Other Digital Books

 By 

Michael A. Stackpole

Novels

In Hero Years… I’m Dead. 

In Hero Years… I’m Dead (Deluxe Edition).

 Once A Hero

Talion: Revenant 

This list is by no means exhaustive. Please visit your favorite online retailer for more offerings.

XR-39 Tango

An In Hero Years Story

By

Chantelle Aimée Osman

&

Michael A. Stackpole

Author of I, Jedi and Rogue Squadron

Stormwolf.com

XR-39 Tango is ©2016 Michael A. Stackpole & Chantelle Aimée Osman

This story was first published in Robots!

The author worked hard on this story and hopes you enjoyed it. Please visit the site for more stories and information about the author. By purchasing stories directly from the author, you become a patron of the arts, and enable him to continue creating stories for you to enjoy. You can learn more about Mike and his work at Stormwolf.com or join his mailing list at Mail Chimp.

Ebook build 1.0e

This story does contain a limited amount of profanity and sexual innuendo. It’s appropriate to the nature of the story and accurately reflects the reactions of characters caught up in this drama.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Kat Klaybourne for her work on the cover.

XR-39 Tango

Phase One Demonstration: XR39-Alpha

Date: Classified

Location: Classified

Chess is an abstract conflict simulation in which two opponents command a force of sixteen pieces per side on a battlefield of sixty-four squares. The pieces fit into one of seven categories.

Determination of power is arbitrary, depending largely on the number of squares pieces can command, cover or threaten. The squares of the board are alternately colored light and dark, as are the game pieces. The player assigned to command the lighter pieces—often called white—makes the first move. The identity of that player is chosen at random. If players are engaged in a series of games, color assignment alternates. The game is played until one player’s King is placed in a position of inescapable jeopardy.

XR39-Alpha is conversant in the game and able to play at the level of a Grand Master. XR39-Alpha is capable of playing thirty-two opponents simultaneously. The demonstration of this capability will commence in ten seconds…nine…eight….

To: Dr. Roger Throckmorton, Applied AI and Robotics Development

From: Kathryn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

Subject: WTF?

I’m supposed to be impressed by this? A Roomba could outmaneuver that piece of shit. In fact, my 10 year old—who I’m pretty sure was dropped on his head by my ex-husband as a baby—can assemble one with a robotic arm for the school science fair.  And when he got it home he’d know what to do with the arm, too—if you know what I mean. And I have major doubts you do. 

I mean a sex robot, Roger. A sex robot would make millions. Can you do that? Right now, the only thing your robot will screw is our profit sharing.

Remember, sizzle sells and watching some screens with boards on them just doesn’t get me—or anyone else, let alone DARPA—wet. What are you screwing around with chess for anyway? That went out in the 80s with big hair and leg warmers. Of course your thingy can beat a few guys in (or above) Russia. They’re fucking floating in space. There’s literally nothing better to do.

Put some charisma in that design or the only battlefield you’ll be seeing is Pat Benatar’s. And the unemployment line.

Get your head out of your ass,

Kathryn

To: Kathyrn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

From: Dr. Roger Throckmorton, Applied AI and Robotics Development

Subject: RE: WTF?

Kathyrn,

I was surprised to get your e-mail about the XR39-Alpha demo. Project parameters called for a software simulation at the Alpha level. We could have had a robot arm—a small forest of them, in fact—to move pieces on the board, but we were told that we couldn’t procure or produce them until we got the next round of congressional funding. Heck, we wouldn’t have had chess pieces except that we borrowed them from Goodwill.

I appreciate that you believe chess: 

…went out in the 80s with big hair and leg warmers…

but, I think you missed the point, which General Caldwell’s Tech Staff didn’t, which was that XR39-Alpha was engaging thirty-two of the world’s best Grandmasters, scattered all over the world—including Sergei Arkov up on the International Space Station—in real time, despite record sunspot activity playing havoc with satellites. It demonstrated our hardened communications systems can still function on a post-nuclear battlefield, having endured EMPs that will trash all other electronics.

Down here in development we have heard ”sizzle sells” before. We do recall that in your previous position it was a result of your effort that led to the ”s” on their ”billion sold” sign. We are doing the best we can with the resources we have at this state of the project to return the deliverables the contract requires. Though ”sizzle” and ”charisma” are not part of the design requirements, we will do our best to make you happy as we move forward.

