Death Wave, Now in Paperback

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Tony Frazier

[imageeffect type=”lightbox” align=”alignright” width=”198″ height=”300″ alt=”Death Wave, available now” url=”https://www.herogohome.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/DeathWave3FinalSmall.jpg” ]This is something I’m really excited about, and I’m hoping that some of that excitement might rub off on you. Death Wave is now available in paperback.

So what’s Death Wave?

Here’s the short pitch…

In Depression-era New York, down-on-his-luck handyman Forty Dollar is hired by his friend, mobster Jerry Gold, to build him a deathray. It should be a simple job. But when Forty gets a little too close to Gold’s wife, Rebecca, the stage is set for a wave of adultery, betrayal, revenge, and death.

And here’s the story behind the story…

There’s this publishing company called Hard Case Crime that publishes “hard-boiled crime fiction.” Their books are short and sharp, a mix of reprints by old masters like Donald Westlake and Lawrence Block and James M. Cain along with new books, like Christa Faust’s marvelous Money Shot, all under gorgeously lurid covers that are a throwback to the 50’s and 60’s.

So a couple of years ago, while I was unemployed, I decided to write a new book, NaNoWriMo-style. And I decided to write a book specifically for submission to Hard Case Crime, something quick and dark and deadly–a tale of adultery, betrayal and revenge, completely the opposite of something like Hero Go Home.

Of course, with me as the author, the book could not be entirely humorless. The opening chapters, especially, carry a lot of humor, because I wanted the book to descend from light into dark. But as the book made that descent, the writing process turned miserable, and when I was done, I was sure I had written a chaotic mess. I let a writer friend of mine read it, and he surprised me by saying he thought it was one of the best things I had ever written. And when I finally got up the nerve to read it myself a couple of weeks later, I was surprised to find myself agreeing with him.

I submitted the book to Hard Case and got back the nicest rejection I have ever received from Charles Ardai, who called the early chapters “charming and a lot of fun.” Unfortunately, Hard Case was cutting back its release schedule to 3-4 books a year and my book was not a good enough fit for their line. And it was too short to have much chance to be published anywhere else.

So I took a deep breath and put it out as an ebook. And now, I’m releasing it again as a paperback though Createspace. But here’s the thing that has me excited.

This edition has been improved over the ebook in every way. The text has been cleaned up to remove a few stubborn typos and formatting errors. What’s more, the book has been redesigned for print, with new fonts, including a gorgeous retro font for the chapter headings. There’s a new improved cover that is my best effort so far at recreating the kind of lurid pulpy illustration I’ve always wanted to have on a book of mine.

And there’s even an extra bonus: an added short story, “Fischer’s Wild Goose,” about a hit man whose job goes terribly wrong. Like Death Wave, the story is a bit of an orphan. You think the market for science-fiction and fantasy short fiction is bad? You should try finding professional markets for short crime fiction. But their loss is your gain.

So that’s the pitch. One of the best things I’ve ever written, in an enhanced edition, with a new, improved cover and a bonus short story, all for $8.95, available right here.

Oh, and if you want to try before you buy, here are some sample chapters.

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Teaser from the middle, where things are getting darker…

Posted in cool stuff | Tagged | Leave a comment

Week 36.2 – Hole Cards

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Digger and Cole were on their way to the mysterious City of the Moon, when Digger asked, ‘What could happen?‘ And now…

“No, you don’t ever say that!” Cole said. “You’re just tempting fate!”

“Believe me, fate screws with me plenty, with or without temptation,” Digger said. He stepped carefully through a patch of thick undergrowth and had to pause to pluck away slim thorny vines that were clining to his pants. “Jeez, this is starting to remind me of my last international incident.”

“What incident?” Cole asked.

“In North Korea,” Digger said. “Some of the trees looked kind of like this. And I didn’t have my powers then, either, as far as I knew.”

“You were in North Korea?” Cole asked. “I never heard that.”

“Well, it was secret, wasn’t it?” Digger said. “I’m really not supposed to be talking about it, but hell, we’re fugitives together, right?”

“So were you a spy or something?”

“No,” Digger said. “I’d just come back from Hell.”

“Really?”

