It’s Friday!
That means what? End of the work week?
Not if you’re a writer!
Starting Tuesday, I began serializing the chapters in all of my CASSIDY novels – Volume One on Tuesdays, The Road to the Stars (Volume Two) on Wednesdays, The Measure of Humanity (Volume Three) on Thursdays, and Volume 4 (title to be announced!) on Fridays.
Today’s Friday (see above), and so that means we’re diving into Cassidy FOUR today.
Why no title? Well, like I said, I haven’t announced it yet.
I will soon. But until then, you’ll just have to know it as Cassidy FOUR.
This book starts shortly after The Measure of Humanity ends, and, like The Road to the Stars, it has a Prologue.
It’s a short prologue, but it’s important.
One thing to bear in mind that this is a WORK IN PROGRESS – other than the routine editing-as-I-go that I’ve done, it hasn’t been proofed, grammar-checked, spellchecked, nothing; so I’m sure there are mistakes. Feel free to point them out if you want! There also isn’t a proper cover yet, although I’ve included a tiny clip of one of the potential covers. Just as a tease.
And one more thing – none of my characters are angels. They do despicable things (on occasion), drink too much (sometimes), and certainly use language which you might not want to repeat in front of a five-year-old. That’s who they are; changing that would make them Not Themselves. So, if language bothers you, well, I’m not sure what to tell you.
Okay. Enough chatter.
PROLOGUE
“Well, that was a total rat fuck.”
She was unimpressed, to say the least.
It was supposed to be easy! Hell, she did all the heavy lifting. She had arranged for the security to look the other way, she had recruited pigeons to distract MinSec from the real breakout, she had used family connections to put all the physical requirements in place.
And it had all worked like clockwork. Ten people – ten! – had successfully effected self-release from MinSec’s primary Political Rehabilitation Center on a single night, something that was supposed to be impossible. They’d all had their instructions, their safe houses, their destinations. Of course, she had no idea how many of the others had made it to their safe houses, but that was part of the plan, too. If there was no communication between them, there couldn’t be any back-tracing.
It hadn’t stopped her making plans of her own with three of the others, of course. But that was longer-term planning, a full lunar away. By then they’d either make the rendezvous or not. Her plans would work best with the people she’d chosen, but none of them were irreplaceable. She’d make do with others with only a minor delay.
That was for another day, though.
According to her carefully worked out plans, today she was to move from her safe house to a more permanent location. Where that was, she didn’t know, but was the point of compartmentalizing the information. What she didn’t know, she couldn’t tell.
Something wasn’t right, though.
The cubic she was supposed to pass through to reach her contact was swarming with MinSec patrols. Nobody lingered; they passed through as quickly as they could, keeping eyes averted and faces hidden. Everybody had something that MinSec could pick them up for, so everyone acted guilty.
Wouldn’t cover her, though. One facial scan and she’d be back in the PRC faster than she could think.
She needed a place to stay tonight. She couldn’t go back to last night’s hide; that was strictly a one-off deal. They wouldn’t turn her in, but it would start to establish a pattern of behavior and patterns were to be avoided.
There were rooms to rent, hotels and the like. Most of them required ID, though, and she couldn’t do that. Not yet. That was further down her list of things to do, farther down her plan. The ones that didn’t ask for ID, well, MinSec knew all about those places. Odds were good that the desk clerk was a MinSec operative and her face, along with the faces of everyone who checked in, would be in the files by morning.
Nope.
Only one thing for it. She had to break the rules and jump the chain. There was one place she knew, a restaurant that catered to tourists. It was close enough to the undercity to have a rakish air, just enough of a whiff of danger to give them a thrill. The owner was connected to a Family, but the manager was part of the resistance. She’d be able to help.
Then Autumn could really start planning a future without her cousin the Primus.
