Dissonance: A companion to the thriller RESONANCE (Relentless Suspense)

By A.J. Scudiere

"If you like your books to have substance and a bit of a mind twist, this is where you'll get it."

When Dr. Priya Sengupta is called to the beach to help return a stranded pod of bottlenose dolphins into the Pacific, she can see that something has gone very wrong. What she doesn't realize is just how wrong… It's not just the dolphins. It's bees on the side of the highways. And her friend—also a biodiversity specialist—is seeing some strange happenings with local frogs…on the other side of the country. A call from her grad school frenemy, Alex, is enough to open a larger investigation.

But can two newly minted grads save anything when the Earth itself is the heart of the problem? The last time a global change of this magnitude happened, the dominant species was wiped out. Can Priya and Alex keep humanity from going to way of the dinosaurs? Or is the shift unstoppable? Dissonance is a companion novella to the thriller Resonance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Griffyn Ink
• Release date: Feb 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9798215634288

Book preview

1

The smell was the worst part . The second worst part was the people. The combination of the people and the smell was the third worst part – there was a roundish puddle of vomit not three feet from her, soaking into the sand.

A green-faced man rushed by. He at least made it to the skimpy dunes before he lost his lunch in the three sparse reeds someone had likely planted there. The only thing native to this beach was cement.

Her long dark hair tickled her back where the end of her ponytail hit exposed skin and Priya wished she were dressed more professionally. But if she were dressed better, she wouldn’t be here jogging on the beach-front path and she wouldn’t have found the horrible smell. Still, even her UCLA lab pass would have gone a long way to helping out here.

She pushed her way through the throng as the gathered crowd talked in what should have been hushed tones, but instead was too garbled to make out. Still, she had an idea what was ahead of her. Something dead.

She had smelled this kind of thing before; she’d been called out as part of a research team when the professor she’d been working with had been asked to help with a handful of squid that had washed up on shore entangled with jellies. No one had recognized the jellies and so they were turned over to the university for research in exchange for proper cleanup. A good deal all around. That mess had smelled, too. But not as pungent as this.

Priya stepped through another layer of people only to be startled that she had reached the front of the pack. She was still about ten yards further back than people tended to be when something was dead.

Her head jerked back as she suddenly understood what she saw. It wasn’t a dead thing. It was things. About ten of them.

Quickly, she started counting. No, eleven.

A deep noise came from her right, startling her into a serious jump. One of them was still alive. The jaw moved, showing top and bottom rows of sharp spade-shaped teeth. And the small eye moved. It appeared to be looking right at her.

To her right a woman screeched. But Priya shook off the sound.

She knew that the lack of white in the eyes made humans think the creature was looking right at them. That wasn’t what was happening at all, but right now she agreed – it looked downright sinister.

Still, it seemed to look at her. And she knew, if it was alive, she might be able to save it. The rumbling words of the crowd drew her back to reality. She turned and faced them.

They aren’t dolphins, they’re porpoises. And one of them is still alive. If you want to help, find buckets or anything that can carry water.

I have water! A woman in the middle of the crowd stood on tiptoe and waved her large Evian bottle over her head. She was moving toward Priya, while she unscrewed the cap.

With a sigh, Priya began to explain. You’ll have to dump that water, then fill the bottle with sea water.

Oh.

Clearly, this was an issue. The woman seemed reluctant to do some part of that. Then Priya watched her tip up the bottle and drink the last of it.

Others came forward even though the smell of the ten dead porpoises was nearly overwhelming. Most of the people looked a bit grey, but they started sorting themselves into two groups: those who wanted to help took a step toward the dead bodies and the smell, others stepped back.

One man stepped all the way up—almost in her face—his jogging clothes as sweat-soaked as hers. Who are you?

She tried not to be offended, she looked bad, she knew. I’m with UCLA, I’m a PhD student with the biology department.

If anyone here knew more about this than she did, he or she certainly wasn’t speaking up. So Priya took charge. She organized as much as she could, sent a man who lived nearby to go home and get as many buckets as he could. She gave the ten dollar bill she had tucked into her waistband to another and had him go three blocks to the 99c store to get buckets there, too. Then she instructed everyone with any kind of container to start pouring sea water on the one porpoise that had moved.

She answered questions, told people they would do everything they could but, despite their best efforts, the animal probably wouldn’t make it. She informed them about beachings and assured the good people who were dumping pitifully small quantities of dirty LA seawater on the creature that it wouldn’t bite. Then she told them not to get close to its mouth.

Once the operation was running as smoothly as it could, she pulled her cell phone from the same spot where she’d tucked the ten dollar bill and searched her directory. Surely, she had saved the number. Surely . . .

Yes! There it was: Alex—Ass. The extra word kept it distinguished from ‘Alex—No,’ a nice Indian man with a bad American name. Her parents had wanted them to marry. Neither she nor Alex had thought it a good idea, but he kept in touch, maybe more than he should have. Alex—Ass, however, was exactly who she needed right now.

She hit the button and barely let him get out his warm Priya! before she started speaking: Stratton, I need you.

Baby, I’ve been telling you exactly that. Want to come over?

She took a deep breath. This was exactly why he was listed this way in her contacts; so she didn’t waste the time to tell him off. I have eleven beached porpoises about three blocks north of the Santa Monica pier. You can’t miss it—there’s a crowd.

Um, uh. She heard him not find the words, then she heard him make a quick excuse to whomever he was with. Priya waited the space of three heartbeats before she yanked back on the hook she knew he’d already swallowed. One of them is still alive, barely.

"What?"

Tell me what to do, Stratton.

Pour ocean water on it. As much as possible.

Done. She was glad she could say that. She also spotted the guy she’d sent out returning. I have a guy coming around the corner right now with buckets from his house and another that should be back from the dollar store in a few minutes. What else?

Um . . . She heard something shuffle in the background. Tide’s coming in. See if you can dig a trench right beside it. Both sides. She heard keys jingle and a door slam shut as a sweet voice asked him where he was going. He didn’t answer it. The idea is to irrigate. Get water flowing to the sides of the animal. If you have blankets, drape them over it—soaked.

Got it. She hung up on him. She’d never dream of being so rude to anyone else. Her parents would have killed her. Good manners had been drummed into her since birth. But Alex was just too much, and so she’d gotten rude the first time in defense. It had bounced off of him then…and had ever since. She often used him as a sounding board for all the comments she wanted to make during the week but that propriety held in check. Besides, he’d be here in a few minutes regardless of her manners.

She took a deep breath, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The smell fried her nostrils, scalded her lungs, and threatened to activate her gag reflex. Turning back to the crowd, Priya explained that she called a professor at UCLA and then relayed what Alex had told her. Within minutes, there were three towels that helpers had gotten donated from passersby. They were promptly dragged through the waves and laid over the creature, who moved again—just slightly—letting them know their efforts weren’t in vain.

As soon as they were doing everything they knew how to do, Priya joined in. She used her hands and a donated plastic sand shovel to help dig one of the trenches, and she tried not to breathe.

2

H ere. Alex handed her the