Leah had two missions under her belt now, and she could barely wait for number three. It was exhausting as any five of the eighteen hells, but this Genrenaut gig was working out pretty well.
* * *
Marjana, the youngest nurse, stood watch at the nurse’s station. Even slumped by long hours, she was nearly as tall as Roman. Today’s choice of hijabs was orange and blue, accenting her blue scrubs. She nodded as Roman approached. “How was the mission?”
“We came, we saw, we exploded things. Mallery was missed. How’s she doing?”
“Recovering and restless. She’s pushing to get back on the rotation immediately. Maybe you can convince her to take some time.”
Roman lifted a thumb toward her room. “She up?”
“Go ahead.”
Mallery’s room already showed her personality. Roman had brought over books and her trophies from her time Off-Broadway. Roman traveled light, but there wasn’t anywhere Mallery went where she didn’t leave a mark.
In a room with floodlights, Mallery would still be the brightest thing. She was everything his home world wasn’t—kind, funny, and refined. Even clad in a hospital gown, arm in a cast, and her bottle-blonde hair mussed with a serious case of bed-head, she was still poised.
“Hey there,” she said. “How was the mission? Pull up a chair and tell me all about it.”
He retold the story of their mission, filled in what he knew of Shirin and Leah’s parts, and didn’t spare the details about the lengths he’d gone to, how deep he’d tapped into his nature to get the job done. How he felt more alive on-mission.
Mallery reached across the bed for his hand. He offered it, and she squeezed it, reassuring him. He still fiddled and fidgeted as she talked. “You know what you’re doing, and you trusted King to look after you when I wasn’t there to do it myself. I think the RPG thing was a bit much, and that probably would have blown up in somebody’s faces if anybody else tried to do it. But it didn’t, and you pulled it out. If we’re going to get through this story system or whatever the Council calls it, we’ll need to stick together, and we’ll need you to be every bit of your badass self.”
They talked for another half-hour, mostly Mallery updating him on the minutia of HQ during the days they’d been gone. Even in a hospital bed, she still got all the gossip.
But still, Roman couldn’t still his mind. He’d been living in condition yellow as long as he could remember. He could jog and read and listen all at once, and all that did was distract him.
But something was better than nothing. Far better. Nothing would let the memories come flooding through.
“Em?” His voice was shaking, his defenses down.
“Yeah.”
“Tell me a story?”
Her carriage shifted immediately. This wasn’t the first time, far from it. She squeezed his hand again, then let go and retrieved her eReader.
Roman closed his eyes, grabbed the sound of her voice and held tight, a life preserver in the choppy tides of his unease. He’d hold on, for her, for himself, for the team. He wasn’t made for this world, but he’d learned to love it, even if he’d never quite feel at home.
END EPISODE TWO
Next time on Genrenauts . . .
Wounded Genrenaut Mallery York returns to active duty just in time for the team to be deployed to the Rom-Com region of the Romance world. There, everyone is beautiful, office workers can afford palatial midtown apartments, and hearts are won and broken on every corner.
But before they can fix the broken love story, they have to find it.
Mallery takes the lead, bringing her expertise to bear and leading Leah to wonder whether there’s a space for her on the team now that Mallery is back.
The team scours dating sites, cocktail bars, and jogging paths looking for the right pair of lovers to reconnect before time runs out and the ripples from the story breach lay waste to romance back on Earth.
All of this and more in:
Genrenauts Episode 3:The Cupid Reconciliation
Acknowledgments
My parents took me to see Star Wars: Return of the Jedi before the age of one, and while I don’t pretend to remember that experience, it’s illustrative of the role that science fiction stories have played in my life. Some of my most substantive introduction to science fiction and to ethics came through watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. Babylon 5 rocked my world in college, and showed me the depth and breadth of storytelling that could be done in a serial format. The rebooted Battlestar Galactica showed me what twenty-first-century science fiction could do in terms of commenting on current affairs.
These shows and the fiction that inspired them—Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Arthur C. Clarke, Samuel R. Delany, William Gibson, Ursula K. LeGuin, Frank Herbert, James Tiptree Jr. (and many more) helped me create the interpretive lenses I use to see the world, to imagine possible future alternatives to our social and political realities. I am deeply indebted to these creators, who laid down the path upon which I walk in my own work.
Other direct influences on this episode include Firefly, Last Action Hero, Breaking In, The Strange RPG, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
My eternal thanks to Beth Cato and K8 Walton, beta readers extraordinaire.
Badges of honor and gratitude for Marie Brennan, Delilah S. Dawson, and Matt Wallace for their support in providing early endorsements for the series.
Meg White remains the most thoughtful reader for characterization that I’ve ever known, and I’m honored to have her insights.
I lift a sci-fi cocktail of appreciation to Sara Megibow for shepherding the series along, and toast with an Ahura-3 Ale for my editor, Lee Harris.
Big props to my copyeditor, Amanda Hong. I salute your grammarian powers.
Many thanks to Mordicai Knode, Katharine Duckett, and the rest of the Tor.com Publishing team for their support in promotion, art, and more.
About the Author
Photo © Brandie Roberts
Michael R. Underwood has circumnavigated the globe, danced the tango with legends, and knows why Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. He also rolls a mean d20.
He is the author of the Ree Reyes urban fantasies, fantasy superhero novel Shield and Crocus, supernatural thriller The Younger Gods, and Genrenauts, a science fiction series in novellas. By day, he’s the North American Sales and Marketing Manager for Angry Robot Books.
Mike lives in Baltimore with his wife and their ever-growing library. In his rapidly vanishing free time, he makes pizzas from scratch and reads comics by the pound. He is a cohost on the Hugo-nominated Skiffy and Fanty Show.
Also by Michael R. Underwood
The Genrenauts Series
The Shootout Solution
The Ree Reyes Series
Geekomancy
Celebromancy
Attack the Geek
HexomancyThe Younger Gods
Shield and Crocus
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
One: Saving the World with PowerPoint
Two: Not Remotely in Kansas Anymore
Three: On the Job
Four: Hands-On Information-Gathering
Five: Friends in Low (Gravity) Places
Six: Rescue Op
Seven: Graveyard Pit Stop
Eight: Hide and Go Zap!
Nine: Knock Knock
Epilogue: Let’s Try That Alliance
Thing Again
Next time on Genrenauts . . .
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Michael R. Underwood
Newsletter Sign-up
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organization, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE ABSCONDED AMBASSADOR
Copyright © 2016 by Michael R. Underwood
Cover art by Digital Vision Vectors/Getty Images
Edited by Lee Harris
All rights reserved.
A Tor.com Book
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-1-4668-9195-1 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-7653-8790-5 (trade paperback)
First Edition: February 2016
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The Absconded Ambassador Page 10