{"id":9904,"date":"2020-12-06T00:01:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T06:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jackofharts.com\/?p=9904"},"modified":"2020-12-03T04:08:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T10:08:52","slug":"the-family-affair-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/?p=9904","title":{"rendered":"The Family Affair"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The crosshairs flashed on his target. He pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n

The solid slug blew clear through his target and deep into the stairs behind it. Bits of warbot sprayed all over the stairwell and stone splintered behind it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood shot,\u201d Jon said into the silence that followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks,\u201d Jack said and moved to another firing position, keeping his eyes on the shattered drones all around them. And the unmoving warbot now lying against the bottom of the stairs. \u201cHaving fun?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely!\u201d Jon said as they waited for the next attack. \u201cHaven\u2019t had this much fun since… well… since I was born.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood to know,\u201d Jack said and licked his lips. He\u2019d seen warbots that looked just like that wandering around Juneau back in the day. Though Juneau hadn\u2019t called them warbots. They\u2019d had a much softer name for them. Something about border defense and customs if he remembered correctly. They didn\u2019t have very intelligent AIs, but there was one thing he clearly remembered about them.<\/p>\n

They always traveled in groups.<\/p>\n

Jack let out a long breath. The warning in the back of his mind was still screaming. He shook his head. \u201cBecause all of this so far has just been the warm-up act. The real assault is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t have long to wait. It started with the hum of more flying drones. Then came the sound of metal feet echoing down the stairs. Too many. Far, far too many.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The Family Affair is available at the following retailers<\/p>\n

Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

Barnes and Noble<\/a><\/p>\n

Apple Books<\/a><\/p>\n

Kobo<\/a><\/p>\n

Smashwords<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The crosshairs flashed on his target. He pulled the trigger. The solid slug blew clear through his target and deep into the stairs behind it. Bits of warbot sprayed all over the stairwell and stone splintered behind it. \u201cGood shot,\u201d[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diaries","uentry","postonpage-1","odd","post-author-medron-pryde"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9905,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9904\/revisions\/9905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}