Goddess in the Machine

When Andromeda woke, she was drowning.

They d warned her this would happen that her lungs would burn and her eyes would sting and she d have to fight for that first breath. But you must take it, they said. If you don t, your lungs will collapse and we ll have to put you in a coma and just hope for the best.

Okay, maybe those weren t their exact words.

She pulled in a breath, just like they told her. It burned. It stung. She fought. Water flooded her lungs, and the bitter taste of saline filled her mouth. Something was wrong. Something she couldn t quite place.

Her fist shot out, grasping for help, but it slammed into something solid. There it was the wrongness. Ten-inch-thick metallic glass enforced with veins of diamond dust. Latched together with hinges of a tantalum-tungsten alloy. Supposed to be yawning open when she woke. But it wasn t. It was still closed, cocooning her in cold metal and melting cryo protectant.

Calculations fired in her brain, searching for missing information, evaluating variables, solving for X. She d just been put to sleep, and now she was drowning. No. It only felt like she d just been put to sleep. It had actually been a hundred years. And now, she was waking up and (oh god) naked, but her chamber was still closed.

Something was definitely wrong.

They d prepared her for this possibility waking too early or crisis aborts or faulty latches but it was hard to remember emergency plans in the middle of an emergency.

There was a button somewhere . . .

 . . . or a switch?

She was too lightheaded. Her hands didn t work. Her brain was shutting down, synapses sparking, sending a single message:

air air air air air

She struck the glass again. It didn t even crack. It was meant to last centuries, meant to withstand zero gravity and a thousand times atmospheric pressure and two thousand degrees kelvin and zero

As an only child, Lora Beth Johnson grew up telling herself stories and reading past her bedtime. She spent her adulthood collecting degrees, careers, and stamps in her passport before realizing her passion for creating fictional worlds. When she's not writing, she's teaching college English and learning new languages. She lives in Davidson, NC with her little roommate, Colocataire the Yorki-poo. Goddess in the Machine is her first book.

Find Lora Beth on Twitter @LoraBethWrites

* "An intriguing story filled with politics, science fiction, and romance, and which offers twists and turns galore, right up to the last page . . . A must-purchase for all YA science fiction collections."  School Library Journal, starred review 

"This futuristic reimagining of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale features impressive world-building and provides a promising start to a dystopian series blending sci-fi adventure with palace intrigue."  The New York Times 

Johnson s rich, intelligent world blends sci-fi elements with palace intrigue and swoon-worthy characters in a way that is wholly unique and utterly brilliant. This book will make you laugh, make you fall in love, and then it'll blow your mind. Emily Suvada, award-winning author of the Mortal Coil series

"Utterly inventive and unique, this story has more surprises in store for you than you can imagine." Beth Revis, New York Times bestselling author of Across the Universe and Give the Dark My Love