THE TUBE

Concept by Michael Winters and Shane W Smith
Written by Shane W Smith

Using one of The Tube’s many surveillance cameras to monitor the emergency, it took Graham about five seconds to realise the depth of his plight. The emergency itself was a fake; a test to see if Shane’s intuitive grasp on the technology had survived the weeks he had spent in the Motivator.

Almost immediately after the alarms began to clamour, Graham felt his chest tighten with fear. The confusion on Shane’s face was obvious, and the man stood there, rooted to the spot, transfixed with fear. He watched with interest – but no recognition – as Mike called up the schematics on the main console and ordered a vent of one of the cooling towers.

The alarms stopped and Graham watched Shane heave a sigh of relief. There was no such relief in Graham’s lungs, though; in fact, despite having quit many years ago, he found he was itching for a cigarette, desperate to be doing something active, even if it wasn’t so productive.

He knew what he had done. By exhibiting a rare flash of initiative, by continuing the Motivator project long beyond its original scope, he had damaged the subject’s brain irreversibly. If his bosses found out the truth, Graham’s career was over… and maybe more than that, too.

His thoughts were staccato as he paced the room urgently. He bounced back and forward between different courses of action, half-baked plans, and desperate self-serving excuses, but nothing seemed adequate for this situation. If the meeting he’d been called to a few days ago was any indication, this would not stay secret for long, and the ramifications would be of the utmost severity.

Bordering on a full-blown panic, Graham sat back down in the chair, his brain rocketing around madly, scrambling blindly for a solution to the problem. His eyes drifted to the surveillance screen, and he watched as Mike put his arm around Shane’s shoulder and began to whisper to him. That woman from PR stood off to the side, looking a little miffed to be excluded from the conversation. Graham turned the audio up as high as it would go, but soon felt equally miffed: the machinery drowned out their conspiracy entirely.

But as he was watching, a germ of an idea appeared in his mind. He leaned back slowly, and carefully turned it over this way and that, mulling over the possibilities and potentials, the ways in which it could go wrong, and the consequences of success.

In the end, no better ideas had occurred to him, so he decided to go ahead with his plan.

It was clear to Graham that approaching Shane directly was a path fraught with peril. Not only was the man openly hostile to him, unstable and unpredictable, but he was also the subject of considerable scrutiny from a wide range of people. Direct contact could scupper this whole thing before it even started.

But Graham had an alternative. He had seen a lot in the last few minutes; and had learned plenty. The path to Shane led through this Mike fellow. Graham had noticed the signs of a long-term friendship in their greeting… but more importantly, he had seen the flicker of resentment that crossed Mike’s face when he had first seen Shane. He guessed (correctly) that although the two men had a personal connection, there was a little professional animosity, and Mike would probably not be averse to seeing Shane removed from his workplace.

There was no shortage of risk in Graham’s scheme, but he thought he probably had some little time; he could take a few steps to mitigate some of the jeopardy. And he knew just where to begin. For he had noticed something else through the surveillance feed: the furtive and somewhat embarrassed way in which that woman Clarissa kept glancing at Mike…

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Thanks for reading The Tube. You can subscribe to it, so you never miss a chapter!

And while you’re here, why not check out the rest of my site? Have a look at some of my published work!

Pavarti K Tyler, author of Shadow on the Wall, is the third author to be featured on this blog, and I am very happy to present this excellent guest post prepared by Pavarti, about the nature and appeal of heroes. Thanks Pavarti!

I’m Holding Out for a Hero

He rides in like a phoenix from the fire, black coat fanned out behind him. He’s a good man with a dark past, perhaps a penchant for violence, but it stems from passion not cruelty. He’s a lover standing in the rain, bleeding and victorious, come to find the one who makes him whole.

A hero.

The archetypical lover of women and role-model of men. We all know who he is, the outline of his shape branded on our psyche. From Achilles to Clark Kent, from James Bond to John McClane, he is a flawed and deeply driven man.

What is it about the larger-than-life icon of “Hero” that draws readers in? Is it the psychological need to believe in someone who can do exceptional things? I think maybe it has something to do with the idea that one person can make a real and concrete change in the world. Heroes are often imbued with supernatural abilities or extraordinary qualities, but it’s not necessary for the hero to be from Krypton to pull us in to their plight. In fact, it’s not the supernatural of Superman that makes him a hero, but the goodness of Clark Kent.

The idea of the “everyman” rising above the rest of us and accomplishing the impossible is seductive. The mild mannered alter-ego reflects our lives back to us. Work, bills, family and all the things that sometimes feel so average. Our internal conflicts of who we are, what do we believe, what do we stand for, are all pushed to the side in the interest of paying the mortgage and getting to work on time.

It’s so easy amidst the sea of chaos in which we find ourselves to feel that nothing we do has any real impact. Apathy reigns supreme and in our busy lives the important things like life, liberty and justice have to wait until after our taxes are done. But a hero, someone with a single-minded focus, acting for good, can make a real difference.

The hero character inspires us, makes us want to take up Jujitsu and hunt down our nemesis, thereby freeing the city. Real life isn’t so easy, not so black and white, and it makes these iconic stories so enticing.

Standing atop a high building or speeding off to the next emergency, the superhero has a clarity of purpose which I find desperately appealing. In Shadow on the Wall Recai Osman is a man adrift. He is removed from his culture, his religion, and his legacy. But when faced with the existence of real evil he is compelled to act.

