How far would you go to save the world?
Ken Usagi, a daring young journalist from the icy wilderness of Nunavut, is thrust into a perilous journey through the war-ravaged remnants of the former United States. Haunted by a chilling encounter with a mysterious biotechnical machine—a relic from his troubled childhood—he becomes convinced it holds the key to ending the devastating conflict tearing the world apart.
Far to the south, Totchli, a brilliant young biotechnician from a Mesoamerican society pummeled by catastrophic climate change, receives a desperate order. He must venture north to uncover the fate of a critical colonial expedition, a mission that once carried the last hopes of his people’s survival. Communication channels with the expedition have fallen eerily silent.
Read on for an excerpt from RABBIT IN THE MOON.
The Encounter
Ken had recorded so many interviews with Seaboard soldiers that once-thrilling tales of hand-to-hand combat in the eerie jungles of Illinois, stories of battles in the open desert south of Detroit with ageing kerosene-powered tanks, had lost their glamour and so, his mind drifting, he almost missed the crucial detail.
“Hang on,” he said. “A weird bony thing?”
The Marine paused, frowned. “Fuck it, I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
“No, no, I do,” Ken said hastily. “Tell me what you saw.”
“Well,” the Marine continued, brows beetling further into her scarred face, “it was the strangest thing. Skinny, like a skeleton, only not quite, you know? Like a famine kid, but huge, seven feet tall in this funny mask, kind of beaky, and this outfit like feathery rags. Don’t know where it came from, one minute we’re shooting at each other over a rise, and the next minute it’s standing in the middle of the firing.”
“What happened then?”
“Well, we kept shooting, obviously,” the Marine said. “And this creature, this thing, just raised its arms and—blam. Next thing I knew the two grunts beside me were crispy fried, and same with the Reds on the other side, once I got a look at them. Don’t know what saved me, maybe it was ’cause I was sunk behind the ridge, reloading. The thing was gone, and there’s no proof it was ever there. Captain says it’s PTSD, and you know, I kind of wonder if he’s right.”
Ken watched the movements of the creature. He found himself remembering the rabbit, desperate, driven along by the ravens. Unable to understand, to see the bigger picture. The birds now hopping in front, guiding it, now flapping behind it in a burst of wings, chasing it, carefully keeping it in line.
“It’s either following us or—”
“Or?” Manders looked up from the fieldpad.
“—it’s herding us.”
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About Fiona Moore
Dr. Moore is a BSFA Award and World Fantasy Award finalist, writer and academic whose work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, Interzone, and five consecutive editions of The Best of British SF. Her publications include one novel; numerous articles in journals such as Foundation; guidebooks to Blake’s Seven, The Prisoner, Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who; three stage plays, four audio plays and the textbook Management Lessons from Game of Thrones. When not writing, she is a Professor of Business Anthropology at Royal Holloway, University of London. She lives in Southwest England with a tortoiseshell cat which is bent on world domination. More details, and free content, can be found at http://www.fiona-moore.com, and she can be found @drfionamoore on all social media platforms.
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