Psychomancer

By Alan Ryker

Science scoffs at the concept of luck. The lottery is called a tax on people who are bad at math, and Vegas rakes in cash based on precise odds, not good fortune.

But what if good luck were a scientific reality? An evolutionary trait?

Cornelius Worthington, the luckiest man in the world, washes up on a beach in Miami with no knowledge of where he is.

Natasha Barrett, the most gifted psion the government has ever trained, is tasked with capturing or killing him.

Seymour Zimmerman, a freelance journalist who writes a syndicated column about strange deaths, follows their path of destruction and winds up with a bigger story than he could have ever imagined.

Then things really start to get weird.

Psychomancer is alternatingly funny and horrific, philosophical and explosive. It asks: When good luck is real, what happens if we end up on the wrong end of someone else’s?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Ryker
• Release date: Jun 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466168565

Alan Ryker

Alan Ryker is the product of a good, clean country upbringing. Though he now lives with his wife in the suburbs of Kansas City, the sun-bleached prairie still haunts his fiction. Check out his many adventures at his blog, Pulling Teeth at www.alanryker.com. Enjoy his most mundane thoughts by following him on twitter: @alanryker. And contact him at [e-mail].

Book preview

Chapter 1

As Cornelius lay in the sand, a torrent of sea foam poured from his mouth. He couldn't stop heaving. The taste of rotten fish and seaweed overtook him every time he thought he had the convulsions under control. Eventually, his stomach settled. His eyes and sinuses stopped burning as much, and he was able to look around.

The stars twinkled overhead, but they were dimmer than on his island. He knew that he must be somewhere else, somehow. Still lying on his stomach, he stared down the beach. Sand stretched as far as he could see in the silver moonlight. He turned his head to look the other way.

A tiny crab stood before him, scuttling to and fro in its funny sideways shuffle. It held its claws straight up in the air, menacing him.

Cornelius pounded it into paste, then lost consciousness.

Chapter 2

Natasha Barrett's eyes snapped open. Darkness and silence. She pulled a latch, and the lid above her hissed up on hydraulic hinges, letting the world back in. The concrete ceiling with hanging fluorescent lights and exposed pipes. The lockers. The wooden bench.

Natasha lifted herself from the water that filled the sensory deprivation chamber and quickly toweled off. Her short hair dried with only a few rough passes. She put on her black suit and tried to calm herself. She tried to slow her thinking and her breathing. She opened the door.

Done already? Ted asked. I was expecting another couple of hours. Ted sat with his white-sneaker clad feet kicked up on the desk, his long thin arms crossed behind his head. He'd spent the past several hours at a computer, monitoring her physiological read-outs on series of several screens.

Natasha knew she was valuable, and her work was dangerous, so she consented to the surveillance, and had even grown to like Ted, though he was a pretty big nerd. Something strange is happening.

I noticed that your heart rate spiked big time. What's up?

It's not within your pay grade, but even if it were, I'm not quite sure what it is myself. I've got to go.

Are you coming back? There's other stuff I could be doing. Ted let his big feet drop to the ground.

Over her shoulder, Natasha said, There a video game you need to get back to? Go ahead. I'm done for today.

She knew the maze of hallways so well she could have run them blind, so she had time to doubt herself as she made her way to the director's office. She wondered if she were overreacting. She didn't think so. In all her years in the psionics program—the CIA's Directorate of Psionic Operations and Intelligence at Langley, Virginia—she'd never felt a presence like this one. No enemy psychic had ever disturbed the psionic fabric as this had. This. What was this? It didn't feel human, a he or a she. It felt like—an it. And she wasn't sure what it was. An alien life-form crash-landed on the planet, sending out psionic feelers in search of information? Some sort of monster? Whatever it was, it didn't feel right. It felt cold. Primeval. She'd only been feeling out the psionic fabric. She hadn't expected anything unusual. Its appearance had been so sudden and frightening that she closed her mind to it as soon as she could fight away. That hadn't been the right thing to do. She should have found out as much as she could, but she ran. Not tactical retreat, but panicked, unthinking flight.

Natasha hesitated before Director Wallace's door. She respected the director. She didn't enjoy the thought of admitting this failure. She also didn't enjoy the thought of telling him something that might make him doubt her judgment, or even her sanity. But she couldn't stand there forever. She knocked and—pressing the cracked door a bit further open—looked in. Sir?

