Author:
Mario Brash is a reader, writer, coffee enthusiast, and huge nerd of many things. 

Jessica Leibniz tried being a normal teenager, but unlike most teenagers, she can tell time without a clock. She still wears a watch, but it comes with incriminating A.I. software. It's part of her fashion sense-if you call a mix of 80's nostalgia, geekism, and jagged hair a fashion sense. Otherwise, you have a normal, nineteen-year-old girl who delivers pizza and tacos by day and hacks cybersecurity networks by night. All the while, she turns heads, probably because she performs her job on a gravity board, which is relatively unorthodox in a future where aliens rule the planet.

The alien takeover could have ended more violently, but there's irony in how efficient and peaceful Earth has become a hundred years later. Corporations still reign supreme, but aliens lie at the top of the social ladder. Azareans they call them, overlords who've constructed a new kind of city for the modern world. The Eden: a modern megapolis.

Accustomed to life in the modern city, Jessica has learned to embrace challenge when it comes her way. Without a cause, she confides in her three friends or smacks into boredom. And when she seamlessly cracks an uncrackable corporate security algorithm, nothing makes sense. Faced with world-turning revelations, the life she's led seems trivial next to a hundred-year lie and tragedy.

Hacking the Sun

When Dexter departed, Shannon appeared in his place. "Everyone looks down, dirty, or desperate," she said. "And it looks like we're in for some new scenery. Aside from the fact that everyone's packing, I overheard Monarch and that one dude. They said Asgard knows what we have."


"As we thought," said Jessica, crossing her arms pensively. "Looks like we're reacting now."


Jessica cranked a bitter gaze at Raptor's stiff advance, then decided to play dumb. "Who, me?" she mouthed. 


"Yea you, red vest." He stopped directly in front of her. "Monarch tells me you're the premier egghead."


"I resent that!" Amon casually passed them by. Both Jess and Raptor's irritated faces reflected off his sunglasses, as Shannon chimed in. 


Chapter 41: Darkstar Part 2