Corvus
by L. Lee Lowe
Free ebook download: Corvus by L. Lee Lowe, legally licensed and available in PDF format.
In a slightly alternate world the minds of teen offenders are uploaded into computers for rehabilitation -- a form of virtual wilderness therapy.
In a slightly alternate world the minds of teen offenders are uploaded into computers for rehabilitation--a form of virtual wilderness therapy. Zach is a homo cognoscens, one of the new humans who can enter the virtual Fulgrid. Though still a high school student, he is indentured to the Fulgur Corporation as a counsellor. Laura is a homosapiens. Their story is part odyssey, part tragedy, part riff on the nature of consciousness.
Excerpt:
Bracing himself against the wind, Zach gets to his feet without a thought for direction or destination. In the white forever of this place, there is no lantern to light the dark and bitter woods of memory. Even the croak' ers would find little use for such knotted timber.
Do you hear me? he shouts full volume in his mind. Nothing worth felling.
Nothing worth
nothing
He angles into the blowing snow. The cold has as much substance as the snow, thick and clean and impenetrable, almost lush, and it reminds Zach of a dense text encountered for the first time, against which you pit yourself, into which you tunnel for sustenance, at school his first Mandarin characters had been like that, you have to wrest sense from the meaty snow' flakes before they melt on your tongue. He opens his mouth and catches one, then another. Tears gather at the corners of his eyes, and he wipes them away quickly—angrily—with gloved fingers lest they freeze his eyes shut—his damned traitorous eyes.
His booted feet are soon clogged with snow, and heavy. With each step they amass another layer, and then another, and though he tries to shake them free, the stuff clings like down, soft and fluffy yet as tena' cious as the barbs that filled his roughquilted child' hood—auger, transfuck, mulac, devi, freak. He bends his head and plods on, breathing painstakingly around the icy knife in his chest. Somewhere there would be shelter. Somewhere there would be food. They wouldn’t want to kill him just yet, would they?
The cry slices through the silence. Zach stumbles and falls, the ground flying up to meet him like the breast of a great albatross. Black'vaned against the unending white, its wings beat and beat about his head. He raises his arms to shield himself, the birdcall surrounding him like manic laughter.
Where is she, you buzzards?
‘All right,’ the technician in charge says. ‘Safe zone.’
‘He’s in?’
‘Slick as a lube job.’
‘Mind your language.’ Charles Litchfield runs a hand through his thinning sandy hair and glances round. Senior neuros are cut a good deal of slack, but you can never be too careful.
‘The amount you worry, I’m surprised you haven’t got ulcers yet.’ Andy’s fingers dance like spiders across the console before he raps off a series of instructions to the computer. ‘Anyway, I thought that after the funeral you withdrew your application for transfer.’
Listen to free audio Podcasts of Corvus, narrated by Welsh actor Ioan Hefin, on the author's website. Corvus is also available as a paperback edition.
