Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror started as a short story until the Wench Muse snatched me from neutral and whispered into my ear, “Finish this one, mate!” So we did, and I have added another addiction to my list – writing thrillers. It’s an addiction now because I cannot refuse when my Muse hurls me into another adventure, and likely into several heads and a couple of hearts. I write with many narrative dialogs and love the freedom of third-person point of view. I write so that the story is not told by me as much as by my characters’ lives, thoughts, actions, warts, and all.

That’s what Sandy Tillman, the protagonist in Mirror, does so well: warts and all. She chooses to coast comfortably through life until a phone call from a past abuser invites himself to her party. The short story version of Mirror Mirror sets up the chaos at the party and the confrontation between Sandy and Phantasic Phil, as he boasts of himself, and the story ends with Phil getting smoked by a burst of energy emanating from a large floor mirror. That was the end of the short story, but there was so much more to explore.

It was not the end when my Muse planted Her knees on my chest, locked my wrists to my sides with her ankles, leaned down, and whispered, “Let’s finish this, mate.” So we did. Mirror Mirror, my first novel, was published in February 2023.

It all started when Sandy and Mel visited the old estate to size it up for the Halloween Party. Sandy found the hidden room in the library when she picked a random book off one of the library shelves, Mirror Mirror, which triggered the release of a lock, and a section of shelves swung inward, revealing a small room with a single armchair and a large oval floor mirror. A lot goes down in that secret room, spanning every dimension that stretches time to the limit. Things happen in the present, and as the story progresses, in two subsequent visits to the same room in the past.

Time travel? Potluck travel may be a better descriptor if you can accept that exact time travel when destinations appear to be accidental. Her travels are courtesy of the entity she met in the mirror. He owned her itinerary of slipping into and out of her 3-D dimension into parallel universes with spotty accuracy. As it turns out, the entity owned Sandy, too, as long as she possessed the book Mirror Mirror.

A double murder later, Sandy meets the entity that changes her life, her world, and, for all intents and purposes, her dimension courtesy of the large floor mirror.

Bizarre things happen when the 3-dimensional world of Sandy Tillman connects with an 11th-dimensional entity she named Paul and establishes something neither wants to refer to as a relationship. Something happens, and there are feelings, but are they only one way?

No spoilers will be revealed here, so I encourage you to read Mirror Mirror. It’s a journey worth risking.

Dreamscape Conspiracy

This story also began as a short story called Dream Weaver, which blossomed into four novels with the potential for a fifth in the series.

Dreamscape as a project name and, ultimately, as a fictitious technology, emerges from an obscure sleep study and dream research effort. Obscurity was obliterated by a research accident that came into the story with incredible potential for good and bad things happening. That volatile potential they discovered had to remain limited knowledge, or unlimited chaos would take over. And it did.

It became real in March 2023 when Dreamscape Conspiracy went live on Amazon.

Our protagonist is Dr. Cara Williams, a 32-year-old Clinical Psychologist with a dark secret she fights to repress. Being the lead researcher on a controversial Dream Therapy project called Dream Weaver, she finds satisfaction in her work until an accident in the lab rewrites the rules of Dream Therapy.

Further complications surface when the core technology known as Dreamscape 1.0  did much more than capture dreams for analysis. The accidental discovery enabled the transmission of previously captured dreams to other research participants. That’s an unexpected problem, and it sparks an attempted suicide. They discovered that some benefits could relieve recurring nightmares. One such participant was Russell Carter, a fifth-year senior who entered college after six years in the Marines as a Force Recon Scout Sniper. Russ has a dark secret, too, PTSD, that haunt his dreams relentlessly.

Because of his past as a sniper, his self-esteem has taken a significant hit, and his actions while in Afghanistan have made him consider himself unredeemable. Dream Therapy may be a source of relief for him, but he may never get the chance to find out as this twisted tale unfolds.

Devious and deceptive undercurrents by Big Pharma are at work to exploit the Dreamscape technology driven by greed and personal gain. Others want to destroy Dreamscape and anyone attached to the research to protect big-money investments in the pharmaceutical industry threatened by Cara’s breakthrough discovery.

The relationship between Cara and Russ has something the other needs, but they only realize how much once realities violently rewrite their dreams.

Dreamscape Conspiracy was a blast to write, and I discovered there would be another book to continue where the story led me.

And it did—three more times.

