Genesis Athena: A Science Thriller by W. Michael Gear

Author:W. Michael Gear [Gear, W. Michael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781639771899
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2024-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Weary to the bones, Sheela rubbed the back of her neck as she walked from the studio to her trailer. The lot was hot, baking under the sun. She had heard that a peculiar high-pressure system had built over the Mojave, that it was kicking the scorching desert air back over LA.

The weather guy didn’t know what high pressure was.

A headache ground away at the back of her brain, and her eyes burned, perhaps from the smog, or perhaps from the fatigue that lay so heavily in her blood, muscle, and soul.

She had finished her last scene, God willing, if some editor didn’t find a flaw that would cause Bernard to recall her.

But that would be sometime in the amorphous future. On beyond zebra, in another lifetime that started after she woke up from a zombie’s somnolence that would start after the festivities on Friday.

The cast party was a thespian’s tradition that reached back into the dim and distant past. A celebration of the hard work, the good times and bad, that had occasioned a group of strangers to become a short-term family.

I’m done!

She smiled wearily and looked down at her purse. The amphetamines lay unused, but for a couple of tablets. She was still in control. Her body might have felt like scorched toast, but her self-discipline had held.

The pills in her purse mocked her. She could feel them, whispering, calling, chiding her. Relief lay just a swallow away. She’d be fresh again, ready to take on the world instead of being this brain-dead hulk of ambulatory tissue.

Sleep is almost yours.

She waved as she passed a flock of extras dressed as Civil War Confederates and rounded the corner that led to her lot trailer. The awning cast a solitary square of shade over the lawn chairs and small table. The muted puttering of the air conditioners rose from the long line of trailers.

Sheela plodded up to the steps and opened her door—then sighed wearily as she stepped inside and waved halfheartedly at Rex, who sat at the table in the small booth.

She told him. “I wrapped my last scene. Bernard’s doing some short intercuts with the extras, and then he’ll get what he can out of Manny, but it’s not my problem anymore.” She grinned. “So, it’s Thursday afternoon, and I’m headed home to fall face-first into bed.”

Rex smiled. “Glad to hear that. You and I have some things to talk about.”

“Not now, Rex. I can’t think…let alone pay attention.”

He tapped the two screenplays on the table. “Did you get a chance to go through either of these?”

“Get real!”

“We need an answer. Tony thinks you ought to bail on the Petrie property and go with Bruckheimer. I tend to agree. The role suits you better.”

“I want some time off,” she said as she slumped into the booth across from him. “Rex, I’m roadkill. It took everything I had to get through Jagged Cat. I can’t keep up with this schedule.”

He tilted his head. “I thought I got you something for that.

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