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Services Rendered
Inhuman Resources
Lee Horowitz loves his job. It's what he was raised and trained for. As the Cantrell Corp.'s most loyal and reliable shadow operative, handling everything from silencing competitors to personal favors for interplanetary shareholders, Lee's entire life has been in service to the company. Until the day a minor mistake results in his immediate termination.
However, instead of loitering in the unemployment line or hopping from gig to gig, Lee finds himself stalked by the Reclamation Commission, a group whose sole purpose is to extract what they can and leave no trace. But even a former company man has some misgivings about being disappeared, leaving Lee no choice but to run headfirst into a city determined to exploit and kill him as he scrambles to find not only a way off world, but himself.
Lee Horowitz loves his job. It's what he was raised and trained for. As the Cantrell Corp.'s most loyal and reliable shadow operative, handling everything from silencing competitors to personal favors for interplanetary shareholders, Lee's entire life has been in service to the company. Until the day a minor mistake results in his immediate termination.
However, instead of loitering in the unemployment line or hopping from gig to gig, Lee finds himself stalked by the Reclamation Commission, a group whose sole purpose is to extract what they can and leave no trace. But even a former company man has some misgivings about being disappeared, leaving Lee no choice but to run headfirst into a city determined to exploit and kill him as he scrambles to find not only a way off world, but himself.
99 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 4, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 24, 2026
OK, I have some bias. I have written a novel and several screenplays with Anthony. I did so because I think he is a genius writer. One reason I like teaming up with writers like Anthony is that his voice is so different from mine. Services Rendered drops on the scene with an excellent Dickian novella that very intentionally plays with PKD tropes and easter eggs (That was the assignment, after all) while telling a deeply personal tale that made me laugh more than a few times.
So, as one of the inaugural Pink Beam novellas to be released at PKD Festival 2026, the mission was more directly related to being Dickian than some of the releases in the future, but Anthony, as a long-time co-host of the Dickheads podcast, he had plenty of chances to absorb the feeling as does an excellent job telling the story of Lee Horowitz who is a employee of the Contrell corporation and Trevino manages to get some digs at office work.
The truth about Lee is he was born for this job, raised to be a shadow operative of the company. Trevino plays with the altered reality we get forced into when our employers think we are only in existence for them. The thing is, Horowitz was created for this. “Knowing now that he’d been ejected from a tube instead of a womb, Lee wondered if the Jantrells held a similar disgust for him, the vat brat with its obnoxious desire to please. Purely, he was more than that. He bled. Falling ill was rare, but even that happened. Regardless of how he came into being, he deserved the same respect.” He is disparaged as nothing more than a Vat-Brat. This makes for the basis of how questioning Lee as a person, or a corporate product. Lee has to remind people that he is not a robot, that he is a flesh-and-blood person. Some of my favorite moments are exploring that line. Something we will come back to.
Trevino does world-building right, subtle and naturally slid into the story. He writes good dialogue, so he often employs dialogue to carry many of the most entertaining moments.
“Who's chasing you?” Cristobal asked.
“Reclamation Commission.”
“That's a new one,” Cristobal said.
“Surprised you haven't heard of them.”
Cristobal stretched out on the dirt. “What do they do?”
“They show up when a company wants their stuff back.”
“Ahh,” Sal said. “Repo Jag-offs.”
“I need to get to San Ysidro. You know how close we are? Looks like downtown, but I can’t be certain. I think I hit my head pretty hard when the ship went down.”
“Never heard of it. We’re a few minutes south of Buckman. Where do you think you are?”
“San Diego.”
Sal laughed. You’re in Portland, brother.”
“Oregon?”
“That's the one, and last I heard, most of the lower half of California fell into the ocean.”
As a lifelong San Diegan, this author also woke up one day in Portland, and while this cyberpunk-ish vision of Portland is not exactly like current Portland, the experience of living in Portland drips off the page when Lee goes through it. That stuff is fun, and some of the novella’s best moments are thinly veiled Portland. We certainly feel Lee is not stoked that San Diego got swallowed up by the Pacific.
The PKD easter eggs like artiforgs are one thing, but the questions about reality and humanity itself is where Trevino excels here. Vat-brats feel less than human; naturally born wish they were designed. And the job, the city, all feel like a reason to hate everything. Trevino know for his angry rants on the DHP brings that edge to this story. I love it for that.
Lee didn’t want to get into it, didn't want to revisit the embarrassment and shame that came with being their designer pet. You’re just upset you lost your comfort blanket, you dolt. You were fine with your actions until you became obsolete, and suddenly, what? You think you’re special? You think that the
work you put in made you stand out for the Good Boy Award? Here’s a gold star, buckaroo, pin it to your lapel or throw it in a drawer. At the end of the day, it doesn’t mean shit. You did the work. You got paid. And the Cantrells stayed inside one of their dozen mansions. Now get down like an obedient dog and
accept your final treat. Sympathy was better than mystery when you needed a
hand, so Lee told them.
“Damn,” Cristobal said. “I wish my parents had me factory-made. They probably wouldn't hate me as much as they do.”
“Everything is created somehow,” Lee said. “Just because I was born in the lab doesn't mean I'm not human. I’m not full of wires or cogs.”