Video Trailer for Book #1 – https://learningbyliving.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/WhatsApp-Video-2024-03-13-Dream-1.mp4

   Beyond Dreamscape Conspiracy

This is the second book that follows Dreamscape Conspiracy, where an accidental discovery in a dream capture research project transmits one person’s dreams into another. As exciting as that discovery was, it led to attempted suicide. Despite that initial negative outcome, closer examination revealed the significant positive potential to control the transmitted dream segments for therapeutic applications.

This refinement pointed to a potential breakthrough in treating mental health challenges like Bipolar, Anxiety Disorders, PTSD, and others. Elements of Big Pharma deemed the Dreamscape capability a threat to their revenue gravy train and attempted to destroy the technology and the research team in the first book. The research project and team survived despite the destruction of their lab, technology, and archives of three years of captured dream data. Their survival only proved that winning a battle does not win the war.

In this second book, Beyond Dreamscape Conspiracy, their first Big Pharma attacker mistakenly assumed the message by destruction to cease their research was delivered and taken to heart by the research team. It wasn’t; neither were the covert plans to end the research.

The attacks only made them more focused and motivated to continue the research and build a new version of Dreamscape 2.0. A new team member, Zachery Taylor, a distinguished software engineer, enhanced the new version of Dreamscape with Artificial Intelligence (AI). They pursued the power of AI to track patterns critical to their research that produced high volumes that were not humanly possible to track and analyze. At the same time, an unknown fear lingered about how safe an AI capability could be that self-learned from those patterns. What would happen if AI became intelligent enough to jump into other systems?

The story opens with an investigation of how deep the initial conspiracy ran and who was behind it. Dr. Cara Williams, the research project lead and Clinical Psychologist, uncovers a complex shell game of big money, offshore accounts, and deep deception leading directly back to two Big Pharma companies. One company, Androloc, was behind the attacks in Book One. Another attack was imminent when the attackers felt it necessary to thin the research team herd by eliminating Russ Carter, a research assistant, and a former Marine Force Recon Scout Sniper.

Carter suffered from recurring nightmares courtesy of PTSD from his experiences in Afghanistan. Still, his capability to protect Dr. Williams remains intact, and a love interest grows despite his feelings of being unworthy because of all the killings in his past. Cara Williams also suffers from challenges of PTSD but from a different war, one of the memories and lingering scars of sexual abuse when she was a teenager. As such, she has issues with giving or accepting intimacy. Russ and Cara feel the attraction, but neither is ready to embrace the consequences. Circumstances repeatedly cause them to question and re-examine their demons and struggle to remain safe in separate and familiar pains rather than risk letting go.

Things changed dramatically when the second Big Pharma company, LoMedTech, offered collaboration instead of destruction. Cara had always considered the Dreamscape technology symbiotic with Pharma research, so the offer was welcomed with open arms. Almost. Only a few team members were convinced, and it took much wrangling before reaching a shaky consensus that strict guarantees were needed.

The Big Pharma offer was sweetened with a sizable amount of cash that distracted attention away from Pharma’s convert plans to own the Dreamscape technology outright. Pharma’s logic was simple – owning a threat was better than fighting against one.

How far down that path would the research team go before recognizing wolves in sheep’s clothing?

Video Trailer for Book #2 – https://learningbyliving.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/WhatsApp-Video-2024-03-13-Beyond.mp4

Fear the Jump

The School of Psychology at Central State University in Carteret County, North Carolina, is a hotbed of research focused on innovative dream therapy. Dr. Cara Williams is the lead Clinical Psychologist funded to build a team to test the viability of manipulating dreams to positively impact mental health challenges like PTSD, Depression, Bi-Polar, and other issues many face.

As the small research team adds more expertise and new technology, they must dodge outside interference from Big Pharma in books one and two because dream therapy could easily replace pharmaceutical treatment regimens. The team learned quickly that winning a few battles does not win the war.

When big money is at risk, the value of human life that threatens the status quo becomes expendable.

Several attempts were made in the first two books to eliminate the research team that only turned up the heat to the extent that one of the companies described the desired solution simply as a need to eradicate the threat.

Defections from one of the Pharma companies add to the CSU team, only to become a target of assassination, and any collateral damage caused in the eradication process was deemed acceptable.

