One Piece at a Time
One Piece at a Time
by
M. K. Gibson
Copyright © 2019 by Michael K. Gibson
Published by
Amber Cove Publishing
PO Box 9605
Chesapeake, VA 23321
Cover design by Steve Beaulieu
Visit his online gallery at https://www.facebook.com/BeaulisticBookServices/
Interior Logo by T.J. Salyers
Edited by Valerie Kann
Book design by Jim Bernheimer
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Visit the author’s website at www.mkgibson.com
First Publication: June 2019
Foreword
The old saying goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” In the world of fiction, it means, “Give a reader a great plot and you have a great book. Give a reader a great character and you have a great series.” That’s what you have with Salem of the Technomancer series. He’s a great character. Why?
First, Salem is likable. We know that he cares about others and performs heroic acts. We know that when confronted with difficult choices, he tries to do the right thing. And we know that he is witty and entertaining. The best traits of Salem are the ones that we all want to have. We all want to think that if we saw a baby trapped in a burning building, we would rush in and save it, so it’s easy for us to identify with Salem.
Second, Salem is flawed, just like you and me. He has regrets, just like you and me. We have all done things in our past that we wish we could change, and made hard choices in our lives. I can recall doing horrible things when I was in high school because I wanted to be popular and making bad choices when I was in the business world, and I’m sure you can recall doing things you regret too. As you get older, you feel the pain of these regrets bearing down harder and harder. As does Salem, and as his regrets, like our own, boil to the surface. As we all think about how our lives compare to Salem’s, our bond with grows stronger and stronger. I don’t know if Salem gets as deeply entrenched in your mind as he does in mine, but when I’m reading the latest Technomancer novel, I often dream at night that I am Salem. I can say that it’s a mark of a great character.
Third, the author pours a piece of his soul into Salem. Another common characteristic of the greatest characters in literature is that the author uses the protagonist as an outlet to funnel their own hopes and dreams and sorrows and pain. The character becomes a cathartic way for the author to unburden himself of mental pain that has built up over the years. It’s easy to see that M.K. Gibson has done so with Salem. M.K. puts his heart on his sleeve through the Salem character. You can tell that, like most of us, he has a combination of love for and disappointment with his parents. You can tell that, like most of us, he has sorrow and regrets in his past. And as Salem finds ways to acknowledge his sorrow and pain and move past it, so does the author and so do we.
Last, to have a great protagonist, you must have a great antagonist. Many authors are afraid to make the bad guys seem morbidly despicable. They don’t want people to really “hate” the bad guys because they are afraid it will make people dislike the book. Well, that’s not the case with M.K. Gibson. He is a master at creating characters that stick emotional daggers in us. His antagonists kidnap children, kill people, brutally inflict pain upon people. They deceive, they manipulate, and most important, they evoke anger in the reader. And throughout each book, whenever an antagonist gets defeated or harmed by a protagonist, the reader feels joy.
Embrace your bond with Salem. Let your own memories bubble to the surface. Let your own emotions rise up. Let your hatred of the villains in the book become anger, and then embrace the joy you feel as the good guys triumph. Place yourself in Salem’s head. Don’t get too caught up in wondering where it ends or where it began. Just enjoy the journey!
Glenn King
Host of "Let's Talk Adult" podcast,
Legendary Adult Film Producer, 2017 AVN Web Director of the Year, and
Proprietor of MeanBitches.com
Prologue
Chapter One
Broken Yet Living
Chapter Two
Wonderful Sight
Chapter Three
A New Man
Chapter Four
A Flash of Steel and Spray of Blood
Chapter Five
To Be Special is To Be Marked
Chapter Six
Summoned to Trinity Neon
Chapter Seven
A Big Sloppy Kid Kiss
Chapter Eight
A Loophole
Chapter Nine
Sight Beyond Sight
Chapter Ten
The Way Home
Chapter Eleven
I Wasn’t the Same Man
Chapter Twelve
Lady Pain
Chapter Thirteen
We Beat Him
Chapter Fourteen
We Do Our Best
Chapter Fifteen
The Saint Nicholas
Chapter Sixteen
Gathered from the Deep and Dark Places
Chapter Seventeen
Chaos Breaks Down Discipline
Chapter Eighteen
The Tensile Strength of a Deep One’s Sphincter
Chapter Nineteen
Fastball Special
Chapter Twenty
How Mankind Could Live
Chapter Twenty-One
Merry Christmas
Chapter Twenty-Two
Unsucked and Bone Dry
Chapter Twenty-Three
Subtle Shifts
Chapter Twenty-Four
Slip
Chapter Twenty-Five
Blood in My Mouth
Chapter Twenty-Six
Magnitude and Jealousy
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nothing Good Comes From TV
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sense of Smell
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I’m Luke and We’re in Cloud City
Chapter Thirty
Pawns and Thralls of Grander Design
Chapter Thirty-One
My Heart Broke
Chapter Thirty-Two
A Speck Amid an Endless Ocean
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dead Flesh and Seawater
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Storm Is Coming
Chapter Thirty-Five
All Hail the Mark
Chapter Thirty-Six
My Own Personal Luck Dragon
Chapter Thirty-Seven
For We Are Crunchy and Good With Ketchup
Chapter Thirty-Eight
One of Many Minds
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Big Bitch
Chapter Forty
Joe Gander Was No More
Chapter Forty-One
The Fifty-Mile March
Chapter Forty-Two
A Handwritten Note
Epilogue
From the Author
About the Author
Prologue
Yule was a few weeks off.
