Side Effects May Include Superpowers

The CEO struggled to suppress his yawn as he listened to his Chief Financial Officer drone on.  Sure, the man was a wizard at making numbers jump through hoops - and vanish, when they weren't exactly necessary to keep around - but good God, his presentation skills were terrible.

The CEO surreptitiously glanced down at his watch, a $45,000 Piaget for which he'd spent six months on a waiting list.  Either he paid all that money for a knockoff, or else the Financial Officer was literally making time itself slow down out of sheer boredom.

"Okay, well, it sounds like that's going well," he spoke up, slapping his hand on the conference table and cutting off the Financial Officer mid-sentence.  "Let's hear from someone else, shall we?"

Near Disaster

"Madam President!  We need to get you into the bunker?"

The large, burly member of the Secret Service detail couldn't help but roll his eyes when Madam Elaine Clifton, the President of the United States - and arguably the most powerful person in the world - finally appeared around the corner.  She looked somewhat out of breath already, and she clutched a large, struggling orange tomcat in her arms.

"Sorry, sorry," President Clifton panted, trying to adjust her grip on the wriggling animal so that he couldn't slip out of her determined grasp.  "Little Georgie-kins here just didn't want to come out from underneath the couch!"

Another eye roll.  Kane, the Secret Service member, offered up a brief but fervent thank-you to whoever decided to include tinted sunglasses in the uniform design for the President's guards.  Were it not for those shades blocking his eyes, he would have been fired long ago.

The Tree in the Cave

Biology is a curious thing.  How does a seed, a tiny little cluster of cells with no eyes or brain or neurons or central control, know which way to grow?

The answer comes down to gravity, and light.

He didn't know why she died.

"Oh... Shit."

I stared at the body, my eyes frantically searching for some sign of movement.  "Come on, come on," I murmured to myself, needing to see some tiny little sign of life.  Was the chest rising and falling?  A little twitch of a leg, I prayed.  That's all I needed.

Behind me, I heard footsteps, the eager, quick little footsteps of a child.  Shit.  Timothy was coming down the stairs.

Missing Brains: 2016 Edition

New Year's Goals

That's right, it's the new year!  2016, baby!  And there's going to be some changes around Missing Brains (here).

Schedule

First off, scheduling.  Missing Brains, the blog, is sticking with a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule.  Three posts a week!

However, since I beat the 52 book challenge last year, I'm going to be doing something different with the Monday posts.  Instead of providing a book summary each week along with my thoughts, I'll be keeping to the following schedule:

Monday: I'm going to be telling a serial story, called The Amateur's Guide to the Apocalypse, in segments.  I'll post a new segment, about a thousand words per update, every Monday.  Hopefully, the story will end at exactly 52,000 words.

Wednesday: Wednesday will be a short story, with a theme focusing on real life.

Friday: Friday will also have a short story update, but Friday's theme will focus on the fantastic, science fiction or fantasy themed.

Other improvements

Twitter: Missing Brains is going to have a twitter handle!  Of course, it won't be @MissingBrains, since that's my personal handle - but maybe I'll make @MissingBrainsBlog into a channel.  I'll hopefully attract a larger audience through Twitter.

RSS: I don't really know how RSS works, but I'm going to try and use it.

New Website Design: In the works, probably not coming for a while.

Patreon: This is a new thing - when I'm not writing, I'm a graduate student.  Notably, neither graduate students nor writers make much money.  That's why I'm going to see about setting up a Patreon, so that readers (you) can fund writers (me!), to help me afford to keep on writing!  I've never set one of these up before, so we'll see how it works out.

The future

Can I keep this up?  Will my well of inspiration run dry?  We'll find out - together!

My latest novel is LIVE and for sale - for just 99 cents!

Hey there, reader!  Do you like stories with comedy, drama, angels, sassy female heroines, and the end of the world?

What am I saying, of course you do.  Who in the world wouldn't like such an amazing sounding story?

Well, now you can read the very story I described above, all for just 99 cents!  And you know that it will be good, because I wrote it!

Check out my latest book, Apocalypse Before Coffee, by clicking the picture of my book above!  It's for sale on Amazon, and it's only 99 cents, or free to borrow and read if you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber!

