INTO THE JAWS OF THE DRAGON
Gamenet: Book 1
Michael Barnette
Rated: Curtain Wall
Series: Feasting Hall
Length: Sigil
Price: 1.99
ISBN: 1-60180-033-9
Alternate History, Paranormal
The world isn’t what it used to be in the good old 70s. Fuel shortages, economic collapse, reality TV and a terrorist attack that left Phoenix a nuclear wasteland have done a lot to change the United States and the world as a whole.
With many companies going bankrupt and the world economy crumbling a group of opportunistic corporate entities spawn the idea of bringing back the gladiatorial games once enjoyed in ancient Rome to spur growth. But they’re doing it with a twist. Martial arts battles, gunslingers and vehicular combat are the order of the day.
Welcome to 1983. It’s an all new world.
A world that lives and breathes for the sports of GameNet.
Jason 'Bells' Whittier loves his wife Kimiko and he'll do anything to keep her safe and happy. When she's kidnapped by Laredo, a rival gunslinger, he'll do whatever it takes to rescue her.
Laredo's a fool if he thinks that I'm that monumentally stupid. Few people in the Circuit were both stupid and alive for any length of time. Stupid was dead, and Jason hadn't gotten through the last war by being an idiot. He had plans of his own, and they ran contrary to Laredo's.
The dust cloud his fast-moving motorcycle kicked up made a highly visible trail. If Laredo or any of his hired guns were watching for him, which Jason was certain of, Laredo would have no doubts that only another Player could be responsible for the dust cloud. Only Players--or complete madmen--would be crazy enough to ride on the damaged roads at the speed Jason was going. Nor was this a heavily traveled highway.
No, only one person would have a reason to come out here. Laredo had chosen his spot for their showdown carefully. It was so far away from any of the roads the GameNet choppers routinely flew over--ever on the lookout for unannounced open-road battles between Players--that there was little chance of the battle being spotted.
Yeah, Laredo was a scheming son of a bitch, all right. But Jason wasn't the slow-witted dolt that some Players believed him to be. He had fooled enough of them in the past that wiser Players treated him with caution. But Laredo was a Black-card holder, a Professional Player, and he thought he was clever. After all, he hadn't gotten caught when he'd had Kid Lightning offed. But the circumstances had been vastly different then. Daniel Masters hadn't known that he was in any danger until after the bullet hit him. Jason knew, however, that he was going straight into the dragon's jaws.
A wave of liquid nitrogen and napalm heat washed over him. A split second later, six men on crude home-built motorcycles came onto the asphalt from both sides of the road. By the ragged tatters of clothing they wore and their general filthy appearance, Jason identified them as members of a Waster Gang.
Just what I needed, more trouble. Of course, it's possible that they're just an offshoot of the same problem. Didn't that woman say something about Laredo trading Kimi to a Waster? Yeah, I think she did. I wouldn't put it past Laredo to make a deal with such scum. They're probably great friends, Laredo and the scuzzy murdering bastards. He altered the Harley's course by the faintest margin as the sharp report of a small caliber handgun, followed immediately by the whine of a bullet, echoed across the desert. The fire and ice of premonition faded to a more bearable level, the feeling of deadly intent temporarily gone.
The fact that he no longer felt himself to be in any imminent danger meant little; that situation could change fast as a man's thoughts and suddenly as a woman's whim.
Jason gave the Harley more gas and left the Waster Gang to choke on his dust. Their homemade bikes were no match for the speed of a Harley Davidson Combat-cycle, not even a old rebuilt model.
On the near horizon, he could see the fringe-town the woman had told him about. He slowed the bike as a little chill of premonition served as more than ample warning. When the full-fledged explosion of fire and ice blazed to life in his veins, he was already prepared.
The Harley did a hard one-eighty degree turn and came to an abrupt stop just short of the virtually invisible wire that was strung across the road between two weathered phone poles. It was an old trick Wasters used to catch unsuspecting motorcyclists. Jason had seen what happened to a guy who'd hit one of the nasty traps. The guy had been rather messily dead. He smiled wryly. “Not today, boys,” he said aloud, watching the Wasters approach.
