Spooked

Exodus Sequence #4

by Susannah J. Bell

An alternate cover edition can be found here and here.

A secret agent approaches a maths genius and offers her a job breaking codes.

Angelica Zippoli – or Zipp – takes her meds, sticks to her routine, goes to her dull job. She’s already been sectioned once and doesn’t want to lose it again. Even the white shadows are leaving her alone. But then she’s approached by a very polite secret agent with a dream job offer: deciphering streams of incomprehensible numbers transmitted by a satellite moments before it crashed. The numbers trigger strange memories – memories she shouldn’t have. And then she sees a white shadow.

Extract: There was no buzz of electricity, no electronic hum, no sound. It might not have been there at all but already she was accessing data, touching what they called a mind-space screen, her fingers in the air in front of her face, accessing icons, moving deeper and deeper into a world that was light years beyond the holographic.

The Exodus Sequence: Each novelette in the Exodus Sequence is a standalone story. They don’t have to be read in order. They are not in any way connected like chapters in a book. They vary in style and character, time and place. However, the mystery unfolds as the sequence progresses, hence the numbering. To follow this unfolding, the sequence is best read in order.

A novelette is, by definition, longer than a short story but not as long as a novella.

50 pages, ebook

First published December 1, 2012

About the author

Susannah J. Bell is a writer of science fiction and other strange and surreal works. She was born in London but grew up in South Africa, escaping when she was twenty to be a writer. Not able to find much success in London, she dreamed of living in other parts of the world: the Scottish Highlands, New York, Mars, but never got much further than travel guides. Nowadays, she would like to live in a tower in a forest and dreams of travelling to the fantastical worlds of her imagination. Her writing has taken her from the familiar landscapes of Mars and Io and Titan, to worlds far beyond ours, even to the edge of the galaxy. She has explored other dimensions, realms, and space beyond. Within her writing, she explores different styles, voices and concepts, always returning to the theme that fascinates her the most: immortality. She has published several series such as The Fleet Quintet and The Exodus Sequence, and is working on a new series of novels, as well as a large literary work, more Exodus Sequence stories, and biographical short stories. She hopes one day to complete the fifth Fleet novel. She loves the sound of falling water, is passionate about trees, and is happiest when writing. She still lives in London.

Reviews

[Susannah Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zipp’s first entry in the Exodus Sequence was to have been in a short story called “Sacrificed” – except that it got out of hand and ended up as a short novel. Thinking to turn it into a full-length novel, I added a Part Two to wrap things up, an addition which later turned into separate entry in the sequence. The novel was a disaster and when I finally dropped it, my confidence was shattered. It was a relief to return to my original plan to publish the vast Exodus story in snippets contained within novelettes. And the story is vast. Characters appearing in different incarnations over millions of years would, for me, make a dull sequence of novels. I wanted to approach the telling of the story in tightly-focussed incidents, such as this one, where Angelica Zippoli, or Zipp, meets the mysterious Mr Nylon for the first time. Originally, it was only a tiny part of the story, told in brief flashback, but its significance was impossible to ignore.
SPOOKED is set slightly in the future in a London that is instantly recognisable though slightly more dystopian. The zombification of the masses assured through the widespread use of a “G”, a hi-tech communication device utilising a mind-space screen – “like having the www inside your head.”
The story has many strong connections with others in the sequence, all of which I’m reluctant to mention as they would be huge plot spoilers. Some of the connections will only be revealed in the second collection so pay attention!