Here is Your Seventh Literary Gift once more, from me, author Andy Zach. You now have a week’s worth. How do you like them so far? Do you have a favorite? Let me know what you think by clicking here or emailing me at [email protected]. As always, everyone who responds will get a free book from me.
My second sci-fi series’ second novel shows our four disabled seventh-graders with superpowers on summer vacation. What could go wrong at a coaster park? Here’s an excerpt.
Jeremy is captured by a robot in Villain’s Vacation
Ah! I pulled out his eyes.
Good job! Hey, everyone, Jeremy’s pulled out the robot’s eyes. Kayla thoughtcast.
I levitated out of the bed. The robot fumbled at its eyes, trying to repair them, but I held the cameras in my hand.
“Destroy the captive,” said the robot cheerily. Its metal fists smashed through the bed where Jeremy had lain, cracking the concrete floor underneath.
Are you all right Jeremy?
Barely.
“Captive not present. Unable to detect.” It whirled its arms around, just missing me in the corner. The breeze kissed my cheeks. I dodged the flailing arms in a horrible game of blindman’s bluff. I tried to get to the door, but it could move faster than I could. Methodically it quartered the room, getting closer and closer to me.
Robot Trouble
Aubrey, hurry! Jeremy’s in danger. Dan says he’s down the hall to your right. Kayla thoughtcasted.
I tried pushing or tripping the robot, but it must weigh over a thousand pounds.
I ducked under its fist. It cratered the wall.
Aubrey crashed through the drywall into the room behind the robot.
“Gotcha!”
The robot instantly spun to smash her with its fist, but all it hit was her whizzing ax. An explosion of sparks filled the room and dazzled my eyes. The impact of the blow knocked Aubrey off her feet, but the robot’s arm collapsed and hung useless. Its other arm struck where Aubrey used to be.
“Fifty percent damage,” commented the robot, sounding pleased. “Releasing all gas.” HISS!
Your Seventh Literary Gift – Escaping Robot Gas
Robotic arm
I punched a hole in the drop ceiling with my telekinesis and lifted myself and Aubrey into the rafters of the wood-framed building.
“That should get us out of the gas. Ugh! Sorry, Aubrey, I can’t get through the roof.”
“No problem! I can.” She smashed her ax through the rafters and roof in a few blows. I lifted us up into the fresh air and joined the rest of the team outside.
“My hero!” Aubrey hugged and kissed me as I floated at her eye level.
I felt my face flush red. “But, you rescued me!”
“It was a mutual rescue. Dan and Kayla helped too. A total team effort!”
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Here is Your Sixth Literary Gift from me, author Andy Zach. I don’t know how you feel about these gifts, but I’m enjoying giving them away. Let me know what you think by clicking here or emailing me at [email protected]. Everyone who responds will get a free book from me.
“My brother Rich is coming with some of his football buddies. Oh, here’s our first customer.” The girls cheered and did some cheerleading routines while the Secret Supers washed the car. Jeremy used an electric scrubber from his wheelchair. Kayla used the power washer, while Dan and Aubrey soaped up the car.
Rich and his friends arrived. “Great!” yelled Darla. “Now we can do two cars at once. Let’s get a production line going. Here come some more cars. Keep cheering girls.”
“This isn’t so bad,” Dan said.
“Nah. Just putting on soapy water isn’t a problem. I’m glad I can walk now.” said Aubrey.
Rich called to them, “I’m surprised you guys came.”
“It seems the least we can do. You guys were nice enough to come to our magic show,” said Aubrey.
“That was really good. I think I got the card trick figured out, but not the levitation stuff.”
“Keep thinking. It’s a good practice.”
Dan Detects Trouble
Dan Elanga – He can read minds and sensory impressions.
“Oh no,” Dan yelled.
“What’s the matter, Dan?” Jeremy asked.
“My parents’ house is on fire!”
“Did you get a text or something?” asked Darla.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Sorry to leave you in the lurch, Darla, but we’ve got to go and help,” said Aubrey.
