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Blurb
At a time when civil liberties have been eroded and unemployment has exceeded Great Depression levels, nanotechnology provides the ability to reanimate the recently dead. Far from zombies, but nothing like their former selves, “Revivants” are a ready source of cheap labor able to perform simple, routine tasks. Great news for some sectors, but for many, the economic and social impact is devastating.
Enter Joe Warren—an unemployed college dropout, who is self-absorbed and disinterested in the world’s problems. All Joe wants is a job, food on his table, and a cure for his girlfriend’s lingering illness. What Joe gets is a stint in jail with a bunch of self-proclaimed freedom fighters, and coerced to become an informant by federal government agents.
Joe is forced to examine his me-first attitude, and in the process learns that some things just might be worth fighting—or dying—for.
Working Stiffs . . . available for pre-order now!
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Excerpt
The
three dead guys on the freight elevator had a personal odor reminiscent of
vomit with an undertone of road kill.
“You
freaks need to stand in the rain, you know that? Take a shower.”
My
formerly living companions swayed with the motion of the elevator but kept
their thoughts on hygiene to themselves. One of three, his name tag read
“Larry,” belched—an editorial comment or random gas bubble? Hard to say.
Sixty-seven
more floors of asphyxiation. Why their owner didn’t wash down his Revivants was
a mystery. They didn’t decay like regular dead people; if they did, body parts
would be strewn around the city like the remnants of a jihadi bomb factory.
Take shallow breaths.
I
adjusted my stolen waiter’s jacket to hide Grandpa’s old bullet-firing pistol.
The weapon made my pants sag. Since I quit eating anything more solid than
tomato soup prepared from ketchup packets, everything—including a sudden change
in barometric pressure—made my pants slide down.
Dampness
blotched the jacket’s red sleeve from the cold sweat off my forehead. C’mon, Joe, pull it together.
Two
of the Revvies rode in silence. Larry, the talker, vaguely resembled a classic
comedian from the early 2000s. The hell was his name? A funny guy, I’d caught
some of his stuff in all the old bootleg videos Grandpa made me watch.
Jay Leno.
Unlike
Jay, Larry knew only one joke.
The
dead comedian leered over my shoulder and, in a zombie voice, moaned,
“B-b-b-brainssss!”
“That
wasn’t funny the last six times you said it. You’re not a zombie.”
Larry
laughed, a sound like an old gas-powered car trying to start on a cold day. “Hhnh-hhnh-hhnh.” He wore a unisex
coverall, once brilliant red, now faded to Pepto Bismol pink. The nametag
curled, unstuck at one corner.
“Keep
your day job,” I grumbled.
The
elevator shuddered and clanked to a stop—the damned thing was older than
Grandpa Warren’s firearm—and the doors ground open. Larry, hit of the graveyard
comedy tour, stayed aboard and bared his gummy teeth in a grin. Since Revvies
didn’t eat, I refused to speculate on what might be stuck in his incisors.
The
two silent dead guys scuffed away in their worn shoes, heads canted to one side
in that odd zombie-walk favored by the revived. Larry stayed with me on the
empty elevator.
Me
and the Walking Dud.
“Hhnh-hhnh-hhnh. Braaaiinnnss.”
“Whoever
programmed your nanos for comedy needs to be punched in the throat.” I hit the
up button and focused on the groaning doors.
The
gun poked my testicles. Grimacing, I resettled it, finger most definitely off the trigger. The gun hadn’t been
fired since the second Ms. Clinton administration, but now was not the time to
test it. Wish I’d thought of that before I left Ding’s apartment.
Soon,
though.
Thirty
more floors.
I
tugged at the damp collar of my white dress shirt with its built-in bow tie.
“Hhnh-hhnh-hhnh.”
“Shut
up.” I stalked over and stabbed a finger in Larry’s chest. “Just shut up, okay?
Every time I look at one of you, you know what I see? I see failure, asshole.”
I poked the gaping Revivant again. “I never would have been put in this spot if
it wasn’t for you!” I shoved Larry, and he swayed in place but didn’t fall.
“Fuck it. Why am I even talkin’ to you?”
Larry
grinned, his keyboard teeth spackled with mortar. “Hhnh-hhnh-hhnh.”