In Shadow Recai must grapple with his own insecurities and complicated past. He is burdened by the same questions of substance as the rest of us. This is the story of him coming to terms with who he is and what he believes so he can heed Allah’s call to become The SandStorm.

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Book Trailer

Recai walked for what seemed like miles, resisting the instinct to second-guess his direction. The sand moved between his toes but soon he found his footing, and his body responded to the landscape as if from some genetic memory. He remembered his father’s words from a trip he took to the Oman desert as a child: Never take your shoes off; the sand will eat away at your feet. Recai had done it anyway, then and now, feeling more in control with that connection to the ground, its movements speaking to his flesh directly.

His father had always been full of surprises: one moment the strict disciplinarian, the next, he would wake Recai in the middle of the night to see a falling star. Recai had never had the chance to get to know him as an adult. Instead, he lived with the enigmatic memory of a great man lost.
Recai stood in the middle of the desert—every direction would eventually lead to Elih or one of the smaller villages scattered around the city. But who would take in a stranger? A stranger with a Hugo Boss turban and a bruised and bloodied face? In’shallah, he would be delivered to safety.

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Author Bio:
Pavarti K Tyler is an artist, wife, mother and number cruncher. She graduated Smith College in 1999 with a degree in Theatre. After graduation, she moved to New York, where she worked as a Dramaturge, Assistant Director and Production Manager on productions both on and off Broadway.

Later, Pavarti went to work in the finance industry as a freelance accountant for several international law firms. She now operates her own accounting firm in the Washington DC area, where she lives with her husband, two daughters and two terrible dogs. When not preparing taxes, she is busy working at Novel Publicity and penning her next novel.

My blog is all ages: http://www.fightingmonkeypress.com
My tumblr is 18+ only: http://pavartidevi.tumblr.com/
My Fan Page needs your likes: https://www.facebook.com/#!/FMPress
My Twitter likes friends: http://twitter.com/#!/PavartiKTyler
My Google+ is random: https://plus.google.com/?gpinv=JFSVnKSj7Uk:FdjR-3NCJW8#me/posts

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THE TUBE

Concept by Michael Winters and Shane W Smith
Written by Shane W Smith

Many years ago, Shane and Mike had attempted to recall the circumstances in which they had met. Although they had agreed that while in high school one of them had saved the other from a group of angry adolescent thugs, they argued reasonably good-naturedly over which role had belonged to whom.

In years to come, they would revisit the argument several times, but each time, there was something new under the surface bubbling away, some stored resentment for a minor slight or another. Nothing in and of itself, but when combined, it began to add up.

And when Shane had taken out the Nobel Prize a few years back for work that Mike maintained they both did, the whole thing had boiled right over. The argument had been bitter: Shane insisted that the credit he had given Mike in the acceptance speech was sufficient, and Mike argued that he deserved an equal share in the prize and the prize money.

In the end, it got so ugly that Mike’s marriage dissolved, and he only kept his job thanks to Shane’s intervention. He attracted some bad debts, which Shane had paid off without being asked, but the gesture served only to weaken their friendship further. Shane, utterly intransigent, refused to budge on the Nobel issue. After a great many heated discussions, and a drunken fistfight that landed them both in lockup for the night, they reached an uneasy equilibrium in which they agreed not to discuss the Nobel issue at all. As time went by, they began to patch up their friendship, but both sensed that there was still a time bomb ticking beneath the surface…

But they had made it work. Mike had gone to great lengths to get himself back on track, and had devoted himself to his career.

He had actually been working on some new research when OmniTech had bought out his contract that Shane knew nothing about… and never would. Here in The Tube, he didn’t have a lot of time to work on it, but OmniTech knew it was there, and had indicated that he might have time to devote to the project in the near future.

In the meantime, though, Mike had been tasked with fitting out a generator that could power the whole city in an entirely sustainable way. He knew that OmniTech would have preferred Shane to do the job, and it rankled a little to be their second choice… but at the same time, the opportunity was one that he had no intention of turning down.

The job had taken months, but he had loved every intimidating minute of it.

Every now and again, he would look up at the huge array of cooling towers and energy converters, and think back on the early days, when he and Shane had been kicking around design ideas. Some of those ideas had been scrapped for the smaller devices they had made to date (including the Nobel-winning design), but Mike had needed to avail himself of a few to make the generator’s capacity sufficient to power the entire Tube.

Every now and again, he would wonder where Shane was, or how he had apparently gotten out of his OmniTech contract, and he would be touched by ambivalence. Sometimes, wistful nostalgia won out, and he missed their near-lifelong friendship; other times, he felt profound relief that there was no-one here who could steal his ideas and accomplishments. This huge generator was his own personal triumph, and it would win him the acclaim he so sorely desired, and deserved.

Today, he’d had a moment over breakfast when he had felt the latter.

And now, seeing Shane just standing there, looking around at the room like he owned the place, Mike felt a stab of resentment, convinced that he was about to lose control of the good thing he was on here.

“Shane?” he’d asked, the word coming out with the appropriate level of surprise, masking his anger admirably. His hands gripped to fists in his pockets, though.