He looked up at her, smiled and gestured towards the chair across his desk. Come in, Agent Barrett. What can I do for you?

His salt-and-pepper hair curled tightly. He looked younger than she knew he was, with the lines on his face only becoming prominent when he smiled or frowned. Natasha felt like a girl running to her father. Talking to the director was comforting, and that shamed her. Sir, something strange just happened. I think that something important is starting.

Did you see something? he asked, instantly serious. He never questioned her remote-viewing abilities.

Yes. I was in the sensory deprivation chamber, just watching the pattern. Practicing. Seeing what jumped out.

You always are. A bit of his smile returned. Your diligence is noticed and appreciated.

She had the urge to look away from him, something she never did. She had a firm handshake, and she held a person's gaze when she spoke. Just then, though, she wanted to look at the pictures of him with important politicians. She wanted to look at his military mementos from his time in the Air Force. But she managed to look straight ahead. Thank you, sir. Like I said, I was just feeling the fabric when I realized I wasn't alone. Something was watching me. Scrutinizing me, really. Something powerful. More powerful than I am.

He looked at her skeptically. Another psion?

I'm not sure. It was like nothing I've seen.

And is it hostile?

I don't think it's hostile, but I also don't think it's friendly. I'm not sure how long it observed me before I noticed it.

And is this person watching you now?

Natasha saw his eyes unfocus just a bit. She knew that he was scanning the area with his own mental abilities.

No. I'm shielding myself, and I think I'd know if it were inside my conscious defenses.

The director nodded. She could see the trust he had in her. It made it hard to say what she had to say next. And sir, I'm not sure it's a person.

Not human? He leaned back in his chair and scowled skeptically, and the lines on his forehead appeared. Are you sure you're not getting a little too worked up about this? You obviously had a very disturbing experience. Do you think you might be overreacting?

I'm not sure of anything at all right now, sir. I ran. I didn't want to say it, but I cut contact with it, because it felt like nothing I've ever known before. I cut and ran before I really found out anything. One thing I'm sure of is that it felt nothing like my discovery of other psions. This thing did not seem to have a human consciousness behind it. And what I want to know is: how did something this massive, this huge and obvious, stay hidden? Why is today the first time I've seen it?

Director Wallace nodded. I didn't mean to doubt you, Agent. You've never let us down before. He tapped his signet ring on the desk, a habit that had left the surface stippled with tiny dents. Can you handle another encounter with this thing, whatever it is? Can you open up again and find out what it is? Where it is? Something like this can't be out there on the loose.

I'll do what I have to, sir.

I've no doubt of your bravery. Don't risk too much. Take it slow, and ask for help if you need it.

I will sir. I'll report back when I have more information.

And one more thing to think about, Agent. Director Wallace leaned forward and clasped his hands together on his desk. I don't know how to put this, exactly. We may not be dealing with an alien, but that doesn't mean it's not a monster. I've seen a lot in my time. There are people who have things hidden inside themselves that... What I mean is, not all people are human. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

Natasha nodded. I think so, sir. I'll be careful.

Chapter 3

Look at this. How are you supposed to enjoy the beach when you've got filthy bums all over? a man said.

I don't know, dear. It looks like he might have washed up here. Do you think he's Cuban? One of those refugees? a woman said.

A shadow fell across Cornelius's face. The absence of light seeping through his left eye brought him to consciousness the way the absence of an ache one had long gotten used to might. His right cheek was pressed into sand. He opened his left eye. A man, older and fatter than any man he'd ever imagined, leaned over him, staring at him. A woman stood behind the man, peering over his shoulder.

I don't think he's Cuban. He's tan, but he looks white. Just a bum. They started to walk away.

Where am I? Cornelius asked. His voice cracked. His throat hurt from dehydration and from being long unaccustomed to speaking. His head and stomach hurt.

I told you he's a refugee. The old woman slapped the old man on the arm. He doesn't know where he is. He must have washed up on shore. Homeless people don't wear little skirts like castaways. To Cornelius she slowly said, You made it. You're in Miami. Are you Cuban?