“What, you think all the entrances to Hell are in the United States?” Digger asked. “When I finally got out of Hell, it wasn’t as if I could be too choosy about where I came back. I ended up in this forest, looked something like this. Wandered around for a while, ended up on this road. Twenty, thirty minutes later, this bus comes along. I’m thinking, ‘Great, I can get a ride back to civilization.’ Next thing I know, the bus stops and these soldiers pile off and point their rifles at me.”

“A military bus?” Cole asked.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”left”]“My Drillers didn’t work in Hell,” Digger said, absently rubbing at the knuckles on his right hand. “So I ended up welding on these knife-blade looking things, like foot-long claws…”[/blockquote]“No, tourists from South Korea,” Digger said. “They kept them under strict guard. I can’t blame them for overreacting. I mean, I looked pretty outlandish, what with the demonskin tunic and the claws.”

“What claws?”

“My Drillers didn’t work in Hell,” Digger said, absently rubbing at the knuckles on his right hand. “So I ended up welding on these knife-blade looking things, like foot-long claws. So needless to say, I looked, um, dangerous. And I’d just spent a couple of years in Hell getting attacked by something almost every time I turned around. So when those guys came out shouting and threatening, I, uhhh…”

“You killed them?”

“No,” Digger said. “Well, not on purpose. But yeah, I took ‘em down pretty hard and fast, and I may have maimed a couple.”

“I don’t believe it,” Cole said.

“Probably better if you don’t,” Digger said. Then he spotted something higher up the hillside and ducked behind a tree trunk.

Cole ducked behind the nearest tree himself. “What?” he stage-whispered to Digger.

“Ssh,” Digger shushed him with a wave. He peeked carefully around the tree and then pointed for Cole to look as well.

Cole edged his head around the tree trunk and looked up the slope. Through the screening trees, he could see a high chain link fence and behind it. a patrolling guard in a uniform of olive-drab with blue patches and a red beret. The guard carried a machine gun.

Digger nodded to Cole. “What do you want to bet the Czar’s secret cave is in there?”

Just what is the City of the Moon and is it really worth all this trouble? Don’t miss the next episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

Posted in Run Digger Run | Leave a comment

Week 36.1 – Hole Cards

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Digger and Cole, escaped from the Czar’s dungeon, were headed toward the City of the Moon, while Yi Fan and Twain were bound for the palace to depose the Czar. And now…

“I can’t believe this,” Yi Fan said. “My house.”

“I’m not sure what’s so hard to believe,” Twain said. “It was the Ghost that did most of this.”

Yi Fan’s mansion was utterly destroyed. A few sections of wall still stood, but the tallest ones barely reached above Twain’s head, and he was sure he could topple them with a push. Moreover, the trees on the acreage were almost all gone, burned to blackened stumps by the Czar’s blue beams. The tallest stood almost 12 feet; the shortest, barely four.

“I know,” said Yi Fan. “But he usually keeps himself in better check around our stuff. I mean, he has to live in here, too.”

She patted herself on the chest, and Twain had to fight not to take the opportunity to stare at her boobs. They weren’t big, but they were nicely alert, like guard dogs. He wondered what would happen if he petted them.

Twain shook his head. He still hadn’t completely recovered from having his wounds healed. Now was no time to get stupid over a woman, although Twain had to admit, he could see himself spending the rest of his life with Yi Fan. Granted, that was mainly due to the possibility of the Czar killing them at any moment, but still…

“Let’s get to work, shall we?” Twain asked, turning away.

“I don’t understand why we’re here at all,” Yi Fan said. “I thought we needed to go back to the palace.”

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”]Twain shook his head. He still hadn’t completely recovered from having his wounds healed. Now was no time to get stupid over a woman…[/blockquote]“There’s something else I need to do first,” Twain said, rooting through a pile of brick and singed wood. “Do you think any stores are still open? I need some shendu juice.”

“Why do you need an open store?” Yi Fan asked. “Just go to one that’s been blown apart. There should be plenty.”

Twain nodded. She had a point.

“So what are you looking for?” Yi Fan asked.

“A cup,” Twain said. “A cup of milky crystal with a wooden base.”

“Like this?” Twain turned to see Yi Fan lifting the Cup of Regret from under a shrub beside the walk.

“Yes, that’s it,” Twain said. It must have been kicked over there during his fight with Digger. “Now, come on. We have to move quickly.”

“Where are we going?” Yi Fan asked.