Then Shane had turned, and for a moment, Mike thought that Shane didn’t recognise him. In fact, after just that moment’s pause, Mike realised that he could see very little of the friend he remembered in Shane’s face. None of the light, the energy, the focus, almost nothing remained of the man he knew so well… it was almost like someone had scooped him out with a giant spoon before dropping him in here.

“Mike?” The word was tentative, and confirmed Mike’s suspicions in his mind. In an instant, all of the pent-up anger fizzled away to nothing, and he extended a hand for his friend to shake.

Before their palms met, however, alarms began to blare all over the generator room. Another instability. Mike felt a stab of fear, but recalled Shane’s encyclopedic knowledge of the systems, and relaxed a little.

At that moment, he realised just how relieved he was to have his safety net – his friend – back. But at that moment, he looked across at Shane and saw naked panic and total confusion on his face… and Mike’s fear returned tenfold.

–Continue to part 27–

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Thanks for reading The Tube. You can subscribe to it, so you never miss a chapter!

And while you’re here, why not check out the rest of my site? Have a look at some of my published work!

The release date for The Lesser Evil Book Three is imminent. I apologise to my few loyal readers for what seems like an inordinate wait (but in reality has only been a couple of months since the last release), and I’ll add this: if you think it’s hard waiting for a release date as a consumer, you should try it as an author! You bounce off the walls so much, you think you might have had a more successful career as a pinball. Still, the wait is almost over, and soon the trilogy will be complete!

To blow off some anxiety while waiting, I cobbled together this book trailer for The Lesser Evil. I enjoyed the process enough that I intend to take another, more professional, go at it once things settle down a little bit. In the meantime:

April kicked off with the second day of Adelaide Oz Comic-Con. I’ve already posted in great detail about my experiences in Adelaide here; suffice to say in this post that it was an incredible and profoundly inspirational event. I came home with no books left, a fistful of business cards, and a renewed creative fire.

I had originally intended to ‘spend’ that fire on a half-envisaged project called Kiss of the Dragon, a full-length expansion to Parlour Tricks, a piece I got published in the Beginnings Anthology, using the annual April event Script Frenzy as an additional motivator. Sadly for this project, pen never touched paper in April; rarely a day goes by that I don’t think about it, but perhaps it’s not quite ready to be written yet. I can be patient – got plenty else going on!

Speaking of, I have signed The Lesser Evil up for its first book tour! This tour starts tomorrow and lasts for about two weeks, and has involved quite a bit of preparation on my part. Mostly I will be providing guest posts for other blogs, interspersed with author interviews and book features. It has been a lot of fun preparing all these posts, and it has reminded me how much fun it can be to write about the writing process.

But where most of my creative energy has been directed this month is at the sequel to The Lesser Evil, currently entitled Death’s Feast. Since the 7th of April, I have completed over 80 pages of artwork for this project, a feat that I am tremendously proud of, especially given my full-time work schedule, and parental/spousal responsibilities at home, none of which have suffered for this productivity. At this stage, I have completed 301 pages of a scripted 565 pages, so I’m confident it will be ready to go pretty soon.

I’m quite proud of the evolution of my art style since the early pages of The Lesser Evil. I think each volume that gets released is easier to read than its predecessor, and is more attractive as well. Check out this sample page of art from Death’s Feast:

Closer to home, our baby boy continues to grow inside of Katie. With only about eight weeks left until the due date, we are getting increasingly excited (read: one of us is nesting, and the other is freaking out over credit card bills – no prizes for guessing which is which). Annie, too, is incredibly excited and loves to talk to him through Katie’s belly button. She cuddles and kisses him routinely, and loves to practice cuddles with her baby dolls. She is so ready to be a big sister… hope the crying doesn’t put her off!

I have no idea how the impending birth will impact my creative output. I have booked nearly three months off from work starting when the baby arrives. Last time, I was anticipating more baby-related work than actually happened – I didn’t anticipate just how much they sleep! It’s impossible to say whether there will be significant downtime this time around though, with a two-year-old tearing around at top speed and even topper volume.

So I might as well get as much done as I can in the meantime!

John Zunski, author of the coming-of-age novel Cemetery Street, is the second author to be featured on this blog, and I am very happy to present the following book feature, prepared by John. Take it away, John!

Missing Person Alert!

Can you help? I’m looking for someone and I’m offering a reward! It’s a person whose name I don’t know – I don’t even have their physical description; if their likeness was on a milk carton, I wouldn’t know ‘em. I know it’s not much to go on, but, you may know this person, or someone similar. They have to be out there – somewhere. I’m looking for someone who hasn’t loved and lost. If you find such a person, would you do me a favor?

Would you ask them if they could relate to my novel Cemetery Street?

If you have loved and lost, Cemetery Street is dedicated to you. For persevering through bittersweet memories and endless speculation of what could have been. If you’re up for an adventure, you could laugh, cry, and blush with protagonist James Morrison as he learns that the bonds established early in our lives echo into our futures, shaping who we are and how we relate to the world.

If I may be so bold:

An Excerpt from Cemetery Street:

“Get up!” she cried. “Run!” she smiled over her shoulder. The earth shook beneath our feet. “Faster! Faster!” Her voice swirled in the wind. “Feel it?” she shrieked, her hair dancing behind her. “Feels great. Just great!” Her laugh pierced the freight’s roar. Swimming through the train’s blast, she reminded me of a salmon – always heading upstream.

