Isis: Wrath of the Cybergoddess now in paperback! And on Kindle! and Smashowords!
Danger! Three months after her encounter with Isis in The Beauty Myth, Dr. Raheema Sanders transforms herself into the Cybergoddess, a creature with powers far greater than Isis'. Determined to replace the order of gods with an order of science, she plans to kill the goddess and remake the world in her own image. Can Isis stop this Digital Diva before she implements her mad plan?
Chapter 2
Awesome cover by Bill Walko! |
Danger! Three months after her encounter with Isis in The Beauty Myth, Dr. Raheema Sanders transforms herself into the Cybergoddess, a creature with powers far greater than Isis'. Determined to replace the order of gods with an order of science, she plans to kill the goddess and remake the world in her own image. Can Isis stop this Digital Diva before she implements her mad plan?
Chapter 2
Ramona huffs a sigh as she storms out of my lab. I
don’t have much time; I need to get this experiment going before she comes back
here with that court order. After she shows a judge evidence of my expenditures
and scientific theories they’ll definitely declare me mentally incompetent. If
that happens all the work I’ve done to restore my youth and become the next
step in human evolution will be for nothing.
I hurry over to the Petri dish where my nanocell is
floating. I fill my syringe, roll up the sleeve of my blouse, find a vein and
grit my teeth as I prick my arm with the needle and inject it into my
bloodstream. If I wrote that code right the nanocells should start replicating
immediately when introduced to the body.
The fast acting nanocells catch me by surprise; I
feel my body tingling as they begin working inside me. My heart pounds faster
and faster; I feel a numbness in my right arm then my heartbeats start to
become erratic. I gasp for breath as I clutch my chest and collapse to the
floor. I was so close, so close…
Chapter 3
Everything is so dark. So quiet. So cold. This can’t
be the so-called afterlife. And it definitely isn’t the morgue. I hear the hum
of my central air conditioning unit buzzing above me.
Obviously I’m not dead. But everything I see is black
except for two words in red: RECONFIGURATION COMPLETE. Could the nanocells have
worked? Could they have reconstructed my body? Or have I just given myself a
stroke?
Of course they worked, it’s the only explanation for
why I’m still alive and this prompt is showing up in front of my face. If I
wrote this code correctly, all I have to do is access the interface menu to
activate the nanocells that make up my new body. With a thought I click out of
the reconfiguration prompt and my eyes flutter open. The world is clear as a
High-definition television screen as my new eyes peer up at the ceiling of my
lab.
I’m surprised at how fast I’ve become when I spring
up off the floor. When I try to lean on the bioscanner’s table the steel and
glass structure starts to crack in my grasp. Clearly I’m a lot faster and
stronger than I was in my prime. I have to wonder if in addition to my newfound
abilities if my youth was restored.
I’m eager to see what I look like. I hurry over to
the mirror on the far side of the lab. A proud smile grows on my face when I
see the reflection of my beautiful 22-year-old self staring back at me.
Unfortunately, my eyes are red, my skin is ice blue, and the silken hair flowing
down my back is jet black.
It’s nothing I can’t fix with a simple palate swap.
I hurry over to the computer terminal to access my old Ebony Fashion Fair photos. Before I can reach to tap the screen, the
folder pops up on it. Here’s something interesting; all I have to do is think
and I can interface with the computers in the lab. I’ll see if I can access the
Internet once I get my correct skin tone uploaded to this new body.
I scroll down and find a photo of myself strutting
down the runway of the Ebony Fashion Fair
and bring it up on the screen. I start to feel as fabulous as I did on the
runway in the 1950’s when I see my hands changing to the caramel color they
were years ago. I’m back!
And it’s clear from the reconfiguration I’m better
than I was before. Perfect. Ready to strut my stuff in this new modern world. I
bring up the Sepia computer network with a thought and then bring up Google
Chrome on a second monitor to my left. While I scan the video cameras of our
Madison Avenue store and study the daily sales receipts, I access over one hundred
websites all at once in less than a tenth of a second.
In the distance, I hear footsteps approaching the
lab. I bring up the security camera in the hall and see one of the guards who
works at the front desk approaching. My eyes grow wide catching the time on the
clock in the corner of my eye. 7:45 AM Friday! No wonder she’s coming to check
on me. I must have been unconscious all day!
I can’t risk being discovered looking like this.
Since the nanocells in this body have a high iron content, I might be able to
fly by reversing the polarity of my body in the opposite direction of the
gravitational fields around me. With a thought I change the direction the
electrons in my nervous system are flowing so that they repel me from the
ground instead of sticking me to it. In a few moments my feet start to rise off
the floor. When I ascend into the tall ceilings of the lab, I quickly change my
color palate to blend in with my surroundings as the guard pushes past the
swinging doors.
“Miss Sanders are you still here?” she calls. “I saw the light on-”
As the guard walks further into the lab to
investigate, I descend and slip through the swinging doors. My palate swapping
ability seems to work well at camouflaging my presence; I can’t see myself on
any of the hallway security cameras I’m monitoring in a minimized window in the
corner of my eye. While I push past the tall glass doors and make my way out to
the driveway, the guard in the lab gasps at the sight of my blood on the floor
and rushes to the phone to call 911. While I’m eager to go and find that
alleged goddess, I think I’ll stick around to witness poor Ramona’s reaction to
my disappearance. Depending on how she responds I may or may not let her keep
her inheritance.
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