I’m outside playing. She doesn’t expect me back till dinner. She doesn’t want me back till dinner. She wants peace. She needs tranquility and there’s plenty of it: one hundred acres of woods, caves, and mysteries of nature at our disposal. While I savor this adventure, she rejects it, losing and closing herself in the noisy blather and corner of her own mind, like winding dirt roads that disappear into obscure, overgrown, and unfamiliar territories, she does not want and […]

Categories: The Mirror of Me • Tags: Science Fiction, Serial Novel, Speculative Fiction, The Mirror of Me, The Mirror Series

“I have chosen a team in collaboration with the mentors, commanders, and directors. We have a proposal that we would like you to consider, Peyton. Both the team and the proposal have the necessary approvals to submit for a vote. We will send our team to the vicinity of a culture …  surreptitiously,” Wynne uses this word with some hesitation. “—release an update—a fixed amount of nonreplicating nanites programmed to deactivate in a certain time frame to allow for the […]

Categories: The Mirror of Me • Tags: Science Fiction, Serial Novel, Speculative Fiction, The Mirror of Me, The Mirror Series

The bumps of the road hiss and sway as we speed towards downtown Charlotte on I77 South. Bowed asphalt and potholes emerge here and there and Jess does what she can to avoid them. The three-black decked out SUVs travel as one carrying all towards answers—vague incomplete ones. The West fam and Max choose to share information sparingly. Grace, Gray, and Parker sit opposite us while Max sits between me and Alison in the middle longer vehicle squeezed between two […]

Categories: The Mirror of Me • Tags: Science Fiction, Serial Novel, Speculative Fiction, The Mirror of Me, The Mirror Series

The usual focus, inhale-exhale isn’t working. My conventional tactics are faulty, absent even. My mind is blank. Confusion reigns. I cannot seem to catch my breath. I lean forward and take several large breaths as the cast chair straightens before trying again. I don’t notice the tears leaking from my face. Closing my eyes tight, I clench teeth and purse lips to slow my breathing, to no avail. I hear Q far away endeavoring to right the situation. My display […]

Categories: The Mirror of Me • Tags: Science Fiction, Serial Novel, Speculative Fiction, The Mirror of Me, The Mirror Series

The main house on the estate, private and extensive—behind a wall and security and oodles of guards at every point that our small caravan entered a little too easily—looks like a smaller version of the Biltmore. Just over ninety thousand square feet, Reliquum, a gothic modern castle tucked into the crook of the cliffs overlooks those same Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, North Carolina. Greyish bistre spears tower over the gardens that surround the property on a backdrop of raven […]

Categories: The Mirror of Me • Tags: Science Fiction, Serial Novel, Speculative Fiction, The Mirror of Me, The Mirror Series

“Do any of you think this is a good idea? There had to be more than a few objections to this?” I ask concerned waving a hand at the imposing repository around us. Wynne pauses arching a brow. “If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have done it, yes?” I stop and look at her. “I gotta wonder if your smart assery is new or only new to me. Regardless, bravo. I’ve always had a fondness for smart asses.” “There is the […]

Categories: The Mirror of Me • Tags: Science Fiction, Serial Novel, Speculative Fiction, The Mirror of Me, The Mirror Series