Taya DeVere - Dystopian Sci-fi Author

Sam turns her head, trying to reach the itching patch of skin under her collar. These days, it’s easier to ignore the unpleasant sensations around her metal neckpiece, covering her from collarbone to chin.

That’s one rare change for better, since the day she stepped onto the mall bus, choosing the unknown between a rock and a hard place. The MallFam project sounded questionable and eerie to everyone, not just Sam. But the alternative was to stay in Slumland and wait for a violent and quite possibly painful death. After witnessing one too many rotting bodies staining the roadside, only a few hesitated stepping onto that bus.

Sam sure didn’t.

And here she is. Collared and none the wiser.

Her mouth full of pizza, Sam rubs at a tic that vibrates in the corner of her eye. The muscle spasms are nothing new. Just like the random words she twitches, especially when nervous, she’s learned to live with her Tourette’s Syndrome ever since she turned fourteen.

“Guuda,” she twitches, coughing quickly to muffle the involuntary sound forcing its way out.

“Good evening to you too, Sam.”

Of course, it has to be Teddy. The annoyingly charming, ever-so-friendly Teddy. Why is he always around? A quick, fake smile is all Sam has for him. If she’s being honest, in another life, she’d love to give him much more than that.

Oblivious to Sam’s thoughts, Teddy brushes his knuckles against the vending machine next to PizzaPiez. “Excited about the lottery?”

Sam runs her fingers through her short hair. Discreetly, she rubs the tic just above her left eyebrow. The last thing she needs is Teddy getting a whiff of his undeniable effect on Sam’s backstabbing body.

“Still holding onto your conspiracy theory then.” Teddy nods a few times, tapping the vending machine in front of him. “That’s cool. You do you.”

A warm sensation awakens in Sam’s lower belly. She turns her face away, shifts her weight, cursing her treacherous hormones.

“Honestly,” Teddy says, “I wish more people would practice critical thinking around here. Especially in times like these.”

Sam blows air through her lips.

“No really.” Teddy’s smile is evident in his voice. “Yeah, s*x is great and all, but have you ever listened to someone talk about something they’re super passionate about and see that special sparkle light up in their eye?”

Sam glares at him. “There’s nothing sparkling about kidnapped Serfs and early, painful deaths, you moron. And quoting centuries old internet memes is an equally poor passion to have, Todd.”

“It’s Teddy.”

“Yeah whatever.”

“You know, in some cultures, people actually respond with real answers when they’re asked a question.”

“And in some cultures, dudes don’t sleep with every piece of ass that happens to wander by.”

Teddy’s brows shoot up in surprise. Hesitating, he reaches for a toy cigarette behind his ear and places it between his lips while staring past Sam’s shoulder. He rolls the toy side to side between his teeth. “Not… Not every ass.”

“Sure, Toby. Whatever,” Sam says and walks away.

The mall’s corridors are empty. Everyone’s either tucked away in their stores or drinking and eating at the food court. Sam passes the Pop-Up Quickie boxes. One of the small, two-seat cubicles vibrates slightly, its closed-in tinted walls steamed over. Why anyone would use their tokens—or their time—on these dirty s*x machines, Sam doesn’t know. Or maybe her tickling, Teddy-craving stomach does. But still, it’s not for her. Just the thought of putting on a haptic suit and the bulky VR glasses triggers her claustrophobia.

A muscle tic squints her eyes. “No-no,” she twitches and hurries past the intensifying scent of make-believe s*x. She turns right at the SniffSniff Hub, steps over a SqueakyCleanerBot, and leaps up the escalator steps.

Upstairs, the second floor is quiet. Sam stops under a cardboard sign swinging lightly as air from the ventilation system blows on it. It has come off on one corner, threatening a fall. MACY’S, it reads in thick glitter-marker letters; the store Sam lives in takes up a whole end of the mall’s second floor.