Moments earlier, she danced across a warped balance beam forty feet above the river. “If I lose my balance, even for a second – a second – I could die!” Ignoring our pleas, her forehead etched with concentration, she continued. “For what? Like there has to be a what! Would you say I died in vain, died for the thrill?” Her arms flailed. “Yes,” she answered. “Died of stupidity! Died for nothing, what a way to die! I like that. There isn’t pressure in nothing.”

Me, I’ve always felt pressure – even in nothing, even today. So I watch, I’ve always watched! Even today – I watch a snowflake slide down the front of her headstone and crash to the ground. I watch countless others stick atop her headstone. When I grow tired of watching, I run my hand over the smooth granite wiping away heaven’s frozen tears.

A breeze rustled the trees, their bare limbs swaying to the sound of her voice. I turned praying she would be sitting on the sandstone bench like she was thirteen years ago – Indian style, her wild mane speckled with snow flakes. I imagine her gaze staring across the dozing river, past the distant rushing traffic, into eternity. My gaze was met by a dusting of snow atop the bench. Disappointment consumed me. “People who do nothing but watch, feel nothing but disappointment,” she once scolded.

Today would have been her twenty-seventh birthday. Ten days ago was the first anniversary of her death. Two days from now the world will be standing on the cusp of a new millennium – without her; it will be so empty, it will be dawn without the sun.

“Happy Birthday Bug,” I whispered. “I have a surprise. It’s your favorite.” Careful not to spill a drop, I poured the steaming coffee on the ground in front of her stone. “How did you guess?” I watched the snow
evaporate. “Yes, you’re right. Of course I remembered. How could I forget? ” I tell her.

“If eyes are the gateway to the soul,” she wrote prior to her accident. “Our memories are its gatekeepers.” Like a dutiful gatekeeper, I guard our memories. “Out of memory comes ritual,” she said, hiding in the breeze. “Out of ritual – meaning, out of meaning – warmth, out of warmth – love, out of love…”

“Us,” I whispered to the wind. “Beyond anyone, I remember you!”

“I didn’t forget,” I stroked the polished granite’s face. “It’s your recipe,” I confided as I placed the pie pan atop the coffee soaked soil. I retreated to the bench and cast my gaze over the sleepy river and past the rushing traffic, listening for echoes of her laughter on the wind.

If you made it this far, I think you deserve a reward. If you know a person who hasn’t loved and lost, or, would like to wander down Cemetery Street and get to know memorable characters, click here and enter code sn56n. You can download a free e-copy in the format perfect for you. Warning! Four out of five romantics agree that you’ll need to stock up on tissues.

Thank you Shane for being a kind host, and thank Shane’s followers for allowing me to feel the warmth.

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John is the author of Cemetery Street and Shangri-LaTrailer Park. He lives in the mountains of Montana
with his wife Tammy, their dogs, and an occasional meandering bear. He’ll be releasing Nightwatching – a ghost story, later in 2012. You can catch The Barroom Chronicles, a weekly series about the insanity of owner a small-town bar on his blog

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Jess C Scott, author of the cyberpunk urban fantasy novel The Other Side of Life (volume 1 of the Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy), is the first guest of this type on this blog.

The Other Side of Life – by Jess C Scott

The Other Side of Life

Anya and Leticia are partners-in-crime who steal for a living. Their world turns upside down after a chance encounter with fellow rogue, Ithilnin—the enigmatic leader of an Elven band of thieves.

A scuffle to prove who’s the better thief transforms into more than Anya and Ithilnin ever bargained for. They retrieve the missing piece of an ancient poem, before getting caught in the secret dealings of a megacorporation. What they uncover threatens to alter the very essence of not just human life, but the other side as well.

Elven intrigue, cyberpunk action, and a deadly dose of danger come together in The Other Side of Life [Book #1 in the (Cyberpunk) Elven Trilogy].

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Thanks to Jess, I have had a chance to begin reading The Other Side of Life, and am finding it very readable. The style is clear and concise, the setting is unambiguous, and the intrigue is delicious. I will be powering through to the end, and will be keeping an eye out for #2!

Jess will take over now, and will tell us something about her writing process. Thanks Jess!
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The Writing Process

Thanks for hosting me today, Shane!

Writing is something I’ve always enjoyed doing—I remember journaling very voraciously throughout my teenager years as I tried to make sense of myself and life in general. I still journal quite often, though not as often as during my teen years!

I like journaling because of the un-censored aspect of it. It’s perhaps why I occasionally like to employ a “stream-of-consciousness” type of writing style to certain stories (particularly when the story is told from multiple points of view). There are certain times when capturing the moment or a certain emotion (or emotions) takes precedence over technically conventionally accurate grammar and punctuation.

At the same time, I enjoy being efficient with writing (that’s the business aspect that I can’t ignore). While I don’t like to keep too strictly to a certain word count (in terms of daily quota and/or length of final product), it’s something that invariably needs to be taken into account.

I type more often now (in the past, I used to write a lot of short stories out by hand), though I still do plot outlines and things like that by hand. It’s nice to see the thoughts being written down in ink and forming tangibly on a piece of paper in front of you, that can capture your passion/whims according to quirks and intricacies (such as the amount of pressure you apply when holding the pen/pencil).

