Death Tango
by Lachi
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GENRE: Science Fiction/Horror
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BLURB:
In a Utopian twenty-third-century New York City, where
corporations have replaced governments, AI dictates culture, and citizens are
free to people-watch any other citizen they choose through an app, this
horror-laden Sci-Fi Thriller follows four mis-matched coeds as they attempt to
solve the murder of an eccentric parascientist. Only someone or something able
to navigate outside the highest levels of croud-sourced surveillance could get
away with murder in this town. If the team can't work quickly to solve the
case, New York City will be devoured by a dark plague the eccentric had been
working on prior to his death, a plague which, overtime, appears to be
developing sentience.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
It is nine years ago. I stand alone on an unstable rock. Beneath that rock are a few precarious slabs of granite. Beneath the granite lies a hundred feet of air, of silence, of potential bone-shattering death. Surrounded by a dusk sky, Mount Venom—the cliff aptly named for the lives it has claimed—stretches endlessly beneath my quivering legs and far beyond my blurring vision.
Through the blaring wind, I hear several SOIs—School of
Intelligence kids—hurl down demoralizing insults from the cliff’s edge. “She’ll
never make it!” “Fall and die, swine!” Each year the SOIs goad us TFs—Testing
Facility subjects—into scaling the cliff. If successful, the TF is accepted as
an equal, putting an end to constant ridicule and torment. There is little
sympathy for those who accept the challenge and fail. I tell myself to reach
for the next stone along the slope, to keep my hands steady, to breathe.
I near the finish line.
Every inch of my body tastes it as much as my mouth tastes
it. Get there; say nothing; feel no pride. My face wet with tears and mucus, my
fingers slippery with blood, I feel around for my next grip and pull on my
burning calves. I have only two heaves left. Two heaves, and no more being
treated like trash.
I notice a small gap between two large stones above me. As I
place my dampened hands into the hole for leverage, the rubble on which I stand
gives out. My legs dangle freely. I have the willpower to lift my body onward,
but my concentration is broken by a pair of black-gloved hands that pop out of
the fissure above me.
Someone is hiding behind the rocks.
Tech Sports knitted in thin red stitching on each glove
slides into view. My body ignores the anxiety presented by this new
predicament, and I continue to lift. The gloves grab both my forearms and yank.
I am now dangling by the grip of those hands; I am now at their complete mercy.
“Friend or foe?” I manage to growl between pained gasps, the
wind forcing hair into my mouth.
“You’re so close,” replies a male voice I can hardly
distinguish.
“I know! I know! Help me up!” I yell. My legs work uselessly
to find hold. Receiving no verbal or physical response, I wriggle my shoulders.
“Hey! Help me up!”
“Beg me!” the voice demands, barely audible over the blood
rushing in my ears. I fend off a rapidly growing well of despair. Despair is a
choice, a manifestation of surrender.
“Please!” I bark, the word taking with it all of my remaining
willpower. I look up wide-eyed at the gloved hands, ignoring the falling stones
as I await my fate.
“This is for putting in the application!” he yells, and with
a quick jolt he lets go of my arms.
I fall.
I keep my eyes open, desperately hoping for something to
grab, but all I see are a mix of gray sky, red rock face and my flailing arms.
I hear my bones smash against the jagged teeth of Mount Venom and scream one
long uninterrupted exhale, silenced only by the jarring collision of the back
of my skull against the cold, hard pavement.
I don’t feel the fracture. I only hear it between my ears.
Pop.
I lie at the foot of Mount Venom, looking up at dark clouds,
a metallic taste oozing over my tongue, a harsh pain working its way down my
neck. A thick puddle coalesces under my head as onlookers gather.
My vision snaps away instantly with a blink. Surrounding
echoes fade slowly as the internal sound of my curtailed heartbeats takes over.
Suddenly I feel cold and heavy. I am motionless, no longer taking in oxygen.
After an onslaught of euphoria, I feel my brain flatten. I
hear its slight gummy movements of deflation against my last few heartbeats.
And somewhere between no longer feeling the ground beneath me and no longer
feeling the air around me, I realize I am dead.
