Ecko Rising

The glass wall shattered.

A massive, screaming implosion of flying, crystal pebbles, a detonation of a million pulverised shards.

His brain screaming betrayal, Lugan was behind the desk, hand tearing the gaffer from the sawn-off that lived beneath.

He could hear Tarquinne shrilling orders – wherever her back up lurked, it was close.

Jam her signal, for fuck’s sake. He was snapping orders of his own, orders at Fuller in the security office. Jam her – !

Done. Collator says... fuck!

Lugan had never heard Fuller swear. Get me a grid on the bastards! As the glass scattered across the desktop, the floor, he snapped home the shotgun’s nerve contact, felt the weapon in his hand – in his head.

Fucking bitch. He’d string her up by her...

He heard her swear, a gasp of utter disbelief.

“Holy shit.” Suddenly, her poise had gone, her Chicago accent was fully deployed – her shock was genuine. “What the hell...?”

Where they at, for fuck’s sake? How many? Where the fuck are Strafe and Heels?

Luge... we’re not under attack. Fuller sounded bloodless, shocked to the soles of his journo loafers. Take a look. Collator’s having a bloody meltdown!

Sawn-off in hand, Lugan eased a look over the desktop.

Tarquinne was staring, stock-still, through the shattered remnants of the glass wall.

At a brick-walled, tile-roofed impossibility, at some sort of holographic piss-take – at the arse-back-end of some fucking building that had beamed the fuck in where his workshop should be.

“What the fuck,” Lugan asked, “is that?”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For my Norwich Vike Wrecking Crew, my Sigismund Sisters and my Brothers-in-Arms. For Andrew, who first coined the phrase “Virtual Rorschach”, and for Liam, for forging a fractal from my name.

For Cath at Titan, whose patience is both boundless and remarkable, and for my agent Sally Harding, crusader extraordinaire.

And, always, for my son Isaac, with no words adequate.

ABOUT _{THE AUTHOR}

DANIE WARE is the publicist and event organiser for cult entertainment retailer Forbidden Planet. She has worked closely with a wide-range of genre authors and has been immersed in the science-fiction and fantasy community for the past decade. An early adopter of blogging, social media and a familiar face at conventions, she appears on panels as an expert on genre marketing and retailing.

WWW.DANIEWARE.COM

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Ecko Rising

Print edition ISBN: 9780857687623

E-book ISBN: 9781781162835

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: September 2012

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Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Danie Ware asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

© 2012 by Danie Ware.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group Ltd.

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