“First, to get some juice,” Twain answered. “And then we’ll pay a visit to the City of the Moon.”

***

“Tell me again why we’re going to this cave?” Cole asked as he and Digger picked their way up a wooded hillside strewn with fallen branches and chunks of charred brick that must have landed there from one of the multiple times the nearby town had been ravaged. “I thought we didn’t want to take the Czar’s powers.”

“We don’t,” said Digger. “But you need a place to hole up until you get your powers back, and this seems ideal. He’d never expect us to go there, because he has no idea we know about it. What could happen?

No, no, no, you never ask that. To see what could happen, make sure not to miss the next episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

Posted in Run Digger Run | Leave a comment

Super Movies – Captain America (1990)

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Continuing our look at Captain America on the big and small screens. Okay, that 1990 above is a little misleading. In 1990,  21st Century Films produced Captain America for theatrical release in the U.S., but the film was pulled before release and eventually went direct-to-video two years later. However, the film did get a limited theatrical release overseas, so this did technically mark Cap’s return to theaters, just not in the U.S.

This version was directed by Albert Pyun, who made his directing debut with The Sword and the Sorcerer in 1982. Like James Cameron, Pyun’s early films demonstrated that he could produce stylish, entertaining work on a very limited budget. Unlike Cameron, however, Pyun’s talents didn’t scale up, so he never grew out of the low-budget ghetto, hence films like Captain America.

The film opens in Italy, where fascists (led by Mussolini himself) kidnap a young genius as he’s playing the piano for his family. They take the kid to a castle fortress, where the Mussolini dude shows some Nazi observers a rat that has received experimental treatments to make it stronger and smarter. Oh, and uglier.

The scientist who has invented the treatment is a woman named Dr. Vaselli, who is not happy that her incomplete work is going to be used on an innocent child.

So she jumps out the window as the treatment is starting and runs away. Years later, we learn that Vaselli has escaped to America, which is planning to use a perfected version of Vaselli’s formula to make a super-soldier out of a young volunteer unable to enlist due to polio. His name is Steve Rogers.

Steve is played by Matt Salinger, son of Catcher in the Rye author J. D. Salinger. His mother in this scene is played by Melinda Dillon, perhaps best known for her role as the little kid’s mom in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. For a relatively low-budget film, you’ll see a lot of familiar faces here.

The thing Steve will miss most of all when he leaves home is his girlfriend, Bernie (Kim Gillingham). She tells him she’ll wait for him to come back from the war, and then they’ll get married.

You’re going to want to come back to this pic later. So Steve leaves and ends up in a top secret lab underneath a diner, which is being visited by bigwigs like this guy on the left.

Bill Mumy of Lost in Space and Barnes and Barnes. But the thing is, before he appeared in this movie based on a Marvel character, Mumy actually wrote for Marvel Comics (although not Captain America, AFAIK) so this is almost a creator cameo.

So Doctor Vaselli straps Steve into a chair and the experiment begins, and we all know where it ends up.

That’s right, with the good doctor being shot by one of the observers who is actually a Nazi spy. The spy is stopped by Steve with his newfound powers, but too late to save the doctor. All of this comes right out of Captain America’s comic-book origin, and yet is completely different. And I wonder why they felt the need to make the changes they did.

Who decided to make the Red Skull an Italian fascist instead of a German? Who decided to make the doctor an Italian woman rather than a Jewish man? Was there some sort of trouble with the financing if they had too much Nazi in there? Or were they thinking that the Yugoslavian locations they used would be easier to pass off as Italy rather than Germany? I might even wonder about some anti-Semitic bent that changed the doctor’s identity, if the movie hadn’t been produced by Menahem Freaking Golan.

Anyway, Steve gets shot in the process and ends up in the hospital, being treated by this guy.

And once again, you’ll be coming back to this pic later. Instead of being allowed to recuperate from his gunshot wounds at leisure, Steve is called to duty right away, based on intelligence that an Italian agent known as the Red Skull is planning a major operation. Steve must stop it.

And in the air over Italy, we might learn the real reason the filmmakers chose to change Doctor Reinstein to Doctor Vaselli. The general explains to Steve that Vaselli kept crappy notes and had the details of the super-soldier procedure in her head, along with the secrets for producing Cap’s fireproof uniform and for making his indestructible shield (that’s right–not only was she a world-class geneticist, but Dr. Vaselli was also a chemist and metallurgist).

And maybe that’s the key. Captain America’s colorful uniform, covered with stars and stripes and bearing odd useless details like wings on his cowl, could only have been designed by a crazy Italian woman who resented the military and wanted Captain America to look as little like a soldier as possible.

So anyway, Cap parachutes down to the Red Skull’s fortress, where he uses his shield to destroy a guard tower and blow up some cans of gasoline before he enters the castle to confront the Red Skull.

And with our first look at the full costume comes perhaps the biggest surprise in the movie: the costume is almost exactly like the comic book version. In this post-Tim Burton’s Batman world, it’s almost impossible to avoid the latex costume with sculpted muscles, but otherwise, it’s an exact duplicate, down to the ears sticking out from the cowl (the ears are fake, BTW, molded into the cowl itself).

So thumbs up. On the other hand, Cap’s problem is that he’s a dude who grew up with polio, was made super-strong in an experiment, then rushed onto a plane without receiving any kind of training whatsoever. And his opponent is this guy.

The Red Skull. Just as smart and strong as Cap, but also trained for most of his life in causing mayhem. Cap gets his ass handed to him and comes to strapped to a V-2-looking rocket, which the Red Skull launches at the White House. Oops.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, a young boy visiting Washington D.C. with his parents sneaks out in the middle of the night with his camera to take a few night shots of the White House, when he hears a noise. He turns around and looks up to see Cap strapped to the rocket and just manages to snap a picture before Cap kicks a rudder out of shape, turning the rocket so that it misses the White House. The rocket heads up into the sky again and much later, crashes down into a frozen lake in Alaska.

And I wonder if this is an alternate reason for switching the Red Skull from German to Italian–because if you draw a straight line from Germany through Washington, you never come close to Alaska, while starting the line further south, say, in Italy, could get you closer. I’m too lazy to check it out on a real map, though. Captain America disappears under the ice.

And that’s it for this week. For my American readers, have a happy Independence Day, and join me back here next week for the conclusion.

Posted in Super Movie Monday | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Digger Breaks Through! Now Available in Paperback!

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Tony Frazier

I told you it would happen soon, and here it is! If you’ve been reading Run, Digger, Run! and getting the impression that there might be more to the story, well, you’re right. Digger Breaks Through! reprints the original Diggerverse short stories published in Baen’s Universe and Strange Horizons. In addition, you get 2 additional Digger short stories original to this volume (including the first appearance of Twain, though his name is never given in the story), and two bonus stories–one superheroic, the other not.

That’s eight stories in all, all for the low price of $7.95 plus shipping. Even if you’ve read some the stories in their original publications, this volume gives you the chance to have them all in one place, right on your bookshelf! Look for more announcements coming soon!

You can order it through Amazon, or just buy it directly here!

Posted in cool stuff | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Week 35.5 – Desperate Times

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Tony Frazier

First, apologies for the late update. You can read a partial explanation here, which I think contains some exciting news (for me, anyway). Then come back for today’s episode. I’ll wait.

Previously: Yi Fan had taken Twain to a healer to tend his broken arm and the bullet wound on his other self. And now…

Yi Fan’s phone rang as Rada worked her power on Twain’s bullet wound. The screen showed the call coming from the Czar.

Yi  Fan stepped out of the apartment to get away from Twain’s moans of pain. She walked down a short corridor to an exit that led onto an alley. There was a broad flat step maybe two feet deep that someone had set a hibachi out on, as if to turn it into a couryard. She answered the phone. “Yes?”

“Yi Fan,” said the Czar. “There has been an escape. The American prisoners.”

“Which ones?” Yi Fan asked.

“All of them,” the Czar said. “I need you out searching right now. Bring them back or kill them, I don’t care which.”

“As you wish.” She closed the phone and sat, looking at a scatter of cigarette butts on the ground next to the step as she contemplated their next move.

What would they do now? The mask hadn’t worked on the Czar. He was immune, somehow. Which meant they had to get away. But though the Czar might let Twain get away, would he be as forgiving of Yi Fan, who had not only deserted his service, but also killed his pet Russian, Biryukov?

She didn’t think so.

The door opened behind her and Rada sat down next to her. She lit a cigarette with trembling hands. “It’s done. He’s resting, but he probably shouldn’t move for a couple of hours.”

