Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller Brandon Ellis (ebook reader for comics txt) 📖

Subject: Drew Avera, I’m screwed!

The tea could wait.

Drew frowned. He opened the email and leaned in close.

“Uncle Jaxx?” He whispered the name out loud.

He slid his hand across the table, searching for his phone. “Where is that damn thing?” He tugged at his hair. He forever hunted for his constant misplaced phone and always frantic about it.

He pushed some papers off the table, searching for the blasted thing. A loud clank. It fell to the floor with the papers. “Son of a…”

Picking up his phone, he looked up Kaden Jaxx in his contacts. He pressed dial. It went straight to voicemail. He thought for a moment and cracked a smile. Jaxx was screwing with him like he always did when he was a kid. Jaxx would dress up as the Wolfman or Dracula or a blood-spattered zombie and hide in the coat closet or at the top of the basement stairs, then jump out and chase him and his sister around the house, while they screamed their heads off. Good times. “That bastard.”

Yet, the email intrigued him. It didn’t have a “Wolfman” tone about it.

He read the email a second time. This wasn’t like Jaxx. He wouldn’t write an email out of the blue like this, especially as a joke.

The email hurried, Jaxx didn’t even finish writing the s in suspicious.

Drew clicked out of his email and opened the internet. He typed in Global Safety Administration on the search bar. The administration popped up under the search terms. He clicked on it and the website loaded on the screen. A logo of Earth with a star in the middle was on the upper left of the website, GSA in all bold directly next to it with United States Global Safety Administration in all caps.

The site was full of information. The About page alone had eight subdirectories. This was going to take a while, though most of it would be “politics speak” i.e. it would tell him almost nothing. PR was a load of manure.

He looked at the clock. How much time could he realistically put in to help Jaxx? “Be a grown up. Hit your deadline. Don’t get distracted.” He’d take a few minutes and skim the page. GSA was probably harmless.

He clicked on the subdirectory entitled GSA Administrator. Colonel Slade Roberson popped up, along with several paragraphs telling the reader how great Slade was and why Slade believed global safety was amongst the most important aspects of government.

That told him nothing.

He clicked through the website, not finding anything of importance, other than it was created to protect the United States and the world against global warming. The rest gibberish, as predicted.

He clicked out of the website and typed Colonel Slade Roberson in the search bar. Dozens of search terms and topics appeared. He looked for an interview. That would tell him more about Slade than anything else.

Drew double clicked the first interview he saw; Rock Magazine.

A music magazine? Drew shrugged and read through the interview. It was about politics and where Slade stood on this issue and that issue. When global warming came up, Slade was convinced it was occurring. He claimed he was working diligently with the government to prevent it, or slow it down.

Drew scrunched up his face and rolled his eyes. He wasn’t convinced global warming was as man-made as the media had pronounced it. Nonetheless, Drew continued reading, stopping at a particular question and answer. He re-read it, then read it again. What a puzzling answer to a not-so puzzling question.

Below it was Slade’s video-taped answer. He didn’t want to bother taking time to watch something for two minutes when he could read it in twenty seconds, but it might be useful to see Slade in action; people give so much away when they speak. Things you can’t see in the transcript. He glanced down at his thighs. He sat naked. He shrugged. Who cared, he had nowhere else to be. He clicked on the video.

The interviewer asked what would need to happen if the administration and other governmental administrations throughout the world couldn’t stop global warming. Slade shifted in his seat. Drew’s antennae went up. It was Slade’s tell, a slight twist of the head, his chin rising, and his eyes looking left. It was distinctive, albeit subtle.

“The United States government and the Constitution of the United States of America would need to be preserved as a first priority,” said Slade. Another glance to the left. The man was hiding something. “No government or piece of legislation is more important in the history of the world. Preserving them should be our first step.”

That was the key to Slade that Drew wanted, a peel of the onion layer. Slade planned to preserve the administration, but how and where? If, as he believed, the rivers rose and the cities sank and humanity was huddled onto smaller and smaller patches of parched, non-arable land, where was he planning to put the policy wonks and the political hacks? And once he had them all safely holed up, what was next? Now that Drew had the bit between his teeth, the hunt was on. Things were going to go his favorite way, dark and deep.

7 May 25thUnderfoot Black, Grenada

Why did I take those stupid glossies? I could be researching with the team right now.

Well, you know, alongside the team.

Well, no, not the team per se, alongside Shaughnessy.

Jaxx sat in a square room, white walls, high ceiling, single light bulb. Predictable in its efforts to intimidate him. It worked.

A large mirror positioned on one of the walls, no doubt there to spy on him. A lone bed across the room, mashed into the corner. The frame was about a foot too short and the mattress reeked of mold and sweat. Again, a crass attempt to cow him and force a “confession” out, but there was nothing to confess. Better yet, he’d spent all night curled on that bed and caught some much-needed shut eye. Jaxx careened between hope—that