The people of Longutanagar were preparing for the annual celebration. Gifts would be given during the day while bonfires would blaze at night. Everyone was full of joy.
Except the man known as Father Grimm. Father Grimm had no room in his heart for joy. Not now.
Inside he felt guilt. For what he had done, and for what he had yet to do.
>
It had been almost two years since Salem had disappeared. Despite their short time together, he had grown incredibly fond of the boy. Together, Salem and Grimm had made real changes in the world.
Father Grimm climbed up the wooden steps of the great Mead Hall, the first building erected when Longutanagar was being built. The hall was the place where people met, broke bread, and shared their lives. A place of joy and communion.
Grimm did not wish to be there. Yet his position demanded it. He seated himself at one of the long wooden tables furthest from the central fire pit, in the deepest shadow he could find. He poured himself a whiskey and looked at nothing.
Music was everywhere. Not covers of old recording or interpretations, but new music. New songs. Midheim had been a place of the growing soul—one of the reasons Grimm liked to frequent the old outer town. But in Longutanagar, souls were soaring. Something which Grimm had been fighting for all these many years.
More people showed up here. A place where demons did not rule. A place where humans were treated as equals and where they worked and lived in peace and safety.
Grimm sipped his drink, barely tasting it.
“You’re very close to becoming a downer,” Grimm heard a familiar voice say.
“Then I will try harder,” Grimm said, sipping his drink and not bothering to look up.
“How come you’ve never warmed up to me?” Khurzon asked as she sat opposite Grimm.
“You are demon,” Grimm said flatly. “Do not take it personally. Or do. I do not care.”
The monstrous orange and black four-armed Wrath demoness chuckled. Four horns sprouted from her forehead and swept back around her short hair. She still wore the protective breastplate from her time in the fighting pits of Ars Amadel.
For her assistance in saving the children of Longutanagar, Salem had come to trust her. Even Vali and Vidar had warmed to the creature in the last two years. Yet Grimm maintained his reservations. She was from Hell and had ascended during the Great Rise. As such, she had an unknown amount of power still within her. But aside from that, his instincts told him not to trust her.
“You know,” she said, “I remember when you used to come to the fighting pits in the Del.”
“Yes,” Grimm said. “I recall seeing you there as well.”
“You really enjoyed beating up demons.”
“Yes,” Grimm grunted.
“Anyone tell you that you’re a helluva conversationalist?” Khurzon laughed.
“Yes.”
“Oh yeah? Who?”
“What do you want?” Grimm asked.
“Meaningful conversation?” she mused. “A nice place to sleep? Safety? What does anyone want?”
Grimm nodded. “You . . . are lying.”
“Demon, sweetie. It’s what we do.”
“What do you want here,” Grimm amended, setting his drink down hard enough to splash a little of the whiskey from the glass. “Here, now, with me.”
Khurzon nodded and lit a synthetic smoke. “My, you’re touchy. Honestly? People are talking.”
“Are they?”
“Mm,” Khurzon said. “Word is you and the rest of the bigwigs are planning something.”
“And you believe these rumors?”
The demoness shrugged. “Vali hasn’t been seen outside Salem’s bunker in the last couple of days. Vidar and a small contingent of the Cykings left a few days ago. Even the hick mechanic and his kid are keeping a low profile. Something’s up.”
Grimm said nothing. But it was clear that their operational security needed to be reinforced.
Khurzon blew out a cloud of smoke. “So, what’s up?”
“Nothing,” Grimm said.
“Now who’s the liar?”
“Hey Grimm,” a female voice said.
Looking to his left, Grimm saw Salem’s ally from Flotsam, the cyber-hacker Twitch. In the last two years she had grown into a nearly respectable young woman. Her short hair was now grown out, with only the side shaved where her cranial cybernetics had been implanted. She had her hands in the pockets of her blue synth leather coat.
“Ms. Espinoza, how are you?”
“Come on man,” the woman said with an eye roll. “How many times do we have to go over this? It’s Twitch. Even the godly dudes get it.”
“A name for a child,” Grimm said.
“Whatever, old man. Come on, it’s time.”
“Time for what?” Khurzon purred.
“Time for you to mind your own business,” Twitch said to the larger woman.
As Grimm stood up to leave, Khurzon reached out with one of her four arms and caught Grimm’s wrist.