I don't know what 'Cuban' means. Cornelius sat up, and nausea washed over him from head to colon. He still felt very sick. Maybe he was delirious with fever. These people—were they people? Their skin was so loose and white, their hair so thin and also white.

Are you okay, dear? Do you need help? The woman—he thought it was a woman—reached for him. He slapped her hand away.

Cornelius stood slowly on quaking legs. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees, waiting for the world to steady itself. The sand beneath his feet was soft and white and strange.

What the hell do you think you're doing? The old man's shadow fell over him again. Cornelius looked up and the old man shoved him. He staggered back a step, then punched the old man in the face. He was extremely surprised when all of the man's teeth flew out of his mouth and landed in the sand in one piece. The old man landed in the sand beside them, holding his bleeding mouth.

Help! The woman yelled. Call the police!

Cornelius realized that she was shouting at neither him nor the old man with the bleeding mouth. He looked around, and saw many, many people. They lay on towels in the sand. They sat in reclining chairs beneath umbrellas. They watched him, and many spoke animatedly into small devices they held in their hands.

Cornelius's mind couldn't process what he saw, and for a moment he retreated back inside.

He thought back to what seemed like yesterday, when he'd leapt off the edge of the cliff on his own island. Had he really survived? How had he not been dashed to death on the rocks and then washed out to sea to be devoured by sharks?

On his island had been a chest of books, passed down by his people for two hundred years. Those books were his only friends, but they made him realize how awful his life truly was. Those books were full of people. He wanted more than anything to be among people. The only people he'd ever known were his parents, and they had died twenty years earlier. He'd read those books over and over, and every time became more despondent. Even Robinson Crusoe had found a companion on his island, although it was only a negro.

He became so depressed that he attempted to end his life. He once swam out to meet a frenzy of sharks feeding on a school of fish. None of them paid him the least attention. He tried to hang himself, but the rope broke. He went to cut his throat and every knife disappeared until the worst of his depression passed. Then he would find them in strange places.

Yesterday—as well as he could figure—at age thirty one—as well as he could figure—he leapt from the highest cliff on his island. The first time, a strong gust of wind pushed him back. The second time, he fell. He remembered plunging toward the rocks, then remembered waking up on a beach in Miami.

Somehow, he'd not died. Instead, he'd been transported to a land full of other people.

And this was what they were like.

The woman continued to squawk as she pulled at the old man's arm. Cornelius watched, not knowing what to do, until a voice behind him said, You think you can go around beating up old people?

He turned, and before him stood two very muscular young men. They were dressed similarly to him with only their groins covered, not head-to-toe clothing like the ugly old couple.

I really didn't mean to, Cornelius said. But he felt the thrill of approaching conflict slide through him. He didn't understand most of what was happening around him, but violence he understood.

So, are you ready to get your ass kicked?

You're a negro. I didn't know if your kind truly existed. He'd always found them hard to imagine. From what he'd read, they were a lesser race of men with black skin. This specimen was much larger than he had expected, though.

Are you serious? The black man looked at his friend. Is he serious?

Dude, I'm going to let you kick his ass. Have at him. Then to Cornelius, You just said the wrong thing, you racist asshole.

Cornelius didn't understand every word being said, but the gist was obvious. He patted his belt, and found that the thong holding his small knife had held. He pulled it loose. I'd love to see what's inside that ebony hide of yours. Come closer.

The two men backed away, holding their hands up.

The old woman shouted, Police! Over here!

The young men started laughing. You're gonna get it now, asshole. They continued to back away. Beyond them, men in black uniforms ran through the sand. The old woman continued to wave them over. Not knowing what to do, Cornelius stood by and watched.

Someone was attacked? the first officer asked the old woman.

That man attacked my husband. She pointed at Cornelius, and the officer took notice of him, and his knife.

He drew his gun. Drop the weapon. Drop the weapon, sir.

That must be a pistol. It looks different than I would have expected, Cornelius said, dropping his knife in the white sand. The blade stuck.

Lie face down.

Who is asking me to do so?

The police. Do it now!

The second officer finally arrived, breathing heavily. He was much larger than the first, and running through the sand had him panting. He didn't give Cornelius a second chance to comply, but tackled him, smashed his face into the sand, and cuffed him.