I find that focusing on visualizing helps with the efficiency—I can often write out a scene more quickly if I’ve already got a VERY GOOD idea of what the scene is all about (including each character’s motives, true emotions, etc.).

The emotional appeal is very important to me too, particularly because I like exploring and navigating through subconscious (and dark) forces, which makes visualizing and probing the character’s psyche to be a never-boring expedition.

I guess that’s one of the reasons I like writing so much—it’s so much more than just writing…

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Jess is a professional non-conformist with a fresh, youthful world view. She is an author of relationship-based erotic fiction (and other unique projects, including a series that features “cyberpunk elven thieves”). She’s cool, supportive, and writes with both intellect and a lot of emotion.

She has most recently co-authored Teen Guide to Sex and Relationships with Matt Posner (Spring 2012). For more info, please visit http://jessink.com/teenguide.htm

Jess can also be found on jessINK, Facebook, and Twitter.

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I have just finished a two-day stint in the Artist Alley at Oz Comic-Con. I am exhausted, and I’ve had almost nothing to eat for two days, and not a single moment off, but I have come pretty much straight in here to write down my experiences, for fear that time will dull them.

This weekend was a string of firsts for me:
* First time in Adelaide
* First time participating in a comic convention.
* First time at a convention, period.
* First time I’ve seen a complete stranger pick up one of my books and look at it

Because I was by myself at the table, I didn’t get to leave to wander around the convention, but you could see at a glance how overwhelmingly successful the event was. I think the end tally was somewhere in the vicinity of 19,000 visitors over the weekend, more than twice the anticipated number!

I had never seen anything like it before. The costumes were insane and prolific and the rest of the Goyder pavilion was just wall-to-wall geekery. The kind of thing that made me simultaneously sad and somewhat relieved to be confined to my Artist Alley table.

I got to meet a few of my contemporaries over the weekend. I was seated next to a con veteran on one side who was trying to offload some old stock. He was friendly and good-natured, but seemed a little jaded by the whole con experience… at least when compared to my doe-eyed naivete. On the other side was apparently another con virgin, but I’m not exactly sure what he was selling (I am guilty of poor listening), but I think he was attempting to gauge interest in a technology-driven comic. He was away from his table for almost the entire weekend and had only a handful of business cards and a banner to let people know he was there.

The convention staff and volunteers were all extra-friendly folks who were more than happy to help out where needed. For example, I couldn’t leave the table to pursue the autographs I wanted (Ben Browder and Bill Farmer), but all I had to do was notify the relevant volunteers, and they got the autographs on my behalf! I didn’t need any help setting up my stall in Artist’s Alley, but I could see them helping out others at very short notice. And all weekend, I could see them rushing around like mad, working extra hard to deal with the unanticipated flow of customers.

In terms of my own stall, I read the excellent Artist Alley Survival Guide about thirty million times in the last couple of months, and the most excellent advice contained in it was this:

* Don’t sit at your table; stand. You’re more approachable.
* Don’t be mute. Talk to people, ask them how their day’s going.
* As soon as you have their attention, give them something they can hold/flick through while you talk with them.

This advice made me a marketing machine (though once or twice, the “have a look” ploy was misheard as “have a book” and I had to move fast to avoid stock walking away!)

At least half of my sales came from talking to people who obviously had no intention of stopping. My rule of thumb was thus. One second eye contact, or two seconds looking at the table, and I’d say “Hi.” If they looked at me, I’d continue “How is your weekend?” If they smiled/spoke, I’d hold out a copy of The Lesser Evil: “Want to take a look?”

Unbelievably powerful. I feel almost guilty! But no one looked upset or ripped-off; I think they were genuinely pleased to have picked up a decent quality graphic novel for $8… something I guess doesn’t happen too often around these parts.

It was quite an exhilarating day. I found myself watching people intensely as they picked up The Lesser Evil curiously, turned it over, flicked through it, raised their eyebrows, murmured wonderful things like “Wow, that looks good” and then decided to take a chance. When I noticed myself staring, I tried to cut it down a little, but I have to admit, it was pretty cool watching complete strangers come over to check out my work.

One fellow took a brochure early in the day, read through it at some point while standing in line elsewhere, came back to my stall and told me that he was thoroughly intrigued by what I’d written in the brochure. He walked away with two books under his arm!

Another man bought a book from me, read part of it while in line elsewhere and came back specifically to tell me that he had greatly enjoyed what he had read so far. Brushing praise aside and shooting for the moon, I shamelessly sold him a copy of The Lesser Evil Volume 2.

One interesting thing is that people tended to assume that my book must be self-published (a natural assumption given that I was there by myself in the booth, pimping a single book). One lady apologised as soon as she’d asked the question; she was so embarrassed, but of course, I laughed it off. It was kind of fun telling people that I’d gotten published the traditional way, and in a sense, the repetition made the truth and the accomplishment that much more real to me.

After the first day, I’d sold nearly half of all my books, but almost none of my prints. I spent most of the night tossing and turning over different possibilities and decided in the end that it would be a good idea to start offering the prints as free incentives to purchase (i.e. buy a book, get a print).

The pub I was staying in had a loud band on until about 11 (of course, it was Saturday night, so I don’t really blame them), so I took a walk around the general vicinity. Jesus, Adelaide is beautiful. I want to live here now. For serious.