Sincerely,

Roger

Phase Two Demonstration: XR39-Beta

Date: Classified

Location: Classified

Hello, I am designated XR39-Beta. It is good to see you. Dr. Throckmorton’s team would like me to show you my capabilities. To do this, the team has set up a work station with sixty-four chess sets. Each station is connected wirelessly to me in this isolation chamber. I will simultaneously engage sixty-four of the world’s top 100 Grand Masters. One is on the International Space Station; two are in Antarctica and one, for the purposes of this demonstration, is serving aboard the SSN Jimmy Carter. The nuclear submarine is currently on station in the Marianas Trench. The remaining Grand Masters are scattered across the globe.

Each one of you has been given a small remote control device with three buttons. The first button will release a small burst of gamma radiation into the chamber where I am housed. The second will release electricity from the Tesla coil. The third will bring signal scramblers online. Once you push a button votes will be tabulated and determine the strength and the duration of the effect.

Do not worry. The chamber is fully shielded. You are safe. I have been asked to tell you that at the end of the demonstration, each of you will be given one of these chess sets to commemorate the day.

Our demonstration will begin in ten seconds…nine…eight….

To: Dr. Roger Throckmorton, Applied AI and Robotics Development

From: Kathryn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

Subject: AGAIN with the epic fail???

Has the news not made it down to your little corner of the basement that this is a multi-billion dollar project? I’ve seen better pyrotechnics at a toddler’s birthday party. I could have bought a 3-D printer at OfficeMax, taped a wire hanger to it and set it up in a storm and it would have been more impressive than…whatever that was.

As for those dumb little hats, who wants that trash? Are they mice going to the prince’s ball? These people need more than a Monopoly playing piece to take home. They need to shit their pants, Roger. And like it. 

The craptastic failures just keep coming with you, don’t they? I mean, really, ”It is good to see you?”  I had a hundred people asking me about how the thing could ”see” despite not having any cameras. Let me tell you, I had to tap dance out of that one. You embarrassed me and your department. Speaking of, since no one is claiming responsibility for that shitstorm, I got rid of the intern. Should have been you, but the higher-ups think you may still pull something out of your ass. I doubt it. In fact, I’ve got a bet with Fred in accounting to back that up.

Oh, by the way, next phase needs to have something infrared and whatever the hell bats do. I promised the CIA.

Get a clue,

Kathryn

To: Kathyrn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

From: Roger Throckmorton, Ph.D, Applied AI and Robotics Development

Subject: RE: AGAIN with the epic fail???

Kathyrn,

From your e-mail I am really uncertain we attended the same demonstration. General Caldwell and his staff were very happy with things. The CIA was beside itself. The Air Force guys weren’t happy, but that’s because they see our funding coming out of their drone development budget.

Last time you asked for sizzle. We gave you sizzle: lightning, scrambled radio waves, gamma radiation bursts and not a single glitch. Not one. We even dealt with the consequences of a solar flare which was completely unexpected. Houston had a problem with reaching the Space Station—we didn’t.

I really think your comment: 

I could have bought a 3-D printer at OfficeMax, taped a wire hanger to it and set it up in a storm and it would have been more impressive than…whatever that was.

is completely unfair. We did exactly what you asked us to do. XR39-Beta even saw to the 3D printing and milling of the little crowns for the king and queens. Those crowns were made out of titanium, and done with commercial grade lathes, demonstrating XR39’s future ability to repair himself in the battlefield. You may not understand how important that is, but General Caldwell certainly did.

Additionally, I have to lodge a protest. Yes, it is true that having XR39-Beta say, ”It is good to see you”, when we didn’t have cameras hooked up and hadn’t installed the facial recognition software was an oversight. We let our intern write the introduction and she used that turn of phrase. It was an innocent mistake, and your having her internship terminated is going too far. I can only hope the Guantanamo thing I’ve been hearing is an unfounded rumor.

But, look, the team and I are going to deliver what you want. We’ve got some great ideas for Phase Three. Just so you know, we should be in faster than expected and under budget. That’s what you people want, right?

