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Title: EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn
Category and Genre: Adult Sci-fi
Word Count: 110,000
Category and Genre: Adult Sci-fi
Word Count: 110,000
Query:
With her wife Kyra locked away in a coma, art-school dropout Chandra Adelhadeo would do anything to communicate with her again—even enroll in a risky trial for an internet-access brain implant.
After months of unsuccessful installs, Chandra becomes the first patient for whom this technology takes. In light of her success, Doctor Wyatt Halman—the lead scientist behind the EMPATHY nanochip—asks Chandra to become the face of EMPATHY once it goes public. Chandra accepts on one condition: that Halman ensures she'll be able to use the implant to speak with her wife. Free installs for immediate family members are one of the perks of enrollment, after all.
The research progresses, but the study takes a sinister turn when dozens of patients begin to seize and mysteriously disappear. Trapped in the research compound, Chandra must team up with an amateur programmer and a study administrator to save EMPATHY from itself… before she disappears like the others, never to see Kyra again.
EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn relays Chandra’s tale via four competing viewpoints, each of which is set on a collision course that will determine the fate of Chandra, her wife, and biofusion technology itself.
First 250 Words:
Chandra ran her fingers along the coarseness of her scarred temple as she sat in the post-install waiting room.
Had the procedure gone as planned? How soon would the implant start to work? When could she use it to speak with Kyra?
So much hinged on the conversation she would have on the other side of the simple door at the end of the hall. Any minute now they would call her name and—ugh. Chandra cringed. Worry gripped her once again.
She curled her fingers around the grit of the charcoal pencil in her hand. The advice of her pre-study therapist needled her.
Draw. Write. Focus on something you can control.
Chandra eased in a breath and opened the sketchbook on her knee to a fresh leaf.
At first the lines came easily—the ovalled frame of her face, the curve of her chin. The dimple found its proper place, languid along the curve of her lips.
Her eyes were most difficult. Charcoal could never match their ethereal brown, a shade kept from Chandra for months.
The choking sensation climbed in her throat. Enough. Enough for now.
In the corner of the page, Chandra scrawled the name. Kyra.
“Chandra?”
Her attention shot toward the receptionist as a participant emerged from the back room and passed between them.
A failed install. His bleary eyes told her everything.
“The doctor will see you now.”
Chandra bit her lower lip. “Thanks.” A stunted breath escaped as she stood.
Chandra ran her fingers along the coarseness of her scarred temple as she sat in the post-install waiting room.
Had the procedure gone as planned? How soon would the implant start to work? When could she use it to speak with Kyra?
So much hinged on the conversation she would have on the other side of the simple door at the end of the hall. Any minute now they would call her name and—ugh. Chandra cringed. Worry gripped her once again.
She curled her fingers around the grit of the charcoal pencil in her hand. The advice of her pre-study therapist needled her.
Draw. Write. Focus on something you can control.
Chandra eased in a breath and opened the sketchbook on her knee to a fresh leaf.
At first the lines came easily—the ovalled frame of her face, the curve of her chin. The dimple found its proper place, languid along the curve of her lips.
Her eyes were most difficult. Charcoal could never match their ethereal brown, a shade kept from Chandra for months.
The choking sensation climbed in her throat. Enough. Enough for now.
In the corner of the page, Chandra scrawled the name. Kyra.
“Chandra?”
Her attention shot toward the receptionist as a participant emerged from the back room and passed between them.
A failed install. His bleary eyes told her everything.
“The doctor will see you now.”
Chandra bit her lower lip. “Thanks.” A stunted breath escaped as she stood.
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