Search Worlds Without End

This novelette originally appeared in Clarkesworld, Issue 112, January 2016. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2 (2017), edited by Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Eliza McKay is, by extreme necessity, a low-profile Extractionist. McKay is an expert in the virtual reality space where minds are uploaded as digital personas. When rich or important people get stuck in the Swim for reasons that are sleazy, illegal, or merely unlucky--it's her job to quietly extract them. And McKay's job just got a lot more dangerous.

After McKay repels an attack on her Swim persona, hired thugs break into her house to try to hack her cybernetic implants directly. Meanwhile, the corporate executive she was hired to rescue from VR space is surprisingly reluctant to be extracted. Something is lurking in the Swim, and some very powerful people will stop at nothing to keep it secret. This job might be the big break McKay has been waiting for to reboot her career--but only if she can survive long enough to beat the hackers at their own game.

"Welcome to Extraction testing"

Clementine has spent her whole life preparing for her 16th birthday when she'll be tested for Extraction, in the hopes of being sent from Kiel's toxic Surface to the much safer Core, where people live without fear or starvation. When she proves promising enough to be "Extracted," she must leave without Logan, the boy she loves. Torn apart from her only sense of family, Clem promises to come back and save him from brutal Surface life. What she finds initially at the Core is a utopia compared to the Surface--it's free of hard labor, gun-wielding officials, and the moon's lethal acid--but life is anything but safe, and Clementine learns that the planet's leaders are planning to exterminate Surface dwellers--and that means Logan, too. Trapped by the steel walls of the underground and the lies that keep her safe, Clementine must find a way to escape and rescue Logan and the rest of the planet. But the planet's leaders don't want her running--they want her subdued.

With intense action scenes and a cast of unforgettable characters, Stephanie Diaz's Extraction is a page-turning, gripping read.

The uprising has begun.

It's been seven days since Clementine and Logan, along with their allies, retreated into hiding on the Surface. The rebels may have won one battle against Commander Charlie, but the fight is far from finished. He has vowed to find a way to win--no matter the cost. Do the rebels have what it takes to defeat him...and put an end to this war?

As Clementine and Logan enter a desperate race against time to defeat Commander Charlie--and attempt to weaken his power within his own ranks--they find themselves in a terrifying endgame that pits them against a brutal enemy, and each other. With every step, Clementine draws closer to losing Logan...and losing control of herself.

Continuing with the mesmerizing saga that started with Extraction, Stephanie Diaz blends science fiction, epic romance, and heart-stopping adventure to create a world that no reader will soon forget.

Clementine's world is on the brink of destruction. An army of aliens from the distant planet Marden has arrived with a massive fleet of battleships, intent on finally putting an end to the war Kiel's old rulers initiated. With the Alliance headquarters reduced to rubble and one of the rebel leaders close to death, Clementine and her friends have no choice but to retreat to the Core to escape the alien ships attacking the Surface.

But safety in the Core means forming a temporary alliance with their sworn enemy, Commander Charlie. He's a ruthless man and a liar, but striking a bargain with him--his pardon in exchange for their help defeating the Mardenites--is the only way the rebels might survive the war. And Charlie needs their help too, for Marden's force is more powerful than anyone anticipated, with weapons and technologies never before seen on Kiel. Unless old feuds can be set aside long enough for a diplomatic solution to be found, all of Kiel's people will be destroyed, and everything Clementine and her friends have sacrificed in their fight for peace will have been for nothing.

Aboard a notorious criminal syndicate's luxurious starliner, Commonwealth operative Simon Kovalic and his crew race to steal a mysterious artifact that could shift the balance of war...

Still reeling from a former teammate's betrayal, Commonwealth operative Simon Kovalic and his band of misfit spies have no time to catch their breath before being sent on another impossible mission: to pull off the daring heist of a quasi-mythical alien artifact, right out from under the nose of the galaxy's most ruthless crime lord.

But their cold war rivals, the Illyrican Empire, want the artifact for themselves. And Kovalic's newest recruit, Specialist Addy Sayers, is a volatile ex-con with a mean hair-trigger who might put the whole mission at risk. Can Kovalic hold it all together, or will the team tear themselves apart before they can finish the job?