“Should you be smoking?” Yi Fan asked.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”] “You spend your days putting dying men back together just so that they can be brought back the next day in the same shape, and then maybe you can say something to me about smoking.”[/blockquote]Rada gave her a flat stare as she took a long draw, held the smoke curling in her open mouth for a moment, and then blew it out. “You spend your days putting dying men back together just so that they can be brought back the next day in the same shape, and then maybe you can say something to me about smoking.”

“I guess if you get sick, you can just heal yourself,” Yi Fan said.

“I hope not,” Rada said quietly and took another drag.

***

The pain was incredible, but worse than the pain was the fog. Twain was trying to come up with a good scenario to put the mask on the Czar, but then his mind would drift and he would see himself back in that pantry , tied to a chair, the bullet from Biryukov’s pistol thumping the breath from his lungs.

This wasn’t helping. He needed to focus on the future, not the past. And even though he no longer possessed the blue crystal, he felt a familiar tingle in his mind and set himself to meditating the pain away.

***

Rada was almost done with her second cigarette, and Yi Fan still had not figured out their next move, when the door opened behind them. Twain stepped out slowly. “What are you doing?” Yi Fan asked. “You should be resting.”

“I’m fine,” Twain said. “Let’s go.”

“Back to America?”

“Back to the palace,” Twain said. “To finish the Czar once and for all.”

Things are starting to come together now, but trust me when I say, if you think you know what’s going to happen next, you’re wrong. Two words: alien invasion. Not that they have any bearing on the story at hand, but they are in fact two words. See you in a week with the next exciting episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

Posted in Run Digger Run | Leave a comment

A Brief Break While I Complete Some Projects

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Tony Frazier

I hate interrupting the story, but this week has been even less productive than usual, and that is due in part to some exciting new projects which I’m working on for the site, so I hope you’ll forgive me.

First up, if you read the Twitter, you know that I’ve been working on a paperback release of Digger Breaks Through! I’ve sold several copies of the ebook, but I think there are still some people who might like a paper version, so I’m going to finally get it done for them. I’m hoping to have it available for purchase by July 1 with a projected price of $7.95 (it’s a short book).

If you don’t know about Digger Breaks Through!, it’s a collection of all the published Diggerverse short stories so far, plus some  bonus unpublished Digger stories and another, unrelated superhero short. As an extra-special bonus, and to help justify the extra cost to you, I have added a further bonus story exclusively to the print edition, a nitro-fueled adventure-comedy titled “King of the Kars.”

And while I was on a roll, I also dusted off the manuscript for Death Wave and have been prepping it for release soon after Digger Breaks Through!  Death Wave is not a superhero tale, but rather a noir suspense story set in Depression Era New York that has been smacked in the face a few times with a science-fiction stick. And because it’s me, although it is much darker than the Digger stories, it has its share of humor as well.

I’m really looking forward to this one. I’ve been taking the lessons I learned in putting together the previous two books and using them to make Death Wave the best-looking book I can, a book I’m eager to have on my own shelf. Oh, and because Death Wave is such a short novel, I’m also including an extra story in this one, a tale of an assassination attempt gone wrong titled “Fischer’s Wild Goose.” No tentative price yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was the same as Digger Breaks Through!

And that’s not all! I can’t announce specifics of the third special project yet, but suffice to say, the Diggerverse will be making an appearance somewhere other than this website pretty soon. I’ll let you know details when I can.

I know the late updates can be frustrating, and I’m sorry. As I’ve said before, I do everything on the site myself–every word, every illustration, every screencap (well, there have been a couple of exceptions). And I haven’t seen a lot of income from all the work I’ve put out.

Which is not to say I don’t enjoy all the work I’ve put in. I do. But I would enjoy it even more if I were making enough money to justify backing off on my day job and committing more time here. And these projects will, I hope, help me to get a little more exposure and make a little more money and perhaps grow the site in ways we’ll all enjoy.

Thank you for your understanding, and I promise to try to make it worth the wait.

Posted in cool stuff | Leave a comment

Week 35.4 – Desperate Times

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Digger and Cole were escaping the palace as Yi Fan and Twain were visiting Rada the healer. And now…

The Czar looked up at the sound of the sirens. “Find out what’s going on,” he said to one of his valets.

