A. Ashley Straker

“Something was wrong with the devices themselves. Digging deep into the internal structure of the circuit boards with powerful microscopes, Simon's team had discovered broken and incorrect connections, electronic dead-ends, short circuits, and nonsensical pathways.”

“The military operation swiftly became one of disaster management and damage control, search and rescue.”

“The attack came without warning, in the pre-dawn stillness on the day they were due to leave. A series of solid concussions shook the walls and sent Simon scrambling from his bunk. Max thrust a handgun at him, which he immediately fumbled and dropped.”

“Odessa sighed. 'When I said you were one of the smartest people in the company, I was referring solely to your technical abilities. Now get to work.”

“Simon shook his head. 'I don't want to be a hero. I'd rather abandon the technology altogether, sit on a hill and speak to my neighbours by smoke-signal.”

“Every scrape, site, range and page; every game, download, hack, song, movie and virrie on the Web. Everything on your phone. Everything on your 'puta. Even the content directories of your cupboards. Almost every system has been brute-forced; passwords cracked, firewalls breached. Nothing has been left untouched.”

“He had no problem with flies or bugs or beetles, even creepy ones like earwigs and cockroaches...Six legs were fine, but eight were alien and unnatural.'The same number of legs as four fully-grown serial killers!”

“He realised he was in a chair. The world was white and blurry in half his vision, and it took him a few moments to realise a sheet of paper was stuck to his face.”

“Well, whatever happened here today...' he said, turning back to Popescu and donning his own sunglasses so he could discreetly cast his gaze over her figure,'...it was only the beginning.”

“Who gave you a gun?''The army.''Why?''That's what the army does, Simon.”

“Partnership means she is of equal rank to you, Raven', Obiakor continued...'Don't play games with her.”

“Fear is quite the anaesthetic”

“She stared at Raven in a long second of shocked silence, before sagging to the floor.”

“Raven briefly pondered the phrase, "staring down the barrel of a gun". It wasn't really that accurate, he decided. After all, it was too dark to see any features down a barrel, only a black circle at the end of it.”

“...while the stony bones of the world tore past and the air grew dark and howling. The last thing he saw as the gulley became a torrent of dust and rock was the Jeep, plucked backwards into space.”

“Simon stopped listening. He realised he'd had enough. Enough of the theories, enough of the mystery, enough of the bullshit. Enough of the soldiers and guns and MI5. Enough of bugs in phones and in people he cared about. Enough of not being cared about back. Enough of uncertainty and lies and civilisation, collapsing or not. Enough of is part in it, his place, his role; the character of Simon Parfitt and all the baggage it entailed.”

“Yes' Simon nodded. 'This would suggest that these patterns grow inside the batteries until a critical point is reached, when the shapes develop no further, and the phone ceases to function.”

“He felt like a baked bean in a can, soaring through the air on a downward turn of a parabolic arc...”

“Are you a house-wife, Mrs Silvers?' he asked. 'What would you recommend for getting burger relish out of a white shirt?'The seething woman cranked the venom-level of her gaze up to eleven, and Raven smiled pleasantly back.”

“Max?' he asked.'Yeah?''...What are you doing?''Shooting people.”