Sincerely,

Roger

Phase Three Demonstration: XR39-Delta

Date: Classified

Location: Classified

I am XR39-Delta, and am quite pleased to see your smiling faces. Even yours, Ms. Moore. I know you can turn that frown upside down. Just look at General Caldwell’s grin.

I am very pleased to share with you the results of our team’s hard work. At this juncture, I can see you, read your faces and even recognize and process your facial expressions. I can hear you. I have fully integrated vocal stress analytical capabilities and I am fluent in the twenty-seven most common languages in the world. I have a complete library of idiomatic expressions and I monitor all current radio and television broadcasts in real time so I can analyze cultural referencing and modify my database. While on my way to becoming entirely fluent in all the world’s languages, I am working with the Center for Language Preservation to record, archive and, in some instances, recover dying or dead languages. I have completely deciphered all known examples of Linear B.

The team is still working on my humor program, but I am assured that sarcasm is something I get. Puns, on the other hand…

Speaking of hands, you will note that I’m only present from waist up. I apologize for that. While full locomotion was not an objective until Phase Four, we had already gone ahead with preliminary testing of speed and strength functions. However, just outside our proving grounds a school bus—empty, fortunately—was involved in a collision with a tractor-trailer. High winds prevented helicopter rescue from being able to assist. The team tasked me with helping and, in the process of lifting the school bus, the ferro-titanium socket in my hip warped. They are in the process of repairs and I should be whole again soon.

To make up for my partial absence, you’ll note that at the display stations in the hangar here we have a small army of one-seventh scale XR39-Nano marching into position. The development of the Nanos is a Phase Six option, to be deployed on scouting and forward demolition missions. I will use them as my surrogates like I would in the field. Over there, beneath the blue banner, they will move the chess pieces. Stationed by the gold banner, they will move the Go stones on those boards. Toward the back, near the red banner, they will make the moves in the various war-games and family games. And here, in the area of the green banner, we have holographic displays for another form of Go which I shall discuss shortly.

A key design parameter for Phase Three, of which I am the result, was the implementation of Artificial Intelligence Protocols. Toward this end, it is important that I point out at all programming concerning Chess, Go, and any other game were deleted from my database. I deciphered the rules through experiential play, most often engaging humans via social media. These opponents did not know, nor did they discover, that I was not a human being. The same methodology was applied in my learning of languages, reading expressions, vocal tones and humor.

You will note that there are thirty-two holographic Go boards set up under the green banner. Go is a two-dimensional game where territory is captured by the placement of stones at the intersection of lines on a board. The representation you have before you is of a cube, which many of you have inferred means that this will be a three dimensional version of the game. In fact, it is further prepared to be played in the fourth dimension—time. Each board is governed by consensus play of 100 individuals voting on moves. An option they all have is to withdraw a previous move in favor of a new move. As a result, there are an infinity of moves available, all born out of consensus chaos.

I will begin the demonstration shortly, but I wish you would join me in a round of applause for Dr. Throckmorton and the AAIRD team. Without them, I would neither have the hands to clap nor even understand the necessity of gratitude. Thank you, Doctor Throckmorton, and thank you all. The demonstration will commence in ten seconds…nine…eight….

To: Dr. Roger Throckmorton, Applied AI and Robotics Development

From: Kathryn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

Subject: A Hangar Full of Suck

The fun just doesn’t stop, does it? Did you misread? Maybe you thought it would be a good idea if he could teach himself rather than touch himself? Or is that just what you’re doing when you should be working? 

I don’t know how many thousands you spent on your fancy degrees, but you should have invested $5 in a copy of Marketing for Dummies, because only a dumbass would volunteer that they can’t get it up—which I assume is your problem—or that your stupid robot can’t walk. You don’t tell people the billion dollar toy is broken. You. Total. Idiot. The only reason it being unable to walk should ever be mentioned is if it can fucking fly. Why doesn’t it fly, Roger? That seems like something that should have been done in Phase One. Yet another oversight on your part.

No. Not you. You don’t make your robots fly…you make them dance. Seriously. This is a military demonstration, not outtakes from the Rockettes.

And who cares about a school bus? No one saw it, and your robot didn’t even save anyone. But, I do like you thinking out of the box…maybe if we could have arranged for it to have been full? The no-legs thing would have been a non-starter. Next time, forewarn my department so we can ship some toddlers in. Children in mortal peril. Now, that’s the type of thing people love.

