Beacon

By Sherry D. Ramsey

Paicia and her family live in a future of green rooftops, shared makerspaces, and community gardens. With the help of beacon technology, they've even managed to save bees from colony collapse and protect human food sources. But when a rogue drone kidnaps one of their family's bee swarms, Paicia learns that not everyone has moved into a greener future. And the more she finds out about the "ashers," the more determined she is to stop the abductions and bring her bees home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sherry D. Ramsey
• Release date: Aug 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781990178092

Sherry D. Ramsey

Sherry D. Ramsey is a speculative fiction writer, editor, publisher, creativity addict and self-confessed internet geek. When she's not writing, she makes jewelry, gardens, hones her creative procrastination skills on social media, and consumes far more coffee and chocolate than is likely good for her.Her debut novel, One's Aspect to the Sun, was published by Tyche Books in late 2013 and was awarded the Book Publishers of Alberta "Book of the Year" Award for Speculative Fiction. The sequel, Dark Beneath the Moon, is due out from Tyche in 2015. Her other books include To Unimagined Shores—Collected Stories. With her partners at Third Person Press (http://www.thirdpersonpress.com), she has co-edited five anthologies of regional short fiction to date. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies in North America and beyond. Every November she disappears into the strange realm of National Novel Writing Month and emerges gasping at the end, clutching something resembling a novel.A member of the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia Writer’s Council, Sherry is also a past Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer of SF Canada, Canada's national association for Speculative Fiction Professionals.You can visit Sherry online www.sherrydramsey.com, find her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter @sdramsey.

Book preview

BEACON

SHERRY D. RAMSEY

Copyright © Sherry D. Ramsey 2019

Cover Image by Anne-marie Ridderhof on Pixabay

Bee Icon by Clker Free Vector Images on Pixabay

All rights reserved. The author retains all copyright in the content of this book.

No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the author.

This book contains works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, entities or settings is unintentional, coincidental, or entirely attributable to the whimsy of the multiverse and fluctuations in the space-time continuum.

Ramsey, Sherry D., 1963-, author

Beacon / Sherry D. Ramsey

Email: [e-mail]

Web: www.sherrydramsey.com

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada

Beacon

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-990178-09-2

BEACON

Paicia studied the rotating image on her screen, hoping she’d get the fit right this time. The display showed a curved artificial leg. The top was scooped to cradle a short limb, and it tapered down an angled strut to an oval foot at the bottom. Ridged rows crisscrossed the foot to provide traction. Paicia touched the screen, pausing the rotation, and used the program’s tools to minutely adjust the shape of the scoop. She sat back in her chair and squinted at the screen as her left hand drifted down to stroke Sal’s fur. The dog had hopped over with her three-legged gait and looked up at Paicia as if to ask, Is it ready yet?

I think we’re almost there, girl, Paicia told her. We’ll print it in the makerspace tomorrow.

Paicia! Mom’s voice echoed down the hall from the kitchen. Did you set the beacon?

Paicia glanced out at the tangerine light of almost-sunset painting the window. Oops.

Doing it now! Paicia answered, with a final pat for the dog’s head. "Gotta run,