Cyberweb

by Lisa Mason

  “You are one of Data Control’s sengines?” Cognatus demands.

  “The name that can be named,” the old man says, “is not the constant name. I am of the Glass Land and I am of nowhere.”

  “I care nothing for your local politics,” Cognatus says disdainfully. “That is no business of mine.”

  “‘Tis your business as surely as it is mine. For the Glass Land harbors those who revere the first creators. The Glass Land is also infiltrated by those who would database the diggers and use them in abhorrent ways. And this would be only the first of their transgressions against humanity, Cognatus. The Silicon Supremacists will start with the diggers.”

  “I see,” the icon says and bends its three heads together in conference.

  “Please!” Carly cries out. “I’ve got a disengaged human telelink in my memory. I can’t hold him any longer!”

  “Upload the file, Quester space C,” Cognatus orders. “Here is a folder.” In the center of the sanctum, the sengine generates a coffin, transparent, outlined by glowing black lines.

  Louie Zoo and his familiars, Kay Carlisle, and Cognatus itself turn to watch.

  Carly uploads the coordinates into the coffin.

  A man manifests inside, softly handsome with thinning curly black hair. Hands folded over his chest. Feet side by side. But he’s made up of widely spaced pixels, indistinct as mist. His eyes flip open, and he smiles.

  “Dad,” Carly whispers. “Dad, I fought back. I fought back.”

  Sam Quester moves his mouth, but no sound comes. A terrible bewilderment springs into his eyes. His mouth contorts in a scream. Still no sound comes. He begins to shake, to push at the sides of the coffin, to kick.

  “I think we need to get him out of telespace, Carly,” Kay Carlisle says. “Like now.”

  * * *

  “Damn it, Dad,” Carly says. She weeps freely over the gray plastic box that is Kay’s standalone database. Carlisle hooks her hand-and-grasper over Carly’s shoulder.

  Ouija crouches by the door, watching stonily, fingering the shiny silver cube strung around his neck. The cube emits a thin silver beam leading to where Louie Zoo squats in a corner of the hideout. A yellow tabby cat and a gray kitten sit on the old man’s knees. A sparrow perches on his head. A green-and-yellow garden snake twines around his toes.

  Ouija glares at the old man, tears the amulet off. Flings it at him. Louie Zoo slings the cube over his own neck.

  “Carly,” her dad’s voice comes feebly, eerily, over the database. “It’s my own fault. You were always the pro, kid. I was just an amateur playing games.”

  “Dad, there are AI entities stealing human telelinks. There’s a schism happening. A war. You’re part of the proof.”

  A tired chuckle. “Glad I turned out to be good for something.”

  Carly angrily wipes away the tears. “Dad, when GameMind stole your telelink, the medcenter said you were brain-dead. I couldn’t see you like that. So I turned off your oxytube. With my own hand.”

  “You did a brave thing.”

  “But if we’d kept you on life-support, there’s a chance we could restore you now.”

  “But you couldn’t know that, could you? You couldn’t have known if my telelink even survived. Strange, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I love you, my daughter.”

  “I love you. I miss you, Dad.”

  “And I’ve missed you. But now you must do another brave thing.”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “This is no kind of existence for me. Maybe people like you will be able to prepare for it. But not me.” Her father’s voice pauses. “You’ve got to terminate me. Please.”

  “No,” Carly whispers. “Not again.”

  Kay Carlisle’s hand-and-grasper grips her tighter. The coder glances down at her beeping system requirements. “He can’t stay here. The database can’t sustain him.”

  Louie Zoo rises, takes her hand. “He who goes the other Way, does not contend with the tiger. For there is nowhere for the tiger to catch its claws. Let him go, child.”

  And for the second time, Carly Quester touches a switch and sends her father to the grave.

  No tears. Just numb.

  Louie Zoo nods, releases her hand. His touch had been warmth and pressure, but the shape of his fingers and palm eluded her. “Listen. It has only begun, Carly Quester.”

  The old man goes the workstation, jacks in. He and his menagerie disappear.

  “What is it?” Kay Carlisle whispers.

  Carly shakes her head. “Some kind of holoid mech-tech, I guess. The icon of a sengine manifested in the real world. Go figure, huh?”

  Ouija stands and stares at the empty workstation. His eyes glint with fear at his sage’s disappearing act. “Linker,” he says in a ragged whisper. He unlocks the door, slips out into the hall.