I perceive only a black vastness about me. Like an autumn
leaf I float in the Cartesian circle that is the keen awareness of my
nonexistence. A mix of bliss and terror. I try to hold on to something
physical, something I can understand. “You are safe. You are safe,” I repeat,
exercising the remnants of my inner monologue.
Then I begin to see things.
A single bright blue diamond, about the size of a fist,
appears five feet before me. It is soon joined by two more on either side,
followed by two more still, until a string of blue diamonds surrounds me. I
realize I can see my entire periphery, no longer limited by physical eyes. A
light source switches on behind me, revealing that I am floating at the center
of a rotating diamond-rimmed disco ball.
Trying to locate the light source, I push my perception
upward, downward, left, right, only to find that I, myself, am the source of
that light. The speed with which the disco ball spins steadily increases,
faster and faster, until all is a blur of spinning frenzy. Suddenly thousands
of quick snapshots of familiar faces speed toward me: my friends, my bullies,
the dark skin of my estranged father, the Spanglish ravings of my drunken
mother, their parents, their parents’ parents. Images of a cottage in France, a
village in Africa, past wars, ancient discoveries, tree scavenging, gasping
air, breathing ocean, swimming in gas, feelings of remorse, loss, shame,
excitement, immense love, bitter anguish, and a desperate need for acceptance.
Every imaginable emotion ravages me whole.
I experience my consummate past. A massive rewind that stops
at a sweeping explosion. A sphere of white fire so bright, it could hardly be
described as fire. I am an endless wave of raw emotion drowning in the
unyielding flames. And in that eternal instant I understand everything.
Again, all fades to black, the warmth, the understanding.
And though the blackness around me is infinite, I sense a presence. I am not
alone.
“Look around you,” the presence communicates to me, not
through sound, sight or touch, but through direct understanding. I am certain
it is—at least in part—a being other than myself. I hold fast to my mantra. “Do
not fear,” the presence continues. I allow the mantra to fade. “Do you see how
far the blackness reaches, stretching beyond infinite horizons? That is how
much you do not know, how much you’ve yet to learn.” A brief silence. “Fear is
the great enemy of knowledge, and you, Rosa, are the switch between them.”
“Me?” I manage to convey through the slivers of my
consciousness.
“Us.”
“Us? How? Why? What do you mean?” My figurative words come
childlike and excited.
“You already know how,” the presence responds as it fades.
“You already know why.” I feel a growing bitter loneliness as the presence
drifts away.
“Wait!” I yell. The blackness around me congeals to a bumpy
dark brown. “Come back!” The glistening euphoria gradually declines as my
flattened brain begins to restructure. A physical atmosphere swiftly surrounds
me, and a palpitating sensation starts beneath me, causing me to rise and fall.
The pulsing sensation reveals itself to be my heart grappling for a pulse.
A crashing ocean of white noise fills my head. I feel that I
have a head. A body. Arms. A face. My face.
I open my eyes as the rush of noise fades to the sound of an
open room. I am lying on a bed in the infirmary, surrounded by the school nurse
and Dr. Ferguson himself, their blurry faces examining my head wound.
Dr. Ferguson bends forward. “You had a very nasty fall, Ms.
Lejeune. Do you remember that?” He watches a nurse as she dabs a cloth at my
face. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Art
of Writing Villains
It’s National Wicked Day today, so I’m super
excited to talk about my favorite character-type to pen. Villains—and Death Tango is full of ‘em. As a
WhoDunIt, pretty much everyone you encounter in the Sci-Fi is the villain-elect
depending on the lens you’re wearing when you encounter them. But before I
ramble on about villains, and in honor of Audio Drama Day, I’m excited to share
that we are also releasing an Audiobook version of Death Tango this week voiced by the talented Alexander Cantrell and
complete with music and fx, so look out for it!
What is
A Villain?
A villain is defined as a character who
opposes the hero. But what is a hero really? The dictionary defines a hero as a
person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements or
noble qualities. However, admiration and idealization are wholly subjective,
i.e. the hero in your story could be the villain in mine.