“What can you do?”
“More than you think.”
“I’ve already called my car,” said Jeremy.
“Your car? You’re not old enough to drive,” asked Darla.
“I made a flying car. I can summon it here. See, there it is.”
Darla’s, the cheerleaders’, Rich’s, and the football players’ mouths dropped open as Jeremy’s car came flying down the street, as fast as any other car. Jeremy and Dan had modified it so it had a rumble seat in the back for Kayla and two running boards with grips and safety lines like a fire truck, for Dan and Aubrey to stand.
“That is SO COOL,” screamed Darla.
Your Sixth Literary Gift -From The Secret Supers
Jeremy, seventh grade superhero with telekinesis
The Secret Supers climbed into the car. Jeremy transferred carefully from his wheelchair to the driver’s seat, not using his telekinesis.
“We’ll come back if we can. Watch my electric wheelchair,” said Jeremy as they zoomed off.
“Wow, Jeremy! You’re really going fast,” said Aubrey over the rushing wind
“I told you I was getting stronger. I think we’ll have to modify this again for full seats for you and Dan.”
“Hurry,” said Dan. “They’re trapped in the basement!”
“Okay, let me open her up.” The car sped up, and they began passing other cars on the road.
“Fifty-five, sixty miles an hour! That seems to be my limit, now. Hey, did someone call the fire department?”
“I did before we started,” said Dan who continued to read the thoughts of his family. “Oh hurry!, The smoke is getting thick! They’re lying on the basement floor with wet clothes over their faces!”
A line of cars at a red light blocked them.
Kayla Shields Up
Kayla Verdera – She can project thoughts and sensory images
“Hold on! Kayla, shields up!”
Shields up, Captain Jeremy!
The car faded into invisibility as Kayla projected the scene behind their car into the eyes of the people in front of them.
“No one saw that,” said Dan, holding on for dear life as they soared over the cars and traffic lights. “Please hurry! My little sister is coughing on the smoke.”
“I guess we can dispense with the roads. My GPS says if we take a twenty-degree turn—”
“Look out for the high-tension wires,” screamed Aubrey.
Six high-voltage wires blocked their path, less than twenty feet away.
“Hold on,” yelled Jeremy.
The car dropped like an elevator with its cable cut. The Secret Supers ducked, and the wires passed where their heads had been a moment before. They could feel the hairs on their heads lift up from the intense voltage a foot away.
“Look out, a tree,” shouted Aubrey.
The car swerved around and over an oak tree blocking their path.
The Elanga’s house blazed ahead, a pillar of fire and smoke rooted in the disintegrating house.
Swooping down, Jeremy brought the car to a skidding halt in front of the house. A wall of heat burned their faces. Acrid smoke assailed their noses. In the distance, fire engine sirens blared.
Aubrey to the Rescue!
Aubrey is a super-powered heroine.
Oh no! Dan, are we too late? Kayla thoughtcast.
“No, they’re still alive in the basement. But the stairs are blocked, and they can’t get out. I don’t know how we’ll get them out,” wailed Dan.
“I do,” yelled Aubrey as she charged at the door.
“Oh no, Aubrey! That’ll let oxygen in,” yelled Jeremy.
“And me,” she said as she crashed through the door. Smoke engulfed Aubrey and she disappeared.
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Here is Your Fifth Literary Gift as time marches on to Christmas day. I’m Andy Zach, your friendly humorous sci-fi author. Every day in December, from the first to the twenty-fifth I will give you a piece of my writing every day.
Now, what was he going to do? Brice Butterworth’s boss just told him to double the productivity of Vegan Inc.’s pickle strain they used for their Kilwowski Pickle brand. That was completely impossible.
But keeping his job required it. Brice was the low man on the genetic engineering totem pole at Vegan Inc., the last one hired and the first one to be fired if another recession hit.
He couldn’t think. He couldn’t face this. So he cruised the internet. “The origin of zombie turkeys? I didn’t know they’d found that. Hmm, a Midley Beacon exclusive, the foremost zombie news source,” he read.
