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M. Darusha Wehm

Explorer of Worlds Real and Imagined

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    • Bodies at Rest, Bodies in Motion
    • Fire. Escape. – Sample
    • The Foreigner
    • Major Tom and the Lucky Lady
    • The Interview
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    • Beautiful Red
    • Children of Arkadia
    • Andersson Dexter
      • Self Made
      • Act of Will
      • The Beauty of Our Weapons
      • Pixels and Flesh
    • Modern Love and other stories
    • The Voyage of the White Cloud
    • Retaking Elysium
  • Mainstream Fiction
    • Devi Jones’ Locker
      • Packet Trade
      • Sea Change
      • Storm Cloud
      • Floating Point
    • The Home for Wayward Parrots
  • Anthologies
    • Trans-Galactic Bike Ride
    • Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume I
    • The Dame Was Trouble
    • Dystopia Utopia Short Stories
    • Science Fiction Short Stories
    • Procyon Press Science Fiction Anthology 2016
    • Use Only As Directed
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    • Alexander Systems
    • You Do You
    • if ink could flow backward
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Self Made – Sample

That had been twenty years previously and Dex had risen through the ranks fairly quickly. He discovered early on that he truly liked the work and demonstrated a definite aptitude for it. He first expected that he’d make a pretty good goon, but as it happened he was actually more inclined to sort out puzzles than sap guys on the head, so now found himself as a Lieutenant in the detective squad. The organization took its structure from historical police departments, though functionally once people advanced out of the goon squad, they operated more or less independently.

The organization was really a loose group of individuals who pooled resources and shared information. It didn’t even have an official name. One of the detectives who had worked in Dex’s division years before was a fan of old superhero comics, though, and for laughs started calling the squad the Cubicle Men — nondescript people who work at faceless jobs in cubicles by day and fight crime by night, that sort of thing. The name stuck and soon spread throughout the Namerican branch of the organization and by the time Dex joined everyone in his zone referred to themselves by the lighthearted name.

The captains of each detective squad often assigned cases, though each member of the team was free to refuse a case or ask to work on a particular file. Or a particular detective would get a reputation and clients would just show up. Dex’s meeting the previous day was one of those, but he would have asked to work on this one anyway, if it had come up for grabs. The case was fairly unusual, after all, and Dex did enjoy the strange and unusual. He looked at the still image of his client while explaining to the customer on the call how to calibrate the new neural enhancers. Her avatar was pleasing to his eye, he had to admit, but that wasn’t why Dex was staring. It just wasn’t every day that you got to investigate the murder of your client.

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Retaking Elysium cover

Retaking Elysium

Mars is good place to reinvent yourself, isn’t it?

Jules Morales’s life has always been a state of contact change. When the opportunity comes up, why not take a trip to Mars to work on the platinum mining operation—and make a load of money? But what if there is more to Mars than just a payday and an adventure?

The woman now calling herself Lisa Marie has spent her whole life trapped by the struggle to make ends meet, and sometimes held hostage by her own memories. On Mars she might finally find financial security, but will she also find something to care about today, and maybe even for the future?

Learn More

Free Stories

The Interview

Originally published in Podioracket Presents - Glimpses “I was working at this stim joint, a place called Ultra-Sissons. It’s not where I’m working now — I wasn’t a bartender then, just a busser. Clea … Read More... about The Interview

Career Opportunities

Jo-Lynn had always laughed at Charlotte, her stupid sister-in-law, who believed the crap in those so-called newspapers she bought at the supermarket every week. It was no wonder that her no-good … Read More... about Career Opportunities

Major Tom and the Lucky Lady

I was balancing a cup of tea in one hand, while hanging on to the side of the companionway hatch with the other. I climbed into the cockpit sideways, compensating for the roll of the boat. I was only … Read More... about Major Tom and the Lucky Lady

Publications

  • A Most Elegant Solution
  • A Most Elegant Solution (audio)
  • A Wish and a Hope and a Dream
  • Alexander Systems
  • Force Nine
  • Home Sick
  • Home Sick (audio)
  • Homecoming
  • I Open My Eyes
  • if ink could flow backward
  • Microfiction @Thaumatrope
  • Modern Love
  • Modern Love (audio)
  • Preventative Maintenance
  • Reflections on a Life Story
  • Showing the Colours (audio)
  • The Care and Feeding of Mammalian Bipeds, v. 2.1
  • The Interview
  • War Profiteering
  • War Profiteering (audio)

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Other Writing

Poetry

  • . ….. ..story .. time
  • 140 and Counting
  • Force Nine
  • if ink could flow backward

Non-fiction

  • 90ways.com

Copyright © 2019 M. Darusha Wehm