She stares at the unhinged sign, her scattered mind filled with sushi and pizza rolls, circuits and plugs, tanned and sweaty skin, and she can’t help thinking…

What if every guy I have s*x with ends up dead?

--from SERF GIRL (Machina Deus, Book 1)

**Preorder now available👇
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYX85MNB

**NEW SERIES ALERT**
Machina Deus is a character-driven soft sci-fi adventure with diverse characters, dark humor, unlikely friendships, and light-hearted banter.

"A disruptive algorithm takes over the modern world, leaving people to die in slumlands.

Her mind and body shattered by her trauma, Samanta applies for a spot in a questionable safe haven: the MallFam project. She steps onto the mall bus, lets the project-leading Luddite cult mount a metal collar around her neck, and leaves the Slumland behind. She’s finally safe from the AI-ruined world…

…but not from herself."

--SERF GIRL (Machina Deus Book 1)

Serf Girl, a full-length novel will be released on August 1st, 2024. A special sneak peek now available: read the first two chapters on my website 👇

Read chapters 1 and 2 here: https://www.tayadevere.com/serf-girl-chapters/

At first she thinks she’s just imagining them: careful but determined footsteps behind her, soft on the dead leaves that cover the dirt road leading to City of Finland. Then a bothersome thought creeps up on her.

I’m not alone.

She stops in her tracks. The leaves rustle for a few seconds longer. Then all falls silent. Without turning around she takes five steps forward and stops again.

The leaves on the dirt road rustle again. Then the only sound is the steady humming of a nearby utility pole. After all these years, the Chipped still provide power for those living in the suburbs. No matter how many animal carcasses the black market salesmen drag into the city or how many Unchipped spit in the guards’ faces. Despite the attacks at the Server-Center. The threats made against the head of the Chip-Center. Despite all these things, the city has never taken action against the rebels, not outside the stone wall.

Some say it shows character on the part of the Chipped. Kindness. And some say it’s just a matter of time until the Chipped come for them. That the only reason the Unchipped still enjoy their freedom is because the head of the city is occupied with more pressing things, such as creating super computers and un-rubbery vegan bacon. For now—the underdogs wait. They know they’ll be dealt with sooner or later.

Kaarina takes off running, leaping over puddles and the occasional tree branch tossed across the road by yesterday’s wind. Then she stops.

Rustle. Rustle. Rustle.

Her stalker stops and waits.

A deep sigh escapes her chapped lips before she turns around. “Ässä, what are you doing here? I told you, you can’t come, not this time.”

Kaarina stares at the small Jack Russell Terrier that used to belong to her mother. The dog sits in the middle of the road, his head cocked to one side. “I’m telling you, it’s not safe.”

His head tilts to the other side, tail wagging slowly left, then right, like it’s asking a careful question. Asking Kaarina to confirm her decision. A faint whine reaches her ears.

“They’ll eat you, buddy. I’m not kidding.”

Two sharp barks break the silence between them. Then Ässä turns around and takes off to the woods. Devastated each time one of the animals around her dies, Kaarina knows by now that she shouldn’t give them names. She knows, yet around the small barn—the center of her shrunken universe—only a few of the animals haven’t been named. The cats that come and go are the only ones who remain nameless, but it’s just because Kaarina thinks their anonymity suits their independence. But Kaarina wasn’t the one who gave the Jack Russell his name. It had been her mother.

She watches Ässä run back into the woods, disappearing into the thick tree line. The hum around her lulls her into a false sense of calm, where nothing bad can happen to those she lives with. Ever. Though the trick Ässä just pulled—the fact that he followed her this far into the open—suggests this is nothing but wishful thinking. She’d prefer it if Ässä was too uncomfortable to come this near the city, with or without her.

A neon-blue light seems to ooze from the city in the distance, both cold and tempting. A two-meter-high stone wall surrounds the city, with two towers marking the main gateway. The wall gives the city the appearance of a bombed-out medieval castle.

