Pyramid Lake (63 page)
But when he had run, I knew immediately where to find him. Because there was only one place a frightened rabbit
would
hide.
In a hole in the ground.
Roger scrambled to his knees, still blinking.
“Jesus Christ, man. It was a fucking accident...”
He looked back and forth between Billy and me.
Billy’s face was stone, his eyes cold obsidian. He racked the bolt of his rifle and held up a hand, spreading his fingers.
Five.
I shook my head.
Raising my cast, I showed Billy three fingers. Then, tucking the rifle under my arm, I pulled out my iPhone.
I set the timer for 3:00, started it, and perched it on the Jeep’s bumper as the large, bright digits ticked to 2:58, then 2:57.
“Trev, you can’t do this!” Roger turned toward me, his face pleading. “Jesus Christ, man! I’m your fucking
friend
…” He looked up into my face, and his words died with a croak.
I had nothing to say to him. Evolution’s lifeguards had blown the whistle on Roger. It was time for his DNA to exit the gene pool.
Lurching to his feet, he broke into a stumbling run.
My .308 was getting heavy to hold one-handed—I had loaded it with Roger’s own custom DU bullets. Hiking it up over my shoulder, I let the top rail rest across the back of my neck and watched him go.
Cresting the lip of a gully two hundred yards away, Roger slipped and rolled, sending up a small cloud of alkali dust. He struggled to his feet, looked over his shoulder at us, and kept running.
I glanced at the timer.
1:04… 1:03… 1:02…
“Fuck it,” I said. “Close enough.” I started limp-hopping after Roger.
Billy followed. He squinted at the stumbling silhouette—maybe three hundred yards away now—and raised his rifle.
Then he glanced back toward the arrowhead pendant dangling from the Jeep’s rearview mirror.
“For the first hit that’s a clean kill,” he said.
Glancing at Billy’s face, so like Cassie’s, a sharp pain pierced my heart. I shook my head. Then I tossed him another full box of .308 ammo.
“Last hit that
doesn’t
kill,” I said.
I raised my rifle as Billy shifted his aim.
We both started firing.
Thank you for reading Pyramid Lake!
I would love to know what you think of it. I'm an indie author, and my readers make it possible for me to do what I love, so I am always grateful and excited to hear from you. Please stop by my website
www.pauldraker.com
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@pauldraker
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As an independently published author, I don't have a big marketing department behind me. I don't have a publicist. I only have you, my readers, to get the word out. If you enjoyed Pyramid Lake, please tell a friend. And please help out by rating Pyramid Lake and writing a short review at Amazon, Goodreads, or Barnes & Noble. 20 words is all it takes. Reviews from readers make a huge difference for an indie writer like me. I would appreciate it very much. Thank you. Here are links to make it easier:
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I'm also working on a sequel to Pyramid Lake, and I'm pretty excited about it. It's called
Mount Terror
. There might even be more books in the Trevor Lennox series if you, my readers, want them. I hope you do.
If you would like to be notified as soon as Mount Terror is available, please join my private email list. I won't share your address with anyone else. I won't send you annoying spam. I'll only use it occasionally to notify you when my own new books are releasing, or when I have some other really big news to share.
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From time to time, I send out ARCs (advance reviewer copies) of my upcoming books to select readers who have signed up for my private email list, before those books are officially for sale. It's a lot of fun.
Thanks for taking the time to read this afterword, too. I’m thrilled to hear from any of you, any time. Hit me up by email, tweet, or on Facebook and say hi.
Talk to you soon.
—Paul
Once more, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my wonderful editor, Michael Carr, without whom Pyramid Lake would have been far less readable. With my debut novel, New Year Island, Michael was willing to take a raw fledgling author under his wing and help me learn the craft and find my voice. And now, with Pyramid Lake, under his keen mentorship I grew as a writer. Thank you, Michael, for having the discerning eye to see what I was trying to say, and for again having the patience to teach me how to say it.
I would also like to thank the following individuals in my fantastic critique group, who gritted their teeth through a lot of “Trevor Lennox behaving badly” to help out with suggestions, corrections, and advice: Jane F., Norma H., Chas B., Ron V., Alice G., Nichole B., Amanda A.-S., Mickey P., Sylvie K., Terri G., and Chris P.
Any tech-related mistakes in Pyramid Lake… actually aren’t. Those are deliberate artistic choices. No—just kidding! If you do catch something embarrassing, please drop me an email and let me know. I will be grateful. But while Pyramid Lake stretches today’s technology in the pursuit of an entertaining story, it does so only slightly. Blake’s PETMAN is an existing DARPA robot, as are BIGDOG, ALPHADOG, and CHEETAH, all built by Boston Dynamics. How accurately did I portray them? Judge for yourself:
PETMAN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mclbVTIYG8E
BIGDOG:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jvLalY6ubc
CHEETAH:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE3fmFTtP9g
Kate’s OctoRotors draw inspiration from Nano Quadrotor Swarm research at the GRASP Lab at University of Pennsylvania, and similar cooperative-drone work at ETH’s Flying Machine Arena in Zurich:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CR5y8qZf0Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGJBV1xnJI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM
In 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer did beat the human world champions at the Jeopardy game show. And now, it really is at Sloan-Kettering, reading patient files and medical images so it can advise oncologists about the best treatment plan for each patient. If you’re curious about IBM Watson, do what Trevor or Amy would: just Google it.
The science-fiction technology we read about and saw in movies has now become fact. The future is here already. Be afraid, little human. Be very afraid.
Paul lives in Palo Alto, California, with his wife and three daughters. An avid scuba diver, he has spent much time underwater in Palau, Yap, Honduras, Thailand, Hawaii, the Florida Keys, the cenote caverns of the Yucatan, the Caribbean, the Virgin Islands, Caicos, and the "Red Triangle" off California's coast. He also enjoys skiing, swimming, and windsurfing, and has had extensive tactical training in firearms. After one too many high-speed motorcycle crashes, he is no longer allowed to own open-class sportbikes, which is probably a good thing for him and everyone else.
Paul has worked in the aerospace/defense industry on a variety of classified and unclassified programs for the Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and DARPA, ranging from strategic national missile systems to technology augmentation for small-team tactical infantry units. He has also led a Silicon Valley technology startup delivering massively-scalable custom Internet software to Fortune 500 clients including Hewlett Packard, and headed a leading videogame studio developing mobile games for top-tier publishers such as EA, Disney, Pixar, Sega, and Warner Brothers. He holds advanced degrees in electrical and aerospace engineering from MIT, Stanford, and U.C. Berkeley. This broad-ranging engineering expertise lends impeccable technical authenticity to his stories.
This book is dedicated to
YOU, my readers.
Thank you for welcoming my debut novel New Year Island so warmly.
You made it possible for me to live my dream of writing.
Hopefully, I haven't given you too many nightmares in return...
Copyright © 2013 by Paul Draker.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.
Mayhem Press LLC
380 Hamilton Ave #1319
Palo Alto, California 94301
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Pyramid Lake / Paul Draker. -- 1st ed. -- v1.3
ISBN 978-1-940511-05-4