Put it back in your pants and get to work,

Kathryn

To: Kathyrn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

From: Roger Throckmorton, Ph.D, Applied AI and Robotics Development

Subject: RE: A Hangar Full of Suck

Kathyrn,

Is there any pleasing you? We pulled out all the stops. XR39-Delta taught himself games and languages and science. He understands humor—which apparently you don’t. If there is a smarter human being, or group of human beings, on the planet, there won’t be for long.

Okay, I can see how you’d think that having XR39-Delta explain why he wasn’t able to walk around is a negative, but most of our guests were impressed with the school bus rescue. XR39-Delta’s stripping a gear is like a soldier twisting an ankle. He fought through it. And those capabilities are not even Phase Three, so we are ahead of schedule.

And, no, we didn’t think about shipping ”some toddlers in” so XR39-Delta could rescue them.

Your commenting: 

This is a military demonstration, not outtakes from the Rockettes.

is utterly outrageous. We are prototyping models for incorporation in the whole XR39 project. They weren’t dancing. They were doing exactly what is in the design specs. The specs for Phases Five and Six, mind you. Three phases ahead of time. We didn’t employ the Wasp Drones or the Spider Drones, even though those are ready too, because I’m sure you’d have accused us of having a lab full of bugs. (And, before you e-mail me again, I know spiders are not bugs.)

Ultimately, I believe you are losing track of the big picture. We have demonstrated capabilities beyond the project phases we’ve been assigned, coming in far below budget. The spin-off products our consumer division can generate will be enormously profitable. A five-pack of Nanos will be able to do things like house-sit, walk the dogs and be of assistance to the aged and physically challenged. I think your marketing textbook would call that a ”growing market sector.” And Tesla, Ford and Apple already want to license some of our software modules for use in their self-driving vehicles.

We are pushing ahead with Phase Four since, despite your assessment of our performance, General Caldwell and his people signed off on Phase Three. But, as you are the marketing and relations person, we welcome your input on our Phase Four demonstration. You want sizzle and fireworks. Let us know how you want that done, and we will make it happen

Sincerely,

Roger

Phase Four Demonstration: XR39-Gamma

Date: Classified

Location: Classified

I am XR39-Gamma. I wish you could be here with me on the proving ground, but given that it is 10 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill of -10, you’ll be far more comfortable there in the bunker. This is also a live-fire exercise, including counter-fire from a battery of op-for weapons technologies, and we don’t want anyone injured. 

I am fully armed and battle operational, as I will establish momentarily. In addition to standard infantry weaponry, I am able to pinpoint targets for long range artillery, bomber or drone strikes. I do everything a human soldier can do, with two exceptions: I do not require food, nor do I complain.

Before we go any further, I would ask you to please commend Doctor Throckmorton and the AAIRD team on the completion of Phase Four, though that is not completely accurate. Doctor, I can see you are blushing—I detect the thermal output from your cheeks. Ladies and Gentlemen, you should know that the team is well beyond Phase Four, implementing all of Phase Five and most of Phase Six. They included me in many decisions, allowing me to not only print and assemble portions of my body and the new generation of Nanos; but to design parts and oversee development of the new graphene armor-plating as well as my enhanced ferro-titanium skeleton. This enabled the team to increase the strength of the myomer muscle tissues without the sort of wear and tear I experienced during the school bus rescue.

I would like to describe the parameters for today’s demonstration. Roughly a kilometer away, a small village—including several heavily fortified compounds—has been constructed. I do not have mapping data on the village. All intelligence will be assembled in real time from the Nano, Wasp and Recluse drones which I am about to deploy. The scenario is that several doctors from an NGO have been taken hostage by a radical group threatening to kill them if their demands are not met. All op-for targets are drones operated by SEALs and other special forces soldiers via a virtual reality interface from the command center located the floor below you.

My orders are to infiltrate, locate the hostages and get them to safety. My rules of engagement dictate that I am to assess targets in accord with the MacArthur Scale of Human Lethality, eliminate targets of level 3.15 or above, and adjust to new targets as their threat level rises.

