Kite Book

Mason Dash works the high street, Earth Orbit One, the highest street that ever was on or near the planet. He operates the space street sweeper Kite. A working stiff, Dash wants little more from life than to finish his three-month shift, get down easy to the surface and to Janet, his soul mate, spouse and fishing companion, and maybe throw back a few brews at their local haunt. Get down easy? No such luck. The day before he's to descend at shift-end he spots movement in a derelict space station where there should be none. Dash has a spouse, yes, and he has a girlfriend, of sorts, Sheila, a beautiful, highly customized virtual personality. Dash thinks her existence is a secret but there's very little digital that he can keep from Janet, a world-class artificial intelligence researcher. Janet has enhanced Sheila with some of her experimental "adaptive" modules. Sheila is more free and flexible than she's ever "felt." Sheila stows away in the software scenario Dash' has cooked up for exposing the spacejackers. Once inside the Kite systems, Sheila catches the fancy of a rising tyrant, He_Ra. Ambitious and egotistical, he's embarking on a campaign of conquest, first to take over the local universe as he knows it, then beyond Kite to other orbital platforms and eventually to Earth. Sheila must split her attention between the situation with Dash and the spacejackers on the outside and her own adventure inside Kite, a virtual fantasy world. Sheila gets a taste of romance and revolution, and she must choose a side in the final battle for control of Kite. And the spacejackers? Well they turn out to be not quite what they seem. It's at the moment that Troy, humankind's first unearthly visitor, arrives in Orbit One. Earthling space activity has scrambled his civilizations ages-old project. And he's none too pleased. Earth's fate is in the balance times three and only Dash, Kite and friends can prevent disaster.Read More