Seriously, give it a look.  It includes a plucky female heroine, a rather sarcastic angelic guardian, sneaking into Hell via the back entrance (located in the DMV), multiple celestial beings getting pepper-sprayed (it's nothing they don't deserve), people nearly vomiting from inter-planar travel, a climactic showdown for the fate of the entire Earth, and spiky demonic toilets.

And if that doesn't describe the perfect novel, well, I don't know what you want.

A day in the life of a secret agent

The door slid open to reveal two hefty men, both of them clad in identical black outfits and both wearing identical angry scowls.  They gaped at me for a moment, and then lunged forward, grabbing for the guns at their belts.

That moment's pause was their undoing.  Relying on my years of training, I slid forward, ducking under the swing of the nearest.  I rose up with a powerful uppercut, connecting squarely with his jaw and sending him flying backwards through the air.

I pivoted as soon as the blow landed, opening my hands to grapple with the man's companion.  He'd freed his gun from his holster, but I snagged his wrist, keeping the pistol aimed up into the air.

The gun fired, a sharp retort that echoed through the air, but I twisted at his hand, snapping his wrist and knocking the pistol from his hand.  I caught the gun by the barrel with my other hand, swinging the butt up to connect with the man's temple.  He collapsed down bonelessly next to his fallen companion.

Readjusting my grip on the pistol, I sighed.  Were all henchmen so easy to beat up?

The Art of Coffee Shop Sketching

I glanced up from my sketch book as she stopped in front of my table, her free hand tapping at the chair across from me.

"This seat open?" she asked, giving the words an upward lilt to suggest a question.  Brown hair fell in waves around sparkling hazel eyes.

I nodded, only briefly eyeing her, not wanting to lose my focus.  My pencil remained poised over my half-completed sketch, about to complete an important stroke.

I heard her pull back the chair, settle into it.  The corner of my eye caught her coffee cup as it landed on the table, only inches from my own.

I focused on my work, but when I next looked up, I saw her eyes observing me.

First Contact

A thousand cameras followed the alien saucer as it dropped smoothly out of the sky, down towards the front lawn in front of the White House.

Frowning, I hefted the silver flask in my hand.  I usually made more of an attempt to keep the flask hidden from Arthur, my producer standing just behind Charlie the cameraman, but I couldn't manage to exert the effort tonight.

After all, all of us were feeling pretty distracted.

The Man in the Field, Part II

Continued from Part 1, here.

I sat at my desk, my fingers interlocked in front of me.  My cup of coffee, the third one of the morning, slowly grew cold beside me.

The body was down on the slab in Samuelson's back room, and I'd carefully locked up that briefcase in our evidence locker.  Lewis had helped me put the thing in there, although neither of us spoke a word for the entire ride back to the station.

It was only after the thing was out of sight, under lock and key, that we started to drift back to normal.  I gave him a couple tasks to do - run down the prints off the dead body, try and get an ID, check for a wallet or other personal items - and sent him off.  Maybe we'd get lucky, find the guy in the system.

I, meanwhile, had a tougher decision to make.

The Man in the Field, Part I

We got the call fairly early in the morning, according to the front desk's note.  Some farmer found the body, out walking his dog.

And that was lucky, too, I thought to myself as I rubbed my hands together.  I always chose the thinnest pair of leather gloves I could find, for dexterity, but they didn't hold in heat worth a damn.  The engine on my unmarked car was running full blast, but the heater always took twenty minutes to warm up.

Sitting beside me, Lewis stamped his feet on the floor and huffed into his own cupped hands, making a sound a bit like a coughing dog.  "Gah!  Is it always this cold?" he complained, wriggling his fingers.

Writing Prompt: The futile efforts of a slutty secretary.

"So, Mr. Carlyle, is there anything else I can get you?" the young woman asked, making sure that her breasts, hanging heavy in her low-cut blouse, just barely brushed against the man's suited shoulder.

The man, however, didn't glance up from his paperwork.  "No, Missy, that will be all, I think," he said, waving one hand vaguely in the air.