The man rushed off and returned moments later with Gansukh, head of the palace’s security detail. “Your majesty!” Gansukh shouted. “The prisoners have escaped!”

“Which ones?” asked the Czar.

“The three Americans who were brought in earlier,” Gansukh said. “Two escaped from the cell block somehow, and the third killed his torturer and likewise escaped.”

“Damn it!” the Czar yelled. “These guys are really starting to get on my nerves. I should have just killed them when I had the chance.”

“Yes sir,” Gansukh said.

“Find them,” the Czar said. “Don’t try to arrest them, just pin them in place and then let me know. I want to kill them personally.”

“Yes sir!” Gansukh rushed out of the room.

***

Rada didn’t think anything about this day could make her feel any more nervous, but seeing the Czar’s pet enforcer, the Ghost who had killed so many, down on her hands and knees wiping the vomit from her floor scared Rada even more. Everything was upside down. The second most powerful person in the region behaving like a servant, a prisoner giving orders, alarm sirens going off: Rada had a moment’s hope that she might somehow be free at last from the Czar’s clutches, but reminded herself that that was not how things worked. She was most likely not on the cusp of freedom, but rather on the precipice of an even worse servitude. That was the way the world worked.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”left”]Rada didn’t think anything about this day could make her feel any more nervous, but seeing the Czar’s pet enforcer, the Ghost who had killed so many, down on her hands and knees wiping the vomit from her floor scared Rada even more. Everything was upside down…[/blockquote]The prisoner sat panting in the chair and said, “Healer, are you able to do more now?”

“Depends on how much more,” she answered.

“Let me show you then,” the man said. “Stand back.”

And then he grew blurry. Rada wiped at her eyes. When the man came into focus again, he was different in almost every way. His hair was shorter, his skin darker, his gear more suited for jungle hikes than prison. Even her kitchen chair was gone, replaced by a chair made of aluminum tubing, with arms that this man’s arms were bound to.

And there was a red stain spreading on his shirt.

***

The Soviet-made truck jounced away, creaking on its old springs as it passed between two trees and then up a hillside. Even seeing it now, Cole wasn’t entiely sure he believed it.

“Where is it going?” he asked Digger.

“Nowhere in particular,” Digger said, waving in the general direction of the truck. “Just that way, while we go there.”

He turned and pointed north-east. Cole turned and saw a high ridgeline in the distance. “Isn’t that the place Twain talked about?” Cole asked.

“Yeah,” said Digger.

“So you’re going to really try to take away the Czar’s powers?” Cole asked.

“Of course not,” Digger said. “That’s stupid. But if we can get the Czar on our side, then we’ll have the advantage. Twain will have to return my Drillers.”

Looks like another confrontation building. Who will come out on top? Don’t miss our next tension-filled episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

Posted in Run Digger Run | Leave a comment

Week 35.3 – Desperate Times

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Digger and Cole were escaping from the Czar’s palace with the help of Digger’s powers, while Yi Fan took a wounded Twain to see a healer. And now…

The engine started as Digger opened the door. It was an old light-duty truck, looked like Soviet vintage, though Cole had no idea what kind it really was. He heard distant shouts as he climbed into the passenger seat.

The truck started moving from the moment Digger touched the steering wheel. It roared forward as Cole heard the sound of distant pops and bullets spanged off the fenders. So the guards’ guns were working again; Digger’s powers still had a limited radius, obviously.

The truck roared through the motor pool toward a side gate. Digger’s hands barely seemed to move the steering wheel or the gearshift, and yet, everything worked perfectly. In fact, the truck handled so nimbly, it almost felt like he was riding some animal, moving of its own volition, rather than in a 30-year-old truck being driven by a crazy man.

The side gate was not any kind of motorized barrier, just a regular gate in a 15-foot-tal chain link fence. A guard was pulled the gate shut and was wrapping a steel chain through the fence to hold it shut as Digger and Cole approached. “Sorry, dude,” Digger mumbled under his breath and smashed the truck through the gate, ripping it off its hinges.

Cole couldn’t tell if Digger was apologizing to him, or the truck, or to the gate.

“Where are we going?” Cole asked.

“South,” Digger said. “At least at first. Make them think we’re running for the border. And then at some point, we’ll turn of the road and… You ever watched Zorro?”

