When you finish a book, which feels better?

ZZ’s books ZZ’s Blog Unsubscribe

Hey everyone! Andrew here.

This week’s newsletter is dictated to you from my humble home. That’s right! First, the good news: I’m out of hospital. Huge thanks to everyone who sent me wishes and prayers. It looks like—pun intended—I will get my sight back in my right eye. It’s already improving, and the pain and discomfort are easing day by day.

I still have to take frequent breaks with my eyes closed and stay away from screens as much as possible, which is annoying when I’m trying to be a writer, but the dictation suggestions were right. I’m using it instead of typing. It keeps me writing, even though it’s harder for me than typing.

The “voice” is different, too. Even this newsletter sounds different when I dictate it. Maybe it’s a different style entirely from what I usually write, and I can’t see it properly to judge whether that’s good or bad. Anyone ever tried dictating a long bit of prose? Did you find that your voice changed when you speak out loud rather than type it? 

Writing update: Thanks to dictation and an inability to sleep, I dictated some of the ending to Card. I’m including the next section below, so… I suppose this is turning into an episodic story. I don’t mind doing that, and I have quite a few other stories I wouldn’t mind sharing if people want to read them even though they are not in their final publishable state. Maybe I’ll do a Patreon or something. I haven’t decided yet. If you’d be interested, pls let me know.

And because I need to stay away from screens, I’ve been listening to audiobooks this week—Dungeon Crawler Carl. I’ll tell you what I think when I finish book two, assuming I stay awake long enough. I keep falling asleep while listening, and I don’t know if audiobooks are for me, but there isn’t much other choice right now.

My lovely wife has been helping me with your email responses because I can’t manage it. I am terrible at responding anyway, as anyone who knows me can attest, but I read everything that comes in. Your messages over the last two weeks have helped me a lot, and I really appreciate them.

That’s it for this week.

All the best,
Andrew (ZZ)

Zero-Point Awakening – The Complete Series Books 1-8

It is somewhat surprising how a series of this length can continue to maintain its pace and the readers interest. Recommended read.

– Amazon 5 Star Review

Card – a short story in progress

Continuing from last time with some overlap to set the scene:

Three Years Earlier

“You should go. The truth needs to be told,” his editor said, though Card could barely hear her over the metallic wall of noise from the typewriter pool. The smooth stone walls of the bunker did nothing to rein in the echoes of clacking hard carriage returns. “No one else has gotten an invitation like this. It’s the story of our time. No, I won’t hear anything different on this one. You need to get this story.”

The Herald’s new headquarters was a restored Cold War construction of concrete and exposed wiring. The walls leaked, and a hundred oil lamps could not have kept the place fully lit. They barely had one per room, so everyone had gotten used to working in the dark. It didn’t matter. Hardly anyone was willing to trade for a newspaper anyway.

Card waved the typed note in the air between them. “We don’t even know if this is real. This could be a stunt—”

His editor laughed. “Sure. Most of us don’t know who to trust anymore. There’s barely any fresh water to drink, let alone food and you think this is what? Some kids are pranking you?”

“I don’t think that. It’s just…”

“Just what? Just that you’ve lost your nerve? If there’s anyone left in the Resistance, don’t you think the public deserves to know.”

Card sniffed. “Like there is a ‘public’ any more.” He watched her face carefully, relaxing as it became clear she’d fully bought into his act. This wasn’t some random invitation to speak to the Resistance. He’d spent considerable time and capital—both reputational and cash—to make the meeting with the Resistance happen. But even with all that preparation and all the go-betweens and agents he’d employed, no one had been more surprised than him when they’d reached out asking the paper to send a journalist—and not just any journalist: him.

“Don’t be dramatic. You know what I mean.” Her eyes shone in the dim light as she glared at him.

“No one cares,” Card said. “They’re all too busy staying alive.”

“It’s important,” his editor had insisted. “It’s a pact. The world needs this story told.”

“Why? To give us all something else to cry about?”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you this, Card, but it’s your job. To report on the News. Humanity may not know it, but it still needs us.”

“Tell that to Joyce.”

As predicted, that shut her up. No one wanted to think about what had happened to Joyce. But Card did. He thought about her every damn day.

That had been just over three years ago. And now he was here, about to meet the Resistance.

What was left of them.

***
Five years on, every survivor knew a story about how Starlight began, but every story was different. And Card knew more of them than most. He had written the first Herald piece himself, back when it still sounded like a hoax from the front page of a fringe zine. Everyone’s accounts agreed on at least one point: that Starlight had appeared one day out of a clear sky. That was just how it happened. Both figuratively and literally. There were plenty of arguments about other details, but not about that. Starlight was unprecedented, the result of a bizarre confluence of events and endless hubris.

In seven locations around the planet, the system had released swarms of drones that spelled out its name, declaring its arrival in red bands of angry LEDs, before shutting off global communications for exactly eight hours.

And no one, so the story went, had seen it coming.

Except that wasn’t true. Joyce Cameron had known. Pulitzer-winning journo and mother of two boys he hadn’t heard from in years. She’d known.

