(Six paragraphs from my current WIP, the sequel to my debut novel Moro’s Price. I’m posting them on Saturday night because I intend to be comatose on Sunday morning. Enjoy.)
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“Dear girl, I’m sorry deprive you of fresh berries,” said the articulated, eight-foot-high steel skeleton waiting for Syene in Fortunero’s docking bay. Benny’s exo-chassis was Camalian military stock, a burly war-bot he’d bought at auction years back. He’d be more terrifying if he didn’t still have a white and red-striped fabric apron around his waist and gleaming chest. A legacy of their customary post-landing breakfast. He couldn’t ingest food, but his taste and smell sensors were remarkable. Sy was a lackluster cook, so she was happy to eat the more savory leftovers of Benny’s experiments.
“If you’d let me upgrade our hydroponic booths, I could grow them,” Sy said as she hopped out of the hovercraft. She grinned up at her employer. “I didn’t say berries. You were listening in! Having doubts about Dolan’s Rock, Captain Fortunero?”
Benny wrangled the last crate onto the hovercraft. His deep masculine voice routed out of speakers in his shoulders: “Hardly. I knew Dolan’s great-grandmother when she was an infant. We’re not upgrading the booths. Who would take care of them?”
“I will, as long as you cook. Think about it. Blackberry pie,” she intoned.
“Ah, Syene, you won’t be with me forever. Should I interview all my new candidates about their gardening skills, too?”
Sy clenched her jaw to keep from blurting out: I’m not going anywhere. Benny always spoke of her moving on to better employment. She meant to spend the next few hundred years out here. She might even make the final choice Benny had, and upload her consciousness into an AI-driven robot chassis. Then the silence in her mind would be complete. Would that be worth giving up a flesh and blood body?
***
Read more Sneak Peak Sunday snippets here.