Kaarina already knows the guards won’t slow her passage. There’ll be no ticket or code needed for entry, either. She’s not known to be a troublemaker. Why would she be? She’d give away everything to live inside those walls again.

--from the UNCHIPPED series

***If you like character-driven, soft sci-fi with diverse characters, dark humor, and unlikely friendships you will love the Unchipped series!

Read the omnibus editions: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLKVHYQM
Read the novella editions: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CHKB96S
Listen on Audible: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9YQZZP6

Lookie lookie! Books 1-5 of my epic dystopian science fiction adventure series "Unchipped" collected into a single volume!
Get yours here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQVSGQBW

Sooo, my mailing list? Yeah, it soiled the bed and didn’t let me know 😭😭😭 If you’ve tried to subscribe and get the free UNCHIPPED prequel short story — I’m sorry!!! I’ve scrubbed and bleached everything, it’s up and running again —> www.tayadevere.com

It hurts.

If you only read one book this month/year/life, read this one.

As long as a man had the courage to reject what society told him to do, he could live life on his own terms.
To what end? To be free. But free to what end? To read books, to write books, to think. ~Paul Auster

(Book: The Brooklyn Follies https://amzn.to/3lV9Jvb)

**Tag a friend who loves stories like The Hunger Games and Brave New World**

WELCOME TO THE HAPPINESS PROGRAM. A FUTURE WHERE A SINGLE CHIP CAN GIVE YOU EVERYTHING…
EXCEPT FOR FREEDOM.

“What. The actual. Ef. Is going on?”
The voice is inside her head but it’s not her own. In her foggy state of mind, she wonders if the hospital has an AI, like the one her mother’s house used to have. What was it called? Mirva? Miranda?
“Who names an AI Miranda?”
Puzzled and dizzy, she tries to ignore the man talking inside her head.
The half-circle room is crowded with beds, each separated from the others by a white hospital curtain. An assortment of surgical instruments covers the wheeled metal cart next to Kaarina’s bed. One of the tools points at her like a weapon. It looks a lot like a drill. A stain of blood decorates her hospital gown.
A deafening, monotonous beeping is the only sound she hears. The nurse rushed out twenty-four minutes and thirty seconds ago. She keeps staring at the clock above the entrance. All she can do is count the minutes and seconds as they go by. Everything else is too foggy and unfocused.
They’re all asleep, everyone but her. In the middle of the beeping. White hospital socks poke out from the bottom of every bed. The hospital curtains don’t reach that far. Privacy is not a high priority here. After all, nobody in this room should be awake.
“Hey, homie? Care to check in? What is this place?”
The voice startles her. She loses count of the minutes. Sitting up in the bed, she waits for the nurse to come back. Or for someone—anyone—to come and unplug her from the heavy brain scanner still attached to her head. She could have done that much, the nurse. She could have unplugged Kaarina from this uncomfortable device before she took off, gasping “We have another one” into her invisible walkie-talkie.
“Okay, could you please explain what’s happening? Who the hell are you? Why am I seeing you? Do you even speak English?”
“Finnish… I speak Finnish,” she whispers.
“Ha! It talks! And in fluent English too. Thanks for joining this madness.”
“Why are you here?”
The man huffs, momentarily lost for words. “That’s the thing, girl. I’m not there. See, last I checked, I was in the City of California Medical-Center, getting my chip treatment. All was swell. And then I wake up. I’m still here, but not really, because I’m staring at your pale white-girl face. This is not the AR-sh*t I was promised. Or is it? Is this part of the treatment? Some sick way to test our mental health?”
She listens to the voice, turning her focus inward, to herself. As she closes her eyes, images of a room—another hospital—flash on her closed eyelids. Hands and arms gesture wildly. A man, at least ten years older than her, his skin many shades darker than her own. She looks out past the broad window she’s never seen before to the skyscrapers rising on every side, sunbeams piercing the air between them. This is a place she’s never been before. Not that she’s there now either. Not really.
“Where are you? Who are you?”
“The name’s William. The place I already told you. I’m in City of California.”
“You’re from the United States?”
“No such thing left, hon. You should know this. Only West-Land remains. And the cities. Sounds like you’re from East-Land yourself. Sweden? Why are there dark shades in front of the windows there? Let me see outside.”
“Finland. And you can’t. It’s already dark.”
“Oh, so it’s four a.m. there, not p.m.?”
Her eyes go back to the clock on the wall, the same one William must be staring at—through her eyes or mind or being or some higher existence. Her head turns until she finds what she’s looking for. A digital clock by the lab table tells her the exact time of day. Sixteen hundred, sharp.
“No, it’s still daytime.”
“It’s already dark at four o’clock in the afternoon? Girl, what kind of a special hell do you live in?”
Her head spins with weird sensations and exhaustion. She counts the minutes again.
Forty-two. Forty-three. Forty-four.
The strange man in her head won’t stop talking. He blabbers along, flustered and bewildered, talking through emotions that Kaarina surely should be feeling as well.
“…so maybe this is a chipping phase, and just a part of—”
“I don’t think this was supposed to happen,” Kaarina says, interrupting him. “I think something has gone terribly wrong.”
When William doesn’t respond to her, she continues. “I think the chip didn’t take. And they messed up something in our brain.”

