Artifact X: A Serialized Audiobook

CHAPTER 15

After nearly a hibernation of nearly a thousand years while crossing the void between stars, E.R.V.E.R.E. is finally woken up. Not only is the alarm clock ringing — alarms are going off all over the place.

E.R.V.E.R.E. learns that the deadly enemy he has been pursuing may have outwitted him. For help, the Mechanovirus turns out to have reached out in advance... To none other than Gerald P. Rathburn.

How exactly would a NASA reject get hoodwinked into aiding and abetting a dastardly alien to destroy Earth? Some lost evidence that hasn’t been heard since 1983 (if it was even heard then!) comes out from the archives to shed light.

This episode of ARTIFACT-X guest stars the voice talent of Los Angeles talk radio legend Brian Whitman. Find him at brianwhitman.com.

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CHAPTER 14

Where has Brant disappeared to? That mystery gets set aside for the moment as we return to the pathetic scene of elderly eccentric Gerald P. Rathburn—and the seemingly D.O.A. alien friend he has been waiting for decades to show up on Earth.

But Rathburn may not have to mourn for quite as long as he has prepared himself to.

From deep down at the bottom of the Frisbee-sized impact crater his crash-landed Extraterrestrial made, something is about to emerge. Something that never would have been glimpsed even in a disgraced ex-Astronaut’s wildest dreams.

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CHAPTER 13

It’s the grim aftermath of a lost Robo-Ruckus bout. And Brant is feeling it bad. For him, the match he failed to win is much more than just a negative mark in his record. It is the final bit of evidence he believes he needs to become convinced he will never be legitimately good at anything. The Robo-Ruckus, by all accounts, looks like it was his last chance for a talent to call his own.

Things appear to get even worse when Caleb Trager shows up to literally add injury to insult. But there may be a silver lining to what happened in the arena today. That is, if Brant can haul himself out of his deepening gloom to appreciate it....

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CHAPTER 12

Brant has turned the tide of battle. For pretty much the first time in its illustrious career, The Eviscerator is getting the worst of a Robo-Ruckus bout. Our hero’s advantage, however, proves to be short-lived.

The Trager Brothers are willing to sacrifice quite a bit to get the upper hand in a bout. In fact, putting another win in their column won’t even be enough for them now. The two are dead set on teaching Brant a lesson he will never forget—and dealing him a black eye that will linger long after the arena has been locked up for the night and all the spectators have gone home.

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CHAPTER NINE

We’re back with Brant, Thu, and Uncle Clive.

Against all odds, the trio has finally made it to the Gulf Coast Regional Robo-Ruckus in Corpus Christi. And Brant realizes that the locals have really rolled out the red carpet. ...For his opponent and arch-rivals, that is.

Although the audience in the bleachers is hooting and hollering for Team Eviscerator—the undefeated pair of brothers who have beat Brant three times before—Brant is given the chance to recruit a new young fan to his upstart team. But when he rolls out his own electro-mechanical contender, the Haughton Hammerhead, its faults seem to outweigh its features.


CHAPTER TEN

It’s handmade remote controlled robot vs. handmade remote controlled robot action!

On the arena floor Brant’s Haughton Hammerhead goes up against the league’s reigning champion, The Eviscerator. Controlling this buzzsaw-wielding juggernaut are Caleb and Dallas Trager: spoiled and sadistic princelings from a wealthy war profiteering family out of Ft. Worth.

The Eviscerator, which may or may not have been designed not by some enterprising kids but instead by some high-dollar military contractors aerospace engineers, seems to have it all over Brant’s robot in terms of technology. And it doesn’t, at first, look good for our hero.

Is Brant going to go down for the fourth time to the dreaded Trager brothers? Or does he have some seriously superior skills up his sleeve?

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This installment of Artifact X contains multiple chapters.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Start where Gerald P. Rathburn has staked out for his lonely, bizarre vigil. Now take yourself thousands of miles up and roughly in the direction opposite to the rotation of the galaxy.

There you will find an evil entity preparing to end a long, long, long trip across interstellar space. And preparing to forever alter the long, long, long history of planet Earth.


