In case you didn’t notice the WIP progress bar on the sidebar over there, I FINISHED the first draft of Intoxication (Firmament Book 9) today! I’m really proud of my consistency in getting it done, and while it definitely needs work, I’m overall happy with how it turned out.
In honor of this momentous occasion, I found an excerpt that doesn’t give too much away to share with y’all. Enjoy — and let me know your thoughts!
In the silence, Young leaned forward again, nose appearing sharper and more bird-like in the bright, overhead light. “You’re right, Miss Lloyd. Some things are classified. With good reason. But curiosity is a very good thing. A thing I like to satisfy when I can.” He looked past me for a moment, seeming to focus on something beyond the wall of the lounge, beyond the ship even, perhaps as far behind as Earth itself. “Do you know much about me, Miss Lloyd?”
My answer wasn’t very flattering, but I gave it anyway. “No sir. I’m sorry, I don’t really keep up with politics.”
He smiled, again, the more natural-looking smile. “Understandable. Politics is one of the more depressing parts of life. So much so that I delayed getting involved myself until I was much older. I was nearly fifty when I entered ISA. Which is partly why I believe I’ve remained the deputy director for so many years while multiple directors have come and gone. Why am I telling you this? To explain why I wish to gratify your curiosity. I wish I had been curious and involved in bigger things earlier in life. It might have helped me get further. The future of ISA isn’t with the bureaucrats and the career politicians – it’s with intelligent and curious young people, like you and your brother.”
I wondered how he even knew about my relationship with August, and wondered if that also was something he had spoken of with Mr. Roth. But he continued without giving me a chance to question.
“So with that in mind, I will say what I can, trusting you to be cautious in how you handle the information. The short version of it all is that, yes. You’re right. Something is a little strange. And this is about more than just a grant. But not because the answer is classified. More because we don’t even know the answer ourselves.”
I lowered my eyebrows, trying to work out the implications of what he was saying. “Then what is it about?”
He picked up his pad and began tapping at the screen as he talked. “I’ve already told you most of what we know. This corporation, Exploration, Inc, arose out of nowhere and we still have not been able to determine who is behind it. This is concerning to us. The timing of their development of a hyper-warp engine is suspicious, but there, too, we’ve hit a dead end. We have multiple fears regarding the situation. First, we’d be fools not to consider that there may be someone leaking our own designs to whoever this is. We’ve had agents on that with no luck. At first we considered even that they may have been able to hack into and gain access to the original designs. Our investigation ruled that out conclusively. But any attempts to flush out espionage has turned up nothing.”
This all made sense. “So what are the other fears?”
“Well, regardless of whether there’s intellectual property theft going on, there’s a very real chance that international space travel laws have been broken in the creation of this other drive. I say this because it was something we were very aware of in the development of our own engine.”
Pieces began to click into place. “That’s why you were talking about causality the other day.”
He nodded, setting his pad down. “Our design doesn’t allow multi-directional fourth-dimension travel, but the potential is there. And if realized, would be highly illegal. Not to mention a threat to – well, not to be overly dramatic, but space and time itself.”