The Meister of Decimen City


 
 
 
 
 THE MEISTER OF DECIMEN CITY
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 BRENNA RANEY
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CONTENTS
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Issue 1
 
 
 Issue 2
 
 
 Issue 3
 
 
 Issue 4
 
 
 Issue 5
 
 
 Issue 6
 
 
 Issue 7
 
 
 Issue 8
 
 
 Issue 9
 
 
 Issue 10
 
 
 Issue 11
 
 
 Issue 12
 
 
 Issue 13
 
 
 Issue 14
 
 
 Issue 15
 
 
 Issue 16
 
 
 Issue 17
 
 
 Issue 18
 
 
 Issue 19
 
 
 Issue 20
 
 
 Issue 21
 
 
 Issue 22
 
 
 Issue 23
 
 
 Issue 24
 
 
 Issue 25
 
 
 Issue 26
 
 
 Issue 27
 
 
 Issue 28
 
 
 Issue 29
 
 
 Issue 30
 
 
 Issue 31
 
 
 Issue 32
 
 
 Issue 33
 
 
 Issue 34
 
 
 Issue 35
 
 
 Issue 36
 
 
 Issue 37
 
 
 Issue 38
 
 
 Issue 39
 
 
 Issue 40
 
 
 Issue 41
 
 
 
 
 Acknowledgments
 
 
 About the Author
 
 
 More from CamCat Books
 
 
 Citizen Orlov
 
 
 More Heroic Reads from CamCat Books
 
 
 CamCat Books
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CamCat Publishing, LLC
 Brentwood, Tennessee 37027
 camcatpublishing.com
 
 
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 © 2023 by Brenna Raney
 All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, 101 Creekside Crossing Suite 280, Brentwood, TN 37027.
 
 
 Hardcover ISBN 9780744307702
 Paperback ISBN 9780744307719
 Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744307726
 eBook ISBN 9780744307733
 Audiobook ISBN 9780744307740
 
 
 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022944563
 Cover and book design by Maryann Appel
 5 3 1 2 4
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 To the people who can never fit the narrative.
 
 
 
 Love you.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ISSUE 1
 
 
 
 
 
 
 DINOSAURS ON MAIN STREET
 
 
 
 
 Rex made a list of her obligations from most pressing to least pressing, with deal with the dinosaurs at the top. It was a stress-managing exercise her high school counselor had suggested. It hadn’t worked then, and it wasn’t working now.
 The TV over her workbench screeched, and she looked up. The news was still showing live helicopter footage of the dinosaurs tearing down Main Street. As a velociraptor-looking thing—someone in the lab was watching too much Jurassic Park—crashed through a line of abandoned cars, the Lightning zapped onto the scene. Rex winced as the superhero punched the raptor in the face, electric flickers bursting from the impact, and reporters broke into happy hysterics.
 The ding of the lab door made her jump, but it was just Flora striding in with a jet-black hair swish.
 A pair of metal eyes hovered after her, a robotic voice calling, “I couldn’t keep her out, Doctor.” Despite having written the subroutine for Aya to say exactly that, Rex didn’t find it funny.
 “When you said you were working on the dinosaur project, I thought you were researching how the dinosaurs died, not unleashing a dinosaur-themed apocalypse,” Flora said.
 “This wasn’t intentional,” Rex hissed, moving to the end of the workbench to flip through her notes. “They shouldn’t have gotten out.”
 Flora adjusted her glasses and rested her other hand on her hip. “You need to deal with this before the Lightning traces them back to the source and beats your face in with her taser-fist of death.”
 “I’m trying!” Rex tossed the notes away. “What did kill the dinosaurs? The same thing would work now, right?”
 “Climate change?”
 “Shall I run simulations on potential asteroid impacts?” Aya offered. The two eyes bobbed next to each other over the workbench, a trick with magnets that had been hell to work out but looked really cool. Still, Aya’s two staring eyes was getting to Rex in a way that one staring camera never had. She snatched up the to-do list and scribbled give Aya eyelids at the bottom.
 Screams erupted on the television as a news chopper dipped too low and a variety of dinosaurs with some truly impressive back legs leaped high enough to catch one of the helicopter’s ski-looking thingies in its jaws.
 “I don’t remember making so many,” Rex muttered as she rushed to the chemical zone to mix a hasty genetic destabilizer, pausing only to shove goggles over her buzzed, blonde head and cover her freckled hands with a snap of gloves.
 “You got clone-happy.” Flora followed her past the line of red tape on the floor with quick little steps in her pencil skirt. Rex wondered how she was still so intimidated by professional dress after seeing Flora in it almost every day for five years. “I warned you. The whole city warned you. It’s in point three of the latest truce agreement—”
 “The clone clause—yes, I know.” Rex didn’t have genetic material to form the base of the destabilizer at the home lab. It was all in the Peak Street facility, which they shouldn’t have been able to escape from if her lab techs had followed her damn instructions.
 Rex dropped into a chair and ran her hands over her face, pushing the goggles up. “I’m just going to take the Exo-suit and go punch dinos with ’Ning.” The hero couldn’t zap her if