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  He waited for the inevitable profanity coupled with a literary reference he wouldn’t get, but no such came.

  Their beds occupied the same room, separated by a flowered curtain.

  He said, “But if it makes you feel better, I would have.”

  Both of them were hooked to numerous tubes filled with regenite infusions.

  He would be lying here for approximately a week while his hand and foot reconstructed themselves. Roxanne had paid for the process to grow him a new heart. It would be ready in two months, just in time for the holidays. If he took it easy, he might last that long.

  Tina would be here for a couple of days while her internal organs healed the perforations from the switchblade. Her punctured large intestine would have turned her septic without the regenites to clean it all up.

  For hours already they had drifted in and out of consciousness on the soporific effects of sedatives and hormones, trading banter. Horace vaguely remembered Roxanne and Bunny stepping inside. At one point, he woke up with a white rose resting on his chest, and no one seemed to know where it had come from.

  Nurses came and went. Regenetechs came and went. Doctors came and went.

  By the second day, he could remain cognizant for longer periods. Only the outline of his Go Juice injector remained on his flesh. Aches seeped through the nerve blockers on his arm and leg, even though all sensation and control otherwise had halted at his forearm and calf. His hand and foot were encased in regenegel baths that required utter immobility. Such procedures were nothing new to him, but that did not stave off the boredom of being bedridden, utterly immobile, for so long.

  By the third day, Tina was up and around and dying to keep Horace abreast of the news. The consequences of what they had done were rippling across the world like a tsunami. The media was spinning itself into a whizzing frenzy. Some called Mogilevich an international power broker, a business tycoon, a respected philanthropist; others called him a criminal mastermind, gangland kingpin, corrupter of vulnerable politicians. Some news outlets were calling it “Bloodbath on Bonanza Peak.”

  The stories got wilder with each telling. Several powerful “businessmen” and their guests had been killed or injured. A military-grade drone had apparently gone rogue and attacked a number of vehicles. Yvgeny Mogilevich had been assassinated by persons unknown, likely a gangland hit.

  Once Tina got on a roll, nothing would shut her the hell up; but it amused him, so he just smiled.

  What about all Mogilevich’s records? His communication and financial records alone could bring down great swaths of the global power structure. What about all that amazing stuff in his house, the art, the cars? Were his surviving lieutenants fighting over it like a pack of dogs? Would any of his other illegitimate children emerge to claim it?

  Tina told him of another news story—she really had been chewing up the newsnets—about a rash of gruesome assassinations among the obscenely wealthy. And Bunny—don’t even get her started about Bunny. She had mostly stabilized “somewhere out in La-La Land,” as Tina put it. Bunny and Roxanne had been busy, and shadowy PR front organizations were busy spinning like information turbines.

  “Bunny’s data,” he said.

  “You got it.” It had been coming out in clumps and drabs, dribbled all over the net, from no central source. The most damning of stuff. Public officials in collusion with the worst gangster kings. Dirty deals by the thousands. Corporate espionage that threatened to spark a rash of new wars. Slavery operations exposed, implicating dozens of the world’s largest megacorps. Much of the information was twenty years old, but as soon as people started digging, they would find that many of the situations had had twenty years of secrecy to ferment, to fester.

  Colin Ross had been killed in a mysterious car accident. His press people were releasing no details except to suggest that his limousine was attacked by a malfunctioning weaponized drone. The public outcry and grief were exploding all over the world. Intense public condemnation from activist groups had this morning spurred several megacorps to launch a study into the use of weaponized drones on domestic soil.

  Word was spreading across the net of Regenecorp’s collusion in fudging regeneration odds. The company denied everything, but its stock was still tumbling days later, and many were saying it was going to crash through the floor into the sub-basement. Corporative executives, those still alive, were being sacked. Board members had gone into hiding. Death Match Unlimited and all the minor leagues announced a moratorium on the fights, distanced themselves from Regenecorp, and swore that henceforth all regenerations would be overseen by neutral third parties.

  Horace and Tina had been returned to their normal appearance, the implants removed. “By the way,” he said to Tina, “I like you better now that you’re back to the way you were. I can’t say ‘normal.’”

  “Me, too.”

  “I didn’t like the hooker look. It’s better that you’re less pretty.”