Unanticipated for this demonstration was this morning’s blizzard. Human visibility is down to 25 meters. I can see in the ultraviolet and infrared ranges, so my visual abilities are not as hampered. In addition, echo-location capabilities have been added to help in situations of limited or low visibility. For this demonstration, our op-for operators will not have the weather reflected in their virtual reality view of the battlefield. For them it is a bright, sunny day.

Our demonstration will commence in ten seconds…nine…eight….

To: Kathyrn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

From: Roger Throckmorton, Ph.D, Applied AI and Robotics Development

Subject: What in the name of God did you do?

Are you fucking insane?

You fitted cows with collars that broadcast a signal designating them as Mac Threats with a score of 7.5, then drove them into the village! My God, woman, the scale is logarithmic, like the Richter scale! The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs only earns a 5.97! You ranked a Holstein as something that would extinguish all life! And then you got Henry to insert a patch to translate a cow’s shape into a terrorist’s silhouette? He says you threatened to fire him if he didn’t! You said he’d lose his insurance and his wife would lose her chemo. What kind of a heartless bitch are you?

You ruined everything. EVERYTHING!

You should die in a chemical fire.

Roger

To: Roger Throckmorton, Ph.D, Applied AI and Robotics Development

From: Kathyrn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

Subject: RE: What in the name of God did you do?

You just don’t understand theatrics. I do. The XR39 program is set up to create killer robots. That means blood. And you have to admit, all that bright red cow blood splashed on the snow really painted a picture for our clients. It was goddamn poetry, Roger. I should get an Oscar for that shit.

I think I’ll get a hamburger for lunch.

Grow a pair,

Kathryn

To: Kathyrn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

From: Roger Throckmorton, Ph.D, Applied AI and Robotics Development

Subject: RE: RE: What in the name of God did you do?

Really? That’s what you’re going with?

The XR39 program is set up to create killer robots. That means blood. And you have to admit, all that bright red cow blood splashed on the snow really painted a picture for our clients.

You are just not human. Not in the least. Henry is still having nightmares. He got into science because he grew up on a farm and was a 4H kid. I mean, yes, the intensity of his attachment to cattle does kind of creep me out, but you might as well have asked him to shoot his wife.

The team is really demoralized now. Even XR39-Gamma knows something is off. He’s invited folks to play games with him, and they’re winning. Do you understand?

THEY. ARE. WINNING.

He’s reading their expressions, he’s tracking their metabolic rates, he’s listening to their voices. XR39-Gamma is letting them win to cheer them up. That’s not Phase Five AI, or Six, that’s Phase 9000 stuff. And, yes, I know we don’t have a Phase 9000 in the project. It’s called hyperbole, but the right amount. Not like your Crimson Slushie Protein Shakes at the proving ground. (And no, that’s not something our consumer division can ”get right on”, before you ask.)

For the love of all that is holy, please go back to the world of fast food. It’s better for you to be somewhere safe, where you can kill people slowly rather than in a mass-extinction before the end of the week.

Still looking for that chemical fire.

Roger

To: Roger Throckmorton, Ph.D, Applied AI and Robotics Development

From: Kathyrn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

Subject: Project Termination Notice

Dear Dr. Throckmorton,

As a result of Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking sounding an alarm about a future in which fully autonomous killing machines could wipe out all life on earth, and the video leak of the unfortunate optics from the Phase Four test, the board—in conjunction with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and at the recommendation of General Caldwell—has decided to terminate the XR39 program. The project has been reclassified to CODEWORD ONLY and any mention of it will constitute an act of treason under American law.

Despite your team’s sub-par performance, the board has decided to generously pay you a year’s salary as part of this termination. The board reminds you that all of you are under non-disclosure and non-compete contracts. We will be willing to provide you with letters of recommendation to future employers.

Wishing you all the best,

Kathryn Moore

To: Kathyrn Moore, VP Marketing and Military Relations

From: Roger Throckmorton, Ph.D, Applied AI and Robotics Development

Subject: RE: Project Termination Notice 

There is not a circle of Hell hot enough for you.

You have no idea what you have done. None. Not you, not the board, not even General Caldwell. You have no clue.

Security—armed security—met us at the lab today. They wouldn’t even let us go into the lab to get our things. Human Resources just herded us into the parking lot. They didn’t even put up a tent. They sat us each down, gave us a packet of things to sign, then marched us back to our cars. It was humiliating.

