Showing results by narrator "Kirt Graves" in All Categories

Get up. Stand up. America is standing up. Armed with training and new confidence, people who’ve been owned by seven corporations for too long are forming workers’ unions, subverting corporate rule, spreading change, and demanding lives worth living. The Wildcards land the assignment of advising and supporting the workers in civic actions—a.k.a. playing pranks for a good cause. The crew is sure it’s the best assignment of their lives...for about five minutes. And then it starts to get hot.

In the calm before the storm, two healers face their memories.
Damian and Alice have been dancing around each other and dancing with their demons for a decade. Now the jig is up, and they have no choice but to face the music together.

When their father went to prison last year for embezzlement, twins Alex and Olly Brucke lost everything: their house, their college funds, most of their friends, and even their mother, who’s so focused on making ends meet that she’s never around anymore. The only thing they can count on lately is each other. But after their father dies unexpectedly in prison, the twins start to fracture. Alex is spiraling, skipping classes to spend all of her time drunk or high. And Olly is struggling with a secret his dad ordered him to keep: they have a secret half-brother named Tyler.

In this short story from the Aces High, Jokers Wild universe, Tweak and Abigail put their heads together and find out if they can use unpatented seeds to resurrect something truly precious: a cacao tree. Along the way, they explore the ethics of genetic engineering and what it really takes to survive a drier, hotter world. Come see what can grow out of a few seeds.

The Day of the Dead has come, and the Wildcards are celebrating. Tweak gets a nickname. Naomi gets to lend a hand. The Wildcards get a little more than they signed up for. Maybe they'll think before they pull pranks next time...or maybe not.

In 2127, a young farmhand who calls herself Janice runs away from her corporate contract, her home, and everything in her past. Ahead of her is the Colorado desert, baking in a hundred and ten degrees of summer heat. But it’s better than what’s behind her.

After their commander comes home bearing the wounds of what the Corporations who own America call ‘enhanced questioning’, logistics woman Yvonne and her wife decide to lay some payback on the Corporate officers who gave authorization to torture their friend. The plan they come up with will never get approved by their chain of command. Which is why they aren’t going to ask for permission.

Sometimes life deals a bad hand. But it’s all about how you play the cards. Solidarity in the face of oppression. Songs in the dark. Finding hope in spite of the odds. Thirteen stories set in the dystopian universe of the Aces High, Jokers Wild series keep fighting the good fight in the darkest of times.

One thousand years ago, the Elduari conquered the country of Varen in a brutal war. Now, every few generations they subject their one-time enemies to a terrible tradition: bloodthirsty monsters are unleashed across the land, attacking indiscriminately, keeping the population in a perpetual dark age.

Software engineer Brent Levine has always struggled with the life part of work-life balance, but to hold on to his new job, he’ll have to embrace his employer’s dreaded “staff enrichment” events. This year’s annual ugly holiday sweater party will strain his ambition to remain inconspicuous: everyone has to wear their sweaters upside down and converted into pants—a.k.a. “swants”.