Cripple-Mode:Hot Electric

In the Science Fiction Thriller Cripple-Mode:Hot Electric

Give me liberty or give me death wasn't Travis Lucia Hamilton-McQueen's foremost declaration. She'd returned from near death and wasn't keen on revisiting; she just wanted her life back.

When Travis gets a second chance, she goes all the way. A new life; a new body; and even some new memories. The memories come with extra baggage that she would rather have left behind, if she could have; unfortunately at the time of arrival she was in a coma. Regardless; they're the only memories she had; no matter how insane they made her sound to the staff of the Medical Space Station Perl.

A soulless clone with limited freedom and an amnesiac ward of Greater Terran Galactic Properties, with a possible Dissociative fugue identity, Travis was produced from a family line of murderers; convicts; and terrorist. To be fair, she's the one being accused of being a terrorist. At least she's fitting into the family. She has no memories of herself to confirm or deny the evidence, but if medical tests are to be trusted; she's the Granddaughter of Dane Hamilton and daughter of Travis Hamilton. And if that's true then what's ultimately crazier than her strange memories, is the person belonging to those memories.

The explanation lies with the League Jump Guild, people in charge of the technology that drives Starships through deep space. Travis would rather not deal with the LJG for a number of good reasons including the fact that they suspect she's used Black Tech or stolen Jump Technology to illegally jump through space. Worse yet, she did so without the protection of a space ship or space suit, which exposed her to a number of theorized conditions that would account for her present fugue like state of identity confusion. The LJG would say a person would be quite mad to do as she's done, with little chance of surviving. Being alive could seem like a blessing, if she overlooks the expected eventual outcome of such a capricious act: a severe irreversible psychotic episode.

When Travis and a nurse are attacked; two staff members die under suspicious circumstances; and an LJG General, with an agenda, comes calling on her; she checks herself out of the facility and bolts. Using her father's knowledge she attempts to hide out on a space station in the middle of nowhere with few practical places to conceal herself and begins to wonder if this all might be the beginning of her psychosis. While fearful of becoming unhinged and dangerous, she must avoid the people trying to kill her and find a way off the station so everyone will be safe. But Travis brought something back with her from JumpSpace that wants her to remain on the station: to complete a task or finish driving her completely over the edge.

by

J.L. Dobias