I’m generally not a fan of prologues. But for some reason, this came to me as a possible prologue for Netwalking Space. Appropriate timing since I’m starting the rewrite tomorrow or Friday. So what do folks think about this?
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PROLOGUE
Once there was a woman who discovered secrets about her origins. To keep those secrets from destroying her children, she became powerful and destructive herself, chasing after immortality to avoid her ghosts. But in living beyond death, this woman discovered those shadows had a deeper claim on her than ever.
Once there was a woman who loved a man who built war machines. Over their lifetime together, he weaponized his beautiful and terrifying wife as they sought to master the effects caused by the capture of the strange city-killing machine called the Gizmo. The powerful daughter of a formidable mother, this woman rose to political heights greater than any her mother had accomplished. But when her beloved lived beyond death, she could not endure the result.
Once there was a woman who was a dutiful daughter. She served as her weaponized mother’s enforcer, mastering the wireless technology enabled by the Gizmo that allowed humans to upload personalities into the virtual world of digital life. She learned to control and work with those who lived beyond death. But this woman chose her daughter over her mother, and in doing so, gained more power over those who lived beyond death.
Once there was a woman who loved both space and the devoted assassin-in-training who had grown up with her. She took custody of the great-grandmother who had lived beyond death, forging a collaboration meant to take on worlds. But this woman and the man she loved have been targeted by the Gizmo since childhood, under consistent threat by shadows of those who lived beyond death.
Sarah. Diana. Melanie. Bess. Great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, daughter.
The Gizmo stirs as it senses the approaching fulfillment of its original purpose.
But first it has to deal with these four women, alive and dead.
Perhaps the secrets of the eldest may provide the key it needs.
