Pair 2, Book 2: Trails Through the Garbage Mines

Time: 200 and 210 years in the future

POV characters: Zella, Tanna, Ambrena, Rusty, and Corandra

Two hundred years since the Rio Grande flooded the plains, creating the Rio Sea. Wars mostly ended two generations ago. Populations of small villages have begun to flourish. Old evils reawaken. Zella and Tanna's safe community was fueled by mining the leftovers of their ancestors. 

 Klapit mine has been in operation for generations. Sifted and sorted too many times. Only a few days a year is it mined anymore. Barely fragments, tiny scraps former dig leaders tossed aside, are all that remain.

Dig leaders were once the decision makers in the community. Zella longs for those days when her choices were valued, rather than forgotten. She has slipped to the edge of her villa, with her daughter Tanna. She hopes Tanna will bring the dig leaders back into their coveted community position.

Instead, she and Tanna must both fight an evil so great, it only exists in campfire tales. One they both thought was long forgotten and would never return to disturb the peace of their villas.

Will Zella manage to save herself, and the rest of the community leaders? Will Tanna come through her trials unscathed? Or will the community become damaged as in the tales of their ancestors?

After only a decade, the new mine at Shells is almost empty. Rusty worries her life skill is at an end. She has no other interest than being the dig leader following Zella. 

Ambrena feels threatened that her life skill will be less valued as Tanna's daughters grow up. Every mistake is magnified as if it were life threatening.

Corandra feels abandoned by her older friends, Ambrena and Rusty, as they embrace their life skills. The only person who notices her anymore is her verbal sparring partner, Henry. Or so she thinks. 

When the illness comes and takes the young life of Zande, Rusty is devastated. Ambrena blames herself. Though no one knew how to prevent the illness in the red box Corandra and Zande dug out of the broken rock.

Corandra blames herself and flees the villa. 

While she is gone, Ambrena and Rusty are sent on a quest to find a cure for the illness. Along the way, they find a greater threat on the doorstep of the community of villas.

Will Corandra forgive herself? Will she allow others to forgive her for the damage her ancestors committed? When she has to choose between saving Ambrena and Rusty, or saving Henry, how will she decide? What will that decision mean to the future of the Pit Miners?

Will Ambrena and Rusty find the cure they so desperately seek? Is it even what they think it is? Will the battle in the Grass Sea lead to peace, or the forgotten specter of war?

Author's Note: 

Rating: R.

Profanity: None.

Romance: Light, Alluded to.

Sex: Acknowledged. Violent acts acknowledged as well.

Violence: Threat of violence. Fear of violence. Earthquakes. Male violence against women and society. Very much a slow moving war.

Length: 83,000 words

Time: 200 years in the future 

POV Characters: Tanna and Zella

    Klapit mine has been in operation for generations. Sifted and sorted too many times. Only a few days a year is it mined anymore. Barely fragments, tiny scraps former dig leaders tossed aside, are all that remain.

Dig leaders were once the decision makers in the community. Zella longs for those days when her choices were valued, rather than forgotten. She has slipped to the edge of her villa, with her daughter Tanna. She hopes Tanna will bring the dig leaders back into their coveted community position.

Instead, she and Tanna must both fight an evil so great, it only exists in campfire tales. One they both thought was long forgotten and would never return to disturb the peace of their villas.

Will Zella manage to save herself, and the rest of the community leaders? Will Tanna come through her trials unscathed? Or will the community become damaged as in the tales of their ancestors?

Rating: R.

Profanity: None.

Romance: Light, Alluded to.

Sex: Off the page. Acknowledged. Violent acts acknowledged as well.

Violence: Earthquakes. Male violence against women and society. Very much a slow moving war.

Length: 80,000 words

Time: 210 years in the future

POV characters: Ambrena, Rusty, and Corandra

The new mine at Shells is almost empty. Rusty worries her life skill is at an end. She has no other interest than being the dig leader following Zella. 

Ambrena feels threatened that her life skill will be less valued as Tanna's daughters grow up. Every mistake is magnified as if it were life threatening.

Corandra feels abandoned by her older friends, Ambrena and Rusty, as they embrace their life skills. The only person who notices her anymore is her verbal sparring partner, Henry. Or so she thinks. 

When the illness comes and takes the young life of Zande, Rusty is devastated. Ambrena blames herself. Though no one knew how to prevent the illness in the red box Corandra and Zande dug out of the broken rock.

Corandra blames herself and flees the villa. 

While she is gone, Ambrena and Rusty are sent on a quest to find a cure for the illness. Along the way, they find a greater threat on the doorstep of the community of villas.

Will Corandra forgive herself? Will she allow others to forgive her for the damage her ancestors committed? When she has to choose between saving Ambrena and Rusty, or saving Henry, how will she decide? What will that decision mean to the future of the Pit Miners?

Will Ambrena and Rusty find the cure they so desperately seek? Is it even what they think it is? Will the battle in the Grass Sea lead to peace, or the forgotten specter of war?

Author's Note: 

Rating: R.

Profanity: None.

Romance: Light, Alluded to.

Sex: Acknowledged. Violent acts acknowledged as well.

Violence: Threat of violence. Fear of violence. 

Length: 81,500 words

A variety of stories, at various lengths, slip between ten categories: 

Other Worlds and Other Worldly

Dystopia

Medical Science Fiction

Future Endings

Future Beginnings

A Future We Won't Remember

A Past Forgotten

Paranormal

Childhood Exploration

Poetry

Rating: PG.

Profanity: None.

Romance: Alluded to.

Sex: None.

Violence: Light.

POV Characters: Multiple.

Length: 57,087 words in 38 short stories and 2 poems.  

Time: Modern

POV characters: Amber and Alex

Amber, a trained seismologist, looks forward to a high school dance, and a summer internship with her mother. Neither occur. She, along with her mother, and other specialists race to determine the cause of a series of unexpected large quakes on unknown, and unsuspected faults in New Mexico.

Alex, a trained volcanologist, dreams of a life away from Kilauea. His first chance to walk on a volcano that hasn't towered over his life under his father's professorship. Except. He didn't expect a volcano to stir to life under his feet in the often forgotten volcanic plains of New Mexico.

Fumeroles emerge as the young specialists race to set up monitoring equipment in places no one thought it would be needed. With the help of their guide, they struggle through the quakes that begin a split in both the continent and society.

A large quake dams the formerly flowing Rio Grande. Amber and Alex beg the military to inform the people so they can evacuate. The military refuses. They set up road blocks, and curfews to maintain order.

Amber and Alex go to the heart of the one place they don't want to be. The gated volcanic plain on a military base. What they discover cannot be held back from the communities. 

Author's Note:

Rating: PG 13.

Profanity: None.

Romance: Light, Alluded to.

Sex: None.

Violence: Natural Disaster

Length: 323 pages 83,700 words