Sneak-Peek: Hot Restart (Patreon)

Hi all!

HOT RESTART is my current work-in-progress, a space opera novel that fits neatly in theme and major elements between Poor Man's Fight and Good Intentions. It's a "boy meets robot" story of explosions and polyamory in space. It's funny, it's got lots of sexytimes, it's in space and there's lots of action... and it has taken a lot longer to write than I ever expected. But hey, that's writing for you.

It's been too long since I posted anything to the spoilerific/sneak-peek tier. Sorry about that. Hot Restart has been tougher on this tier than I expected, because everything seemed like a little too much of a spoiler. It's also been tough because this book has changed so much since I first got rolling on it: changes to plot and direction, changes to characters, changes of one major character's whole species... hell, I even changed the title along the way. (It was Hard Restart when I started.)

And now that I write all that, it hits me that this is in keeping with a main theme of the book, but that's also cheesy as hell to fixate on.  :)

The good news is that the rough draft is finally DONE! Emphasis on "rough," of course. I have to go through and revise and align all those changes to the draft, and then go through again for quality control, etc. Still, it feels like the hardest part is done. (Actually, it literally is done, because the hardest part of any book is the back cover text and I had to get that done to get the cover art rolling... which I have!)

I don't have a release date yet. But again, the biggest part of the job is finished!

If you're new to the Patreon and/or you're only on the spoilerific tier, you may be lacking context on this sneak-peek. Alternately, you may be a longtime supporter but it's been a while since you read any of this stuff. The first three chapters are already posted to the Patreon here, so I'll give links to each to make life easy for anyone who wants to go back and read them:

Story Post: Hard Restart, Chapter One | Elliott Kay on Patreon

Story Post: Hard Restart, Chapter 2 | Elliott Kay on Patreon

(No Longer) Hard Restart: Chapter Three! | Elliott Kay on Patreon

As for this post, taking place after those three chapters...

For a while, I thought I'd experiment a bit on this book and pass on the usual "villain's POV" scenes. I wasn't sure it was necessary. Admittedly, I didn't even have a full vision for my main antagonist. All I knew was that he was a corporate executive (in space, of course) who had overreached by a few light-years for his own personal gain. I didn't have this role "cast" in my head, until it suddenly hit me:

Arrogant. Self-interested. Runs mostly on force of personality and his ability to manipulate people stuck in subordinate roles, but when you really drill down on him, he's just kind of an ass... and then I caught myself watching Community and the bad guy was right there.

I'm not saying he's literally a character from Community. "Any resemblance is purely coincidental," as the saying always goes. He's wildly different in many ways (like without all the semi-redemptive plot arcs).

But the inspiration struck, and then I definitely had to name him Jeff.

Broad white walls and bright overhead lights surrounded the secure lab below Jeff’s office. The octagon of desks and work benches at the center lacked any dividers, allowing Jeff to look over his most vital subordinates without obstruction. The same light and open design carried over into the currently unused spaces all around the edges of the lab. Tanks, storage bins, and equipment sat idle for now. Only the core set of nerds mattered, along with the open stasis unit on the table at the center of the octagon.

Three of them hovered around the desk of a fourth. Derek never wore anything he couldn’t sleep in. Marco dressed for success like the fashion programs told him, but couldn’t back it up with charm or confidence. Shinzo looked up at Jeff’s arrival as if he’d been busted looking at porn. At their center sat Ron, with curly, greasy black hair and a face in need of a shave, staring at a monitor screen of computer code.

Like the rest of the team, their science and tech skills couldn’t be overstated—not that he told them often. Better to keep them hoping for his approval than to actually give it. Besides, the right kind of pressure kept them focused. It also reminded them who was in charge. Jeff recruited carefully for this project. He needed the right people, and the right people needed the right boss.

