“Are you positive?”
“Oh, yes.” She peered past him to the glade beyond the tree. “Do you suppose Akeso will mind if we build a cabin here?”
His eyes unfocused briefly. “It’s somewhat dubious about the usefulness of this oddity called ‘shelter,’ but it has no objections.”
“You don’t need to…?”
“Physically interact with Akeso to speak to it? No.” He touched his palm to his chest. “It’s in here now. Part of me.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“Absolutely. Are you?”
She chuckled and nuzzled his nose. “You were always such a nature boy, anyway. Of course I am.”
“Good. I suspect it will prove to be a far better companion than the diati.” He propped up on an elbow and pointed. “Over there, you think?”
“Sure. Or a bit more to the right, closer to the water?”
“Because you like the water. Hey, speaking of water, this isn’t the beach.”
“We’ll get there. Next week, maybe.”
“Whenever you want.” He reached over and wound his hand into her hair as his voice dropped to a deep, lilting tenor. “What do we do now?”
In this new world, where he was alive and so was she? He’d said it himself—anything was possible. Everything was possible. “We write the second story of our lives. Together.”
CODA
“What’s past is prologue”
— William Shakespeare
THE STORY OF AURORA HAS COME TO AN END,
BUT THE STORY OF AMARANTHE IS JUST BEGINNING
BOOK 1
EXIN EX MACHINA
COMING IN 2018
READ ON FOR THE BLURB AND AN EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT FROM EXIN EX MACHINA
***
When man and machine are one and the same, there are many crimes but only one sin: psyche-wipe. The secrets it has buried could lead to a civilization's salvation, or to its doom.
The Asterion Dominion is at peace with its neighbors and itself. Its citizens enjoy great freedoms and all the luxuries their biosynthetic minds can imagine, design and create. But beneath the idyllic veneer, something is going wrong. People are going wrong, driven to commit inexplicable crimes without motive or purpose. And once imprisoned for those crimes, they simply vanish.
Psyche-wiped and dumped in an alley 5 years ago, awakened into a culture where ancestral memories stretch back for millennia, Nika Tescarav's past is a blank canvas. But if whoever erased her did so in the hope of silencing her, they should have tried harder.
Someone must speak for the lost.
Someone must uncover how and why they became lost.
Someone must find the lost.
Nika is that someone.
ASTERION NOIR
700,000 years ago, the Asterions fled persecution for their pro-synthetic beliefs. In the safe harbor of a distant galaxy, they have evolved into a true biosynthetic race and built a thriving society upon the pillars of personal autonomy, mutual respect and boundless innovation.
Now that society is fracturing at the seams. Beneath lies built upon lies, the shocking truth as to why threatens the future of not merely the Asterions, but all life in the universe.
Cyberpunk and space opera collide in a thrilling new trilogy from the author of the epic Aurora Rhapsody space opera saga. Enter a world of technological wonders, exotic alien life, enthralling characters, captivating worlds—and a terrifying evil lurking in the void that will shatter it all.
***
EXIN EX MACHINA
GENERATION: KYR
INPUT DESIRED DESIGNATION: __
Raindrops splattered on the pebbled surface beneath her cheek. One, two, three-four-five they splashed, bounced and rebounded into her face.
GENERATION: KYR
INPUT DESIRED DESIGNATION: __
The input cursor flashed across her vision, blurring and wobbling to mix with the rain. What did it want from her? Who she was?
No, that wasn’t quite right. The blinking cursor told her she was no one. Nothing. It asked who she intended to be.
Generation: kyr. Cardinal. First. New. Tabula rasa.
She splayed trembling fingers upon the surface beneath her—a street. She recognized its nature because, without thinking about it, she knew many things. Words. Names for objects. How those objects worked. History…but not her own. Behind the blinking cursor a universe of knowledge waited, prepackaged, catalogued and ready to serve her. Everything in the world except who she was. Had been. Could be.
Her eyes rose to focus on the visual plane stretching out from her, centimeters above the street. Shimmering lights in the darkness. Shadows of buildings swallowed by deeper, darker shadows. From here to the indistinct horizon, raindrops splattering plink-plink-plink.
