Title: Red Between the Lines
Author: Parker Foye
Publisher: NineStar Press, LLC
Release Date: October 8, 2018
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 28200
Genre: Science Fiction, AI, androids, sci-fi, futuristic, action
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Synopsis
Wynfield, a washed-up former Corpsman
with optical bioware and a healthy chip on his shoulder, is reluctantly drawn
into a conspiracy to take down Nutrindustry, the company responsible for both
his “upgrade” from human and the city’s food shortage.
Playing clinic doctor for the day, Yeven
doesn’t expect the mouthy former pilot and their begrudging attraction—nor the
fresh twist of shame for his part in Nutrindustry’s past. He needs Wynfield,
though, and for more than his smart mouth. Feelings would just get in the way.
In a world where the line between man
and metal is thin, there’s more happening behind the scenes than even
Wynfield’s enhanced optics are able to see.
Excerpt
Red Between the Lines
Parker Foye © 2018
All Rights Reserved
The doctor was running late. To distract
from the nervous shake of his leg and the sidelong looks from a woman with more
metal than meat, Wynfield read about Nutrindustry’s latest attempt to address
food shortages in the outer settlements. Two lies in, he lost patience and
tossed the flyer aside. Propaganda wasn’t good for his blood pressure.
He chewed his nails, itching for a
cigarette—for something to do with his hands. Desperate, he started drumming
his fingers on his legs. The woman turned her glare up a notch and Wynfield
stopped. He clenched his jaw. For all he wanted to quit the clinic and the
woman’s stares, he needed to play nice. His eye had been glitching for weeks, and
he’d never fly until it was fixed.
He’d resorted to reading the flyer
again. Eventually a beep sounded from the drone at the desk, and the automated
bolt unlatched from the consulting room door a beat later. Wynfield waited for
someone to exit, but no one did. The drone beeped again, sounding as irritated
as a fully artificial being could.
The impatient woman cleared her throat.
“Are you going in or—?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going. Don’t short
circuit.”
Wynfield rose to his feet, pausing when
the change in altitude messed with his vision. When his eye didn’t recalibrate,
he swore and covered it with his hand, navigating to the consulting room with
his other hand outstretched so he didn’t fall on his ass. What a joke. If he
tried to enlist now he’d be laughed out of the recruitment office; even with
the bullshit about mods being superior to fleshware, and laws to prevent
discrimination against people careless enough to lose their original parts, the
Corps didn’t want cyborgs flying their ships. They’d been clear about that when
Wynfield woke from his coma six months ago.
Now the life he’d managed to scrape
together was threatened by hiccups in mods gained through flying the Corps’ tin
buckets. The universe had a shitty sense of humor.
Letting the consulting room door slam
shut, Wynfield headed for the worn seat at Dr. Razafindratsima’s desk. He
glanced up to greet her as he did and stopped with one hand on the back of the
chair, the other still over his eye.
“You’re not the doc.” Wynfield looked
the guy behind the desk up and down, pausing at the top of his messy hair. “Not
unless she’s grown ten inches.”
Dr. Razafindratsima was a squat woman
with soft features and hard eyes, like she’d seen some shit. The lanky streak
in her place had the same hard eyes but little of Dr. Razafindratsima’s
softness, like he hadn’t come through the other side quite yet. It’d have to be
close enough, since Wynfield’s insurance only got him service at one clinic,
and he stood in it.
The guy smiled wide, but strangely
uncertain, like he hadn’t a lot of practice. He gestured to the open seat.
“Please, sit. I’m Yeven, and I’ll be covering for your regular doctor for the
next month.” Yeven consulted his tablet, still smiling like Wynfield wouldn’t
see through the glare if he cranked up the wattage. “You’re here about your
upgrades?”
“Upgrades.” The guy had the right
language at least, all sanctimonious hand-holding. Wynfield snorted and sat. He
stretched out his legs to cross at the ankles and, reasonably sure the ground
wouldn’t move on him, lowered his hand from his eye. His hair fell over his
face in a tangle, and he shoved it behind his ear.
“You’re definitely a doctor, right?”
“Technically, I’m a bioworks interface
engineer. And you’re Mr.—Mr. Wynfield?” Yeven’s smile dimmed, before turning
conspiratorial. “You’re the interface, by the way.”
“I know.” Wynfield tilted his face so
the doc could better see the mess he had to work with. “And this interface is
fucked. Scans ain’t working, and my head feels like it’s on fire half the time.
