Broken Mirror (54 page)
Circe’s words came back to him: he was a mirror to others. He was the world’s reflection. What is a person, if not a consciousness that makes meaning by relating to others? Why not be happy with that?
His mind wasn’t the problem; it was his surroundings. What might he become, if he was away from negative influence, free to make his own way? Independent? Stable? Like a noble gas in the atmosphere
—
present but nonreactive?
He wanted to lead a life of his own choosing. He wanted to trust the people around him. He wanted Jefferson Eastmore to be avenged. He wanted to stop wanting everything so fiercely.
Most of all he wanted to
not
want a cure so badly.
If he could accept himself now, he wouldn’t need a cure. A cure would change how he saw the world, how it smelled and felt to him. His neural currents would trace new courses through his brain. A cure would be a mental reboot, a reprogramming, an overdue arrival of an as-designed and as-intended normal-functioning mind that should have been his from birth. He’d be someone new.
Yet, strangely, for the first time, he didn’t want to become a different person.
Birds chirped, oblivious to his musings. It wasn’t just flight that gave them freedom. They never had to ask themselves why they sang.
Victor strode to the wire-mesh fence surrounding the kennel and looked over at the automated gate. It didn’t open for him, of course. He paced on a small strip of landscaped grass, back and forth, straining to hear sounds from within the kennel, instead hearing only the rush of wind and the chirruping of excitable birds.
He returned to his car and leaned against it, feeling the sun’s warmth. Despite being low in the sky, the heating force carried by its fusion-born photons felt like warm rain on his skin, marvelous.
Victor climbed back in the car, squeezed Elena’s shoulder, then sat back and stared out at the dry plains and a big, gray, hazy sky.
New Venice or bust.
TO BE CONTINUED
About the Author
Cody Sisco is the author of speculative fiction that straddles the divide between plausible and extraordinary. Broken Mirror is his first novel, and the first in a series that focuses on Victor Eastmore’s journeys on Resonant Earth and beyond. An avid reader of Frank Herbert, Haruki Murakami, and Kim Stanley Robinson, Sisco strives to create worlds that sit in the “uncanny valley”
—
discomfortingly odd yet familiar, where morality is not clear-cut, technology bestows blessings and curses, and outsiders struggle to find their niche. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
Afterword
Thank you for reading
Broken Mirror
. I’d love to hear what you thought of the book. Head on over to Goodreads or the retailer’s page online to leave a review.
When I began writing this story in 2012, I envisioned a series of books that would follow Victor Eastmore’s adventures on Resonant Earth. However, the scope of the tale I wanted to tell was far grander and the world much more sophisticated than my story telling skills. I finished the first draft in 2013 and realized that I’d written an opening trilogy to a series that would have at least six and possibly more installments.
As I write these words, ending the first book of many, I’m looking forward to taking up the rough drafts of the second and third books in the series, which are mostly complete yet still in need of restructuring and editing—and good titles.
I mention all this because I know how it feels to read “To Be Continued” and not be able to immediately move on to the next installment. As a teenager, back when the Internet was new and giant chain bookstores were ubiquitous, I would routinely browse the science fiction section, head to the R authors, and check to see if Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars sequels had been published. It was a long wait, but well worth it.
All that said, I promise to be diligent, open, and focused. I promise the sequels to
Broken Mirror
are coming soon.
Acknowledgements
This section could also be titled, “A Litany of Thanking.”
I am deeply grateful to my family, friends, colleagues, and strangers who encouraged, critiqued, supported, and spurred me on during the three years it took to write, edit, and publish
Broken Mirror
.
The editors who helped shape this novel deserve thanks. They are are very talented professionals without whom my novel would, frankly, suck. My thanks to Stephanie Mitchell, Justin Taylor, Lindsey Alexander, and Beth Wright. I’m also deeply in debt to my Beta Readers. They have seen this novel evolve and improve thanks to their insightful feedback. Thank you to Cynthia Cason, Derek Jentzsch, Jessica Barnett, Jason Groves, Luke Klipp, Stuart Kochmer, Jeffrey Lais, Kristin Larson, Holly McHugh, Richard Merrill, Cecile Oger, Jack Small, and Katie Vigil. A special shout out and thanks to the three other members of a special “group of four” who diligently shared their writing and insightful critiques over the past year: Nick Duretta, Cristina Stuart, and Suki Yamashita. And my thanks to the members of the Northeast Los Angeles Writers Group, especially my co-organizers Margaret Mayo McGlynn, Mike Radice, and Gabi Lorino, as well as Stephen Brown, Peggy Gregerson, and Jodi Lampert.
Dan “Thomas” Small: thank you for years of friendship and mind-shattering discussions, and for all your help making this story live up to your standards and mine.
Most of all, I want to thank my husband Jay Fennelly for believing in my dream, loving and supporting me, and being there for me throughout cycles of confidence and doubt, satisfaction and despair, and the mundane day-to-day process of getting the words out.
Finally, “thanks” doesn’t do justice to the impact of my family on my writing—thank you all. Grandma Lois, your signed copy is on its way. Tom and Sue, thank you for raising me amidst books, libraries, and stories, and always encouraging me to try new things and rise to any occasion. And to Jess, Abi, Marcel, and Luca: you mean so much to me—I’m so grateful to be part of your lives.
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