He cursed himself later as he dashed through the rain from the taxi, his Pernite Shield barely stopping the heavy raindrops. The guard on the door let him in and he headed upstairs.
“Lightening hasn’t struck this building in ten years.” He muttered to himself, unlocking the lab door. “It’s not about to strike in the next few minutes.”
Striding over to the chamber computer, he checked the programme’s progress. “Hmm? Something’s not right.”
Ellison sat down and began to unlock the keyboard. The windows lit with a massive flash of lightening. The rumble of thunder that came after shook the building. “Must be right above me.”
Running through the programme, he began to adjust the things he thought were wrong.
Several more flashes made him shiver, but he didn’t look up. Then there was a power surge as a substation nearby got hit. The Containment field on the chamber failed instantly.
Ellison fought a desperate rearguard action to try and bring it back up, to stop the altered Nanites and Deconstruction Nanites from combining in the free oxygen environment of the main lab.
Another bolt of lightening struck the building.
Ellison cursed.
The resultant power surge swept through all the equipment and Nanites in the room. Their replication process triggered and they multiplied rapidly, using the extra chemicals in the air to merge and change.
Ellison ignored what they were doing, trying to get the Nanites contained again, as there was another smaller power surge.
The Nanites drifted down toward him in a glowing cloud, covering him in a soft, dust like layer. He coughed as they landed on his face and inhaled.
That was all the Nanites needed.
That was a short excerpt from my current work in progress, “Night of the Nanobot”.
You know, I’m still not happy with that title.
The book started out as “The Song of Albion” because the country it’s set in is called Albion… but it didn’t fit what I slowly realised was a Science Fiction Fantasy story. So as the Nanites appeared, I changed it to “The Night of The Nanobugs” and I quite liked the retro pulp fiction feel to the title, which is what prompted me to create this cover on Pulp-o-mizer:
As you can see, I actually changed the title slightly when I made the cover… but it still doesn’t quite feel right. So I polled my facebook friends (as you do) and between us, we came up with “Night of the Nanobot“.
I don’t know. It still doesn’t fit the story properly and I need to finalise it before I start formatting… Hopefully my Alpha Reading Team will be able to help me.
As with so many of my stories, this one started out as a short that got too big for it’s boots. It’s currently on 24 chapters and is about 44,000 words long. The main storyline is working out well, but the villains just don’t want to die – they’ve escaped pretty much every way I could think of to eradicate them… and it’s looking that there may (in the future) be a second book.
Possibly.
If I don’t go nuts first…
Anyway, I’m hoping to get this one out by the end of May under my A.E. Churchyard pen name.
The Tower and The Eye Series is being re-launched by Blue Hour Publishing this year. We are currently running through the read / edit / write cycle for each book, making sure that it is as perfect and polished as possible.
Keep your eyes peeled for further info!
The World of The Teigr Princess 