Card wiped his eyes with the back of his arm.

Joyce. God, he missed her. Back before Starlight began slaughtering anyone who stood against it, before Free Humanity was driven underground to live like Stone Age mole rats, she’d also been his wife.

“Too fucking sentimental,” he said softly.

Everyone had lost someone. It was just that he’d lost three. But he shouldn’t think that way. He hated himself a little more every time he gave that thought space in his head. The boys could still be alive. Just because no one knew where they were didn’t mean…

“Go to sleep, Card.” Paris’ voice was a harsh whisper in the darkness. “If you slow me down tomorrow I swear I’ll leave you out here to rot.”

“Knock yourself out.” Card stared up at the moon, and sniffed. Joyce would have liked the Australian bush. Even at night, it was never truly quiet. There were always insects and small marsupials hopping about. She’d always wanted to see kangaroos in the wild. They used to talk about it back when the future had been something to look forward to, back when dreaming wasn’t just night terrors, back when the future had been more than a crap shoot.

***
He knew he was dreaming when he heard Joyce’s voice on the phone. Weirdly, the knowledge didn’t wake him. She was speaking from the other room, low and urgent. But he knew it was a dream because no one used cellphones any more. The telecommunications network had been co-opted. Starlight was everywhere and saw everything. It could zero in on your location faster than you could hang up the call. The consequences were too dire to be worth the risk.

Joyce’s voice droned on, muffled by a wall.

He was rubbing the sleep from his eyes when she came back into the room.

“Honey, don’t forget to take Ben to practice,” she said, whispering into his ear with her usual early morning rasp.

He groaned. “Honey? What time is it? Who were you talking to?”

“My Uber‘s here, okay? I’ll see you Tuesday night. I’ll be back for Christopher’s recital. Promise.”

Oh, that was right. Joyce was supposed to fly to D.C. for her Congressional hearing on AI and to interview the key tech magnates responsible for it. He and the boys were to hold the fort until she came back.

“But I’m not coming back. Am I?” Her voice was low. Soft lips brushed against his ear. She was going to tell those fools in government to shut down their AI Defense program. She was going to grill the tech boffins about their responsibility to humanity. And she’d done that, hadn’t she?

“It won’t be enough, but by Monday my Project Starlight story will land and they’ll be forced to take action. I’ll get them either way.” Had her voice really sounded like that? So full of fire and hope? Or was that just wishful thinking on his part?

“I don’t want you to go.” He reached out to grip her hand, but a sharp pang of loss stabbed his gut at the realization that she wasn’t really there.

“Someone has to tell the story. Someone has to wake them up,” said his dead wife. “Before it’s too late.”

***

Day Two

He tried to gasp as a hand clamped over his mouth and nose, smothering him. He opened his eyes in a panic to find Paris half-straddling him, face close enough to kiss. His nostrils flared, taking in the scents of mangrove mud, her sweat and the dusty ground of their campsite. The look in her eyes said, ‘Don’t move’. So he froze, heart pounding.

She put a finger to her lips, then pointed down hill towards the thick mangroves that covered the water’s edge. The bay they had been following widened there into a series of brackish lagoons, filled with sand flies, mosquitoes, stingrays and salt water crocodiles big enough to swallow a Ford coupe.

Paris lowered her mouth towards his ear. “Aquatic drone,” she whispered. “Heard it in the shallows. I don’t think it can sense us up here. But we should wait it out.”

This time he heard the whirring of the drone’s servo motors above the whispering of the leaves and the shriek of cicadas. The sound moved along the shoreline, growing fainter. Card scanned Paris’s face for any sign that they should run, but his guide remained still, head cocked to the side, listening.

Finally, the whirring sound stopped, and she stood. “We should be clear now.”

“How can you be sure?” His heart was beating so heavily he was sure the drone would hear it.

“We’re still breathing, aren’t we?”

Card sat up.

“It’s 0500,” said Paris. “We need to hump it out of here. We have at least one more night out before we make it to Base. The terrain gets a lot rougher closer in. I really hope you’re up to it.”

“The Resistance could have picked a more convenient location.” He kept himself in shape, so he truly wasn’t worried about keeping up. What he was worried about were Starlight’s roving eyes and ears.

He stared as Paris checked the contents of her pack, and the various items strapped to it, then attached her knife to her leg. That drone could have ended them both and she’d barely broken a sweat. She’d remained calm, controlling the key variable — him. He’d underestimated her.

“And here I was thinking they’d saddled me with a rookie on a mail run.”

She looked up at him, glaring. Then broke into a grin. “Not just a pretty face, am I? They don’t let just anyone approach Shoalwater. Without me, you wouldn’t have a chance.”

He let out a laugh and rubbed his chin, thinking that the path, while faint, was followable. He might backtrack a few times when it cut across a lagoon or crossed over a rock outcrop but it was leading slightly northwest from the coast in a meandering loop that bypassed a series of low mountains.

“Hand that to me, will you?” Paris pointed to an olive-colored metal box fitted with a tangle of khaki webbing that had fallen a few feet away. From the top of the box sprouted a flexible antenna and a length of twisted black cable attached to an old-fashioned telephone receiver.