“If you’re doing what I think you’re doing…”
“Then what?” Grimm asked as he pulled against the demoness’s grip.
Khurzon, holding tight, smiled. “Then good luck.”
“Thank you,” Grimm said, forcibly removing his arm from the demon’s grasp despite her strength.
Khurzon nodded her approval.
********
“We’re in position,” Vidar said.
Vali tapped the comm in his ear, opening the channel to the room’s external speaker. “I see you, brother. Twitch?”
“All vid-links are up and working five by five,” the cyborg said.
The data port was jacked into her head and she was manually separating the feeds, parsing them to the respective monitors and instruments. “Seismic sensors are coming in clear. There’s nothing moving in the mine.”
“Anything in the area?” Vali asked.
Twitch shook her head. “Not picking anything up from the motion sensors or comm sweeps. Hell, I’m surprised we even found this place. The access road was almost non-existent. But if you wanted to hide something from sensors, this is the place. Anything down there would have plenty of natural shielding.”
“Standing by to breach,” Vidar’s voice came over the comm.
“Hold,” Vali commanded.
Vidar nodded. “Holding.”
Vali looked over his shoulder at the man overseeing the operation. “Are you sure about this?”
Father Grimm took a moment to look at the multiple screens and assess the situation. Vidar and his Cykings had arrived at the abandoned coal mine a hundred miles or so outside the city in the ruins of an old West Virginia town. Through the shoulder-mounted camera that the Cykings wore, Grimm could just make out that the wooden door that sealed off the main shaft was out of place for the location.
“Stop,” Grimm said. “Over there, by the door. There was something.”
“Yeela,” Vali said.
“What?” the demoness asked over the comm link.
“Pan back to your right.”
“Why?”
Vali sighed. “Grimm thought he saw something.”
“He always sees something.”
“Please,” Vali asked.
“Only because you said please,” the demoness said, then added, “lover.”
Twitch chuckled, and Vali responded by flicking the back of her ear. “Focus.”
“Ow. Okay, focused, boss. Bringing the feed up on the main monitor.”
The image transferred to the command center’s larger monitor. Yeela’s vid-feed panned back to the large wooden door as instructed. As the image centered on the door, Grimm leaned closer to the monitor.
“Stop,” Grimm commanded.
“What?” Yeela asked.
“To your right. Push aside the growth along the stone threshold.”
As she did, Gimm growled in his throat.
“What do you see?” Vali asked.
“There,” Grimm pointed. “Ancient eldritch script. This was a site of a ceremony. Some sort of ritual.”
“Those are just chicken scratches,” Yeela said. “Mr. Spooky is jumping at--ow!”
Vidar came into frame, having smacked the back of Yeela’s head. Vidar looked at the markings, then into the demoness’s camera. “Place feels . . . wrong,” Vidar confirmed.
> Grimm nodded. “This is the location. Be on guard.”
“We will,” Vidar said. “Cykings, prepare to breach.”
The various camera feeds jumbled as the cyborg mercenaries took their respective positions alongside the door.
“Do it,” Vali commanded.
The Cykings planted small charges along the door’s lock with a det-cord primer. Vidar nodded at his team to back up. Vidar took a breath.
“In three . . . two . . . one--”
The small blast flashed bright white, causing the monitors to blank for a moment. The Cyking’s portable sound dampeners prevented the controlled explosion from making excessive noise.
“Erik, take point,” Vidar commanded the senior member of the team.
“Roger,” Erik said with a nod. “Tasha, Cody, on my six. Khlabra, Kyle, take flanking positions. Min, you stay posted outside and keep watch.”
The team members nodded in turn with their respective assignments. Grimm’s focus switched to the night vision feed from Erik’s shoulder cam. The image stabilizers prevented the image from bobbing, and the relay points to the members of the Cykings maintained a nearly fluid stream.
“Twitch, do we have seismic enough data for a schematic?” Grimm asked.
The cyborg swung to the terminal to her right, typed out a few commands, nodded, then pointed towards the command room’s large secondary monitor. “Coming up now on that screen.”
Whitish-blue schematics overlaid on a black screen as more data compiled. From the computer model, Grimm could see that the shaft led down into a large rectangular main chamber with support pillars. From the main chamber, various tunnels, or hallways, led off to smaller chambers. Living areas, no doubt. The mine, through excavation, had been turned into some form of living area. An underground compound. The thought gave Grimm pause as he looked around the underground bunker. The horrible symmetry was not lost on him.
“Steady,” Vali cautioned. “Don’t rush it. Keep an eye out for traps.”
“Let me do my job, brother,” Vidar said.
“Smells like death down here,” Yeela said.
“A lot of death,” Khlabra added. “Days old.”
Grimm noted the white of Vali’s knuckles as the god gripped the back of Twitch’s chair. Grimm, too, felt the stress of the operation. Looking back at the monitor, he noted more of the manic script carved into the stone of the tunnel.