CHAPTER EIGHT

Disgraced and outcast former NASA Astronaut Gerald Rathburn has been waiting for decades for this moment to arrive. And indeed—just like his calculations have predicted—something does come streaking down from orbit to strike a deep hole in the remote Southwestern badlands where the old man has been camped out and waiting.

But the old man’s celebration quickly turns sour. This isn’t the joyful, extravagant welcome he expected Earth’s first alien intelligence to have for him. As a matter of fact, did the alien even survive the trip? Or even worse, has the old man been imagining the whole thing from the beginning?

This installment of Artifact X contains multiple chapters.

CHAPTER FIVE

It has been a morning that would have slung nearly anyone else back to bed with sheer exhaustion. But Brant, Thu, and Uncle Clive are just getting started.

After boarding the long-distance bus that will whisk them to the Gulf Coast Regional Robo-Ruckus, Brant can’t help but notice something. His uncle is tremendously nervous. And the anxiety proves to be contagious. We’ve already learned that Brant more than anything wants the robot he built to win today... In this chapter, we learn why that’s true. And why this particular robotics meet feels, for Brant, like an all-or-nothing last chance.


CHAPTER SIX

Somewhere west of San Antonio the creeks turn dry, the grass dies away, the trees go from stunted to nonexistent, and a sprawling landscape of desert and sun-blasted mountains begins. Deep in that merciless wilderness where, as the locals say, “everything bites, stings, or sticks,” a mysterious old man is all alone, waiting. Decades and decades of hard work are about to pay off. And if he has done everything right, literally nothing about human history will ever be the same.

But first he needs about three dozen cans of yellow spraypaint.

This installment of Artifact X contains multiple chapters.

CHAPTER THREE

Brant and Thu’s crazy and elaborate plan to smuggle our hero out of his Fort Granger army base home faces its ultimate test. What will prove stronger? The alertness and mental acuity of highly trained U.S. military installation guards?

Or the power of five-star-reviewed coconut shrimp and banh mi sandwiches from South Texas’s favorite Vietnamese restaurant?


CHAPTER FOUR

The boys have gotten themselves this far. But they still have a long way to go. About a hundred and fifty miles, as a matter of fact! That’s, like, five hundred in kid distance.

Getting to the Robo-Ruckus and back is no small trick when it involves needing to jaunt from one big city to another, with hundreds of pounds of robot parts packed in crates. And no grown-ups whatsoever willing to drive you. But Brant and Thu turn out to have adult supervision of kind, after all. That is, if Brant’s Uncle Clive can rendezvous with the boys without killing himself, and every other motorist in downtown San Antonio, first.

It’s the day of the Gulf Coast Regional Robo-Ruckus. Middle school robotics teams and independent competitors alike are gearing up for combat. In just a few hours, dozens of with hand-built, remote-controlled robots will be bashing and buzzsawing each other to pieces before cheering crowds of spectators. One lucky robotics team will go home with the trophy. And the chance to compete in the state finals.

But as for twelve year-old Brant Haughton? It is his highest hope to have his latest robot creation in the competition today. But he has a whole slew of hurdles to clear first. That’s because Brant’s old-fashioned father doesn’t want him building robots any more. He has forbidden his son from taking part in another Robo-Ruckus. This is a promise, however, that robot-crazy Brant just can’t keep. So he has to be sneaky. Seriously sneaky.

That’s because Brant lives inside one of America’s most sprawling and high-security military bases. And its razorwire fences and platoons of guards do just as good a job of keeping people in as they do of keeping enemies out.

To have all this standing in the way of practicing your passion would be a bummer for any kid. But Brant Haughton is not just any kid. He and his best friend have a plan to escape from the army compound for the day. The plan is so crazy that it just might work.

And their wild scheme starts with a mountain of dirty laundry.

The opening chapter of ARTIFACT X!

After a more than thousand years-long journey to planet Earth, a voyager reports finding nothing more than calamity, chaos, contretemps, and catastrophe waiting for him there. Intelligent life in the Milky Way Galaxy is squaring off against a new and highly dangerous kind of enemy. And what dear, sweet, innocent humanity DOESN'T know about the raging galactic war CAN hurt it.

What was supposed to have been a minor skirmish for our vigilant voyager has gone disastrously off the rails. But maybe, maybe, not all hope is lost.

NOTE: Without an introduction and story synopsis by the author.