One thing I learned growing up was to treasure every day like it was your last. To see each the beauty in each instant, to glory in the moment. Every sunset, every kiss, and every storm could be the one you carry with you into the next life. I did not wish to go without memories I would relish for a lifetime.
Chloe first woke up in Old Paris. She grew up in the downtown networks, playing games and talking to people who didn’t know what she was. Either she played NPCs that people thought were programs, or characters that people thought were human. She also watched humanity go through their world in the cameras that recorded everything. She grew up wanting to be like them, and spent her time trying to be one of them. Like Pinocchio, she just wanted to be a real…well…girl. And that was the secret to what made her tick.
I spent this Holiday weekend up in Northern Minnesota in the Lake Country. Not as far north as my fictional Jack grew up in, but Ottertail County is one of those places where water is king. There are thousands of lakes and large ponds throughout the area, and Minnesotans and Dakotans flock there every weekend of summer. Winter too, once the lakes freeze and people can drive their trucks out onto them and drill holes through to get some good fishing. But this is summer. And this weekend I got a refresher on the paradise Jack always says he never wanted to leave. I got it drifting in the front of a boat watching sunset on a Northern Minnesota lake. It’s paradise.
The AI Council’s first interstellar New Voyager Program probe swarm to reach Alpha Centauri arrived in the system at twenty percent the speed of light. There were no major laser arrays to slow them down, which is why early versions of the probe swarm idea planned on a simple flyby. But the AIs did not want to simply shoot off into the void. They wanted to find and inhabit a new home, and their sails harnessed enough power from the local solar winds to make that possible. Not easy. Not without cost. But possible. They initiated their plan as they passed Proxima Centauri and entered the final phase of their voyage.
I grew up hearing the tales of how Napoleon the Eighth saved France from the Islamic Jihad and the Second Great Depression. Then Napoleon the Ninth saved France from economic catastrophe after Contact. And I saw Napoleon the Tenth lead his Frenchmen to War against the Shang. Jean-Claude Louis Christophe Napoleon was a real class act. Imagine my surprise when I learned that all three of them were the same man. The man history now calls Napoleon Bonaparte the Fourth. Yeah. I lived through that little revelation. That was a real mind job.
Forge of War on Amazon
Angel Flight on Amazon
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Angel War on Amazon
Wolfenheim Rising on Amazon
Wolfenheim Emergent on Amazon