The ride in the police cruiser had been incredibly confusing, but exciting as well. Then Cornelius had been put in a cell full of other men. He was still exhausted, and slept on the smooth, but stone-hard, floor. Eventually, a constable woke him and took him into a much smaller room with only one other person in it. His clothes were different, but he also seemed to be a constable. The man had a flat head and very wide shoulders. He asked question after question that Cornelius couldn't understand, and the man seemed to be getting angry.

Okay, one more time. What's your name?

Cornelius Bertram Worthington the Fifteenth.

That is not a real name. Why did you tell those old people you were Cuban?

I never told them I was Cuban. I don't even know what 'Cuban' is.

You've got some sort of weird accent and you don't carry any ID, so where are you from?

You have an accent. A nasal one. I am from the island.

Again with 'the island!' What the fuck island are you talking about?

The one I lived on.

The constable leaned forward on the table and held his head in both hands. So you've got no ID, no social security number, no place of residence, no date of birth, nothing. Kid, you need to call your lawyer, because you're never going to get out of here like this.

I don't know what you mean by 'call.' I'm getting rather tired of all this as well. And explain to me one more time how this fire is contained. Cornelius pointed up to the light bulb.

The constable barked out a sharp laugh. That's it kid. I'm done with you. This is not the political environment to show up with a weird accent and no identification and start beating up old people. You're gonna get buried, kid. And you know what? I don't care. He put his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair, balancing on two legs. Balancing for about a half a second before he tilted just a bit too far back and a look of panic replaced his smug smile. He snatched for the edge of the table, but too late. He went over backwards. But before he hit the tile floor, the corner of a short metal file cabinet slowed his fall. Cornelius looked at the blood and hair covering the corner of the file cabinet and smiled.

Well, someone certainly received his comeuppance. He walked around the table and began to undress the detective, who started moaning. Once Cornelius got his shirt and jacket off, he picked up the file cabinet and smashed it down on the man's head several times, quieting him. He took the keys he'd noticed before from the man's pants pocket and used them to remove his wrist restraints. He then removed the man's shoes, pants, shorts and socks, and dressed himself in them.

Cornelius had worn only a skirt for many years, and felt very constricted in the suit. He didn't feel that he had put it on entirely correctly, either. He'd had most difficulty with the shoulder holster, as he hadn't paid very close attention to how all the straps fit before he took it off of the constable.

He removed the badge from his pocket. It seemed to him to be the symbol of these officers' power, and he held it before him as he walked out the door. No one paid him any mind, and in a minute he had found his way back out into the sun.

Traffic flashed by, but people seemed to be safe walking on the white ground. He walked with them, emulating them as best as he could.

Chapter 4

It was a birdhouse—a literal birdhouse—and a bird-man's house. That's what people had called Patrick Moncrief: the bird-man.

The birds were no longer there, but they had marked their territory well. They'd coated the interior of the old two-story in a thick layer of parrot shit. When the air hit Seymour's sinuses, he almost turned around. The smell of ammonia was suffocating. His eyes turned red and bloodshot. How the hell had the bird-man lived like that?

Well, Seymour supposed that in a way, he hadn't lived like that, since it had killed him.

Patrick Moncrief loved birds, obviously. His dozens of exotic birds were his only friends. Other people didn't like the bird shit filled with ammonia that burned their eyes and made them cough. They didn't like the squawking. They didn't like the stench that Patrick carried with him everywhere, in his clothes, his hair, probably even his skin.

So Patrick shut himself up in his yellow, two-story birdhouse and stayed there.

He couldn't leave the windows open, not even with the screens in. The neighbors told Seymour that once the thick flour of bird dander hit the wind, every cat in the neighborhood tried to tear its way into the squawking smorgasbord. This drove Patrick's birds crazy and ruined his screens. So he learned to live with the stale air.

It probably wasn't something that he could ever learn to ignore. It wasn't just a stench. The air had a taste, too. And it leached moisture, from your eyes and from your tongue. The air was thick. It was palpably thick. No one could ignore it, but Patrick had learned to live with it. He'd learned to live with the burning in his eyes and sinuses. He had learned to live with the cough that developed from breathing the dust of bird dander and dried shit.

But no, once again Seymour corrected his phrasing. Patrick hadn't learned to live with it, because he died. It killed him.

The official cause of death: asphyxiation. The unofficial? He suffocated on bird farts and ammonia, and the poop dust probably didn't help.