What Does Bryce Do?
Zombie Turkeys Wedding
Zombie turkeys had ravaged Illinois and the US at Thanksgiving. Thankfully, they hadn’t hit near Terre Haute, where he lived. He skimmed the article rapidly. Corn-All, one of their agribusiness rivals, had genetically modified their corn to fight off corn disease. The genetic modification would adapt to the disease at a cellular level and neutralize it by copying the DNA from the diseased organism, whether fungal or bacteria.
When wild turkeys ate the corn, it modified the E. coli in their gut, creating the zombie turkey bacteria, E. coli Gallopavo. That moved[A2] into the turkeys’ bloodstream and made them zombies, able to regenerate any lost or damaged body part, even bringing turkeys back from the dead.
What caught his eye was the reproduction rate: zombie cells reproduced every twenty minutes. Could that work for pickles? Why not try?
He read the article more carefully and found it sourced from Dr. Edwin Galloway of the Northwestern Poultry Institute. He followed the link to Dr. Galloway’s original paper.
There it was. The whole DNA sequence of Corn-All’s modification and the zombie turkey bacteria, E. coli Gallopavo. Now, he just needed a sample. Nothing like going to the source. He called Dr. Galloway.
How Can Zombie Turkeys Help?
Will Bryce cause a zombie turkey plague?
“Hello? Dr. Galloway? This is Brice Butterworth with Vegan Inc.”
“Hello, Mr. Butterworth. How can I help you?”
“I read your paper on E. coli Gallopavo, and I’d like to test it on various vegetables. Could I get a sample?”
“I can send you a sample, but the bacteria only affects turkeys, not plants.”
“But Corn-All used the sequence in corn.”
“Yes, but the zombie effect only showed up in turkeys. E. coli is an animal-specific bacteria.”
“No other animals?”
“We only tested turkeys, pigs, chickens, and cows.”
“I’ll test some other animals.”
“All right. I’ll send you some of the bacteria and some of the Corn-All corn. Let me know what you find out.”
“Will do. Make it a next-day shipment. Vegan Inc. will pay. We’re under a time crunch.”
“I’ll ship it today.”
“Thanks so much! This may help solve a problem for me.”
“Great! Let me know your results. Be sure to give the Poultry Institute of Northwestern credit.”
“You’ve got it. Bye.”
Your Fifth Literary Gift Continues — Bizarrely
Alice in WonderlandIllustration by Sir John Tenniel (28 February 1820 aa 25 February 1914)19th Century Illustration
Brice spent the rest of the day thinking about how to get the zombie growth bacteria to grow in the pickles. Maybe he could genetically engineer them so they appeared to be turkeys to the bacteria? That would be a kind of chimera, a hybrid between turkey and cucumber. He went out and bought a pair of live turkeys from eTurkey, the online turkey delivery service. They too would be delivered tomorrow.
He created his project plan. He’d try to insert turkey DNA into the cucumber genome and then infect it with the zombie turkey virus. That’d double the growth rate of cucumbers easily!
The turkeys, bacteria, and corn arrived the next morning. First, he ensured the zombie bacteria worked. He injected the bacteria into the two birds and watched their eyes turn red. That was the first sign of zombiism.
He had already moved them from standard chicken-wire pens to the Zombie Turkey Farmers of America (ZTFA)[A3] approved steel cages. They couldn’t defeat the quarter-inch steel bars, but they kept trying. They’d peck at them until they were bloody. Then they’d pause and heal and try again. So that’s what Dr. Galloway meant when he wrote that the zombie bacteria caused increased aggression.
Using the Vegan Inc. lab’s waldo, he extracted fresh blood from turkeys and separated out fresh E. coli Gallopavo bacteria. The turkeys pecked at the mechanical hands, to no avail. He injected the ECG into living cucumbers at various stages of growth. No effect.
If At First You Don’t Succeed …
Oops! audiobook cover
No surprise. Now for the second branch of his research. Even though a cucumber’s DNA was far simpler than a human’s, he had thousands of sites where he might splice it in. He picked the ten likeliest and planted twenty chimera seeds.
