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The Origins of BRENDA

My follow up to "The Axiom Few" is coming along nicely and I sincerely hope to get it out the door before the summer. By the way, "The Axiom Few" is free on the Kindle from the 21st to 23rd January. Click here to get it.

The sequel collection, "The Axiom Tapestry" will contain eight more stories, one of which, "The Pytance Initiative" will contain part of the origin story of the BRENDA device that is so prominent in the first book.

Here is an extract from "The Pytance Initiative"...

The quantum strip hung in the centre of a clear, spherical bosonic chamber which could be seen from the upper gantry where Vernal Campion now stood, tablet in hand, scanning the system event logs for errors. With two hours to go, thankfully there were none. If any appeared now, he may have to be the one to tell Derek. And the Prime Minister had already departed London on her way to the Stratabyre. Trying to halt this rolling snowball would be a messy business.

He stepped out of the inner glass door, which slid closed softly behind him, and traversed the elevated walkway towards the rear of the Stratabyre. Below him a system of cable troughs crisscrossed the cave, disappearing into sections of rock wall towards coolant lakes and hidden banks of processor arrays housed deep within the perpetually cold, ancient stone. Above him, dim lamps barely lit the space, due to the lumo-sensitivity of the biological meshes that hung vertically from specially designed dermabrackets. He could hear the sound of soft unseen fans working to keep the cave drier than nature would intend, while leaving the environment moist enough for the bio-meshes to retain their elasticity. The combination of sounds felt to Vernal as though the whole cave was humming with anticipation.

Something about the majesty of the space, where high technology fused with millions of years of geology made technicians speak in low voices when they were out in the main area, away from the control room. Or was it just that the Stratabyre had the capacity to carry echoing voices and resound them into an unintelligible susurration. All he could hear were whispers now. A quiet church.

And despite being nothing more than a biologically enhanced machine, straddling the inside of the cave like a confined spider, the Brenda device had no front or back, no face or physical interface, and had not even been fully connected up, yet Vernal Campion was convinced she (no, not she... IT) was looking right at him.

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