from the last release (Mar 7th).
Life is weird. I had expected to test something with my books so that I could try to have a little ‘break’ between book 07 and book 08, which was put out a short story. The goal was to do a little something specific to John Grimes (a fan favorite of both men and women fans) and to see if I could use a short story (and my fans) to market into a new area and pull some sales into the main story.
Further, it was to test the issue with falling off the ’30 day cliff’. Basically, Amazon will push your book for a little while and then it lets the book sink or swim. To ‘swim’ usually takes a fair amount of marketing effort.
Like, hours each day.
Hours I was thinking I could use for other things if…if maybe… I could keep releasing a book about every 3-4 weeks. So, one big story, then a short between them and then the big story again.
It mostly worked except for two challenges. The first challenge is myself. I have the patience of a gnat and so when I finished the short story, I didn’t wait to put it ‘out’ in 21-28 days. I released it about a week early against my stated plans.
Boy did I pay for that mistake, sort of.
Last week, the overall sales for my books went down on Wed / Thurs. So much that I started advertising again on FB (which I hadn’t been doing).
The second challenge was I offered to help some authors if they felt what I was doing would help them. I had been mentoring four (4) authors and thought that I would double that and be helping 8 authors. I offered this on Kboards Writers Café Forum.
Within 3 days we were at 50…then 70…Now the FB group is over 130. Some of these are other major authors who are available to reach out for advice and some are representatives from companies (KOBO, Draft2Digital) that have agreed to be ‘in’ the group so we can send them questions easily.
Thank God! This happened at the end of March while I went to Austin for an Author summit. I would have melted if Scott Paul (T S Paul), Diane Velasquez and Dorene Johnson hadn’t agreed to help shoulder the administration duties while we grow and help me as we move over to another forum to help everyone as much as we can.
Part of the downside of this whole situation is I ended up getting on the radar of some petty ‘authors’ or frankly trolls. I’ve had what are called drive-by-1-stars on my books and efforts to enhance the number of “this review was helpful to me” on the lower reviews to hurt me. Fortunately, I had over a 100 reviews by this time so the effort (while a pain) isn’t a death hit.
Does it hurt my sales? Probably a little (I’m totally guessing it might be 8-12% on the high side). But in the end that person or people will have to look in the mirror at themselves. The question will come up on how I know that the reviews are not legit? Well, when they are 1-starring book 5 and talking about how they are complaining to Amazon about something we talked about on an AUTHOR’s forum?
Yeah, that’s another ‘author’, not a reader.
One of the gripes is that I have a line between my paragraphs. Mind you, this is how I personally LIKE to read. I like paragraphs with a line between them. Does Amazon care? No.
So, screw them and the horse they rode in on.
So, I got caught up working with 100+ authors while needing to get this book out. This is in a forum, so a lot of authors are helping each other – not me helping all of the time. I’m about a week beyond where I would like to be, but without the incredible support of this books beta readers and production editor (see them up front, THEY are the reason this book is in your hands so quickly) I would still be two weeks away.
Thank God for them!
Further, I screwed up. Due to my poor handling of this stuff, dealing with personal support requests, and pushing on my writing, I failed to keep a good relationship with the Beta Readers and stumbled dealing with something that frankly wasn’t a big deal, but I succeeded in screwing it up anyway. Fortunately, they are wonderful people and ... well, they are wonderful people.
That is why THIS BOOK is dedicated to them.
So, now the question gets begged (because, I’m willing to beg)… What am I doing as an Authoring Outlaw this time?
I’m adding a good amount of author’s you can reaad to the back of my book. Why? Because I can. These are cool people and some of them are incredible writers. Some, maybe not. I did NOT limit who I would help. I told them that my fans were chatting about what to read when they finished with my latest. I told an author group my fans were incredibly cool people and would like to engage with authors and would they like to get a chance to introduce themselves?
Knowing that a lot of authors are introverts (I call it rejection adverse), I told them to just plug their information into my forum, and I would email my fans AND I would plug them all in my book.
Why? Because you, me and these authors are all people making a new engagement reality for readers and authors. Together.
I’m doing my dead level best to figure out what readers want / like / need and delivering it. At the same time, I want to help those who deep in their soul want to make a living at writing a chance to do it.
They can’t make a living if no one is willing to give them a chance, a hand up and believe it or not every one of you reading this has allowed me the opportunity to give them that hand.
Why? Because this book is going to sell 2,000 copies in the next two to three weeks.
That’s a number that is going to help more than one of these authors see something really, really cool. Their sales take a pop up… Maybe a lot for some of them.
A couple of these authors are already big sellers and realize that sharing is caring. Some will get ten sales and lay their head on the desk and smile to themselves with a tear coming out.
Trust me, it works exactly this way.
I did it, hell, I STILL do it.
Let me explain.
This is my 9th book (8 full books, 1 short story). I’m about to start biting my nails in a few hours when I hit ‘publish’. Then I’m going to fret and worry and agonize that this book SUCKS. That the cover wasn’t right, that… well, you get the picture.
Then sometime in a few days or so, I’ll see some happy reviews and peek above the desk and go, “maybe that one was ok, they seemed to like it…”. Only to bite my nails again in 5 weeks or so as I push out the next book.
I’m excited about this story. This is the first book of the new arc. It is, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of the next 7 and I like how it is shaping up.
Now, we have ‘more’. More people, more activity, more bad-guys and more problems. Because, without problems, we don’t have a story.
For those who are asking me ‘will my favorite character die’. If you don’t know if they are living in the future? They can die. Unfortunately, these seven books get more dangerous… And then the final seven are … well… really tough.
Hold on to your hats during this arc.
Want to visit Maxwell’s in Sydney? It is a real coffeehouse. The owner (Pip) is a real person and she is a FAN I asked her permission to use her café as a scene location and she not only gave me her permission, she helped with the book and is a HOOT to listen to. If you have a minute, check out her FB page and “Like” It.
Let’s get Maxwells fans from AROUND THE WORLD.
She deserves it. She is a spunky woman who would fit right in Bethany Anne’s group. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/www.maxwellscafe.com.au/?fref=ts
As of right now, she has 82 Fans on the page. What say we up that a few hundred? Would you do that with me? Then, in her comments occasionally make a mention that you love her allowingw Samuel and Richard in her place? (By the way, no one killed there dur
ing the making of this book).
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