Mindware Issues

By John Peace

It seems like any other day in the e-office for Private Investigator Ghamdan Shamiri. An embattled worker needs legal leverage, claiming he's been framed: that kind of ordinary. Then he's hired by Helena Szychter, poker-faced agent for a murder victim's father.

Before the morning's out he and she are hot on the trail of a man who witnessed the murder, a man so afraid of the alleged murderer that he appears to have taken on the identity of a convicted criminal so he could be transported into a supermax prison. Located inside an artificial branefold, a pocket universe, it's the one place you'd think organised crime won't look for him. As the day quickly turns nasty on Ghamdan, he must decide who he can rely on, and who might be infected by the criminal's Mind Trojan software.

We discover that all is not as it seems, and Ghamdan must choose between his own safety and doing the right thing - for once.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Peace
• Release date: Apr 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476496542

John Peace

Originally an engineering graduate from the UK keen to become an astronaut, somehow I ended up working in community development overseas for some years. Did I take a wrong turn? I don't think so. I have very few regrets. In between, I've worked in a soup factory, driven a taxi in London, served refreshments in Regents Park and a few other odd jobs. Last year I settled with my Canadian wife and our two sons in Ontario, where we enjoy the great outdoors, Finnish pancakes and blueberries, preferably all three at once. I confess to a lifelong fascination with science and science fiction, ever since watching Dr. Who and Blake's Seven on the BBC as a boy. I'm even old enough to have fuzzy memories of watching the Apollo 11 landing on TV. Whew! That's hard to believe. At the time of writing I'm working on a series of science fiction novels for pre-teens (8 to 12 year olds) called Beyond The Elder Stars. The first one is named 'The Calling'; it's published on Amazon Kindle and in print with CreateSpace. See my blogs for links to the book and for extra free content. I welcome correspondence. To contact me, spell out the following (the address isn't given complete to evade the dreaded spam spiders...) rj + peace (snail shell thing) 123mail (dot) org

Book preview

Mindware Issues

By John Peace

Copyright 2012 John Peace

Smashwords Edition 1.3

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John Peace drip-feeds a couple of blogs at: http://johnmpeace.blogspot.ca/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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CONTENTS

Title Page

MINDWARE ISSUES

About This Story

About The Author

Cover Art Credits

One

First thing in the morning of that day I clicked in. The abandoned office complex in Rotherhithe where I'd taken up residence was sufficiently quiet and warm that I could just prop my back against a wall and go virtual. I'd looked for somewhere like this north of the Thames, but the ganglords that way had their marks up on all the walls. I was scared, and headed over the river.

I had a feeling it wouldn't turn out to be a quiet day. When she contacted me I already had a client in the e-office. He was sitting on a gleaming fluff of cumulonimbus, looking down occasionally at the view of the wild, sprawling valley and talking fast.

By the look of his muscle-bound viking avatar, I was guessing my customer was actually an unimpressive warmbody without much legal clout. Some people do that. Online, they try to make up for what they lack in the real world. I told him I'd have to look into his case. He pressed for immediate action. Our voices boomed across the silvery air between us. Said his boss would fire him if I didn't find out who'd framed him, then he'd lose the contract on his apartment. And all he'd done was complain about the windowless cell in which he was forced to work. Of course I would have taken the case on, if I could have, and if I'd known where to start. The way he described his management made my blood boil. I've been there. He'd just done a quick search for a cheap legal investigator, and he'd come up with me.

I tried to pay attention as he