Echo: A Dystopian Science Fiction Novel

“And…To…Hell…With…Your…SUVs,” I mutter this under my breath as I finish typing it into my laptop.  It’s a response to a soccer mom that’s angry at me for poking fun at the soccer mom lifestyle.  But what the hell can they do to me?  Right now I’m in Marin County, hiking the hills near Rodeo Beach, staring out at the beautiful ocean from the tops of windswept cliffs.  I’ve got my laptop, a thermos of hot coffee, tree-lined trails in every direction…there’s no way they could—suddenly, my hiking buddy (and 10 lb. terrier) Bitefighter paws at me, grumbling a warning through his mustached face.  “What is it Bitey?” I ask.  He points up at the sky with a scruffy paw.  There’s a plane buzzing by in the distance.  I shade my eyes with the flat of a hand and look closer at it.  “It’s just a plane, buddy, I don’t see why…wait a second…”  Tiny dots deploy from the side of the craft and slice through the air.  What the…I look at them through a set of binoculars and see…HOLY HANNAH!  SOCCER MOMS IN WING SUITS!  Each one is screaming through the sky, zeroed in on me, and also equipped with some kind of assault rifle.  I curse the rise of Extreme Soccer Mom—that yoked, type-A that’s always setting some new Crossfit PR or handling a company meeting while running an ultramarathon or whatever the shiz they’re doing nowadays.  As me and Bitefighter tear down a trail, I look over my shoulder and see them activating jetpacks.  JETPACKS??? Come ON!  NOT fair—I repeat:  NOT FAIR!  I open my eReader to Echo.  Magic flash.  Suddenly, a sidewinder missile cuts through the air and one of the moms disappears in a flash of fire and smoke.  Jessica Rabbit careens over a hill in a weaponized dune buggy, her great dane in the back seat cage.  As she drives by, she one-hands me by the scruff of my collar and tosses me in the back.  Bitefighter jumps onto my leg as she does this, and a second later, me, Bitefighter, and her dog are tangled together in a jumble of limbs, rushing down dirt paths as her buggy’s autoguns spit bright tracer fire at the flying soccer moms.  In the midst of the chaos, I see Bitefighter’s tiny body humping furiously away at the great dane’s gigantic leg.  Ms. Rabbit catches my eye in the rearview.  She winks at me.  “Sign of things to come,” she says playfully.

According to Studies done by Science, there’s a 3.8% chance of being accosted by wingsuit/jetpacked soccer moms during any given hike.  Get Echo Vol. 1 on Kindle here:  Vol. 1 on Kindle.  Vol. 2 on Kindle here:  Vol.2 on Kindle  Vol. 3 on Kindle here:  Vol. 3 on Kindle