--from UNCHIPPED: KAARINA (Book 1 in the Unchipped series)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Cyberpunk inside out
“It definitely takes you to a world that should never be, but you come in through the rejects bin and it always holds to gritty reality next to a stupifying lie. You want to just keep reading, all the way up the rabbit hole - there has to be more to the series, because you haven't hit rock ceiling yet.
Read the book, it all makes sense.”

Ebook, paperback & audiobook available @ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CHKB96S

A new dystopian story brewing in my head.

2023, huh? I celebrated by going to bed at 8:30 and watching The Big Bang Theory reels.

New year’s resolutions have never been my cup of tea, but here’s a few things I’m curious to keep learning this year:

* Pay even less attention to my bodily image, on social media and real life
* Read upon things I grew up believing were beyond my comprehension (science, math, analytics, philosophy)
* Do more silly things, the kind that don’t make much sense to anyone, including me (sing songs with made-up lyrics, create terrible dance moves, doodle, write, create nonsense)
* Do things I’m capable of doing but scare me (like drive in Spanish traffic and narrow mountain roads) instead of asking someone else to do them for me
* Keep my expectations to zero, good or bad
* See conflict as an opportunity to learn more about myself, and to become more confident in my ability to face and sit in discomfort
* Watch and post more funny dog/bunny/horse/goat videos

That’s it, for now. Come tomorrow, my list might look completely different, and that’s okay.

I’m hoping you woke up to this new year full of life - the kind that feels and looks uniquely like you, and no one else. Happy new year!

Manners, principles, and traditions no longer feel like proper guides in my life, at least they don’t right this moment. Lately, I’ve thought a lot about how I feel more content and at ease in places where strangers greet each other on the streets or hiking trails. Wanting to be seen is a basic need we all share, whether we’re aware of it or not. Be it a smile, a nod, or a quick hello. A small acknowledgement showing someone “I see you there, sharing this place and awareness with me.” That feels important to me today.

Things I don’t look for in life (right this moment):
• pleasure
• convenience
• comfort zone
• goal-oriented movement

Things I do look for:
• joy
• play
• laughter
• wordless connection

*Waves a hand from current hidey-hole*

While living in Spain, I’m trying to learn enough Spanish to stop sounding and acting like a grocery shopping moron who can’t get her vegetables weighed right. What I’ve learned so far? The “h” in “hola” is silent, and that adding another language to my already bilingual life makes me non-fluent in ALL languages. Send. Help.

Look guys! Kaarina has a dating profile 😱😱😱

Unchipped: Kaarina Date this book on the Booky Call app.

Even the hair is right.

, you game?