“Yeah,
very funny. You don’t have to eat, don’t have to sleep . . .
just work all day long without even a piss-break. You make people sick with
your germs, give them fucking brain tumors . . . steal their
lives.” My mouth snapped shut.
And how stupid am I lecturing a corpse?
The
elevator shuddered to a stop, the P button flickering on the panel. The
penthouse.
Showtime.
I
adjusted the pistol and waited for the doors to part. They chunked open,
showing a dingy white service corridor. Another pink-suited Rev waited by the
doors, placid as a cow, carrying a black plastic trash bag in one immobile
hand.
“Tah-rash,”
it said.
The
newcomer handed Larry the bag as I stepped around them.
“Tah-rash,”
Larry repeated. He leered at me, churned out another creepy laugh. The doors
closed on his grinning pumpkin face, shutting Larry away. Gears clanked, a
spark flared, machinery whirred, and the elevator started down.
The
remaining undead janitor wasn’t as chatty as Larry. He rotated in an old-man
shuffle and tottered toward the door at the far end of the service corridor,
his coverall yellowing under third-rate LEDs lighting the corridor. Who used
LEDs anymore? Spared every expense, these guys.
Which is a good thing.
The
financial straits of modern America in the year 2051 should work in my favor.
For once.
Please.
Two
doors flanked the service corridor on either side. One bore the label Mantenimiento. The other read: Seguridad. Security. Spanish language
labels in Chinese-owned buildings. ¡Bienvenidos
a los Estados Unidos! Foreign spices seasoned the melting pot, sometimes
creating a tasty stew, sometimes a bellyache.
“Well,
let’s find out if this works.”
I
fished the preprinted finger cot—it resembled a short condom—from my waistcoat
pocket and slipped it over my thumb. Gingerly. Tearing it now would be bad. I
had lifted the molded fingerprint from a Revivant in Moline, the former
security chief of the Huateng Tower. Programmed to pick tomatoes, he kept
trying to get back to the field, becoming more anxious the longer I held him
down in the back of my van.
Which
sounded pretty freaking sick, right?
When
I let him go, he hustled off in jerky little steps, head cocked to the side,
like the actor in the latest V-Real remake of Rain Man III.
“Thanks,
Chief. I hope you’re enjoying the afterlife.” I placed my covered thumb against
the biometric and held my breath. “All right, guys. Did you reprogram the
locks, or were you having a sloppy day?” Buzzz-click.
“Yes, baby! Score one for cheap and lazy.”
I
palmed the door to the security room, one hand on the pistol in my waistband.
If they left a human guard to watch the cameras . . . “Nope. Too
cheap for that. Heh-heh.”
Monitors
glowed. Light flickered. Computers hummed. Air circulated.
Anti-climax
exhaled.
The
main display fluttered to life when I pressed my fake thumb against the reader
on the desk. Locking down the passenger elevators sucked up thirty seconds.
Deactivating and memory-wiping the surveillance nodes took only a few minutes.
The remaining building security devices went down one-by-one. Activating the
signal-damping field required a little more time, but everything seemed simple
enough. Tap-tap. Done.
Easy
as pie. My comp sci minor, aborted upon my departure from college, would serve
some use. At least I could find my way around a server.
“Time
to get a little payback,” I murmured, dragging the antique pistol from my
waistband. Joe Warren, gunslinger.
The
damned thing was heavy. Steel and
lead and grim death, all in a hand-sized package. Bright nickel finish, wood
handle adorned by a stylized S&W medallion. A revolver, grandpa said when
he showed me how it worked.
I
settled the revolver in my waistband and buttoned my jacket over it.
Showtime!
Author
Scott Bell holds a degree in Criminal Justice from North Texas State University, and has enjoyed careers in both asset protection as well as sales. With the kids grown and time on his hands, Scott turned back to his first love—writing. His short stories have been published in The Western Online, Cast of Wonders, and in the anthology, Desolation. Yeager's Law, published in 2015, was his first novel, with its sequel, Yeager's Mission, published in 2016. April's Fool was also published in 2016.
When he’s not writing, Scott is on the eternal quest to answer the question: What would John Wayne do?
