Kensei Tales: Live and In Concert

By Jeremy Zimmerman

Parker Fiorenza always wanted to be a superhero. When a supervillain implanted new memories and skills into her brain, she thought this could be her chance. Instead she's dealing with an equal mix of boredom and poorly-timed blackouts. Just as she's about to hang up her mask, she's thrust into being the only person who can stop a sinister plot by a retired super-spy. She might be a hero whether she wants to or not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DefCon One Publishing
• Release date: Mar 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370704163

Jeremy Zimmerman

Jeremy Zimmerman is a teller of tales who dislikes cute euphemisms for writing like “teller of tales.” His fiction has most recently appeared in 10Flash Quarterly, Arcane and anthologies from Timid Pirate Publishing. His young adult superhero book, Kensei, is now available. He is also the editor for Mad Scientist Journal. He lives in Seattle with five cats and his lovely wife (and fellow author) Dawn Vogel.

Book preview

Kensei Tales: Live and In Concert

by Jeremy Zimmerman

Book 3 in the Kensei Tales Series

Cover Illustration and Layout by Errow Collins

Copyright 2017 Jeremy Zimmerman

Cobalt City and many of its denizens are the creation of Nathan Crowder, used here with permission.

Smashwords Edition

Created through funds generated on Patreon

www.patreon.com/bolthy

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, 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 return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Part One: The Opening Band

Part Two: That Was Random

Part Three: No Sleep Til Brooklyn

Part Four: Obligatory Encore

About the Author

About the Illustrator

________________________________________

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Dawn Vogel for editing. Also many thanks to the generous financial support of Patreon backers Rebecca Moore and James Arnoldi.

PART ONE: THE OPENING BAND

Parker Fiorenza once had many thoughts about what it might be like to be a superhero: action, adventure, glory. What she didn't expect was to be was grinding in the newbie zone, like a tedious online roleplaying game. And she sure as hell didn't expect to be edged out of that newbie zone.

Yet there she was, walking the streets of downtown Cobalt City with a half-dozen other would-be superheroes. She hadn't even come up with a good superhero name. The others had taken to calling her Gas Mask, because she'd switched to wearing one instead of a domino mask after getting hit with tear gas a few nights prior.

This is a total bust, Parker groaned. We must be walking through the safest part of downtown. How are we going to get any experience when we can't find a single purse snatcher?

Maybe we're scaring them all off, said a tall, heavy-set man wearing a track suit and a bandana with eye-holes cut into it.

Parker rolled her eyes. Really, dude?

He shrugged uncomfortably. Okay, maybe not.

Parker didn't remember his name. Or, really, any of their names. She'd met dozens of other aspiring superheroes during her two weeks of donning a mask. Most of them changed names every couple days as they tried to workshop new names.

Another of the superheroes, a small person of indeterminate gender or age, stopped at a wall of posters promoting a concert tour. Omigod, did you guys get tickets for the Young Dudes concert? I heard it sold out in five minutes.

No, Parker snapped. Because I'm not going to denigrate the glory of David Bowie with people who claim their name isn't at all inspired by him. And I have taste.

Many of Cobalt City's superheroes got their start patrolling high crime areas. The jogging trails at Lafayette Park, in particular, were prime territory for purse snatchers, muggers, and the occasional desperate human-eating entity. But you weren't likely to encounter a major league supervillain there.

But become a superhero must have been a popular New Year's resolution, because all of the trails were filled with people in homemade masks, ill-fitting spandex, and the occasional broken-down power armor. Which brought Parker downtown and into utter tedium.

Parker couldn't believe her ex-girlfriend had started fighting crime at the age of eleven. But Parker had no idea what she was doing at eighteen.

Something exploded around the corner, and an alarm bell rang. Supervillain-savvy civilians around them began fleeing away from the explosion, while Parker and her team struggled forward through the crowds to try and reach the source of the noise.

As they reached the intersection, Parker saw that it was a bank robbery led by a supervillain. Muscular goons wearing domino masks and devil horns spilled out of the bank carrying cash bags while forming a protective wall around a much-shorter man dressed in a red jumpsuit, satin cape, and matching horns.

A few of