Lost Cause (I Am Mercury series - Book 8)

By Grant Piercy

Betsy continues to protect the fugitive Alex Graves, but the authorities ransack the Control Z movement, drawing her out. She desperately seeks Chloe, who seems to have vanished. Meanwhile, a mysterious broadcast cutting into all forms of media announces a special demonstration. This is the eighth and penultimate novella of the I AM MERCURY series.

I AM MERCURY is a nine-part serial suspense thriller about visions of other worlds, the stories we tell ourselves, and the things we do for love. Each short novella in the series features a different narrator, a different lens through which to view the events of the series. After the riot at Yorkville State Pen, journalists and spies spar off, protestors march forward, and dangerous games play out. What do these interlocking stories mean for each other, and how will they coalesce?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grant Piercy
• Release date: Jul 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370525041

Grant Piercy

Grant Piercy is the author of THE ERASED SAGA and I AM MERCURY. He lives with his family in Columbus, Ohio.

Book preview

LOST CAUSE

a novella

I AM MERCURY, BOOK VIII

By Grant Piercy

Published by Grant Piercy at Smashwords

Copyright © 2017 Grant Piercy

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form.

Cover art by Grant Piercy

Edited by Emily Zapp

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.

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations and products depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

Table of Contents

dramatis personae

epigraph

(segue)

1. shredded in the night

2. a fool’s errand

3. quiet rooms

4. guardian

5. crackling blue

(segue)

about the author

Dramatis Personae

- B, a searcher [narrator]

- Alex Graves, a fugitive

- Chloe, an organizer

- Ryan Hoffman, an agitator

- Eva Mayhew, a sympathizer

- Tyrrell Garrett, a journalist

- Tricia Tierney, a learner

epigraph:

The Angel of Death is all eyes.

– The Talmud, Avodah Zarah 20b

(segue)

Tricia Tierney drove an hour to get back home from the hospital. Her mother wouldn’t come with her, would only stay with her fuckhole of a husband in his recovery room. She tried not to think about her stepfather, Raymond, on the drive home—he who runs the prison. He could stay in the coma. She wanted her mother to just relax, to just calm down, and maybe realize the kind of man she latched onto when Tricia’s father left.

But Mom wouldn’t leave the bedside after the surgery—just so sure he was going to wake. Let him rot, Mom.

Tricia Tierney had to get out, had to come home, had to get a good night’s sleep. This was all so tiring.

She entered the empty house, relieved it was hers for the night. It was exhausting being Donna Tierney’s daughter. She should’ve been studying, but instead flipped on the television. Mindless droning, empty worries, angst angst angst. Drown it out.

Before sitting on the couch, she scrounged through her room, picking a domino mask and wireless webcam from her underwear drawer. She picked up her laptop and brought it to the couch in the living room. A series of tepid keystrokes set up a video stream.

Mom didn’t know what Tricia did to pay for school. Tricia rationalized it to herself—she did this thing because Raymond didn’t want to cover tuition.

On her web page, she saw the room in which she was sitting, as though outside herself—an objective viewer in her own life. She was on the couch, laptop beside her, cigarette dangling from her lips. The TV droned in the background. She announced on various social media plug-ins that her feed was on, and subscribers flocked like fish to groundbait.