Only half even sprouted. He tested them with the ECG bacteria. Failure. He tried ten different DNA sites each day to make his “turkeycumber,” as he called the chimera. After a month of failure, he gave up. He had to try something else.
Scanning the internet for inspiration, Brice read the Midley Beacon again. The headline “Zombie Squirrel Caught on Video” leapt out at him.
He read, “The hawk nabbed the squirrel, as hawks normally do, but in midair, the squirrel revived, ripped open the hawk’s belly, bit off its leg, and fell a hundred feet to the ground, where it scampered away unharmed. It was captured on drone video.”
That’s it! He’d try some other animals and see if they’d turn zombie. First, he made a squirrelcumber. No effect. Then a cowcumber. Failure. Then a deercumber. Nothing. Another month down the drain.
The Boss Stops By
Lisa Melvin from Zombie Detective
His boss, Wilma O’Reilly, stopped by. “Hi, Brice. How’s it going?” That meant, “Did you double the cucumber growth rate yet?”
“Success is just around the corner,” he lied. He knew what to say to get her off his back.
“That’s great! So you’ll have this solved in another month?” That meant she didn’t believe his lie.
“Maybe a month and a half. Or two.” He had no clue when he’d solve it.
“Fantastic! That’s a commitment to have something by June then, right?”
“Uh, right.” She had him nailed to a wall. He had three months to solve this, and he was no closer than when he started.
“Wonderful. When you succeed, you’ll easily pay for the money you’ve spent on the research. Oh, and by the way, if you can’t solve this problem, we’ll have to let you go in the midyear budget cuts. But I’m sure you’ll solve it.” She smiled brightly and walked away.
Now Bryce Has Skin in the Game
Ugh. Now what? His mind was blank. He filled it up with social media. A tweet on a hummingbird picture led him to an article about them. Fastest metabolism of all animals. Insectivores as well as herbivores. Huh. They were like turkeys. They were like turkeys on speed!
Why not? Brice thought. What have I got to lose—besides my job? Could he buy hummingbirds on Amazon? Nope. Not legal, since they’re migratory birds. But he could become a hummingbird rehabber. He already had a biology degree, as well as a masters in recombinant DNA.
Brice volunteered at the nearest bird rehab center. They were delighted to have him. He nursed several birds back to health, bound broken legs and wings. He also extracted some hummingbird blood and sequenced its genome.
Brice brought one hummingbird back to the lab instead of releasing it to the wild. He fed it Corn-All GMO grain and studied its droppings for any E. coli. Yes! It produced the zombie bacteria too, just like turkeys.
He sprayed the zombie E. coli at the bird. Soon its eyes turned red. It rammed the birdcage, faster and faster, bending the bars. It was a zombie.
Brice extracted its blood and put it in a cage of bulletproof glass. It settled down, slurping up the nectar from the feeder, eating twice as much as usual. Higher metabolism was another sign of zombiism.
No time to waste. He had only one week left until June. Over the next two days, he spliced the zombie hummingbird DNA into the three hundred spots on the cucumbers’ DNA and planted them all.
Success?
Zombie Lady Maximizing Tax Returns
Only one came up. He injected the hummingbird’s zombie bacteria into it. It began to grow even as he watched it, flowering. He hand-pollinated it, and by the time he left for home, he had twelve full-grown cucumbers. Success! Brice could hardly wait for the next day.
The cucumber plant filled the lab when he arrived, covered with flowers. He pollinated hundreds of them. Then Brice pickled his twelve cucumbers. Now they just had to pass the taste test. It’d be a week before they were ready.
Brice took the brine solution and sprayed his zombie hummingbird with it. As everyone knew five months after the zombie turkey apocalypse, salt water was the most effective way of eliminating zombiism. He watched the bird until its red eyes turned to black. Then he let it go back to the wild.
“Thanks, little guy,” he murmured.
