Sociopathic narcotics detective, Dennis Slopes is meeting with his maker. The Architect is not pleased that Tara Dean remains free and is taking his anger out on his subordinates. Meanwhile, at the other end of the law enforcement spectrum, Deputy Danny Everquist and his holographic girlfriend are about to have a very unexpected and surprising visitor who will change their lives forever.

“The Gauntlet is where drug mules go to die,” says Tara Dean. In September of 2081, Tara is the queen of illegal vodka mules. She, Hugo and a newly faithful and refreshed Virgil Benedict are flying 4,000 liters of moonshine west out of Lawrence down Interstate Hovway 70 to meet their distributor, Earl King, in Manhattan, Kansas. Earl King is reputed to be a mean man. But he’s not half as mean as what’s lurking in the digital shadows between our heroes and their destination.

A traitor tries to worm his way into North America’s biggest illegal vodka still while Dorothy and Tara burn the midnight oil and turn up the heat at home. With Dax, William and Hugo away at The Green Lady Lounge, they are left alone to confront the return of the Coyote pack as they emerge from the blackness of the forest on a night filled with love, thunder and betrayal.

A skinless, cybernetic dire wolf the size of a bus has just appeared from the shadows and mist beyond the illegal vodka still. The animal’s blue vidorbs dim and brighten, pulsing in rhythm with the fusion reactor embedded in its chest as it analyzes and scans the cowboy standing in front of it. The cowboy knows he only has a few seconds to tether his mind to the creature before it kills him and destroys everything his boss has spent decades building.

Welcome to the Douglas County, Kansas Sheriff’s Department circa 2080. In this episode we meet several new characters on the law enforcement side of the 18th Shadow holostream, all starting with super-hacker, Danny Everquist and his holographic Russian girlfriend, Dina. Assisted by his annoying office-nemesis, Deputy Brick Talboy and his mentor, the legendary Sheriff Proudstar, Danny begins to unravel the mystery of the escaped slaughterhouse fugitive and Darkpool Labs Coyotes.

For the first time in months, Tara Dean is waking up outside of a slaughterhouse. She has escaped being lobotomized, drone-fired tranquilizer darts, the county sheriff and the shredding teeth of the cruel Coyote Pack. Tara Dean is a free woman. The sun is shining, the sheets are soft, the art is beautiful and the birds outside her window are singing a very different tune. Little does she know that she has awoken in the home of North America’s biggest drug dealer. She also doesn’t know that she’s about to fall in love with him.

This is the first episode of Season Two of The 18th Shadow Radio. We open this season with a deep dive into “the cowboy” character from Phase 01 - Dawn of the Courtezan. William Angevine is a country boy, a hunter and a drinker and a smoker and a cyborg wrangler. He’s also an amnesiac who has been offered a high-paying security job by the mysterious owner of a pumpkin farm. William is about to discover that this pumpkin farm is actually hiding a few highly illegal secrets, just like he is.

This is the final episode of Season One of The 18th Shadow Radio. Season Two will begin releasing in 8 weeks! In this last episode, we meet The Puzzle Master, Dennis Slopes, chief narcotics detective for the Lawrence police department. We also meet his domestic partner, a cyborg Felix named Mrs. Kitters. See inside the mind of madness that is pulling the strings of Prohibition. And for the first time, the Architect speaks.

The Coyotes are digging deeper, eating their way into the collision sphere containing an unconscious Tara Dean. Within minutes, they will have her blood. But not if William’s Rottweiler’s can get there first, save Tara and fight off the armed law enforcement droves circling above. The car has crashed, Sheriff Proudstar will be there soon, and outnumbered eighteen to four, the Rottweilers face the first real fight of their lives.

With an unknown fugitive fast approaching their property line, Dorothy Nichols has to think on her feet. Dax Abner lied to her. She is not employed as a botanist. She is employed as the mercenary manager of four canine war cyborgs, a team of human outlaws she calls her family and an all knowing, all powerful talking dolphin named Joan. Now things are about to get weird.