Who began life sprawled face-first on a street in a rainstorm in the middle of the night?
The answer returned as null. Some before had led to her awakening in this situation now. Kyr was a lie, for this was not the beginning. Something had preceded kyr to bring her to this moment. But when she sought an answer in her mind, she found only emptiness. A blank slate. Tabula rasa.
GENERATION: KYR
INPUT DESIRED DESIGNATION: __
Desired? She desired the name that went with before. She desired data to fill the emptiness—
Murmured voices flowed into the gaps between the splatter of the raindrops, accompanied by harsh clack-clack-clacks. A shadow loomed over her, and the rain stopped. She looked up.
A woman with long ginger hair, bright blueberry eyes and a freckled nose crouched beside her. Above the woman a translucent leaf sheltered them both from the rain. “What’s wrong? Do you need help?”
She forced her throat to move, followed by her tongue, then her lips. “I….”
The woman glanced past her to something in the distance. “Joaquim, get over here!”
A new shadow dimmed the darkness further and brought with it a deeper, gravely voice. “She’s functioning?”
Did her sorry state qualify as functioning? A nod from the woman proclaimed it did.
“Can you sit up?” The deep voice drew closer until it overpowered the rhythm of the rain. “We’re going to scoot you back onto the sidewalk and against the alley wall, okay?”
The alley wall? Had her sordid awakening not even merited a proper avenue as its setting?
Strong hands grasped her shoulders and lifted. She belatedly tried to help, but it made scant difference. A second later a hard surface met her back, and she was sitting upright. Two visages hovered in front of her to study her in concern—one open and expressive, the other guarded and cautious.
She moved facial muscles that felt foreign, as if they’d been sloppily glued to the bones beneath them, into something like a smile. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” The woman continued to scrutinize her. “Are you hurt? Do you need repairs?”
Carefully she shook her head, relieved when it didn’t tumble off its perch. “No, I’m not damaged. I’m ky—”
“Kyr. Yeah, we figured that part out.” The man’s mouth rose on one side as if amused, yet the rest of his expression insisted it didn’t do amusement. “Bit of a rough transition, eh?”
“A rough transition is forgetting where you’re supposed to sleep for the first few days. Something went wrong for her.” The woman flashed her an apologetic smile buoyant enough to bring color and brio to the washed-out world. “Sorry. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Do you want to come with us? We can offer you a roof, a shower and something to eat, if not much else.”
The faint traces of levity vanished from the man’s face. “I don’t—”
“Shush, Jo. She’s in no condition to be a threat to us.” The woman’s warm, comforting smile returned. “Please, come with us.”
She nodded mutely. Notions such as showers and food sounded luxurious beyond imagination, not to mention mere dryness. All this blank slate had known of life thus far was the hypnotic but terribly wet splatt
er of rain.
“Let’s get you up. It’s not far.” The man took one of her arms, and she climbed to her feet mostly under her own power. Sloppily glued into place or not, it seemed her muscles recognized their function. It was a start.
The woman touched her shoulder in approval, or perhaps to provide a steadying hand. “I’m Perrin. This is Joaquim. What are you going to call yourself? Do you know?”
Know? What did she know? She knew emptiness. A void where there should be data. Wherever her eyes looked, the cursor followed with its incessant wobbly blurred blinking. Taunting her, judging her. Who are you? Who do you intend to be?
GENERATION: KYR
INPUT DESIRED DESIGNATION: __
Her lips moved of their own accord, acting at the behest of something beyond her conscious perception.
“Nika. You can call me Nika.”
***
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APPENDIX
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Wow. What an incredible journey this has been: nine novels, seven short stories and over 1.1 million words to tell the story of Aurora Rhapsody. Thank you all so much for joining me on this journey and for making every moment of it more enjoyable. Thank you for investing your hard-earned money in these books so that I could invest all my time in writing them. There’s no way to properly thank you for that support, but I’ll keep trying, anyway.
As one chapter closes, of course another one opens. In the grand scheme, this is but the beginning. To hear more about Asterion Noir and Amaranthe’s future, subscribe to my newsletter.