While he waited for the pickling to complete, he picked hundreds of cucumbers. He tested their seed to ensure the hummingcumber chimera bred true. It did. The second generation grew just as fast. The rest of them he canned in brine.
The next Monday, Brice tasted the pickles. They were a beautiful light green on the inside. They tasted heavenly, better than any pickle he’d ever tasted before.
The Fruit of Research – Your Fifth Literary Gift Continues
Brice called Wilma into the lab.
“Hi, Wilma. These are the results of my research.”
“Wow! What do you have, a hundred quarts of pickles? How long did that take?”
“That’s a week’s growth, from one cucumber plant. I’ve got a couple more plants growing, but we need to transplant them to a field. We’ll have to harvest them daily.”
“How? I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“I made one difficult genetic modification. I made a chimera, combining a cucumber with a hummingbird. Then I infected it with the zombie bacteria.”
“That’s insane! What made you try that?”
“I wanted the cucumbers to grow as fast as the zombies do.”
“Brilliant. You’re promoted to senior researcher right now.”
Your Fifth Literary Gift – The Bountiful Harvest
Brice proudly watched the fields of zombie cucumbers grow and be harvested daily all that summer. If left unharvested for a day, the cucumbers would turn iridescent green, like a ruby-throated hummingbird. These colorful vegetables became even more popular than the plain zombie hummingbird pickles.
One morning, overlooking a beautiful field of jewel-like green, Brice noticed a waving motion. Walking into the field, he saw the cucumber wriggling on the ground. The wriggling became waving and then flapping. Each cucumber grew a pair of flapping iridescent emerald wings.
In one motion, the entire field of cucumbers rose in a sparkling green murmuration from the ground. With his mouth agape, Brice watched the glittering vegetable cloud head south.
After it was out of sight, Brice looked around the bedraggled field. Not one opalescent pickle remained.
The Bad News
“Hi, Wilma, I’ve got some bad news,” he said into his phone.
“What’s that, Brice?”
“The pickles have migrated south.”
“What? I have a connection problem. I thought you said, ‘The pickles have migrated south.'”
“Yes, that’s right. Apparently, the hummingbird DNA is more powerful than I thought. Their migration instinct has been spliced into the pickles.”
“You realize that field is worth over a million dollars. You’ve got to get it back.”
“Calm down. I have a plan.”
“What’s that?”
“The pickle hummingbirds will probably instinctively migrate to Mexico, like regular hummingbirds.”
“Get going then. We need you to capture those flying pickles!”
“I’m leaving today.”
Corralling The Pickles
Brice arrived in Mexico City that night. He read the news and tracked the pickles by the news reports and Instagram photos and Twitter gifs. Louisiana. Texas. Reynosa Mexico. Xalapa. Where was that? The picture from Twitter showed iridescent pickles with wings nesting by the thousands in the trees.
He found Xalapa on the eastern side of the Mexican Rockies. He rented a truck, loaded it with the supplies he had shipped with him, and headed there.
Brice drove to the grove where the zombie cucumbers nested. He started the power washer in the back of his truck and headed to the trees, dragging his hose. He sprayed a jet of salt water over the cucumbers, killing their zombie bacteria. They dropped to the ground by the tens of thousands.
Brice then hired local farmworkers to place them in jars filled with brine. He had enough for a whole semi. He didn’t catch all the escaped cucumbers, but he had enough to make up for the lost harvest.
After that, Vegan Inc. prevented the pickles from developing to the winged stage. But enough escaped Brice that they became part of the annual pickle migration from Mexico to the US. People captured thousands each year along the Mississippi migration route. Some people felt the wild zombie pickles tasted better than the domestic farm-raised ones. Vegan Inc. took advantage of this and built canning factories in Mexico near the pickle nesting sites.
Vegan Inc. even sold their iridescent wings separately as a pickled delicacy. This became their most profitable item. Until they dried the wings and sold them as earrings.
Your Fifth Literary Gift – The Audio Version
Surprise! I found a Youtube channel to produce my short story. Enjoy and subscribe to their channel.