Can you fix this, or should I come back?”
He didn’t have time to come back. He
needed fixing. Hell, Wynfield had needed his eye fixed for weeks, but it was
only with his cash from Rawling’s retrieval job that he could cover the
difference. But talk about your dirty money…
Whatever. It spent the same. And it
would get Wynfield into the sky.
“Let me have a look.”
Yeven put down his tablet and leaned in
with a small flashlight to inspect Wynfield’s eye. His breath was minty, and
his hands warm when he cupped Wynfield’s face. Wynfield was self-conscious
about his scars most days, with lines crawling out of his eye socket like a
hand clawing from a grave, but Yeven simply hummed as he pressed at Wynfield’s
brow and cheek in firm motions.
And there was another difference between
this guy and the doc; Wynfield’s dick had never chubbed up when Dr.
Razafindratsima took his vitals. He didn’t shift in his seat, because he was a
grown-ass man and could control himself, but it was a relief all the same when
Yeven returned to his side of the desk and picked up his tablet.
The smile was gone. Wynfield kind of
missed it.
“What’s the prognosis, doc?”
Yeven didn’t look away from the tablet.
“Swelling around the socket is impinging the setting. Caused, I suspect, by
someone punching you in that pretty face.”
Comedian. Wynfield grunted. A woman with
a devil of a roundhouse kick had left her boot print on his face when they
clashed on Rawling’s retrieval job. Wasn’t outside the realm of possibility
Yeven knew about identifying injuries, “interface engineer” or otherwise.
His sense of aesthetics was shot,
though. Pretty face, my ass.
Yeven huffed out a breath and glanced at
Wynfield. “I can’t do anything about the scanning function without a full
work-up, and I’d need to schedule a session—”
“Shit.”
Yeven continued like Wynfield hadn’t
interrupted. “In the meantime, I can give you something to reduce the swelling,
but you should return for an appointment to examine the damage. Too long
without a proper tune-up and you risk vertigo becoming a major problem, in
addition to the loss of functionality.”
He’d had a tune-up a month ago, as part
of his phased rehab arrangement with the Corps. Wynfield bit back his first
reply since it wasn’t Yeven’s fault Wynfield was defective. He made himself
nod.
“I’ll take the fix and call back for the
scans. How much?” It always came down to how much.
Yeven looked at Wynfield in surprise, as
if the question hadn’t occurred to him. Must be nice being some fancy fucking
doctor.
“It’s covered by your Corps insurance.”
Yeven scribbled something with the stylus before replacing the tablet on his
desk. “You can confirm the prescription and your next appointment at the front
desk.”
Wynfield could smell shady shit when it
fermented under his nose. His insurance barely covered minimum tweaks when
everything ticked by as usual; no way would it cover extraneous damage. Dr.
Razafindratsima was always real nice about it, but she ran a tight ship and
Yeven was going to put her in the red. Something was messed up.
Keeping his expression neutral, Wynfield
got to his feet and shook Yeven’s hand. Yeven’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Wynfield tried not to think about those long nights in his ship toward the end,
when he’d been avoiding his own reflection; he’d felt, then, how Yeven looked.
He just thanked the man and got the hell out of the room.
On the way out Wynfield showed his ID to
the drone at the front desk, confirming his prescription. He didn’t bother
making a follow-up appointment. He didn’t trust anyone apart from Dr.
Razafindratsima when it came to his eye.
Wynfield stepped outside and glanced at
the sky. Habit. He couldn’t see the winking lights of the satellite settlements
during the day but knew they were there. Sudden pain spiked at his temple,
making him flinch, but his hands were steady when he looked down to light his
cigarette. Those years steadying the wheel against gravity had to count for
something. Else what was the point?
Wynfield blew out a spiral of smoke.
Ain’t that the goddamn question.
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Meet the Author
Parker Foye writes speculative-flavored romance under the QUILTBAG umbrella and believes in happily ever after, although sometimes their characters make achieving this difficult.An education in Classics has nurtured a love of literature, swords, monsters, and beautiful people doing stupid things while wearing only scraps of leather. You’ll find those things in various guises in Parker’s stories, along with kissing (very important) and explosions (very messy). And more shifters than you can shake a stick at.
Originally from the UK and currently based in Canada, Parker travels on a regular basis via planes, trains, an ever-growing library.
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