Excerpt
“We’re losing him,” the surgeon’s tense voice cut through the viewing room’s speaker.
Rory Bennels leaned against the glass to the operating room as the surgeon barked orders at the nurses and red plated medbots tending to the man splayed out on the surgery table. The patient’s body seized in violent tremors, blood oozing through wounds in his forehead, chest, and abdomen. Rory stared on in concern, his skin tingling as he recognized the man.
Epher Lore, the last leader of the Free Thinkers movement.
From his digital news updates, Rory knew of the Corporation’s efforts to track down this anarchist. However, as he looked upon Epher’s broken body, curiosity sparked in his mind.
This man, dangerous? He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. What was it about him that made the Corporation nervous?
A sharp zap at the base of his neck made Rory clench his teeth. Heart pounding, he looked to the watch on his wrist. It flashed red in quick bursts. Crap! That was the second time this week. If he kept upsetting his emotion-monitoring implant, they’d come to clean him. Like the Corporation said, ‘Emotions lead to questions. Questions lead to independent thought. Independent thought leads to anarchy.’
Rory straightened his back, reciting the Corporation’s Preamble to suppress his deviant thoughts. We, the subordinates of the Corporation, in order to form a more perfect human, establish authority, ensure uniformity …
He glanced at his black-banded watch again and gave a sigh of relief. Blue skies.
The harsh monotonous buzz of the heart monitor blared through the speakers, demanding Rory’s attention. The surgeon took off his gloves and told the one-eyed medbots to record the time of death. He exited the operating room, Rory mulling over the peculiar situation before the surgeon entered the viewing room moments later.
“I take it you’re Rory Bennels?” the surgeon asked in a cold, clinical tone.
“That’s right.”
He handed Rory a thin tablet that activated upon his touch. “Retrieve this man’s mind. Upload it to the Corporation mainframe.”
Rory scanned the digital dossier, then gazed upon Epher’s covered body on the gurney.
“Is something wrong?”
“Epher Lore, isn’t he–“
“That information is not relevant,” the surgeon snapped. He grimaced at Rory with calculating gray eyes. “Are you sweating?”
Stay calm, stay calm. Rory maintained eye contact. “Minor synaptic misfire,” he explained, flashing his watch that glowed a healthy bright blue.
The surgeon nodded, ushering Rory to follow him to collect the body.
Jonathan Pongratz is a writer and author of captivating horror, urban fantasy, and paranormal stories. When he’s not writing, he’s busy being a bookworm, video game junkie, and karaoke vocalist. A former resident of Dallas, he currently resides in Kansas City with his halloween cat Ajax. By day he works magic in finance, by night he creates dark and mesmerizing worlds.
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More exciting news! Conscience will be available for review from now until the end of November! Contact shanannigans.readsandreels@gmail.com for details, or to request a review copy.
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We are (slowly) working on updating old posts to the new format and removing old tour/blitz posts that are now missing key assets – please be patient with us, there are a lot of posts to go through, we’ve been doing this since 2016! Any tour/blitz posts that contained a review and are now missing key assets will be updated to review posts so the reviews remain accessible
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We’re doing our best to get everything up on the site and social media in a timely manner. Apologies if anything is missed or late! Between the state of the US right now, mental/physical health problems, and some things going on in our personal lives, things may be missed or late occasionally. We truly appreciate your understanding! Feel free to reach out to Lily if you notice something missing.
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