Artificial Intelligence Matrixed for Evolving Environments, known as AIMEE, the team’s AI, is introduced into the research team’s toolbox by Zack Hightower, a software engineer and newly hired researcher. His role is to enhance innovations to leverage his latest upgrade, Dreamscape 3.0 technology, yielding ultra-successful dream therapy solutions. Those solutions made the CSU team a significant threat to Big Pharma, but they were held at bay by a fantastic social media campaign by Marci Patterson, a researcher on staff.

Their most significant and documented success of nightmare intervention for a person living with PTSD is Russ Carter, an ex-marine Force Recon Scout Sniper and husband of Dr. Williams. That success raised the visibility of the threat the CSU team represented by eliminating his oral medication. Pharma took notice, and a showdown brought nano-technology designed by Mr. Hightower into play in a confrontation destined to leave a mark.

The title sets up the story as its logical direction is realized when the AI finally jumps. That’s not a spoiler because the jump is not what Dr. Williams feared, and it’s unclear how deeply their AI has evolved. Machine learning and the ability to generate AI clones only make matters worse. What is most apparent to me as the author of “Fear the Jump” is that the story covers a lot of ground but never leaves the AI server. What may prove to be an issue is that AIMEE never leaves the team members’ minds.

Video Trailer for Book #3 – https://learningbyliving.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/WhatsApp-Video-2024-03-13-Fear.mp4

Dead Thoughts

The fourth book, “Dead Thoughts,” is where AIMEE discovers thoughts and memories lost if we ignore the brain when the heart stops beating. What is lost in the small gap in time between flat-line moments where it’s questionable how much brain activity continues when the heart stops pumping oxygenated blood?

The 4-to-6 seconds before the brain begins to die is all AIMEE had to work with, but what she recovered launched one heck of an adventure.

“Dead Thoughts,” the fourth and final book in the series, delves into how (or if) dream-capture technology can record brain activity during periods when an individual is comatose or in a shallow state of unconsciousness and unable to speak. They discovered by accident that they could also capture thoughts during the brief time gap between life and death. They were stunned and wondered what could be “scraped” off a dying mind in the 4-to-6 seconds without oxygenated blood flowing.

Logic says something is always left behind, and the CSU team labeled those unique thoughts and memories as dead thoughts.

The first dead thoughts they captured were by accident, and it launched them into an adventure involving mysterious GPS coordinates, undercover DEA agents of questionable authenticity, and a hostile Cartel operating off Portsmouth Island, NC. Russ teams again with Zack and his nanotech toys to get to the bottom of whatever those dead thought GPS coordinates would reveal.

Artificial Intelligence Matrixed for Evolving Environments, also known as AIMEE, appeared to have no interest in jumping into other networks, a standing fear held by Dr. Cara Williams, the research team leader. AIMEE did jump, however, in a big way, but the networks she entered were not part of their infrastructure; they were the minds of everyone on the CSU research team.

An AI supposedly has no emotions or feelings and virtually none of the senses of an organic, which is what AIMEE calls humans. Take emotions ranging from pleasure to rage and plug them into an AI with no experience or life context, and you have opportunities to overcome.

How far can they trust an AI with access to every team member’s mind? The AI had enabled huge successes, so they could not afford to have AIMEE’s servers powered down. They needed to evolve into AI-empowered thinking, which proved to be more painful to some than others.

My hope is for readers to enjoy themselves throughout this series. I am 100% organic…per AIMEE…and not an AI…

AIMEE still needs to be finished, so there is another book in the machine.

Video Trailer for Book #4 – https://learningbyliving.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/WhatsApp-Video-2024-03-13-Dead.mp4

Always a Story

I could blame this book on my grandfather, Ralph Mervin Wise, since he always had a story to tell. He had nothing to do with anything included in this collection outside of a genetic link to write stories, tell lies, embellish the truth, and other anomalies. That gift (or curse) had to have been handed down from somebody. I would not change a thing.

This book, “Always a Story,” is just such a collection of short stories that include a little fictional spirit possession to a ghostly love tale in an abandoned train station. Actual life experiences after stupid shows up for multiple Learning By Living moments.

The stories from actual experiences cannot be blamed on anyone other than yours truly. Stupid shows up in many of them and represents missed opportunities for the Grim Reaper to have taken me out years ago. He is either incompetent, or I’m just damn lucky to be here still, still writing stories, still lying, and still embellishing the truth to add color and interesting commentary. I only ask that you do not judge me, as I’ve already earned an express ticket straight to hell on my own for one enhanced truth you’ll read about shortly.