The Last Rats, A Bastion Saturn Short Prequel

By C. Chase Harwood

It’s the end of the 21st Century. The bulk of Humankind has conjoined itself with an artificial intelligence. A minority remain in opposition. A desperation has taken hold within the small unincorporated zones where free humans still live. Many of them are choosing to leave Earth forever and fly to colonies on the moons of Saturn. In an ancient diner, Spruck Jones is about to make a bold move to change his flagging fortunes. Even the best laid plans almost never go as planned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. Chase Harwood
• Release date: Jun 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370608768

C. Chase Harwood

C. Chase Harwood made a career in Hollywood, decorating sets for film and television before turning his passion for story telling into clicks on a keyboard. While scaling the walls of the screenwriting world, he chose to experiment with prose and found a fondness for Scifi-action-adventure. Within that framework he gets to explore the countless ways that humans interact while under duress. "Life is all the more lived when the consequences are high. When told as a tale it can be quite a page turner," says Harwood. He lives in Los Angeles with his costume designer wife and young boy girl twins. The following are some other storytellers with whom the author finds a kindred spirit: HUGH HOWIE, STEPHEN KING, SCOTT SIGLER, DJ MOLLES, RHIANNON FRATER, SEAN PLATT, JUSTIN CRONIN, JAMES S.A. COREY, PETER CLINES, SUZANNE COLLINS, ERNEST CLINE, MAX BROOKS, VERONICA ROTH, LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD, ORSON SCOTT CARD "Pretty big shoes...”

Book preview

With a practiced hand, the window dresser placed the jacket on a hanger and stepped to one side revealing the nude display bot. The impossibly beautiful machine stared out the window with seductive smokiness, her eyes casting about, beckoning to no one — the street was nearly void of transport or pedestrians. The window dresser was certainly attractive, perhaps even beautiful, but it was the robot that pulled at Spruck's gut and groin. Stop. Focus on the living, he thought. He looked again at the woman, the real person. He forced his eyes to stay on her, angling his view to leave the artificial one in his periphery. As the dresser bent to pick up another hanger, her white silk blouse fell slightly open to reveal a double strand of pearls swinging gently with the easy motion of her bosom. There. See? That's nice. He decided that she wore lilac perfume, like the last bot he'd been with. The last bot... God, I'm obsessed. His gaze drifted its way back to the machine. It was a late model; bright white, just like the current ones, but lacking the refinement of today's designs. Weather and sunshine had faded the signs that hung across the window. A blowout store-closing sale had long ended. Now it was on to the dismantling. Though one sign inconveniently covered the machine's pubis, it was the eyes and the impossible shape of its breasts that kept Spruck distracted from his plan. He was pretty sure this was the last store of its kind in this isolated portion of the city. Despite the local residents living in complete rejection of AI — and its co-opted bulk of humanity — the streets were relatively empty. Not a surprise really; the less desirable inhabitants had been...dealt with...over the past year. No one wanted to say killed — though the rumors seemed nearly irrefutable. Now, perfectly financially stable folks, people who just wanted to get on as original uncorrupted Homo sapiens, seemed to be disappearing as well. The official word was that more and more