If you’ve loved Aurora Rhapsody—and if you’ve come this far, I truly hope you have—tell someone about it. Leave a review, share your thoughts on social media, ask your library to get more copies, annoy your coworkers in the break room by talking about your favorite characters and worlds from the books. There is no single act that will sell a book better than word-of-mouth. My part of this deal is to write books worth talking about—your part of the deal is to do the talking. So long as you all keep doing your bit, I get to write a lot more books for you.
Of course, I can’t write them overnight. While you’re waiting for the next book, consider supporting other independent authors. Right now there are thousands of writers out there chasing the same dream you’ve enabled me to achieve. Take a small chance with a few dollars and a few hours of your time. In doing so, you may be changing those authors’ lives by giving visibility to people who until recently were shut out of publishing, but who have something they need to say. It’s a revolution, and it’s waiting on you.
Lastly, I love hearing from my readers. Just like I don’t have a publisher or an agent, I don’t have “fans.” I have readers who buy and read my books, and friends who do that then reach out to me through email or social media. The beauty of independent publishing is its simplicity: there’s the writer and the readers. Without any overhead, I can find out what I’m doing right and wrong directly from you, which is invaluable in making the next book better than this one. And the one after that. And the twenty after that.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
G. S. JENNSEN lives in Colorado with her husband and two dogs. Requiem is her ninth novel, all published by her imprint, Hypernova Publishing. She has become an internationally bestselling author since her first novel, Starshine, was published in March 2014. She has chosen to continue writing under an independent publishing model to ensure the integrity of the Aurora Rhapsody series and her ability to execute on the vision she’s had for it since its genesis.
While she has been a lawyer, a software engineer and an editor, she’s found the life of a full-time author preferable by several orders of magnitude.
When she isn’t writing, she’s gaming or working out or getting lost in the Colorado mountains that loom large outside the windows in her home. Or she’s dealing with a flooded basement, or standing in a line at Walmart reading the tabloid headlines and wondering who all of those people are. Or sitting on her back porch with a glass of wine, looking up at the stars, trying to figure out what could be up there.
Title Page
Aurora Rhapsody
Contents Reference
OVERTURE
Maps
Dramatis Personae
Aurora Rising/Renegades Synopses
AURORA RESONANT
Re/Genesis
Relativity
Rubicon
Requiem
CODA
Asterion Noir
APPENDIX
Author’s Note
About the Author
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
OVERTURE
View the Amaranthe and Aurora Maps Online
View the Dramatis and Alienorum Personae Online
ANADEN DYNASTIES
THE STORY SO FAR
AURORA RESONANT
RE/GENESIS
AMARANTHE
RELATIVITY
CONTENTS
PART I:
THE DZHVAR DESCENDED UPON THEM like the shadow of an eclipse.
AMARANTHE
1
2
3
4
5
6
PART II:
AURORA
7
8
AMARANTHE
9
10
11
12
AURORA
13
14
PART III:
AMARANTHE
15
16
17
18
AURORA
19
20
AMARANTHE
21
22
23
AURORA
24
25
AMARANTHE
26
PART IV:
AMARANTHE
27
AURORA
28
29
30
AMARANTHE
31
32
33
PART V:
AURORA
34
35
36
AMARANTHE
37
38
39
AURORA
40
41
PART VI:
AMARANTHE
42
43
44
45
AURORA
46
47
AMARANTHE
48
49
PART VII:
AURORA
50
51
AMARANTHE
52
53
54
55
56
57
AURORA
58
59
PART VIII:
AMARANTHE
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
RUBICON
CONTENTS
AMARANTHE
PART I:
1
2
3
4
5
PART II:
6
7
8
9
10
11
PART III:
12
13
&n
bsp; 14
15
16
17
18
PART IV:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
PART V:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
PART VI:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
PART VII:
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
PART VIII:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
REQUIEM
CONTENTS
AMARANTHE
PART I:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
PART II:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
PART III:
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
PART IV:
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
PART V:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
PART VI:
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
PART VII:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
CODA:
EARTH
CODA
“What’s past is prologue”
EXIN EX MACHINA
APPENDIX
AUTHOR'S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 116