Vox Populi Book Cover
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Excerpt from Vox Populi

"What do you need?" Alana murmurs to a nervous young man who can't seem to to look her in the eyes. He stammers, "A limb... high-end, discreet." "Follow me," she says, walking past him, brushing his shoulder on the way by. She leads him to a secluded corner of the club. A row of small booths, just large enough for two or three people to stand closely and chat… or whatever. "Arm or leg.", Alana barks at the man as if she were giving an order. "Uh… uh. Arm!", he shouts. "Okay.", she says calmly, trying to bring the young man back down a notch. "We need a right arm. An Optima 9… female… something in the lower skin tones…", the man stuttered. "Female?", Alana looked up from her data pad. "Where's the girl?" "Back at the apartment. She can install it if that's what you’re asking." He had a haughty mannerism about him. Definitely a rich kid vibe. Alana hated him before he even spoke. "Proof of life or no deal", Alana placed her data pad face down on the table. "F--k. Whatever." The young man tapped his data pad and scrolled through a list of names with his finger, then stopped on an ID number with no name. The data pad screen flashed to a view of another young man sitting on a large couch, hunched over a bowl of rice and eating with his hands. "Where's the girl? Get her.", the camera moved across the room and stopped on a girl with her right arm wrapped heavily and cradled in a sling. "You need some help?", Alana asks. "Yea.", the girl replies quietly. "I need a f---ing arm.", she adds with a hint of sarcasm. The young man whips the data pad around, closing the connection, "Proof of life. So we doing this?" Alana flashed a smile, "Sure thing. Bring the girl to this location and the arm will be attached.” “What? Nah, you spun? We will connect up the arm, yea. Not you.”, the young man stepped back, his demeanor changing to a street thug right before Alana’s eyes. He throws his hands out by his sides with open palms, "We good?" “My arm, my deal, my rules. You wanna run around with a one-armed girl?”, Alana stepped back and smoothed the wrinkles from the front of her dress. As she brushed her hands down the front of her dress, sections of the dress changed from black to a high definition bright pink plaid under her hand, and then slowly faded back to black, “Don't make me kill someone so early in the evening." Alana says calmly and turns on her heel, stepped out of the booth, and speaking over her shoulder as she walks away, "Get your little jack bunny to the location if you want it. Deal's open for 24 hours."

Vox Populi

A collection of short stories exploring the vast Vox Mentis universe, where AI-driven archives preserve humanity’s experience. Dive into tales of war, philosophy, survival, and evolution across the stars.

isbn: tbd
series: Vox Fables
genre: science fiction
category: novel
author: Kathryn Darcy
Coming Soon to Amazon Kindle

Vox Populi is the first installment of the Vox Fables book series. To learn more about the Vox universe, visit the Vox Legends Encyclopedia