Day Two: I had a splitting headache from a very poor night’s sleep, but still felt happy, optimistic.

The free print idea went over like Gangbusters (which I have been led to believe is a good thing). In the end I managed to pass off more advertising masquerading as prints, and every single book I had left in stock. It would be near impossible to describe the sheer scope of the triumph I felt when I realised that I was going home with an empty suitcase (I had feared the opposite). It was an incredible feeling, and indescribable.

I was pulled away from my table for ten minutes for a whirlwind reunion/meet with a number of Adelaide Browncoats, and a photo with Jewel Staite. Can’t wait to see the photo, and it was great to catch up with everyone, if only for a moment! Yet another example of the intoxicating positive atmosphere I found myself in.

A girl at the next table was doing ‘draw you as a zombie’ sketches for passersby, and was so busy that she frequently had to turn people away. At the end of the con, she asked if I’d be at the next Oz Comic-Con in Melbourne in June/July. Of course, I can’t make it as Katie is due to give birth to little Liam around that time…

… but at some point during that conversation, it dawned on me just how charmed a life I am leading. I’m twenty-six, but I already have a wife and one-point-five children, a house, a mortgage, and a solid foothold into my lifelong dream via a published book that I can promote, sell and bask in. I have financial security sufficient to make a trip like this one to Adelaide feasible, but not so much as to eliminate the thrill of risk from the venture. Everything about my life just felt so right at that moment, and I hope that I will remember it forever.

I really am very lucky.

On the way to Adelaide, I had a panic attack (a real panic attack – I’ve never had one before. It was damn scary). All I could foresee was doom and gloom for this trip, for my writing career in general, and with the appropriate consequences for my overall happiness in general. I wanted Katie to help me, I wanted to be home, I wished I’d never even written the book to begin with…

But now I’m glad I went. Even though my theshold for success was low (don’t fail miserably), I think this was an important rite of passage for me. A professional challenge that put me well outside my comfort zone, stripped me of all familiar buffers (Canberra and Katie, mainly) and threw me out into the lion’s den, to sink or swim (mixed metaphor). It was a big risk, financially and professionally, and placed additional burdens on my family that I regret, but overall I am very proud of myself for going to Oz Comic-Con and I am even prouder that I managed to succeed at selling 110 copies of my book to a large number of complete strangers.

I even took pre-orders for the unreleased Volume 3!

Incredibly touched and inspired by the events of this weekend, I’m feeling a new confidence in myself, and in my writing.

People are reading my work.
People actually want to read it.
People want to spend money on it (and even at a convention where they have already spent their year’s worth of fun money!).

[Sorry to everyone I know who's already bought a copy, but if I'm being honest, I have never been able to shake the feeling that you bought my book out of obligation (I truly love you for your devotion, by the way).]

Even though financially, I don’t think I even reached the break-even stage (though it was a close call), I consider Oz Comic-Con Adelaide to be a resounding success for me (possibly even as much for me as it was for itself!)

So: Oz Comic-Con 2013, watch out! And bring your wallets: I’ll be back.

TL;DR: I am happy, and feel like as far as my writing career is concerned, the sky is the limit! I’m not stopping. Ever.

PS: There might be photos. I didn’t have a camera, but several folks photographed me and promised to send me copies via email! :)

The publishing schedule might slow down in the next week or so, but it will not stop. The Tube has an ending; I even know what it is. It just might not be coming out daily for a little while. With that in mind, enjoy this slightly longer-than-normal instalment of The Tube.

THE TUBE

Concept by Michael Winters and Shane W Smith
Written by Shane W Smith

How long had he been here in The Tube? A fortnight perhaps? It astonished him that it hadn’t been longer; in some ways it felt as if an entire lifetime had passed him by while he had been here; indeed, in a sense, one had.

He had lost himself, he knew that. The Motivator had stripped from him almost every experience that had shaped him into the person he was, leaving him a hollowed-out wreck of a man. Fragments were returning to him, slowly, testament to the brain’s power to protect itself, but everything was hazy, like a dense fog in his mind, and most of it was lost forever.

A great deal of whatever had survived was free of context, fragmented and often nonsensical. There were gaps in his mind that he just couldn’t bridge, couldn’t leap over; his memories were floating marooned in a void, divorced from each other. He was no longer a cohesive whole, but a truly fragmented self, and in many ways a stranger to himself.

Even Katherine, his centre, the sole reason for his steadfast refusal to embrace the madness that bore down upon him from all directions, was beginning to fade a little. Her face, her radiant smile, still shone brightly in his mind, but he could no longer recall her scent, nor could he clearly call to mind the sound of her voice.

Learning that he might never get these memories restored had hurt him, wounding him more deeply than he could have anticipated. Throughout this whole experience, he had at least believed that one day, he could be restored, that there was at least a chance of it. For two nights and a day, he lay on his bed, clenching his jaw until it throbbed with pain, pulsating with hatred for OmniTech and everything it stood for; bitter resentment for everything it had taken from him, and everything it had tried to take.

If the Motivator had clicked on again that night, he would have given up; let it take everything he had. But it didn’t, and by morning he’d gained a little perspective.

His goal remained the same: to find his way home to them. He would need his wits about him if he was going to fool OmniTech for long enough to get that opportunity… and it started today.

He knew who his next visitor would be, and he was ready for her when she arrived, her face a mask of concern.