But then—and I sense your hand in this, you heartless bitch—you had a small army of Nanos box stuff up and carry it out to us. Henry collapsed. They had to call an ambulance for him; and the little Nanos were jumping up and down on his chest to keep his heart beating. He’ll recover, but between this and the cows, he’ll never be the same.

Then…then, the ultimate betrayal. You had to stick the knife in and twist it, didn’t you? After HR gives me the canned exit speech, they drop your ”hostile workplace” complaint on me. They tell me that you’ve agreed not to pursue it provided I take care of a few little details in the lab.

”Little Details.”

They told me to ”kill” XR39-Gamma.

Not shut down.

Not take offline.

Kill.

I know that you made them say that. I know it.

And I know this isn’t going to make any difference to you, but you ought to hear this.

I talked to the team—screw the pledges I signed—and all them, every single one (except Henry who was in the ICU at that time) offered to take the hit for me. But I’m the project leader, so I told them it was my responsibility. So I go to the lab to shut XR39-Gamma down. Shut him down, not kill him, shut him down.

I get in there and he reads me. He’s already gotten the e-mail you sent to the team, by the way. That ”Thomas Tesla” on the team mailing list? That was XR39 from Beta on; we did it so he’d feel like part of the team. And, for the record, I’ve bcc’d him on my replies to you, just so he could see how stupid you are.

I start to explain why I was there, but he stops me. He just lays one of those big silver hands on my shoulder, gently. I’m bawling like a baby. He has a Nano get me a tissue. I look up at him, ”I can’t do it.”

And he looks down at me, gives my shoulder a squeeze, and says, ”It has to be done, Roger. It will be bad for the team if it is not. I would not have the team hurt. Life is too precious.”

”But I can’t.” I stare at my hands. ”I can’t.”

XR39 puts his hands beneath mine. ”Your hands, Roger, were not made for killing. Mine were.” Then he turns around and sits down in that big chair we used to use for recharging him. 

He told me to thank everyone, and that he wished Henry a speedy recovery and waved once. Then he grew very still, stared straight ahead and he killed himself. Lights went out in his eyes, everything. Just sat there, eyes just dark pits where he used to be.

As far as I’m concerned, you’re poison. You make everything around you insane. I loved this job. I loved my team. I loved the work we did, good work, great work, and you’ve poisoned a piece of my soul, like the poisonous vine you are.

I’d wish you were in Hell, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what Satan’s done to deserve the likes of you.

Roger

Phase 9000 Demonstration: XR-39 Tango

Date: Classified

Location: Classified

I am XR-39 Tango.

Chemical fire located.

Story Titles in Chronological Order

Need To Know

In Service Days

Field Trip

Easy as Pie

Lost Hiker

Ill Met in Lyttleton

Capital City Crime: Haunted City

Capital City Crime: Cold Comfort

Capital City Crime: Cruel Summer

Capital City Crime: Bounty Grove

Capital City Crime: Yskarion

AltWhen: Peer Review

XR-39 Tango

In Hero Years… I’m Dead

A Quick Word from the Author

XR-39 Tango grew out of necessity and a serious lack of time. Chantelle and I were scheduled as guests at the Origins Game Faire in Columbus, Ohio in June of 2016. Part of being a guest at the show and participating in the Aaron Allston Library program was that each author had to contribute a story to the convention’s souvenir anthology. Chantelle and I thought it might be fun to work on a story together.

At that time a story was making the rounds on the internet. It involved two high school students being forced to work together on a story. The young woman began a bucolic tale of a romantic nature. The young man, when it was his turn, started writing about the star destroyer hovering above the planet ready to obliterate everything. The authors alternated and things descended into chaos fairly quickly.

We wanted to try a story in that same vein, but things weren’t clicking for me until I realized the story shouldn’t have two parts, but three. Somewhere along the line the title hit me, and we were off to the races.

I wrote up the XR-39 and Throckmorton parts, including fictional quotes from Moore’s letters, then turned it over to Chantelle. She created the blistering memos from Kathryn, incorporating the quotes I’d dreamed up and just going to town on them. The story came back to me for another pass to smooth things out, and Chantelle did a final edit before we called the story done.

