Mike Stackpole - Ghost Book One - The Earth Transformed

The rangers mumbled a few half–hearted amens , then turned and shuffled off toward Cecil’s tavern where all the townies were already several drinks into the wake for their dead. Ace, as the guy who knew the old me even less well than I did, had been standing off at a respectful distance and staying out of the last toast, but now he fell in beside Angie, and as they walked, she reached out an arm and hooked it around his waist. He put his arm over her shoulder and they continued on like that, heads together.

Athalia and I stayed at the grave, though I hardly noticed she was there. I just kept staring at the little stone they’d set at the head of the plot, the one with the name on it that didn’t fit me in the slightest, but which eclipsed the one I’d been given like the Earth stepping in front of a candle. I felt stranger than I’d felt in my strange, short life, and if you’ve been following along, you gotta admit, that had to be pretty strange.

I added it all up in my head: my girlfriend once removed — or was that twice — didn’t even want me as a shoulder to cry on, probably because it reminded her too much of the shoulder of the dead guy she actually loved, my friends had all just toasted my former self like I wasn’t standing right there next to them hearing every word they were saying, I was having trouble caring about self–preservation or physical danger, and I was having a hard time telling which memories were mine and which belonged to my other iterations. Maybe these were all signs that I wasn’t supposed to be here. Maybe cloning messed with the natural balance of things, and this constant feeling I had that my life was disposable was the world trying to get me to fix the situation. Maybe I wasn’t actually alive at all.

The more I thought about it, the more it felt like the truth. I was already gone, a memory of a better man that had lived on beyond his death. If I stuck around any longer I’d just end up being an embarrassment to myself and everybody who had known the old me. It was time to go.

“Yeah,” I took out my gun. “Somebody already dug my grave. Might as well fill it.”

I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud until Athalia stopped my hand as I was putting the gun to my head.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked. “Everybody’s already said goodbye to me.”

“Because it would be selfish. Because the rangers need all the guns they can get to go against Base Cochise.” She smiled and squeezed my wrist. “Because I would miss you.”

I laughed. Or maybe choked. “Ha! You’d be the only one.”

She shrugged. “One’s enough, isn’t it?”

I lowered the gun and looked her in the eye. Funny I hadn’t noticed until now that she was the only one who talked to me like I was real.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”

I stroked her cheek and leaned in to kiss her, but she smiled and backed away, tugging me toward the bar.

“Come on. Let’s join the others.”

I groaned. “Do we have to? They’ll be telling stories about me by now — and I won’t remember any of them.”

“I need a drink to knock myself out,” she said. “We’re heading out early for Sleeper One tomorrow, and I’m still too keyed up to sleep. Besides, we both need another shot of Prussian Blue.”

I sighed and started down the hill with her, holding her hand. As we got closer to the tavern, I could hear people talking and laughing, and I could pick out individual laughs, some bright, some harsh, some tinged with sadness. Each voice was different, loud or soft, sharp or mellow, but each one unique, and each one human.

I didn’t know any more if I fit that description, and I didn’t know how I felt about that, but at least I was holding someone’s hand.

At least I wasn’t alone.

Michael A. Stackpole is a an award–winning game designer, computer game designer and novelist in the science fiction and fantasy field. He is best known for his work in FASA’s BattleTech® universe and for his Star Wars® X-wing comics (from Dark Horse Comics) and bestselling Star Wars® novels from Bantam Books.

Nathan Long is a screen and prose writer, with two movies, one Saturday-morning adventure series, and a handful of live-action and animated TV episodes to his name, as well as eleven fantasy novels and several award–winning short stories. He hails from Pennsylvania, where he grew up, went to school, and played in various punk and rock–a–billy bands, before following his writing dreams to Hollywood, where he now writes full time — and still occasionally plays in bands.

GHOST BOOK ONE: The Earth Transformed

Mike Stackpole and Nathan Long

Copyright inXile entertainment inc. 2014

Published by inXile entertainment inc.

Publishing at Smashwords