#2

Golden Kill

Visual artists do sketches... I'll sometimes sketch scenes.  This is just a rough something I came up with today...

        A pair of cool blue dots lit up on the bracelet about her wrist, mirroring the pair of lights just above the trigger on the gun.  Just as she’d ordered it… the weapon recognized her touch.   Only her touch, as it were.  She could almost feel the life beneath her finger, coursing through the palm of her hand, urging her to squeeze the trigger.  If anyone else tried to wield the heavy-automatic rifle, the chamber feed would seize, effectively locking all function of the gun until an authorized user attempted to use it.  But for her…

        Carefully, she set it back on the table, and both pairs of lights were extinguished.  The bracelet was just a bracelet again, and the gun was now little better than a heavy club.  For a moment, she considered how effective the vastly expensive hunk of metal would be as a simple blunt force weapon.

        She looked up and across the table.  “You do impressive work… for a doctor, that is.”

        “You are pleased, then?”

        Her silence was as much confirmation as if she’d actually spoken.  If she’d been displeased, she would have been sure to let him know, and in none-too-eloquent of language.

        Yes, silence was good.

        “About payment, then…” he began.

        She held up a bullet, one that glimmered in the dim light like gold.  In fact, it was gold, solid all the way through.  “Do you know how much this is worth?” she asked.  She tossed it to him, allowing him to weigh it speculatively in his hands.

        “Maybe ten-thousand?  At the shiest mark, at least… it could be even more.”

        “Exactly,” she said.  “That’s more than half your fare.”

        “What about the…?”

        Before he had even able to finish, she had whipped a small, silenced pistol from the small of her back, and fired a second bullet straight through the man’s forehead.  “There’s the other half,” she growled.  “Plus a little extra.”  As he slumped forward over the table, blood leaking down between his eyes, she stood to leave.  “Keep the change,” she tossed over her shoulder.

        The lights on her personalized rifle were already lit as she exited the back room of the bar, the live weapon nestled in the crook of her arm.

        Maybe silence wasn't so good after all.

Still one of my favorite images of the surface of the moon. The contrast, the austerity… it speaks so strongly to my minimalist self.

This image features on the custom endsheets of the COLOR OF A MIRROR limited edition hardcover, providing a really cool shift from the black of the cover to the white of the pages.

Only 100 hardcover copies printed. Find it here:

colorofamirror.net

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Image credit: NASA & Project Apollo Archive

Custom Edits/Formatting: Me/ArtificeLux

Yrden.

My man Stegall, going at it... like this one a lot.

This just in

Internet. Enter a net. In a web, Caught I’ve got To break free Of this spider’s Clutch. Bow legged and Beaten; where is My digital crutch? Mind in dust. It’s been mined Into the cybernetic Crust. All blood and wire And Ethernet veins I’m hoping for an Earth that remains, A body that restrains, A mind that retains. Let’s hope one day We can break free Of this web we’ve Entered into. One day. But, not yet. We’re Still caught in the Internet.

Two other bot sketches...

Blue: Bot_tle Rocket. As you can see by the busted light bulb on his head, his ideas are not the brightest... like strapping a rocket to his back.

Orange: Beat_bot. He'll dance on, even if the music stops.

Back with another look at the soundtrack! This time featuring “Closer to the Dead” (as always, by ultra-talented Josh McCausland)!

The video on this one is a little different than those that have come before… still abstract, but really hinting at certain elements of the book as well. Secrets abound…

There’s still time to back the Kickstarter for the exclusive vinyl release of the soundtrack, and the deluxe-hardcover novel, all with designs by me. There are other rewards (including digital copies and softcover) as well, so hopefully a little something for everyone!

It’s gonna take a big push this final week to get it over the line, but I’m holding out hope it can happen. Every little bit helps, so if you’re interested, I’d be thrilled for you to check out the link below:

Lighthouse.

Glow-wave.

Surface.

COLOR OF A MIRROR

Back when the book was just press sheets.

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One thing I’m super excited about with this book is that instead of chapter titles, I created abstract ideograms that reflect the stage of the story/characters in that chapter. Hopefully as you’re reading, you feel how the chapter pairs with the image.

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Again, if you’re looking for something a little bit different or out of the ordinary this Black Friday/Cyber(punk) Monday weekend, the book is out now, and you can support independent publishing by ordering direct from my site!

colorofamirror.net