“How are you feeling this morning, Shane?” she asked.

He forced himself to respond with a cheery tone. “I feel fine.”

“They- they told me the experiment had been successful.”

“That’s what they told me too.”

He knew that he was convincing; yet, her smile wavered noticeably at this last, and she averted her eyes from his. “Do you feel up to finishing that tour of The Tube we started last week?” she asked.

“Of course,” Shane responded with exuberance (though not so much as to appear suspicious). “Lead the way.”

As soon as they were out of the apartment and standing out on the open walkway, safe from surveillance among the noisy bustle of The Tube, she let her guard down. Light rain began to fall around them.

“I know what they did to you,” she said suddenly, still facing away from him. “It’s not right.”

Before Shane could register any kind of surprise or formulate a response, she pressed on. “I don’t want to know whether the experiment actually succeeded. I’m going to tell them that it was; hopefully that will be the end of it. Certainly no one I work for was happy when I told them it was still going.” She ran one stressed hand through her hair, an unconscious indicator of her agitation. “I’m not sure what else I can do for you, other than encourage you to play along for as long as you can manage. They mean serious business here; I’m sure of that now.”

She turned to face him, biting her lip nervously; she lowered her voice to a whisper that he could barely hear over the traffic. “And when you get out… take me with you.”

He had no idea what to say; his jaw flapped ineffectually until she added, “Just think about it. I don’t need an answer from you now. Just know that no matter what else happens, you’re not alone here.”

Touched somewhat, Shane was about to say something, but Clarissa was already walking away. Quickly, too; they were nearly at their destination by the time he caught up to her, almost five minutes later.

They had stopped outside one of the more industrial-looking buildings. Clarissa waved her ID card in front of a scanner and they retreated inside from the rain.

“This is where you’ll be working, Shane,” Clarissa said. “It’s the generator you designed, modified and expanded to generate enough power for the entire Tube. You’ll be running general maintenance for a while, until you get used to things and familiar with the variations; eventually, though, we’ll get you on R&D. Our ultimate goal is to upgrade this device to remove its unpredictability and occasional volatility, and to improve its efficiency beyond its current optimum.”

It was nothing less than he had expected; however, regarding the network of cables and mechanics in front of him, he came to realise just how unfamiliar the generator looked to him. He looked around himself, with absolutely no clue about where to start. With a stab of fear, he wondered what might happen to his family if he ceased to be of any use to OmniTech…

“For the first week or two, you’ll be working under one of our technicians,” Clarissa continued, oblivious to his confusion. “After that, we’ll revisit the working arrangements. Ah, here he is now.”

“Shane?”

The man’s face was unfamiliar to him, but the sound of the man’s voice unconsciously called a name to Shane’s mind.

“Mike?” he said.

–Continue to part 26–

___

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And while you’re here, why not check out the rest of my site? Have a look at some of my published work!

THE TUBE

Concept by Michael Winters and Shane W Smith
Written by Shane W Smith

“I feel okay,” Shane insisted.

Doctor Wattle smiled humourlessly. “Your scans say otherwise,” he said, pacing across the room towards the monitor. He entered a couple of commands into it and turned back towards the boy.

For a moment, the Doctor felt guilty about having enlisted Shane in his schemes, but the feeling passed quickly. The boy needed an ally more than anything, and who better than Wattle to fill that void? The price he asked was minor in comparison to what Shane had endured so far. And besides, Maddie – Maddie! – remained unavenged; and this consideration trumped all others in his mind.

After a bit of a pause, Shane couldn’t hold back. The fear was evident in his voice as he asked, “What do the scans say?” and Doctor Wattle felt a considerable pang of sympathy for him.

Wattle consulted his chart as he answered; he had already memorised its contents, but couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Shane as he rattled off the laundry list of symptoms.

“You already know most of it. The last session with the Motivator was one too many. Your brain’s pathways have deteriorated considerably; at the moment, it just seems to be memory that’s affected, but don’t be surprised if your body stops obeying you so easily in the future.

“You will certainly have difficulty recalling your past. The fact that this morning you couldn’t recall your name, but now can is a good sign. Some of your past might return, if you’re given the opportunity to rest and heal. I cannot say for sure, however; we are pioneers in this world of mind rape.”

The venom with which he had enunciated this last had caused his furious spittle to spot the paper in his hand; he wiped it off absently. What they had done to Shane was reprehensible, abhorrent; and yet nothing lower than he had come to expect from OmniTech… and nothing when compared with what had happened to his Maddie.

“There is actually damage, too,” he said. “Scorched tissue. It will leave scars on your brain; the effect of this is hard to guess. If you’re really lucky, it will be mostly cosmetic, with only minor impairment.

“Some of this damage will be permanent,” Wattle warned. “You might have difficulty retaining new knowledge. You might feel shadows of your past flicker in your mind like déjà vu. Overall, you’ll probably never be as quick-minded as you were in your Nobel-winning days.

“You’ll almost certainly end up with some form of dementia… and probably not especially late in life, either. Probably some sort of neurological degeneration too.”

“And what about restoring my memory?” Shane asked, already knowing the answer. “It was in the contract they showed me.”

“We don’t have that technology,” Wattle said flatly, his voice tinged with sadness. “We have no way of retrieving what the Motivator has stripped from you, especially given its haphazard response to your resistance, and even if we had, to my knowledge, we don’t have the capacity to heal or restore the physical damage done to you.