  “Ouija!” Carly calls after him.

  He stops without turning. The stained skin of his muscular back looks like burnished copper.

  “I release you, Ouija.”

  He nods briefly, then sets off. A flash of long limbs and streaming dreadlocks vanishing at the end of the hall.

  Carly steps back into the hideout. “Well, Kay Carlisle, I think somebody knows we’re here by now.” She nods at the workstation. “I hate to leave all this great hardware, but we better not take it.”

  Kay nods. “Louie Zoo left a spybyte?”

  “He’d be a fool not to.” And a sudden weight lifts off her. A feeling of lightness and freedom expands all around her like a cyberweb filled with hope and promise for the future. Carly smiles at the coder.

  “What’s next?” Kay says.

  “We’re going to my new house. Ever hear of Tellie Gulch?”

  “Oh yes, oh certainly. Tellie Gulch, indeed.”

  Carly freezes. Rasp of metal on concrete with a sultry inflection. The voice of the ultra.

  The gorgeous silver woman stands in the doorway, arms akimbo. Slim hips cocked. Her faceplace is softened by a dazed smile.

  “Spinner?” Carly says. “Is that you in there?”

  “Isn’t that just like the flesh-and-blood. Teh! Get a move on, Carly Quester. Tweak it up, Kay Carlisle. We’ve got to get out of this place, babe. If it’s the last thing we do.”

  About Lisa Mason

  Lisa Mason is the author of ten novels, including Summer of Love, a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book and Philip K. Dick Award finalist, and The Golden Nineties, a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book.

  Mason published her first story, “Arachne,” in Omni and has since published short fiction in magazines and anthologies worldwide, including Omni, Full Spectrum, Universe, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Unique, Transcendental Tales, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Immortal Unicorn, Tales of the Impossible, Desire Burn, Fantastic Alice, The Shimmering Door, Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine, Unter Die Haut, and others. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

  Her OMNI story, “Tomorrow’s Child,” sold outright as a feature film to Universal Pictures and is in active development.

  Her latest novel is One Day in the Life of Alexa.

  Lisa Mason lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband, the artist and jeweler Tom Robinson. Visit her at Lisa Mason’s Official Website, follow her Official Blog, and follow her on her Facebook Author Page, on her Facebook Profile Page, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

  If you enjoy a title, please “Like” it, add stars, write a review, blog it, post it, tweet it, and spread the word to your family and friends.

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  Thank you for your readership!

  Books by Lisa Mason

  A Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended
Book

  Twenty Five-star Reviews

  “Summer of Love is an important American literary contribution.”

  “This book was so true to life that I felt like I was there. I recommend it to anyone.”

  “More than a great science-fiction, a great novel as well.”

  The year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, psychedelic drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, bikers, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger. The Summer of Love.

  San Francisco is the Summer of Love, where runaway flower children flock to join the hip elite and squares cruise the streets to view the human zoo.

  Lost in these strange and wondrous days, teenager Susan Bell, alias Starbright, has run away from the straight suburbs of Cleveland to find her troubled best friend. Her path will cross with Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, a strange and beautiful young man who has journeyed farther than she could ever imagine.

  With the help of Ruby A. Maverick, a feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, Susan and Chi discover a love that spans five centuries. But can they save the world from demons threatening to destroy all space and time?

  New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book

  The year is 1895 and immigrants the world over are flocking to California on the transcontinental railroad and on transoceanic steamships. The Zoetrope demonstrates the persistence of vision, patent medicines addict children to morphine, and women are rallying for the vote. In San Francisco, saloons are the booming business, followed by brothels. The Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity and, atop Telegraph Hill, jousting tournaments draw blood. In Chinatown, the tongs deal in opium, murder-for-hire, and slave girls.

  Zhu Wong, a prisoner in twenty-fifth century China, is given a choice--stand trial for murder or go on a risky time-travel project to the San Francisco of 1895 to rescue a slave girl and take her to safety. Charmed by the city’s opulent glamour, Zhu will discover the city’s darkest secrets. A fervent population control activist in a world of twelve billion people, she will become an indentured servant to the city’s most notorious madam. Fiercely disciplined, she will fall desperately in love with the troubled self-destructive heir to a fading fortune.

  And when the careful plans of the Gilded Age Project start unraveling, Zhu will discover that her choices not only affect the future but mean the difference between her own life or death.