Seymour got some great photos. A shot of the living room from just in front of the couch, where the only thing in frame not covered in shit was the television screen. The inability to see his programs apparently drove Patrick to clean that one item. Seymour had taken multiple shots of the upright piano, which looked ghostly beneath multiple tiers of stalactites.

He usually didn't get the exact shots he wanted. The family often stopped him. They didn't want anyone to know about the strange way in which their relative had kicked the bucket. They treated Seymour as if he were being disrespectful. It didn't matter how much he assured them that the article would be in good taste. It didn't matter if he showed them clippings of his column to prove that he gave the straight facts, and did not mock the poor souls unlucky enough to die in a manner that placed their demises in his domain.

The families blamed him as if he had made the death of their loved one into a joke. He didn't. His stories really contained only the facts. He didn't make jokes. He didn't provide commentary. He didn't have to. That is what really upset these people. Although they blamed him, called him a scavenger and treated him as a ghoul feeding on the corpses of the recently deceased, they knew it wasn't his fault. He didn't make the death into a joke. The universe had played the practical joke. God had the sense of humor. No one had told Fate that post-modernism is passé; she still loved irony. Death himself looked down on the living and the dead and mocked our sad little lives. That was what hurt. What hurt was the knowledge that regardless of who told the story, in whatever

Reviews for Psychomancer

[bemislibrary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cornelius is lost and it is Natasha job to find him one way or another. Their psychic abilities are central to a Central Intelligence op lead by a sadistic team leader. The various other powers are pivotal to the battle between evil and merely bad. Although there is little depth to the main characters, they are interesting and create lot of action.

[specks_us · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I would really like to give a review but I never recieved my copy of the book. I was looking forward to reading it because the discription made me want to visit the author's world, but it was not to be. So very sad.

[scoshie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Psychic Assassin Natasha Barrett has been working with the CIA for years honing her skills. One day she feels the presence of someone more powerful than she and sets out to capture him. Enter Cornelius Berterm Worthington XV. He has been exiled on a small island until his unknown powers lead him to Natasha. Will she kill him or will he get to her first. Great storyy and excellent action through out. A great way to spend an afternoon in the sun.

[lostinalibrary · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Cornelius and Natasha are psions; ie they have psychic abilities which allow them to manipulate others. Cornelius is supposed to be the luckiest man on earth but, frankly, his luck seems more like a psychopathic personality to me. He stalks Natasha leaving a wide swath of destruction in his wake and killing dozens, if not hundreds, of innocents in the process. And he does all this without remorse or hesitation. So, of course, Natasha can't help but fall for him. Ain't love grand!If you like stories about alpha males and the (of course) incredibly beautiful women who fall for them, over the top violence, and voyeuristic sex, this one's for you.

[roger_the_dog_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alan Ryker is an established writer and Psychomancer is a very professional and well crafted novel, which held my attention from beginning to end. Anyone into conspiracy theories should certainly enjoy it, as it uses the premise that there are global armies of ‘psions’ , genetically advanced humans, battling each other with psychic weapons in an extended ‘cold war’.Natasha is the most advanced of the psions, and she spends her time having virtual sex and keeping the world safe for the CIA and the USA. When a new psion presence is detected, Natasha is assigned to find and evaluate it, and it rocks her world to find that it is far, far more powerful than she. The book explores the changing relationship between Natasha, the new psion (Cornelius) and Natasha‘s paymasters, the CIA; when the decision is taken to terminate Cornelius, all hell breaks loose. There are certain similarities in the plot to Stephen King’s ‘Firestarter’, but that’s not such a bad comparison to make and there is no sense of this being a sub-standard SK novel. Alan Ryker gives plenty of depth to a variety of characters, and there is rarely a dull moment. His explanation of psychic powers is lucid and logical and just detailed enough; he never gets tied down with the minutiae, and that lets the story flow.The small criticisms that I have concern the fate of some of the characters, who seem to be written out before their time, and the ending which I thought was a little weak. I would have been happier to see the story extended a little, but maybe I’m just being greedy; you know what it’s like when you read something good, you don’t really want it to end.This is a very good novel which I thoroughly enjoyed, particularly as it was on a free download, but I wouldn’t have been disappointed if I’d had to pay for it.