Jessica Shirvington keeps us guessing with the very first extract from new novel Disruption, revealed here.
Last year we brought you the exclusive reveal of the release day and synopsis for Jessica Shirvington’s new novel Disruption. Now we are able to share the Disruption cover image and introduction.
Disruption will be the next book from Embrace series author Jessica Shirvington. The book will be the first in a two-part science-fiction thriller duology.
‘Disruption’ cover image:
‘Disruption’ introduction:
I made myself a promise.
I would do whatever it took. I’d see this through to the end.
Make it right.
Three weeks ago…
I’d been tracking him for most of the day. I had other things to do, but it had been over a month since I’d monitored his weekend activity. And sloppiness wasn’t an option. Not now.
We were in DC, waiting in Dupont Circle Metro. He’d opted for a rare driver-free day, making it easier than usual to tail him, and I wondered why. Perhaps because he’d spent the morning touring Georgetown University and wanted to appear normal – not that everyone didn’t recognise him and point. I suspected it had more to do with not wanting to explain to Daddy why he’d explored a university other than Princeton. His family hailed from a long line of Princeton graduates and I knew it was assumed he would attend, like his brothers, after graduation. He probably already had a wing named after him.
Hidden beneath my faded blue baseball cap, I fidgeted with the edge of my sweater as I studied his movements carefully, with calculated interest. Carrying out my plans wasn’t going to keep me up at night. Not after all the things I’d already done.
He never noticed me anyway. Not once. Not even when the large lady with the foghorn voice asked me if she was on the right platform for Chinatown. It wasn’t because I was particularly stealthy. It was just that, standing there in his waist-hugging suit pants and crisp white shirt, he had no need to see me.
A commotion erupted at the other end of the platform. All eyes turned to watch as five M-Corp security guards stormed down the escalators, closing in on a short, balding man wearing wire glasses. I had barely registered the man before he was blocked from my view.
My attention returned to him. He had only just turned eighteen, but the tailored pants and shirt made him look older. I heard one of the M-Corp guards demand the man with the glasses activate his Phera-tech. The command was followed by a number of feeble attempts at refusal. Of course, the balding man knew it was futile. You could already hear the whispers of the other commuters.
‘Is he?’
‘He must be.’
‘A neg.’
‘I hope they take him away.’
It wasn’t that I was immune to the situation. I’d just seen it a whole lot worse. A whole lot more personal.
He on the other hand…
My interest heightened as I watched his reaction. Oddly, he observed the situation with a kind of reluctant curiosity, even taking steps towards the scene others were quickly distancing themselves from. His eyes widened as the guards restrained the man, fixing plastic ties to his wrists. One guard plugged in a portable linkup system to the man’s M-Band so that they could hack into his personal data while another recited the Negative Removal Act.
My view to the man cleared briefly. He was visibly shaking. He attempted to drop to his knees, though the guards held him up. He begged them to let him go, crying out in broken sobs for a chance to make right whatever it was he’d done – or was going to do – wrong.
No one made a move to help him, even though I heard one or two heart-rate monitors sound an alert. People’s hearts weren’t racing for him; it was fear for themselves that caused the spikes.
The man’s pleas fell on deaf ears.
I knew my expression gave away nothing but detachment. He, on the other hand, watching everything with a look of revulsion, and I felt a sick sense of justification that he should see this now. Nothing could better prepare him.
The spotlights that lined the platform began to pulse red, indicating a train on approach. I glanced one more time at him and noticed he was moving towards the guards. I straightened, suddenly intrigued. Was he going to step in? Surely not.
I never found out.
The sounds of struggle intensified and I turned my attention back to the balding man in time to see him break free of the guards and leap straight off the platform.
The man – the neg – collided instantly with the oncoming train.
Disruption by Jessica Shirvington will be released on March 24, 2014 in Australia. The United States release date is TBC.
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