  “Oh. My. God. If you weren’t an invalid, I’d beat you until no one could recognize you.”

  A soft knock came from the door.

  Big, brown eyes in an elfin face peeked in, glimmering with concern. Horace’s heart leaped, and a huge grin split his face. There Lilly was in all her beauty, even absent cosmetics, her hair a bit mussed. She was dressed in a t-shirt for another musical he hadn’t heard of and a fashionable skirt.

  “Hey,” she said, a little timidly. “Is this a good time?”

  His grin stretched even wider. “Absolutely.”

  Tina stood up. “That’s my cue.” She headed for the door, but two smaller figures crowded in around Lilly, one a kinky-haired, swarthy boy of thirteen, the other a pigtailed, carrot-topped girl of seven or eight.

  The boy took one look at Tina and his gaze remained fixed. It was as if Horace could see the boy’s hormones leap to a boil in real time.

  Lilly put a hand on Tina’s arm. “How are you?”

  “On the mend. The question for the bruiser here...” Tina thumbed toward Horace, “...as well as everybody else is, how are you?”

  “Same,” Lilly said. She touched the spot near her collar bone where a tungsten shuriken had passed clean through. “On the mend. A little shaky still.”

  Tina started, “I’ll just let you two—”

  “Thank you,” Lilly said. “For everything you did for us.” The weight of gratitude in her carefully controlled voice left Tina speechless. “I hear you saved that bruiser’s behind, too.”

  Horace would hardly have believed it, but Tina’s cheeks flushed. She couldn’t meet Lilly’s eye.

  “Aw, shucks,” Tina finally said, scuffing the tile with her hospital-issue, rubberized grippy socks. “T’weren’t nuthin.” Then she smiled back at Horace. “Anyway, you guys play nice.” She took her leave.

  The door closed behind Tina, and Lilly stood across the room for a long moment, squeezing her children close to her. Lilly and Horace held each other’s gazes for another long moment.

  Then she ran across the room and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, my god! It’s good to see your mug!” She held her composure for a second, then broke down in sobs.

  Small arms came up to comfort her, a little carrot-topped head. The boy crossed the room more slowly, a look of wonder on his face. His dark eyes were bright and inquisitive.

  Lilly cleared her throat. “Horace, I want to introduce you to my angels. Jimmy, Cassie, this is the man who saved us.”

  The little girl’s eyes were big and green, with a spattering of freckles across her nose. She was, without doubt, one of the most beautiful children Horace had ever seen. “Hi!” she said, staring at Horace as if she had just seen a mountain get up and move.

  “This is Jimmy,” Lilly said.

  “Hello, sir,” Jimmy said. “Thank you for what you did. We were really scared.”

  “You’re welcome, Jimmy,” Horace said, trying to clear a hoarseness in his throat. Did the kid know it was all Horace’s fault in the first place?
/>   “I didn’t believe Mom when she said she knew you,” Jimmy said. “Sorry, Mom.”

  “You should listen to your mom more often,” Lilly said, chucking him on the shoulder playfully. “Okay, rug-runners, go back out to the lobby with Grandma for a minute. I gotta talk to Horace.”

  The children chorused a “Bye!” and then reluctantly shuffled out.

  “So what happens now?” she said.

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  She sniffled and wiped her nose.

  He reached up and touched her face with his good left hand. His right hand was still enclosed in its bubble of regenegel. In a few more days, he would have a fully functional right hand as smooth as a baby’s butt. It would take a few weeks to rehab to rebuild its strength.

  He pulled her close and kissed her, and tenderness opened up between them like a new rose.

  Something was coming loose in him that he was not ready for her to see, for anybody to see, an explosion of joy and sorrow preparing to crash like a calving glacier.

  “Look, darlin’, I, uh, got to, uh, do some business. Could use a little privacy, you know?” He pretended to raise himself out of bed.

  “Okay,” she said. Then she kissed him again, squeezed his hand, and departed.

  As soon as the door closed behind her, he released a long, shuddering breath, and wept.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The six of them sat around the table in Campanello’s: Horace The Hammer Harkness, Norman Trask, Tina O’Shea, Lilly Roberts, Vincent Caniglia, and Gaston The Freak Rousseau. He had, of course, invited Roxanne, but she had bigger fish-heads to fry. Bunny was staying with her eldest daughter and getting to know her two grandchildren while trying to save the world.