The other developers shied back from his arrival at Ron’s desk, which suited Jeff just fine. Better to talk to one tech than all four. Ron was the oldest and the best communicator—not that the bar rose high with this crowd. “What have we got?” Jeff asked.

“Hey. So. The stasis pod worked as designed,” Ron began. He tapped a key to switch the stream of code into a different stream of code. “There’s not a lot of records, because—”

“Ron, I need you to cut to the chase, buddy,” said Jeff. “We built everything to restrict information in case of capture. I get it. Bottom line?”

Ron restrained a sigh, which marked an improvement from his more openly passive-aggressive sighs of the past. At least he was learning and remembering his boundaries. “The unit entered the pod and went into standby as intended. We don’thave a download of memory or other status info. It should be in there, encrypted and secured, but it’s not. Everything is deleted and overwritten with garbage code. That’s a safety feature in case of capture, but none of the other safety features were tripped. Everything else is a simple binary, on or off. There’s no control for reactivation on the inside of the pod, either. We wanted it that way.”

“Okay. Bottom line?” Jeff prompted patiently.

“Somebody opened the pod from the outside, which reactivated the unit. Then the unit blanked out everything in the pod’s memory upon reactivation.” Ron tapped through a few screens. “We’ve got a timestamp based on power draw and circuitry settings.”

The numbers curled Jeff’s lip into an angry sneer. “They opened the pod,” he seethed. “They opened the fucking pod as soon as they fucking found it. She’s been active this long?”

“More or less, yeah. That’s the bottom line,” said Ron.

“Bottom—is that a crack?” Jeff snapped.

“Sorry, Jeff. I’m a little out of sorts right now. I’m not usually close to gunfire at work.”

“Oh, for—you think that’s my fault? You want to blame me for that? You think I wanted that to happen?” Jeff glanced to the others, all watching in timid silence. Even Ron looked away as soon as Jeff broke eye contact, but the push had been made. Jeff didn’t need that right now.

“Look, it got dicey and I’m sorry for that, but you didn’t get shot. Frank and his guys took care of you, right? You’re here now. You handled it. You’re tough.” Jeff slapped Ron’s shoulder. “You knew this project would have its moments. We’re on the bleeding edge here. All of us. We’ve built something amazing. Something revolutionary.”

“You took it home to be your girlfriend,” said Marco.

Wavering or not, Marco got the challenge out of his mouth loud enough to be heard. Jeff should have expected something from Ron after a gunfight, but Marco shocked him. He recovered faster than Marco’s nerve built up for more. “She was programmed for that. You programmed her for that, Marco. We had to test out her social skills and her chameleon abilities. You think I wanted a sex-bot? I could walk out of here and buy ten of them if that’s all I wanted. I don’t have trouble getting the real thing, Marco.”

Reddened cheeks and an uncomfortable look away assured Jeff the message and the hit both struck home. Jeff waited for another timid glance and held the glare until Marco looked away again. It didn’t take long.

“Yeah, I had her pose as my girlfriend. We needed field testing under live conditions. We needed the unpredictable element, and we needed it done by someone who could still control the situation. Let’s face it, I’m the one with the kind of social life we needed to test. That was me. That was my part. We’re in this together, guys. And we all go down together if this gets out, too. All of us. So we’ve got to stick together and get through this together.”

He saw no more budding challenges, but he still saw discontent. He’d have to settle them down. Added difficulty deserved added incentives, he supposed. “Maybe some hazard pay needs to get added to the bonuses this year, huh? Shared risks, shared rewards.” Jeff clapped Ron on the shoulder again. “Keep working. We’ll figure this out.”

Jeff stalked back to the stairs to his office, where Frank waited and watched. Ron stared at his computer screen. Marco’s eyes dropped low while he looked inward. Derek turned in place, scratching his head. The office door closed behind Jeff and Frank.

“Is it weird that he calls it ‘she?’” asked Shinzo. “Or is it weirder that calling it ‘she’ doesn’t make any difference in how he uses it?”