“Even if there was some way of – for want of a better word – injecting your memories back into your mind, they would probably just leak out again, like water through a sieve. Your brain is no longer equipped to store them – and that might never change.”

“So they lied to me,” Shane said.

“You’re surprised?”

“No. Just… just exhausted.”

Then he heaved a big sigh.

“I brought this on myself,” Shane said morosely. “I remember sitting there in my kitchen, turning the empty tube around and around in my hands. It’s one of the few truly vivid memories I still have. The tube I filled with my blood and turned over to OmniTech… I did it voluntarily. I asked for this.”

In Shane’s despair, Wattle could hear fragments of Maddie, and his heart twinged with pain. Again, he wondered whether using the boy was the best thing, but there was no other way that he could see… and it was Shane’s only chance at freedom besides.

“You didn’t ask for this,” Wattle said. “What they’ve taken from you – no one would ask for it.”

He made a couple of notes on his chart. “I think I can sell this,” he said. “If you are willing to keep up the charade.”

“No more Motivator?” Shane asked.

“As long as you can pretend that the experiment was successful.”

“I can do that.”

Wattle nodded to himself. “I’m going to put you down for one more day’s rest, and then they’ll put you to work.”

Now he looked up and peered at Shane through his glasses. “Remember: once you get out and about, keep your eyes open. They’re clearly not watching you as closely as I thought. Your opportunity might come sooner than we thought.”

In fact, he would see to it.

–Continue to part 25–
___

Thanks for reading The Tube. You can subscribe to it, so you never miss a chapter!

And while you’re here, why not check out the rest of my site? Have a look at some of my published work!

THE TUBE

Concept by Michael Winters and Shane W Smith
Written by Shane W Smith

It was possible that if her superiors had recognised the level of discontentment in Shane, they never would have assigned him to as junior an official as Clarissa. The man seemed to hate The Tube and resent OmniTech; Clarissa had been thrown off-balance by that realisation. How could anybody hate what was going on here? An experiment in self-sufficiency, for the benefit of mankind; and with comfortable conditions for its volunteers, no less.

His intransigence and unwillingness to co-operate with her had been surprising, but rather than take it as a personal affront, Clarissa had been intrigued by the challenge he represented to her: a chance to flex her average PR skills.

On orders from her supervisors, she had taken possession of the small phone he had illegally hidden in his apartment; Clarissa did not understand why the phone was illegal (she herself had three), but it was not her place to question orders… not if she wanted to get ahead, and make her parents really proud of her.

And yet, as the days wore on, Shane had not warmed to the idea of living in The Tube at all; instead, he had worked some sort of magic on her, spinning a story that seemed so ridiculous on its face that she had initially concluded that he was insane, that the experimentation he had signed on for must have something to do with treating mental illness. The notion that The Tube had armed guards was just as ridiculous as his assertions that his brain was on fire, both of which he attempted to convince her of.

But she had slowly come to believe his story; he told it with such conviction and seemed otherwise so perfectly lucid, that she took it upon herself to investigate further. Not wanting to advertise her confusion, she had sought out social drinks with a couple of lower-level technicians working on the Motivator project. She even went to bed with one of them; not a big sacrifice, although probably not an action her parents would have approved of.

She didn’t know Shane’s importance to The Tube, though it had been hinted at before. But some moral imperative that had remained dormant her entire life, something Clarissa had never had to call upon before, kicked into action and she began to wish better circumstances for this man, who by all appearances, was being held against his will in The Tube. When she told her supervisor some of what she had heard about the ongoing experiment with the Motivator, the woman had snapped into action quicker than anything Clarissa had ever seen before.

Through the walls in the ensuing hours, Clarissa had caught snippets of phone conversation, including the phrase “The experiment was supposed to be complete weeks ago!”

That afternoon, she had been pulled from her duties with Shane, and for a day or two, had assumed she was in trouble. She spent the nights with a sick, twisted-stomach feeling, certain that she had let her parents down, that she had messed up, again.

After two days with nothing to do, no duties to perform, Clarissa was beginning to feel like her old, average self again, when an expensive bottle of something bubbly was delivered to her desk. The handwritten card said, “YOU HAVE SAVED THE TUBE. THANK YOU.” Clarissa had wept with relief, and was directed to return to her duties the following morning, bearing the welcome news that the Motivator experiment was over for good, and that Shane could begin to settle in without fear of further assault.

When she arrived at Shane’s apartment and found him trembling on the bed, his ears and nose leaking blood, insensible and incoherent, she realised that this wasn’t over. The problem wasn’t solved: it had just been covered over.

OmniTech was up to something, and in a flash, it had become clear to Clarissa that she needed to investigate further, to find out what they were doing to Shane, and what they had planned that had made this all necessary.

Unsure of what she could do for him, she pulled out her own phone and dialed a medical emergency.

Then, while waiting for EMT to show, she withdrew the phone that had been confiscated from this very apartment what seemed like a lifetime ago, and carefully taped it back onto the side of the basin in the en suite.

–Continue to part 24–

___

Thanks for reading The Tube. You can subscribe to it, so you never miss a chapter!

And while you’re here, why not check out the rest of my site? Have a look at some of my published work!