  In her previous incarnation, The White Rabbit had been a thorn in the side of some powerful people. Now, however, with the funding of Roxanne’s empire behind her, directing her, she might well become a formidable global player. If she could avoid both prison and assassination.

  Horace’s chest was smooth again, except for the neat, vertical scar stretching from the juncture of his collarbones to his solar plexus. His head and face were freshly shaved. His new heart was humming along like clockwork for the first time in more years than he cared to consider. Its strength made him feel like he was back in the glory days—at least until he got up, moved, and all the old injuries took hold of his joints and muscles.

  Another thing the heart had given him was a future to think about. He had never been much for thinking about the future. He tended to operate on instinct, living in the now, and since his heart had gone to hell, he could hardly manage to look past the end of a given day. So the last couple of weeks since he had gotten out of the hospital were a new experience for him. Planning something that someone else hadn’t planned for him, building something from nothing, thinking about a future, and having someone he wanted to see in that future, were ideas so alien to him they made him queasy with worry. Then again, what did he have to fear? He had died twenty-seven times, and he had cheated it far more times than that.

  Leaning back in his chair, wearing a new, tailored suit, and his once-bald pate now sporting a fresh growth of hair, Trask lit a cigar.

  Vincent sat there with a cool, anticipatory grin, his sparklesilk suit glittering in the light of the candles, his eyes flicking from each of his companions to the next.

  Gaston regarded each of them with an expression of cautious curiosity, having only just been introduced to Trask and Vincent. He had shaved his mohawk and trimmed his beard, appearing now to be much more conventional, almost respectable.

  Tina wore a tailored business suit and dark-frame glasses that made her look like a hip librarian. It had taken some cajoling on Horace’s part to convince Tina that her skills would be absolutely invaluable to training fighters who could win consistently, but she had come around.

  Lilly sat beside Horace wearing a glamorous dress of her own design, a watery cascade of silvery-blue fabric. She had spent a week on the dress. Every time Horace went to her apartment to see her, she had excitedly showed him her progress. Then they made love with the enthusiasm of teenagers but the experience of seasoned adults. Today, she had been nervous to the point of nausea on the way to this meeting, but Horace had assured her that she would do fine, that the costume designer of a new pit fighting stable, one that would travel to every corner of the globe, was just as important as the three trainers, the promoter, and the money man.

  Horace steepled his fingers with exaggerated pomposity. “So, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you’re wondering why I called all of you here tonight....”

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  CONTRIBUTORS

  This publication would not be possible without the generous support of these amazing people. Thank you, all!

  Bob Applegate

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  Ian Brazee-Cannon

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  Available Now from Open Road Integrated Media

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  “Full of sword battles, intrigue, romance and fantastic elements blending well with historical ones, Heart of the Ronin is a very impressive opening in the Ronin Trilogy. It's also a page turner that you can't put down and will leave readers begging for more.”– Fantasy Book Critic

  Thirteenth-century Japan is a dangerous place, even in a time of peace.

  Capricious gods, shape-changing animals, and bloodthirsty demons are as real and unpleasant as a gang of vicious bandits. From the wilderness emerges a young, idealistic warrior with his father's mysterious sword on his hip, a wise, sarcastic dog at his side, and a yearning in his hear
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  When he saves a noble maiden from a pack of bandits, he and his faithful dog become enmeshed in the intrigues of samurai lords, vengeful constables, Mongol spies, and a shadowy underworld crime boss known as Green Tiger. But Ken'ishi has a few secret weapons of his own, granted to him by his mysterious past and his magical upbringing. If only he knew more about his mysterious past, his parents' murder, and the sword that seems to want to talk to him....

  Heart of the Ronin is an action-packed historical fantasy, set against the backdrop of ancient intrigue and impending war, the first of a sweeping three-part epic filled with deadly duels and climactic battles. Creatures of folklore and myth are as real as the katana in one's hand. And just as deadly.

  Available Now from Bear Paw Publishing

  “From the first sentence, Travis Heermann weaves a tale that sucked this reader into a rich Japanese tapestry full of ronin, samurai and magic. It was hard to put this book down to sleep.” – Patrick Hester, Hugo-Award Winning SFSignal.com and the Functional Nerds Podcast

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