“Which one?” Cole asked. “There were a few.”

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”]“Sorry, dude,” Digger mumbled under his breath and smashed the truck through the gate, ripping it off its hinges. Cole couldn’t tell if Digger was apologizing to him, or the truck, or to the gate…[/blockquote]“I don’t remember,” Digger said. “But Zorro had this trick. He would be riding along, being chased by the soldiers, so to foil the pursuit, he would get off his hose and slap its rump to make it keep going, so the soldiers would keep tracking the horse.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Cole said. “Are you sure that was Zorro?”

“Not really,” Digger said. “It doesn’t really matter. It’s a pretty common Western trick.”

“Wait, you mean, you’re going to do that with this truck?” Cole asked. “Just slap its ass and it’ll keep driving by itself.”

“For a while,” Digger said

“You’re sure?”

“More sure than I am which Zorro movie I saw the trick in,” Digger said.

***

Twain’s screams at the forced mending of his arm nearly drowned out the sound of alarm sirens going off. Yi Fan stiffened. Were they sounding for the escaped prisoners or had someone found the dead Mechanic? Yi Fan tried to ignore the screams, but they tore at her heart, and she very nearly told the healer to stop. They would just have to figure out a new plan.

And then the screaming stopped and Twain lurched out of the kitchen chair he was sitting in to throw up all over the floor. “All right,” he said, his face pale as he wiped his mouth with a trembling hand, “now comes the hard part.”

We know the hard part already, don’t we? Join us for the next episode anyway!

To read from the beginning, click here…

Posted in Run Digger Run | Leave a comment

Week 35.2 – Desperate Times

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Yi Fan brought an injured Twain to the Czar’s healer with blood on her shirt. And now…

“Whose blood is that?” Rada asked.

“Not his,” the ghost woman answered, and the desperate look in her eyes silenced the next question on Rada’s lips.

When Rada Vaneva had been brought to the Czar’s domain from Bulgaria, she had been excited by the challenge. The Czar had lost his arm fighting the demon hordes of Hell on Earth, and he wanted Rada’s healing powers to help him grow a new one.

The sessions had been rough on both of them. Regrowing a limb was never easy, but the Czar’s limbs had greater mass and density than regular muscle and bone. Even with his considerable recuperative powers, it took much more energy from her and took weeks longer than normal. But when it was done, she was justly proud of her accomplishment and looked forward to returning to Bulgaria with a tidy sum in the bank for her trouble.

Instead, she had been informed she was “too valuable” to leave. The next thing she knew, she was installed in this tiny apartment and forced to heal the wounds caused by the Czar’s torturers, to keep their victims alive long enough to be tortured even further. The money she had been promised was supposedly in escrow someplace, but she didn’t believe she would ever get it.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”left”]It turned out that she was not brave enough to risk death by escaping, and yet not callous enough to refuse healing to someone suffering right in front of her. Thus she prolonged both their and her suffering…[/blockquote]So now, here she was. It turned out that she was not brave enough to risk death by escaping, and yet not callous enough to refuse healing to someone suffering right in front of her. Thus she prolonged both their and her suffering.

But this… This was better and yet worse. Worse, because it was apparent from the Chinese woman’s bloody shirt that she had just killed someone to free the prisoner she had brought, the one with the broken arm. But better also, because the man she had killed was almost certainly the Czar’s head torturer, which meant Rada might have fewer clients in the days to come, until the Czar found someone else to take his place.

Which brought her back to worse, because if she helped this man, it would almost certainly bring her trouble in the future. The Czar would certainly punish her when he found out. But she also knew the ghost woman’s reputation. If she refused, she might die right now.

The man groaned in pain. Sweat glistened on his face and plastered his hair to his forehead. And that was ultimately all that mattered. The Czar’s wrath might fall on her someday, but she could not refuse to aid this man now.

“I can help,” she said. “But you have to know. I can soothe his pain, or I can heal his injury. I cannot do both at once. If I soothe his pain, he will still be injured until he can heal naturally. If I heal his injury…”

“Soothe his pain,” the ghost woman said, and Rada was surprised to see genuine affection on the woman’s face.

“No,” groaned the man, his face pale. “Heal the bone!”

What will happen next? Don’t miss the next episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

Posted in Run Digger Run | Leave a comment