Blood on the Matrix is a personal horror series about life and death in the dark, corporatized near future. It stars Serena-Olivine Ramneau, a hapless programmer-turned corporate commando in the employ of the sinister Bathrette Beautronics, a cosmetics company recently diversifying into the cutthroat, but profitable world of cybernetic enhancements. Having been granted a new lease on life, the story focuses on Serena trying to make the most out of it, while balancing her danger and excitement-filled professional obligations, as well as the grisly complications that resulted from the bleeding-edge treatment she'd been given in order to defy what should have been her own death.
This is the first written work I've actually published, and also my first foray into the world of horror! I hope you enjoy it!
-Joe
From this page, you can either read whichever book in this series you choose on it's own webpage, by clicking the 'web' button (or any of the other elements), or download a .pdf copy to read offline or on a mobile device by clicking the 'pdf' button.
If you want to read this book in PDF form, I recommend using SumatraPDF on Desktop or MuPDF on Mobile.
In the money and business-dominated world of the near future, a particular hapless cog in the machine at Bathrette Beautronics, Serena-Olivine Ramneau, cybersecurity technician and console cowgirl, is struck down by fate, rolling snake-eyes at the great craps table of life. In less advanced times, she would be dead - and that would be that.
Her story doesn't end there, however. Today, as it turns out, is her lucky day. The sinister cosmetics and cybernetics conglomerate she works for forces her into a breakthrough medical procedure that saves her from death. Of course, it does come with a catch. Quite a few catches, as Serena discovers. It gives her a new lease on life - and a dark secret to protect.
Serena Olivine-Ramneau is adjusting to her sanguine condition and to her new position at the sinister cosmetics conglomerate Bathrette Beautronics reasonably well, and her bosses think it's about time for her to prove her mettle by sending her out on a real mission.
Unfortunately for her, it's far from a milk run. A high-level scientist at the company has disappeared, and the secrets he knows - not to mention the... Questionable research he was involved with - make him exceptionally dangerous for Bathrette Beautronics, and the bosses want Serena and her colleagues, the coquettish and analytical spy, Lisa Klauetzer, and the playful and overly-positive scientist, Dr. Gabriel McGarahann, to track Dr. Lazerian down and drag him before the board of directors to answer for his actions.
Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it seems. A mysterious cabal of immortality-seekers on The Matrix, a series of disappearances plaguing the city, and, of course, Serena's own literal need for blood threaten to further complicate matters, even before the vampire and her colleagues finally answer the question of exactly what Dr. Lazerian was researching before he disappeared?
Bathrette Beautronics' main lines of revenue are cosmetics and cybernetic enhancements, but that's not all they do. When they're not tracking down dangerous threats to the company, their crack commando division, the Special Asset Protection Squad sometimes contracts out it's services to those with a big problem and lots of cash. It's for one of these missions that Serena-Olivine Ramneau, console cowgirl, cybernetic commando, blood-drinking horror of the night, is pulled from the company's 'Wintertide' ball to take care of.
It seems to be a simple job, and right up her alley as a hacker: exorcise a rogue program from a corporate mainframe. Of course, the program is much more than she seems, and there's more going on than Serena knows at a glance. Much more danger, too. She'll need help from likely - and unlikely - places to come out on top and get to the bottom of everything, going from the ritziest, to the most appallingly poor - and dangerous! - parts of Saint Petersburg in search of an answer, confronting murder, mad science, and existential terror along the way. All the while, she'll need to keep her thirst for blood under control, and keep the secret behind her continued existence from prying (bespectacled) eyes...