I wake at five-seventeen and lie very still.

Wednesday I woke to the first of it — the small buds, the wider hips, the absence below the waistband. This is Thursday. Whatever the process is, it has not stopped.

I move my hands.

After a man is stabbed in the back and dies, he wakes up in the Labyrinth with a new body, new power, and another chance.

This story takes place in the same universe as my story Invoker.

Chapter 1

Detective Inspector Marilyn Houseman and Detective Sergeant George ‘Ginger’ Kidman walked into the murder team office, with the rest of the team stopping to look at them. Marilyn smiled and they all cheered.

“Terry Hanson got twenty-five years for each murder, consecutive, with the judge appalled at the brutality. That’s on top of the five that he got for smuggling and possession of illegal firearms. He’s unlikely to be out in our lifetime.”

Morning light finds him asleep in his clothes, barely rested. He packs both devices into his messenger bag and heads for the closest repair shop.

The bell jingles as he enters. A technician glances up from behind the counter — early twenties, a name tag reading ETHAN. His eyes skim past Caden's shoulders, landing somewhere around chin level. "Help you, ma'am?"

Caden's breath hitches. He sets the laptop and phone on the counter.

"Sir," he says, his pitch higher than expected, higher than a man's should be. He coughs, tries again. "Biometric lockout."

Paybacks Can Be So Difficult

I had built my realty business up from a single office to well over three hundred offices, now I needed to sell the business or find some investors badly before I had to declare bankruptcy.

The recent downturn in the economy had hit my company hard, causing me to curtail activities severely. It had not reached the point of laying off personnel yet, but another couple of weeks without an infusion of money would make that a necessity.

Noise; lots of it. I’m cold: I must have shivered as someone wrapped a warm blanket around me. Drift away again…

Noise again, light… My mother’s voice:

“I think he’s coming around.”

“Let’s have a look.”

Male, foreign, heavily accented.

“Ah; you back to us, yes?”

“Grunt”

“Whatyouname?”

“Huh?”

“He’s asking you for your name.”

Mother’s voice again.

“Name… Aisling…”

“It’s his stage name…”

Opening eyes, lights on ceiling, a man standing over me, white coat, stethoscope.

Chapter 6

Marilyn walked with her to the stairs. She held out her hand.

“See you later, Brightman. I’m heading back to my office to plug a new name into our searches. We’ve been trying to get the names of the robbers that Anderson was with out of the records for a week. They all went into juvenile and the records sealed. We’re looking at another avenue, but I believe that we now have the one we really wanted.”

She went up to the team office and stood by the ‘Rascal Wall’.

II. The Hearing

“What are we to do with you, Aylesea?” Pyotr Wylock asked as he stared at me. I answered his question with silence.

I stood in the center of the council chambers, my hands shackled. The men in the council looked bored…except for Feederk Wydosk, who stared at me with disdain from the far side of the table.

There are changes afoot but at least life looks to be settling down a bit for the Wunderkind. Or is it, things are hotting back up with BlauHase and at the Tanzklub but at least Mum is back home.

I. Wycliff

I, Aylesea Wysax, was conceived in the bonds of the slaveowner called Wycliff in the Wystill mountains. Everyone in Wycliff, from the mayor to the field generator workers who kept the town’s AG engines operational, lived to serve the kingdom Tyrian. No one in Wycliff had ever seen the drivers who reigned over us. But what is so important about a town held aloft by rope, steel, and anti-gravity engines? Why keep 20 generations under someone’s thumb?

This is a story about a trans woman taking her first steps into the big bad world. ( not my usual sex stuff )

I looked out of the window of my small bedsit one last time as I steeled myself to face the world. I held my breath and nearly scrambled out of my front door and the main door. I forced myself not to run up the path. I had been watching to make sure my neighbours were not approaching or leaving. A few steps and I was on the street.