Josh Vogt

A NOVEL SET IN THE UNIVERSE OF INTERFACE ZERO FROM GUNMETAL GAMES

Featuring 11 interior illustrations from Michael Rechlin Welcome to Nexus, the center of all dimensions and universes, where species from every corner of reality join in their mutual obsession with the gladiatorial death matches hosted in spacebound barge arenas. Aboard these heaps of interstellar flotsam, Fate isn't some fickle mistress. She's out for blood.One day, you're living large, enjoying a few savvy wagers on a recent arena bout and imbibing a dozen illegal substances just to take the edge off. The next, you're dead in a barge gutter, food for mutant vermin.Could it get any worse? Sure. You could be the poor sonovasprukker who has to clean up all the corpses.That would be Rahgz, a luckless scavenger who lost every Bit to his name not a day after boarding the barge that's become his prison. Scrounging for every scrap he can choke down, Rahgz spends his cycles dodging murderous coworkers, ducking security droids, and praying the universe ignores his pathetic existence.But after he "volunteers" for an experimental implant that's supposed to enhance his perceptions and decision-making processes, things get...well, stranger than usual.Against all odds, Rahgz's new mental guidance system starts steering him through situations where he's not being constantly left for dead. Unexpected profit, plentiful food, and slightly-less-psychotic companions start getting sucked into his orbit, culminating with him acquiring a gladiatorial servant of his own and joining the ranks of lanista, the celebrated souls who oversee the barge bouts.Swept up in this fluke of good fortune, Rahgz is determined to keep his newfound fame at all costs-but there's always a price to pay for glory.And when Mistress Fate delivers the bill, she's more than happy to carve what she's owed out of flesh, blood, and bone.

Odd things are afoot in the Cleaners, which, for a company that regularly mops up magical messes involving garbage gremlins and dust demons, is saying something. Ben's powers have inexplicably returned, stronger than ever, but he's now plagued with an unquenchable thirst-fortunately just for water, not blood.Dani is distracted from her friend's unusual predicament by her rigorous training under the tutelage of her sentient employee manual (which she's starting to suspect isn't standard company issue). Not only that, but the elemental spirits that fuel her powers have become a little too high maintenance, demanding free will and other nonsense.Then information surfaces that offers new clues to the incident that killed Ben's wife and left him temporarily insane and dying of a Corrupt disease. Ignoring concerns about the volatility of his restored abilities, Ben and his long-time colleague, Lucy, arrange a stealthy fact-finding mission into unexplored Sewer depths, determined to discover anything they can about his murky past.The instant they embark, however, Cleaners HQ comes under attack, leaving Ben and Lucy stranded in enemy territory. Defying direct orders from the Chairman, Dani mounts a rescue, conscripting four elderly window-washers who have unprecedented access to the mysterious glassways the company uses for magical transportation and surveillance.As the team races to recover their imperiled peers, their every step closer enacts a deadly toll. And despite Ben and Lucy confronting living pockets of gas and fecal fiends, the greatest danger may lie in the revelations they unearth in the bowels of the Sewers.That, or the general lack of water fountains.