I define a hero as the character we’re
conditioned to root for. We as consumers of
the finite medium of a film, book or TV episode already know that the
person whose perspective we’re following will encounter an obstacle and
hopefully overcome it by the end. The obstacle personified is the villain.
But I think to myself—isn’t Mario just
breaking and entering into Bowser’s meticulously arranged castle? Like, Bowser
is just hanging out on a relaxing Sunday, forcing the Princess to listen to him
practice guitar, and then a call comes in. “Boss, some dude just broke in
downstairs and is setting fire to all the furniture. Do we take him out?”
Bowsers says, “No, let him all the way through. I’d like to speak with him and
come to an understanding.” Maria shows up and it’s all head-pouncing from
there.
Relatable
Villains
Generally we’ll grow with the hero and
sympathize with their hurt and damage. We typically meet the villain after
their “damaging event” and thus do not sympathize with their hurt. But no human
is a single-issue human. We’re far more complex beings than that. We all have
damage and have damaged. We’re all a
villain in someone else’s story—a liberating realization—but we’re still pretty
cool people, maybe even heroes.
So I had fun blurring that line in Death Tango. The characters run the
gamut from text-book BadGuy to “I can’t tell if they’re a GoodGuy or a BadGuy”,
to GoodGuy bad person, BadGuy good person, and some other just fun terrible
people in between.
Some BadGuys just flow off the page, like my
favorite to write in Death Tango,
Pebble Whittaker—the epitome of camp-style creepy. Others are more difficult to
see all the way through because their weapon of choice is any one of the true
systemic vallanies of today, like my character Johnny Angelo. While others
still are just a mood, a journey the story takes you on, like my Neutral Evil
character (DND reference) Paul Oscar.
Where I
Pull From
I inhaled Horror and SciFi novels before
trying it at home. My first horror novel was Cold Fire by Dean Koontz and my
first Sci-Fi was Asimov’s Foundation followed by Frank Herbert’s Dune series. I
found out through this process that my favorite villany was a bit amorphous,
nameless and was often larger than the typical hero-villain dichotomy.
As a person with a disability, I was drawn to
horror and the creepy and the crawly, because of the villains. I could always
relate to them. I had a physical / visible disability when I was younger so,
you guessed it, I was excluded and bullied. The villains in my life were
portrayed as heroes on TV and film. I often thought to myself, if someone
showed Freddy some love when he was younger, maybe he wouldn’t grow up to
become.…well, Freddy. Thanks to my outlets in writing and music, I ended up
pretty well adjusted, but wonder what if one of my electrons went a different
direction.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Lachi is an
internationally-touring creative artist, writer and award-winning cultural
activist living in New York City. A legally blind daughter of African
immigrants, Lachi uses her platform to amplify narratives on identity pride and
Disability Culture. In her public life, Lachi has helped increase accessibility
to the GRAMMY Awards ceremonies as well as create numerous opportunities for
music professionals with disabilities, through her organization RAMPD. Lachi
also creates high-quality content amplifying disability. She has hosted a PBS
American Masters segment highlighting disabled rebels and releases songs such
as "Lift Me Up" and “Black Girl Cornrows” that elevate disability and
difference to the pop culture market. Named a “new champion in advocacy” by
Billboard, she’s held talks with the White House, the UN, Fortune 100 firms,
and has been featured in Forbes, Hollywood Reporter, Good Morning America, and
the New York Times for her unapologetic celebration of intersectionality
through her music, storytelling and fashion.
In her
free-time Lachi writes sci-fi and fantasy novels with diverse, headstrong
characters, focusing heavily on atonal world-building, quip-ridden character
development, likable villains and psycho-spiritual discourse.
Website:www.lachimusic.com
Twitter:
twitter.com/lachimusic
Facebook:
facebook.com/lachimusic
Instagram:
instagram.com/lachimusic
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Tango-M-Lachi-ebook/dp/B0BLGYMCQ7/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0
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Lachi will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you so much for hosting today. It's appreciated.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteWhat made you laugh today?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like an interesting story.
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe cover looks really nice
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
ReplyDeletesherry @ fundinmental
Thanks for featuring my book!
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