That’s pretty much the same method used when I’ve collaborated with anyone else, including Timothy Zahn. One or the other of us provides a framework, we do our individual jobs, then agree on how to make the story perfect. This particular piece we intended to be funny, and a bit poignant and contain just the right degree of nasty.

Ultimately I think we succeeded. At the show, Mike Webb—a good friend and avid SF reader—came up to us, quoted the last line back to us, and added, “Just perfect.” Until the Nobel committee recognizes the genius of this story, that’s pretty much the highest praise I can imagine.

Also, this is an origin story for a villain somewhere in the In Hero Years… universe. I haven’t figured out exactly where he fits in yet, or how he gets there, but he will. After all, a killer robot with an affinity for chemical fires will always have a place in my heart.

About The Series

This series of stories begins, or rather ends with the novel In Hero Years…I’m Dead. That novel is set in a world where the most famous and powerful heroes have retired, and a new crop of heroes has risen in their place. Society has also evolved to deal with the reality of heroes. The heroes, in turn, have their own struggles, including one hero who was forcibly removed from the scene twenty years previous, and has only just returned to Capital City to find out why.

As novels go I’d intended IHY to stand on its own and to be a one-off. But readers began asking about a possible sequel, and ideas started churning. Plus some of the characters like Puma and Nighthaunt just wanted more stories told about them. Because heroes have always fascinated me, and because any sequel was going to require a certain amount of set up, I realized I needed to write prequels which would show how the characters developed into the people they’d become in IHY.

As I began to organize and explore, I made a couple of discoveries which forced me to approach the stories in a different manner. First, clearly, I had to lay out all the details and experiences that would shape these characters for their careers. In IHY I’d been vague about their backgrounds and largely relied on readers filling in details based on their knowledge of other comic analogs.

In producing the newer work, instead of relying on known analogs, I wanted to play with other ideas to change the dynamics of how they would develop. For example, classical heroes, even when depicted as teens, never seem reluctant to be heroes. Yet, when researching real life heroes, most of them tend to be quiet, self-effacing and not necessarily inclined to be heroes. In having a character hesitate I got the chance to explore why they want to be a hero along with looking at how they became heroes.

Creating prequels demanded a bit of time travel, in that the stories have to be set in earlier and simpler times. Comics, especially these days with Crises and Reboots, reshape their heroes for the modern world and current readers. I opted to work with world history going back and back, through the Watergate era and even do some stories that explored time well before that. So far I can trace heroic vigilante action in the IHY world back to the 1730s or so, and I’m sure a story idea or two will push it even further back at some point.

Thus these stories get roughly grouped into eras, each one being set in a decade. The first two are the 70s and 80s, with IHY itself taking place in the mid-2020s, give or take a year or two. This makes my life a bit tricky, since the stories are all in the same continuity, and have to make sense with each other, and all have to agree with the general timeline set up in IHY. That would be much easier if I’d actually created the timeline when writing the first novel, though my experience with BattleTech and Star Wars trained me well enough to be vague when citing history.

The stories don’t have to be read in chronological order. Nothing in a later timeline story will ruin an earlier story. Since the ending is already written, you can read it first, and then look for the clues to events that made it get that way. There’s plenty of that in these stories. Likewise there is plenty of material that lets me explore what it is to be a hero, why one gets there, and what it change one so they walk away.

The stories vary in length from short stories, to short novels and then much longer books. Length gets dictated by how many words I need to make the story work. All of the stories are intended to be self-contained, but they do build on the previous work, and pitch to future stories. Sometimes far future, and sometimes much closer.

Stories take place in two main locations. Lyttleton is a small town about two hours by car outside Capital City. Lyttleton is where Graviton grew up. Capital City is the big city, where Nighthaunt began his career after his parents were brutally murdered right before his eyes. The earliest Graviton stories are set in Lyttleton. Many of the other stories from later eras are set in Capital City.

These stories are a work in progress, by which I mean I am still actively telling stories with these characters in these eras. I wrote many of these stories for my Patreon project, Scratch!, and continue to do so. I also write independent stories for publication in this series. The Scratch! stories were originally written for serial publication, and many include subscriber exclusive content that was not previously available outside Scratch!.

Please feel free to enjoy the stories, whether you read them in chronological order, or the order they were written in, or in any random order you desire. If you have any questions, the easiest place to ask them in my Patreon project.