Plague Birds

NEBULA AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST NOVEL

PHILIP K. DICK AWARD WINNER

In this far-future dark science fiction novel—a Philip K. Dick and Nebula Award finalist—Jason Sanford imagines a future of genetically and artificially advanced humans who protect the remnants of the human race.

Glowing red lines split their faces. Shock-red hair and clothes warn people to flee their approach. They are plague birds, the powerful merging of humans and artificial intelligences who serve as judges and executioners after the collapse of civilization.

And the plague birds’ judgment is swift and deadly, as Crista discovered as a child when she watched one kill her mother.

In a world of gene-modded humans constantly watched over by benevolent AIs, everyone hates and fears the plague birds. But to save her father and home village, Crista becomes the very creature she fears the most. And her first task as a plague bird is hunting down an ancient group of murderers wielding magic-like powers.

As Crista and her AI symbiote travel farther from home than she ever imagined, they are plunged into a strange world where she judges wrongdoers, befriends other outcasts, and uncovers an extremely personal conspiracy that threatens the lives of millions.

Plague Birds is a genre-bending mix of science fiction and dark fantasy and the epic story of a young woman who becomes one of the future’s most hated creatures with a killer AI bonded to her very blood.

Excerpt

The world fell flat. The world fell exhausted. The world fell to rainbowcolored static, which rang through Derena’s mind as she ran from her death. The static hacked Derena’s eyes to afterimages of reds and yellows and blues. She stumbled through the dark forest unable to see, her massive strength smashing each tree she blundered into. Pine saplings scented of youthful excitement. Older hickories and walnuts as thick as her body and smelling of aged regret. The trees buzzed to networked anger and fear as their brothers and sisters were destroyed by the plague bird’s strength.

Derena muttered a short prayer as she ran, hoping the ancient incantation— programmed eons ago by the unknown geneticists who’d created this forest— would ease the trees’ pain.

Then she ran into a giant tree that didn’t break.

Derena fell backwards onto the leaf-strewn ground before clawing to her feet. A steel oak, she realized, her fingers drumming over the oak’s nearly unbreakable hybrid wood. Unlike the other trees, the steel oak’s living network hummed without fear. There were few things on Earth that could damage it.

With the rainbow static continuing to block the nerves in her eyes, Derena leaned her back against the steel oak’s massive trunk. Her attackers must be somewhere nearby. But to truly kill her, they had to touch her. If she braced against the massive oak’s trunk, they couldn’t attack from behind.

Can you sense the attackers? Derena thought.

No, the blood AI responded in her mind. Someone is jamming my senses along with your eyes. Which should be impossible.

Fear radiated from the artificial intelligence, which was named Red Day and lived inside Derena’s blood. No one should be able to jam a plague bird’s powers. But Derena also tasted Red Day’s excitement at facing a truly challenging foe for once in their long life. Even if that foe might destroy them.

Derena pulled one of her knives from the twin sheaths on her thighs and slashed her wrist, yet again trying to release Red Day’s power. But the blood AI still couldn’t leave her body.

How are they doing this? she thought. The AI always left when she cut herself.

We’ll figure that out if we live, Red Day answered in her mind. Create a bigger wound to release me.

Derena understood. She leaned against the steel oak and waited.

Patience, the AI whispered. Let them come.

“One last time,” Derena said, not sure if she was talking to Red Day or herself. It’d been so long since she could tell where she ended and the artificial intelligence in her blood began.

A hand grabbed Derena’s arm. She kicked the attacker. Instead of the crack of bone and flesh she felt immense strength like her own. Another hand grabbed for her knife arm, but it was too late—without a second thought Derena slammed the knife into her own heart.

The AI inside her boiled forth in a spray of blood, furious at being attacked. As Red Day left her body, the static in Derena’s mind eased. She could see again the blackness of the forest flickering to a few remaining starbursts of static.

About the Author

Jason Sanford is a two-time finalist for the Nebula Award who has published dozens of stories in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, Interzone, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Fireside Magazine along with appearances in multiple year’s best compilations along with The New Voices of Science Fiction, edited by Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman. Born and raised in the American South, Jason currently works in the media industry in the Midwestern United States. His previous experience includes work as an archaeologist and as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

His website is www.jasonsanford.com.