Splicers

By Bonner Litchfield

Mark Simon sits in a diner far from home and second-guesses his recent actions. Two days earlier, he failed to make it out of the water during the Lake Norman Triathlon.

 

Did he overlook a crucial detail? Hang himself with an oversight?

 

Will fraud investigator, Jane Ross, nail him?

 

Two people. Two intertwined sets of decisions and outcomes.

 

Parallel universe travel like never before.

 

With a plot twisting across multiple realities, "Splicers" pulls the reader into a bonafide multiverse expedition. Guaranteed to appeal to sci-fi and mystery fans alike.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Dawg Publishing
• Release date: Nov 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223768692

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

MARK

So now, I’m sitting in a roadside diner, five hundred miles from the house I used to live in and the family I used to come home to. Five hundred and twenty-three miles, to be exact. And six hundred and two miles away from the site of the Lake Norman Triathlon where, two days ago, I failed to make it out of the water.

What happened…?

I was setting up my transition (racking the bike, arranging running gear) and the race organizer was barking out instructions over a loudspeaker. I almost missed it when he apologized for the absence of race photos. I almost puked when I heard that. Seriously, photos of all the participants during various stages of the race. Photos! How the hell did I not think of that… Anyhow, I dodged a major bullet when the good folks from Lighthouse Images didn’t show up that morning.

Still, that got me wondering what else I might have missed. In fact, I almost gave up right then and there. I mean, so much planning, so many details to consider. Get one thing wrong and… Yeah, I almost gave up and resigned myself to riding out the next ten years of my life in relative misery.

But giving up sucks. Hard. I know from personal experience. There’s nothing worse than setting a goal and working to get there, then coming up short. Quitting. I did that during a marathon once. Around mile twenty, my legs just rebelled on me. We’re not taking another step, and you’re outvoted two to one. So I gave in. And I remember the feeling all too well: abject failure due to my inability to fight through adversity.

I mean, really. Life is a series of goals. You achieve something—job, degree, property, money, personal achievement—doesn’t matter what particular area we’re talking about. Whatever it is, you don’t sit and rest on your laurels; the whole point of existence is driving towards the next plateau.

My wife—my former partner and best friend—once had the same attitude and outlook on life that I have. Once… We met at the gym in a spinning class. Here was a driven, intelligent girl with a good job and killer abs. During workouts, she kept her cellphone tucked in the waistband of her spandex tights. And you really had to envy the phone. We hit it off right away. Her friends became our friends (never noticed the disappearance of my friends till later). We both hated her parents and tolerated mine. We dined out, went to the movies, moved in together, and made love like there was nobody else on the planet except us. Corny, I know. But that’s what it feels like with the right person.

Then our daughter was born. Six pounds, two ounces. And for the first time in my life, I experienced unabated joy. Then two years later, my son. Same thing. Couldn’t get any better than that.

Until things changed…

My kids are seven and nine now. They want nothing to do with me except when they need money for something. And my wife… Two hundred pounds of angry hormones. She doesn’t want me around either. All she cares about is being a mom. She doesn’t want a husband or life partner, just a parental assistant. She hasn’t been to a spinning class in a long time. And the last job on her resume was ten years ago. That lasted five months till she quit.

Yeah, quit. I married a quitter. That’s something I never could swallow. She’s made it clear that I’m the breadwinner. The financial wellbeing of our family is my responsibility. She also assured me that she’d take me for everything I’m worth if I tried walking out on her and the kids. That only made me all the more determined…

And my plan went like clockwork. I came out of the water and ran across the timing mat with no chip on my ankle and a fake race number marked on my body. Then, instead of going into the transition area, I just walked away. And nobody noticed. I walked away from the race site to a car I’d paid cash for under an assumed name. In the trunk were clothes, identification, credit cards, and a laptop. I dried off and drove away. Easy.

So here I am. I smile at the waitress when she asks if I want more coffee. She’s young. Probably early twenties, if I had to venture a guess. And I’m wondering if I can get anywhere with her. What’s that minimum age calculation for dating? Divide by two, add twenty. Something like that. I’m not after this girl in particular. The point is, I’ve got options I didn’t have before.

I might ask her what she’s doing when she gets off work. If I could just quit shivering. They must have the air conditioning cranked up to an insane level. I mean, you could hang meat in this place.

CHAPTER 2

JANE

Jane Ross had a nose for bullshit. Her job was to root out insurance fraud. And she was investigating an alleged drowning death that had occurred during a triathlon. Alleged, because a body had never been found. Alleged, because her employer, Safety Life Insurance, didn’t want to fork over a million dollars.

The subject of her investigation was Mark Simon. Thirty-seven-year-old triathlete. Married with two young children.

So, starting with the race itself…Mark lived in Greenville. Why in the hell would he travel four hours to a race when there were several others much closer to home on the same day? All by himself. None of his friends or training partners making the trip with him. And yeah, she’d already interviewed some of them and teased out the facts about his lousy marriage and sad lot in life.

Then the kicker: Jane checked every race between Greenville and Lake Norman that occurred on the Saturday that Mark drowned. Every last one of them had photographers snapping photos