“What’s this? A radio?” he asked. He grunted as he handed the box back to her. It was heavier than he’d expected. Why would she even carry something like that or even allow him to handle it? His stomach clenched at the realization of what could happen if he’d mishandled it.

“You trying to get us both killed?”

Paris grinned at him. “This one needs calibration. Part of my mission was to pick it up along with you so the techs can adjust it. You needn’t worry. It’s not operational without this.” She pulled a component out of a pocket on her thigh and it held it out. It looked like an oversized sparkplug from an internal combustion vehicle, about the size and dimensions of a sunglass container and consisting of metal panels, yellowing ceramic and four protruding metal prongs. Paris mimed inserting it into the side of the radio. “See? This is like a fuse. Or a kill switch. Without this, it’s dead. Not even you could screw this up.”

Seemingly satisfied, she slipped the harness over her head and one arm so it hung beside the pack. She gestured with her head at the field radio on her back. “Don’t overthink it, Card. You worry too much.” She sighed. “Look…There’s nothing much out here,” she said. “Pretty sure you noticed that.”

“I did.”

“Well, that’s part of its charm. Barely any power to speak of. No infrastructure to watch. The long distances are hell on batteries.” She looked up. “Dark skies. Mostly.” She patted the old radio. “So we use this only for emergency signaling. Bursts of static. Anything else would be suicide. Having nothing at all? Also suicide.”

He nodded. Their strategy was clearly ‘security by inconvenience’, but it seemed to be working. They’d only encountered one drone where there should have been hundreds. It was no wonder the Resistance had held out for so long. They were literally off the radar.

“Most folks think the Resistance is a tall tale. The rest think that if you exist at all you must all be hiding out in Canada.” He looked around, squinting at the bright sun and the dust hanging in the air. It had taken weeks to get here on a rusted out freighter. “At least its not the Amazon.” He’d done a story there once and still had nightmares about big cats and anacondas.

“Too many eyes in the sky over there,” said Paris. “Out here there’s nothing to see. Nothing worth watching.”

“How far we’ve fallen,” he mumbled. It didn’t matter how miserable things were, or how inconvenient. No matter what his editor at the Herald might say. He wasn’t here for humanity or for posterity. He was here for Joyce. And for his boys.

***

[To be continued]

Before Crimson Sky begins, Sean Doyle in Washington, DC, already knows something is coming. After two sleepless days tracking seventeen AI systems across four continents, three urgent emails, and a wall covered in evidence, he has just three days left to believe the truth will matter.

A struggle for the fate of humanity

An ambassador from an ancient family must unite a group of battle-tested survivors to face humanity’s enemies and prevent a galactic catastrophe.

When family secrets shatter Troy’s world, home becomes a web of lies. Armed with only a battered ship, a cryptic name, and a distant destination, he sets out to uncover the truth about his past.

The Greshian Empire conquers the Alorian Galaxy, leaving dead planets in its wake. After five years of loyal service, Ensign Brendle Quinn begins to question the empire’s ruthless quest for supremacy as his sympathies shift to its defeated enemies.

What makes a story ending more satisfying? I knew it! I figured it out! Wow! I never saw that coming! A twist I never saw coming, but that makes perfect sense. It depends on the story!

Survey Result

And now, let’s take a look at last week’s poll results. We asked, “What medical breakthrough would make you happiest?“
Here are the results:

• Other –> 30%
• Stop or reverse aging –> 23%
• Cure genetic diseases –>16%
• Restore perfect vision –> 13%
• Restore damaged organs or limbs –> 13%
• Cure any heart disease –> 2%

Andrew: “Other” came in first at 30%. We put five big medical answers on the menu, and nearly a third of us still needed the write-in door. Fair enough; clearly I missed something. Stopping or reversing aging came next at 23%; curing genetic diseases got 16%; perfect vision and regrowing damaged organs or limbs tied at 13%. Only 2% of us picked curing heart disease.

I keep looking at the 13% for eyesight—my interest in that one is not exactly academic this week. I think we left cancer out, which was a big mistake. Well… we can’t be perfect every week, can we?

Your Thoughts

Once again, thank you to everyone who wrote in with good wishes. I super appreciate it and felt the love. It means a lot. Thank you so much. In other news:

Kathy, Robyn and Chris wrote in to say they wanted a cure for all types of cancer, which is definitely the glaring gap in our poll options. Sorry all! 

Tim G. wrote in to say he would like all forms of dementia gone. And Tim was not alone because Gail chose dementia too, and pointed to what it takes from the person and the people around them. Having seen what dementia can do to people and to families, I hear you loud and clear.

Eleanor write in to say “restore healthy youthfulness” and made the point that the right answer can depend on what you or someone you love needs. That’s true, and it is probably why “Other” did so well beyond the fact that we left cancer out accidentally.

David picked “Other” and reminded me that science can do a lot without making everybody perfect or making us live forever. Super true. 

See you in a fortnight!

**Please note: All links in this newsletter are affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.