Friday: The Day I Realised I Would Have to Save Myself

By Desy Melza

With the chip permanently implanted in her brain Bliss Cardigan is on the run. She can't stay in the City and she doesn't know how to survive in Neversee - the place beyond the City Wall.

With boots that aren't hers, no knowledge of how to hunt for food, and only the chip to guide her; she must make it through the mountains in the snow. Walter Ounce will send his army after her to retrieve the chip. He's spent his entire career trying to find the perfect host to create an army of drones. Putting the chip in Bliss Cardigan's brain was his first mistake, letting her escape was his second. He doesn't intend to make another.

Can Bliss get to safety before Walter catches up with her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Trinity
• Release date: Jul 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370303670

Desy Melza

Desy is all about main characters who have to save themselves and be their own knights in shining armour. But, because I don't want it to be too easy on them, I pick main characters that, up until the beginning of the books, were living quite ordinary, comfortable lives. And then dump them into chaos. The books are often fast paced with a sprinkling of humour and a dash of action. A fast ride of fun & crazy decisions, that in a normal world you wouldn't even have to make. (And if you did you'd probably ask a whole bunch of people for advice first.)

Book preview

Friday

By Desy Melza

Book 2 of the Novella Series A New Bliss

Published by Pentickle

Friday © 2016 by Desy Melza

All Rights Reserved

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment and may not be resold or given away. If you’d like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Note from the Author

Nothing in this written work is meant to represent any place, building or person. It’s all the work of the author's overactive imagination and any resemblance is pure coincidence.

If you’d like more from Desy Melza’s overactive imagination

please head to http://katetrinity.co

Friday

Thursday

Neversee Sanatorium was not as advertised. Not one nurse to welcome new patients and no rooms available, private or otherwise.

I rubbed the back of my neck where it throbbed. I could have done with a nurse right now. Someone to dress the wound where they’d been digging around trying to extract Chip.

Even just a room of my own, with a bed to sleep on, would have been heaven right now. It felt like I’d been awake for days, and the weight of that tiredness was dragging my eyelids down.

In the city, we believed Neversee Sanatorium was a place for the crazies. I knew people who’d been sent here, well that wasn’t strictly true, I knew of people who’d been sent here.

I’d been surprised when I’d learnt the truth. Once you went beyond the city walls your chances of survival dropped significantly. The old government had preserved resources by simply banishing people to Neversee. It explained why there was no prison in the city, and no one knew anyone who worked at the Sanatorium.

Neversee Sanatorium was not a building.

Neversee was everything beyond the city wall.

I couldn’t even see the City wall from here. Instead, I looked at trees and mountains towering around me under a blanket of snow. With nothing to indicate the presence of another human anywhere.

The City had been my whole world. Within those walls I’d grown up, gone to school, figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Loved, lost, and learnt all I could. I’d lived by the government’s rules until I’d been caught up in the revolution that had started all this.

Once they’d seen what the chip in my brain could do Walter wanted it back, and the new government wanted it out. They were happy I was gone. Walter was not.

I’d left my parents behind the wall.

‘Let’s go’ Chip insisted.

Dawn was encroaching on the landscape and I had to get going. But I was hesitant.

I had to make as much distance between me and the city as possible. As quickly as possible. Walter Ounce had the capabilities to travel across Neversee. In fact, his whole base was outside of the city and no longer part of their government. His attempts to take the city back had failed but that wouldn’t stop him coming after me.

Chapter One

My current travelling companion was implanted in my brain, with no way to remove him safely. A chip that ran off the electricity generated by my internal functions. Wish I were smart enough to understand it all.

Three days ago I’d been dragged into a war I wasn’t even aware had begun and had to figure out who was doing the right thing. I’d thought breaking up with my boyfriend was going to be the hardest part of my day.

I’d thought I had friends but now they were the new government. Everything they’d had me do had been not good for me. Even when they wanted me to be the face of the new government, I would have just been a pawn to say what they wanted me to.

I couldn’t help thinking over it all as I walked. I hadn’t had time to think since it all started.

The path was blissfully free of the worst of the snow. Which was good considering these were not my boots and I was not used to walking. But it wasn’t long before the scenery began to change and the path went into a lightly wooded area.

We’d made a break for it through part of the waste water system; which had included a stupid, ridiculous, leap of faith into a river below. It had hurt hitting that water but I’d had no choice. Walter Ounce’s army had vehicles that didn’t rely on the city tech to run.

He had the capabilities to travel across Neversee. It occurred to me to wonder if the entire rest of the world thought of this side of the city wall as Neversee.

We had no idea how he fuelled the vehicles but somehow he had resources no one knew about and that made him dangerous. Especially if he still wanted to take over the world, which seemed like the kind of plans a person wouldn’t give up on too easily. I suspected that I was a large part of what he had planned if he could just catch up with me.

He would probably want Chip back and taking Chip back would turn me into a vegetable, or even kill me. But the alternative was leaving it in and turning me into little more than a robot whom he had ultimate control of. Both would mean the end of my life as I knew it and I didn’t really feel like I was at the end of my life yet. I didn’t know where my life was now heading but I wanted to stick around to find out. So I was running and hoping they would just forget about me and move on to something new.

‘Could you stop thinking about it?’ Chip asked. ‘It’s starting to make me nervous.’

‘Sorry,’ I muttered, knowing he was a piece of tech and shouldn’t have feelings.

‘I could have feelings’

I also kept forgetting he could hear me think.

The boots were uncomfortable and tight on my feet, something I’d never worn before. They were ideal for the conditions, but I wasn’t. I moved along the path grateful there was one and that it was on one of Chips maps. A map he’d downloaded from the City databases when we had connected to it. He’d downloaded everything they had. Right now he could only connect to my system, and that had no information he didn’t already know. I wasn’t that smart.

‘I beg to differ’

‘You think I’m smart?’ I was surprised Chip thought so given all the information he had.

‘No, I mean there is definitely stuff in here I could never get from a download from any city.’

‘Chip!’ I felt myself blushing, which warmed my cold face up a little. I could also feel his laughter somewhere deep in my head.

The path came to an abrupt halt. Trees stood to either side as if there had been a path at one time but now nature had begun to reclaim it. Weeds clambered for any bit of space and bushes, that looked as though they may be harbouring thorns, spread their branches into the open space.

It appeared to make its way downward and the shadows prevented me from seeing where best to put my feet.

‘Erm, where now?’ I asked Chip. ‘I thought this was the path to the next city on the map.’

‘So did I’ he went completely silent for a while. ‘It should be the path to the next city.’

‘Did you make a mistake?’ I asked.

‘Did you take a wrong turn?’ He fired back.

‘How can I make a wrong turn? There was one path to follow. You said to stay on the path so I did.’ If he’d been a person I would have glared at him.

‘The maps are old for Neversee. Not that it’s called that on the maps. This path is meant to lead to the next city.’ He sounded pretty certain.

‘So now what do I do?’

‘Well, it doesn’t look too rough. You can still get through. Maybe it will turn back into a path further on.’

‘Animals aren’t even using it.’ I’d read a book once about hunting, back when I’d been a naive schoolgirl doing research for a history project. I knew that animals had their own tracks they followed to water and stuff.

‘Do you see any animals?’

‘I…well no. But I know there are some. Nature didn’t just stop. I’ve seen horses.’ I peered into the bushes hoping to at least see a squirrel. We had those inside