Missy felt a little put out, but she straightened up carefully, making sure to accentuate the long, slender lines of her figure.  Her mini-skirt ended only a fraction of an inch below the perfect curves of her ass, and if Richard Carlyle happened to slide one hand up along the inside of her perfect bronze thigh, he'd soon find a very distinct lack of underwear beneath...

"Danni California" is now available as an ebook!

California Priest - A Western Thriller

“The girl’s eyes widened - just as I pulled the trigger…”

It’s the end of the nineteenth century in a growing nation, and unrest is close at hand. Jasper might wear the high collar of a priest, but he’s a trained killer, highly paid to assassinate anyone troubling the shadowy Organization. He's just received his latest target: a young female redhead robbing banks from Mississippi to Illinois. 

But as Jasper hunts his flame-haired mark, he finds himself growing closer to her. Danni is smart, sassy, and sensual—even when Jasper's looking down the barrel of her Colt. 

As fate pulls the robber and the assassin closer together, they find comfort in each other’s arms. But can these two outlaws hope to stand together as the nation’s forces rally against them?

Writing Prompt: Who owns samurai swords?

Normally, I'd consider the curved samurai sword out of place.  Who expects to find an actual sword in an office building, even in a gigantic executive's office like this?

At the moment, however, the sword looked like salvation - if I could only reach it.

Trying not to draw attention to myself, I flexed my arms, testing the ropes that bound me to the chair.  The coil looped around me several times, but I could feel it budge ever so slightly when I strained my muscles.

Maybe, just maybe, I had a chance.

Book 35 of 52: "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi

If I had only one word to describe this book, I think I'd call it "harrowing."

If I had a few more words, I might call it "a harrowing, twisted look at life in the third world in a plague-ravaged, genetically twisted post-apocalyptic, calorie-starved future."

Yeah.  That sums it up pretty well.

Danni California, Part 28

Continued from Part 27, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

At this point, Jasper, the man in black, sat back, lowering his stack of meticulously typed up papers down onto the table in front of him.  His eyes came up to survey his stunned audience.

Whether she was truly the first to find her voice again, or if Old Hillpaw simply let her speak, Jenny became the one to break the silence.  "It... exploded?" she asked, sounding more bewildered than anything else.

Jasper nodded.

The waitress shook her head.  "But... but why?"

Book 34 of 52: "They Came to Baghdad" by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie.  It's a name synonymous with mystery.

But this isn't really a mystery novel.

It's much more of an action-filled spy novel, with a mystery serving as a minor plot element.

And that's a very good thing, in my opinion.

Danni California, Part 27

Continued from Part 26, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

The metal grappling hook sailed out, trailing rope behind it as it flew away from the building.  I stared after it, feeling the rope flying out through my fingers and watching the little black dot zoom away.

It landed on the closest nearby building, and I heard a clink as it hit.  I waited a moment, feeling the rope drop to slackness, and then carefully gave the line in my hands a gentle tug.

For a heart-stopping second, it slid loosely, suggesting that the grappling hook had failed to catch on a target.  But then, just as I cursed and prepared myself to haul it in for another throw, I felt the line suddenly flex with tension.

Book 33 of 52: "Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt" by Michael Lewis

Back to non-fiction - and one of my favorite topics, finance!  I've heard a lot of critical acclaim for Flash Boys, which seeks to take on and explain the mystery and complexity behind high-frequency trading, or HFT.

What is HFT?  In short, it's the stock trading strategy of racing the market, finding out when a large order is going to be placed, snapping up all of those stocks before the large order can go through, and then selling them to that purchaser for a profit.

It's a bit like seeing a lot of customers at a lemonade stand on a hot day, cutting to the front of the line, buying ALL the lemonade, and then turning around and selling it to the customers for a higher price.

Seems wrong?  I agree!  As do many people in this book...

Danni California, Part 26

Continued from Part 25, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

Both Jenny and Old Hillpaw audibly gasped.  "What?" they both stammered out in unison, staring at the man in black.

Jasper couldn't help grinning at the stunned looks on his audience's faces.  "Wait," he said, glancing back down at the pages in front of him.

"It will make more sense soon."