Progress Update: Motive: Unknown

Motive: Unknown is a story that’s been with me for about five years now. It spent some time on the back burner, but I’ve been returning to it whenever I can find the time, and it’s been fun to rediscover the story with fresh perspective. Over the years, the book has changed direction a few times as the characters developed and clearer, stronger paths emerged.

The story is now mostly locked down. My current focus is editing, expanding a few sections that need more room to breathe, and trimming others that no longer serve the narrative. While the project was originally inspired by a film, it has since diverged sharply from that source. The opening still carries some resemblance, but the story quickly becomes its own, shaped by the characters and the decisions they’re forced to make. If all goes well, I’m hopeful Motive: Unknown will be ready for publication by February.

Below is the updated prologue. This version reflects the tone and direction the story ultimately took and is intended to better set up the themes and character choices that follow.

Motive: Unknown - Prologue

The apartment was barely livable, a testament to neglect, with its cream colored walls yellowed and scarred, a carpet so worn and stained its original color was anybody’s guess. A loose piece of tape, evidence of a failed attempt to silence the old fridge’s incessant rattle, still clung to it, wavering with every vibration.

A sharp ping sliced through the silence and startled a small mouse, sending it scurrying across the floor. 

“Relax, Ralph,” Striker said, watching his little companion crawl into a small hole at the base of the wall. “It’s just a call.”

But he felt anything but relaxed. He wasn’t expecting a call, and not many people had this number.

“What?” he answered roughly.

A giggle, bright and innocent in a way that made the room feel even heavier with despair and regret. The playful voice of a young girl came through the line. “Is Lilly there?”

A cold wave of dread swept through him. “Wrong number.” He ended the call with a jab of his finger. It was the signal that every undercover agent feared. His cover was blown. Time to disappear.

Adrenaline surged as he grabbed his worn jacket. He gave Ralph a quick goodbye, locking the door behind him before the habitual check for his concealed weapon. Daylight offered the illusion of safety in Marlon Colony, but the night stripped that illusion away.

The plan was simple, make it to the orbital freight transfer station a few kilometers away and bribe his way onto a crew shuttle. The night was bitingly cold, the result of a leaky dome and a city too cheap to warm the frigid air it pumped in from storage tanks. His jacket was laughably inadequate, but an autocab was out of the question. Their systems were notoriously easy for hackers to exploit, making passenger tracking trivial..

He moved swiftly through the industrial zone, shrouded in shadows, where dimly lit shops nestled under rows of low-cost apartments. The cheap and nearly indestructible brick lights that had been slapped haphazardly onto the buildings by some uncaring municipal worker decades ago cast a patchwork of light and dark across the pavement, the dark spots prevailing.  

The faint hum of distant traffic, punctuated by sporadic bursts of infotainment systems from the apartments above, gave the abandoned streets an eerie, desolate feel. Only criminals and the foolish were out on these streets at this time of night.

His instincts flared as the unmistakable prickle of being watched crept up his spine. Decades with the Starell Intelligence Service, commonly known as SIS, had honed his senses sharp as daggers. They had saved his skin more times than he cared to count.

A faint, high-pitched whine echoed from above; an unsettling sound that might have been innocuous in another life. To Striker, it screamed danger. A plasma weapon charging. This was no street punk. He veered into an alley, heart pounding in his ears.

Dead end. He was met with the foul stench of rotting food from an overflowing dumpster and an old delivery skiff left neglected in the cramped space. The alley’s only other exit was a steel door, flaking with paint, thoroughly locked. He looked up. Small, barred windows offered no escape.

He tapped the scuffed face of his wristcomm, the perfect piece of street-trash camouflage. The small holoscreen sputtered to life, and Striker quickly activated the recon feature. A hidden port slid open along the side and the micro-drone, a SIS specialty no larger than a flea, slipped free into the night. The high-end AI in his wristcomm sending it on a sweep of the area looking for threats.

A low hum and soft thud broke the silence behind him; the distinct sound of a gravbelt landing. Striker’s pulse spiked. His wristcomm buzzed a belated warning from his drone. He wasn’t alone, and the alert had come too late.

He turned slowly, his hands lifted to his sides, a forced calmness in his movements. Inches from his face, the ominous glow of a plasma pistol’s chamber cast eerie shadows. 

His adversary was alarmingly nondescript, her features so ordinary it was as if she was crafted to be forgotten. Her smirk showed a hint of satisfaction as she toyed with him, savoring the moment. 

Striker was running out of options fast. Cornered in a filthy alley with nowhere to go, he couldn’t see a way out of this one. He should never have taken this assignment. His son had already lost his mother, and if Striker fell here, the kid would have no family left. The thought hit hard. 

But another part of him pushed back. This was the life he’d chosen. Through his work, he’d helped make the galaxy a safer place for his son. He’d helped take down gangs, terrorists, cartels. He’d saved lives, even if few would ever know the part he played.

Desperation drove him as he lunged for the gun. She flicked a control on her gravbelt, lifting herself smoothly out of reach. He couldn’t get control of the weapon, but the move bought him just enough time to dive behind the dumpster.

Scrambling for his concealed blaster, his fingers fumbled with the urgency of the moment. A bolt of plasma whizzed by, grazing his arm and igniting his sleeve. The ground erupted as the super-heated shot struck the pavement, blasting it apart and sending molten asphalt into his face, blinding him.

His scream tore through the night, a raw sound of pain and defiance. He never heard the second shot.

***

Clearance Level: Top Secret, Authorization Poplar Mango
Received: 4386-June-10 0354 GSDT
From: Striker, deceased
Location: Marlin Colony
Attention: Colonel Liam Wilde, Starell Intelligence
Service Subject: Previously unknown organization planning action against assembly

I have begun my investigation into Ambassador Stevens’ death. I asked a colleague to run an analysis of the recent string of ambassadorial fatalities, and his conclusion was clear. The number of deaths we’ve seen in the past few years is, statistically speaking, extremely unlikely to be explained by random accidents or medical issues, as they appear to be.

While conducting interviews with the ambassador’s staff, two of them mentioned a group of unfamiliar men who had been following them in the days prior to the crash. I tracked those individuals to a bar near the ambassador’s residence, the same district where her flitter malfunctioned.

I overheard them bragging about “keeping an eye on the right people” in the days leading up to the accident. The conversation didn’t imply direct involvement, but the tone suggested they believed they’d helped someone who was.

Infiltrating the group wasn’t exactly a masterclass in tradecraft. Acting drunk, I stumbled past their table, agreed with some ridiculous conspiracy theory one of them was ranting about, then told them about how prenatal scans are used to implant tracking chips in babies before they are born. I followed it up with a tirade about the “nest of chaos-loving tyrants in the Assembly” and boom, instant membership. They even gave me a codename, “Punk”. I’d be offended, but judging by the codenames for the rest of them (“Lunk,” “Junk,”, and “Funk”), I think I got the best of the set.

They call themselves the Brotherhood of Patriot Knights for Liberty, though I just call them the Unks. They claim affiliation with a larger, anti-Assembly organization known as the Sovereign Mandate. The Unks believe this organization operates across the Confederation.

Orders come from a mysterious contact who calls himself “Shadow.” All assignments filter though Lunk. They haven’t heard from Shadow since Ambassador Stevens’ death and they have no idea how the flitter was compromised to look accidental. I can say with absolute confidence that the Unks possess neither the skills nor intelligence to have pulled it off.

I’ll remain embedded with the Unks and focus on uncovering Shadow’s identity. For now, their motive remains unknown.