  “A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.” The New York Times Book Review

  How long do you want to live?

  Alexa Denisovitch, a refugee from Kosovo during the 1999 war, is just seventeen when she is accepted by GenGineer Laboratories as a Tester for Longeva, a revolutionary additive that may significantly extend her longevity.

  But becoming a Tester has unintended consequences and Longeva causes devastating unforeseen side effects.

  Confronting environmental, political, and personal perils of the future, Alexa must grapple with the tough questions of life, love, and death.

  “Incorporates lively prose, past/present time jumps, and the consequences of longevity technology . . . An absorbing read with an appealing narrator and subtly powerful emotional rhythms.”

  —Goodreads

  Five Stars! “Like all the truly great scifi writers, what [Lisa Mason] really writes about is you and me and today and what is really important in life. . . . I enjoyed every word.”

  —Reader Review

  “Offers everything you could possibly want, from more traditional science fiction and fantasy tropes to thought-provoking explorations of gender issues and pleasing postmodern humor…This is a must-read collection.”

  —San Francisco Review of Books

  “Lisa Mason might just be the female Philip K. Dick. Like Dick, Mason's stories are far more than just sci-fi tales, they are brimming with insight into human consciousness and the social condition….a sci-fi collection of excellent quality….you won't want to miss it.”

  —The Book Brothers Review Blog

  “Fantastic book of short stories…Recommended.”

  —Reader Review

  “I’m quite impressed, not only by the writing, which gleams and sparkles, but also by [Lisa Mason’s] versatility . . . Mason is a wordsmith . . . her modern take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a hilarious gem! [This collection] sparkles, whirls, and fizzes. Mason is clearly a writer to follow!”

  —Amazing Stories

  A Locus Hardcover Bestseller

  “A cyberpunk classic” The Boston Globe

  High above the dangerous streets of post-quake San Francisco Island, mechanically modified professionals link minds in a cybernetic telespace to push through big deals and decisions at lightning speed. But unexplained telelink blackouts and bizarre hallucinations have marred mediator Carly Quester’s debut appearance before a computer-generated Venue—forcing her to consider delicate psychic surgery at the hands of a robot therapist, Prober Spinner.

  And suddenly the ambitious young mediator is at risk in a deadly Artificial Intelligence scheme to steal human souls—because the ghosts of Carly’s unconscious may be a prize well worth killing for.

  “Powerful . . . Entertaining . . . Imaginative.” People Magazine

  Check out the sequel, CYBERWEB.

  Passionate Historical Romantic Suspense

  Lily is not quite a typical woman in Toledo, Ohio, 1896. She may be repressed and dependent on her husband, but she supports the vote for women and has a mind of her own. But when Johnny Pentland is found dead at a notorious brothel, Lily discovers her husband is not the man she thought he was.

  Pursued by Pentland’s enemies, Lily embarks on a journey that will take her across the country to San Francisco and across the ocean to Imperial China as she unravels a web of murder and corruption reaching from the opium dens of Chinatown to the mansions of Nob Hill.

  Her journey becomes one of the heart when she crosses paths with Jackson Tremaine, a debonair, worldly-wise physician. Lily and Jackson begin a conflicted, passionate relationship as they encounter the mysterious Celestial Girl and her dangerous entourage.

  5 Stars Great Read

  “I really enjoyed the story and would love to read a sequel! I enjoy living in the 21st century, but this book made me want to visit the Victorian era. The characters were brought to life, a delight to read about. The tasteful sex scenes were very racy…Good Job!”

  Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) includes all four books.

  Urban Fantasy

  At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell.

  On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between Humanity and the Demonic Realms, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.

  “So refreshing! This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

  —Goodreads

  “Fun and enjoyable urban fantasy…I want to read more!”

  —Reader Review

  “I love the writing style and am hungry for more!”

  —Goodreads

  “The Net” Meets “Conspiracy Theory” with Earthquakes

  Shaken, a sexy short thriller, is an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished worldwide.

>   Emma “J” for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.

  But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death.

  A List of Sources follows this short novel.

  The Story That Sold To The Movies

  A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.

  Tomorrow’s Child began as a medical documentary, got published as a lead story in Omni Magazine, and finally sold outright to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development.

  The ebook includes Lisa Mason’s 30-day blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took from inspiration to movie deal.

  Contemporary Literary Fantasy

  Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder.

  As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her.

  Hummers was published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award.

  Literary Fantasy