No, Lee is not full of wires or cogs. That detail is an excellent throwback to PKD, who had reveals like that in several of his early masterpieces. Services Rendered is excellent Pink Beam SF. The invention and creativity on the page make it a fun read. Trevino doesn’t really copy anyone’s style, and some SF readers might be grasping for something more familiar. The readers that connect with his unique voice will be passionate about it. I think about voices like Poppy Z Brite, who many in horror were not ready for. I certainly am ready for this, weird SF with a radical edge, and I think you should be too.
So, as one of the inaugural Pink Beam novellas to be released at PKD Festival 2026, the mission was more directly related to being Dickian than some of the releases in the future, but Anthony, as a long-time co-host of the Dickheads podcast, he had plenty of chances to absorb the feeling as does an excellent job telling the story of Lee Horowitz who is a employee of the Contrell corporation and Trevino manages to get some digs at office work.
The truth about Lee is he was born for this job, raised to be a shadow operative of the company. Trevino plays with the altered reality we get forced into when our employers think we are only in existence for them. The thing is, Horowitz was created for this. “Knowing now that he’d been ejected from a tube instead of a womb, Lee wondered if the Jantrells held a similar disgust for him, the vat brat with its obnoxious desire to please. Purely, he was more than that. He bled. Falling ill was rare, but even that happened. Regardless of how he came into being, he deserved the same respect.” He is disparaged as nothing more than a Vat-Brat. This makes for the basis of how questioning Lee as a person, or a corporate product. Lee has to remind people that he is not a robot, that he is a flesh-and-blood person. Some of my favorite moments are exploring that line. Something we will come back to.
Trevino does world-building right, subtle and naturally slid into the story. He writes good dialogue, so he often employs dialogue to carry many of the most entertaining moments.
“Who's chasing you?” Cristobal asked.
“Reclamation Commission.”
“That's a new one,” Cristobal said.
“Surprised you haven't heard of them.”
Cristobal stretched out on the dirt. “What do they do?”
“They show up when a company wants their stuff back.”
“Ahh,” Sal said. “Repo Jag-offs.”
“I need to get to San Ysidro. You know how close we are? Looks like downtown, but I can’t be certain. I think I hit my head pretty hard when the ship went down.”
“Never heard of it. We’re a few minutes south of Buckman. Where do you think you are?”
“San Diego.”
Sal laughed. You’re in Portland, brother.”
“Oregon?”
“That's the one, and last I heard, most of the lower half of California fell into the ocean.”
As a lifelong San Diegan, this author also woke up one day in Portland, and while this cyberpunk-ish vision of Portland is not exactly like current Portland, the experience of living in Portland drips off the page when Lee goes through it. That stuff is fun, and some of the novella’s best moments are thinly veiled Portland. We certainly feel Lee is not stoked that San Diego got swallowed up by the Pacific.
The PKD easter eggs like artiforgs are one thing, but the questions about reality and humanity itself is where Trevino excels here. Vat-brats feel less than human; naturally born wish they were designed. And the job, the city, all feel like a reason to hate everything. Trevino know for his angry rants on the DHP brings that edge to this story. I love it for that.
Lee didn’t want to get into it, didn't want to revisit the embarrassment and shame that came with being their designer pet. You’re just upset you lost your comfort blanket, you dolt. You were fine with your actions until you became obsolete, and suddenly, what? You think you’re special? You think that the
work you put in made you stand out for the Good Boy Award? Here’s a gold star, buckaroo, pin it to your lapel or throw it in a drawer. At the end of the day, it doesn’t mean shit. You did the work. You got paid. And the Cantrells stayed inside one of their dozen mansions. Now get down like an obedient dog and
accept your final treat. Sympathy was better than mystery when you needed a
hand, so Lee told them.
“Damn,” Cristobal said. “I wish my parents had me factory-made. They probably wouldn't hate me as much as they do.”
“Everything is created somehow,” Lee said. “Just because I was born in the lab doesn't mean I'm not human. I’m not full of wires or cogs.”
No, Lee is not full of wires or cogs. That detail is an excellent throwback to PKD, who had reveals like that in several of his early masterpieces. Services Rendered is excellent Pink Beam SF. The invention and creativity on the page make it a fun read. Trevino doesn’t really copy anyone’s style, and some SF readers might be grasping for something more familiar. The readers that connect with his unique voice will be passionate about it. I think about voices like Poppy Z Brite, who many in horror were not ready for. I certainly am ready for this, weird SF with a radical edge, and I think you should be too.
October 2, 2026
Trevino’s short novel hits all the right beats of a solid sci fi action pulp tale. Lee is a corporate lackey sent on an espionage mission to steal some goods for his employers, only to get waylaid as security discovers what he’s up to. From there it’s a race to escape, learning that the real enemy chasing him are the corporate leaders that created him, that groomed him from infancy, that want their goods. His desire to find out the truth about himself and his origins takes him from one strange situation to another, all the while dodging men sent to recover any part of his body they can. This had great action as well as plenty of hardline sci fi introspection worthy of an homage to Philip k Dick. It would make a fun movie.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews