Liza interviews a character from SA Hoag's The Vista

My guest today is Mac - Alex MacKenzie, the founding member of Team Three from S.A. Hoag's book The Vista.

Space Rep: Can I interrogate him. You never let me do anything anymore?

Liza: Please note I crossed out interrogation. But you may interview him.

Space Rep: All right! Let's get right to the good stuff; tell us about yourself Mac.

Mac: The basics.  I was born in Phoenix, state of Arizona, and I'd just turned four when my parents found other survivors here in The Vista.  My twin siblings are eight years younger than me and my youngest sister is fifteen years younger.  Both my natural parents are alive and well here also.  I've been in Security a few years, plan on a few more I suppose.

Space Rep: That's all very generalized.

  

Mac: Were you expecting intimate details?

Space Rep: Yes.  That's what the interview is for - the juicy details. And I need to outshine Liza.

Mac:  Alright.  Fire away.

Space Rep: Tell us something about yourself very few people know.

Mac:  How about something totally unrelated to Security?  I remember that first winter in The Vista.  Being four, I vaguely understood things were all gone wrong.  I was worried about all the snow, so much of it that if I got lost, they'd never find me.  I don't remember before, living in the desert, but it had to be a factor.  Snow was a completely foreign concept.  Until I was a bit older and my dad taught me to ski, the snow terrified me.  I supposed that was my brain's way of dealing with all the things going on around me that I just didn't understand.

Space Rep: Poignant, but not going to impress Liza. Try again. Ever been in trouble?

Mac: I got myself busted back a couple of times.  The first time I told a fellow officer he had his head up his . . . well, posterior.  Yeah, that's a good word for it.  I should have used it then.  The other time I had a conflict with a Councilman and Security Command frowned upon how public the display was.

Space Rep:  So you have somewhat of a temper.

Mac:  No, not really.  I was right in both instances.  Some people don't like hearing that they're wrong.  I can take criticism, hell, I took the demotions without bitching and moaning. 

Space Rep: Tell us about something you'd like to talk about.

Mac:  That's an interesting offer. 

Liza: Not really. He's just run out of questions. So try to help him out.

Mac: Let's see . . .  This whole mess we found ourselves in.  We looked like chickens running around with our heads cut off.  We were clueless and eager to go out and find a fight.  We got a fight, and then some.  The point is, we did what we had to do, to protect The Vista.  Anyone that thinks it's a lie or an excuse is a clueless as we were.

Space Rep: Note to self: Don't let interviewees create the questions. Their answers don't make sense when you don't know what question they are answering. 

Liza: A good thing to learn. Now get back to the interview and dig deep!

Space Rep:  I understand you have a relationship with the female teammate and Hunter has intruded on that.

Mac: Wrong.  Our relationship isn't something that can be 'intruded on'.  If she develops a relationship with someone else, that's her concern.  She's an adult, she has that option.  It doesn't change anything between us.

Space Rep:  Are you involved with other women?

Mac: Occasionally.

Space Rep: Wow! Team Three doesn't seem to be particularly monogamous.  Do you think that's a result of the Gen En?

Mac:  The what?

Space Rep: Of your Genetical Enhancements.

Mac: I've no idea what you're talking about.

Space Rep: You have to know you're genetically enhanced. It says so in the blurb below!

Mac: Nope. We are just normal people who do extraordinary things.

Space Rep: *sighs heavily* Do you think the generation gap between the original survivors and their children is going to cause problems in The Vista in the future?

Mac: No more than it ever has before.  We're not so different, you know.

Space Rep: Except for the Gen En part. What about your future?  Any specific plans you can share?

Mac:  We're expanding, getting out there in the big, wide world.  I have commitments but I don't plan on being chained down if I get the urge to . . . wander.  Like I said, there's a big world out there.

Space Rep: *slams head on table*  I give up. Interviewing is harder than I realized.

Liza: If it's any consolation, I thought you did well for a newbie. Maybe I should have let you interrogate him. He's a tough nut to crack.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mockup of the Vista cover created by Joe Kowana

The Vista

 by

S.A. Hoag

  Team Three has a secret, one they think they've kept from all but a select few colleagues. They couldn't be more wrong.

  Allen, MacKenzie and Wade are Vista Security's top officers, part of the first generation post-WW3. Their secret - they are genetically enhanced and psychically connected. Hidden away in an enclave in the Rocky Mountains, they're also at the forefront of the movement to see what's left of the outside world.

  As they attempt to learn the truth, their presence makes them targets of a vicious renegade with the means to destroy everything they know. Facing exile or worse, Team Three has short time to figure out who is enemy, who is friend and how to save their home and themselves.

  A storm moved in after nightfall, the rain almost ice as it fell from a black sky. No thunder, sparse lightning and that was the worst part of it – the broken, eerie silence between downpours. 

Shannon didn’t like being in the city for any reason. Twice a week, four months a year she was anyway. It was her job. They might say ghosts weren’t real, but most of ‘them’ had never spent a night in the long dead place. Sometime after midnight, she gave in and headed for home.

  Crossing the Continental Divide, the rain turned to snow, huge white flakes splattering on the windshield and not melting. The road was mostly clear. Static on Shannon’s radio was thick, but moments later, she understood two words. Code Seven. Active aggressive incident outside the outer perimeter, but active aggressive still. She kicked it into overdrive and came down the mountain full tilt, pushing the car and pushing her luck on a road known to devour Scouts.

  Then the outer marker merely went ‘blip’ as she passed it. If there was an alert, proximity warnings would have gone off all over Security. Alarms should be sounding in Dispatch and her car. She stared at the radio for a moment, realizing what she had stumbled in to.

  Wargames. The call-out wasn’t real.

  

S.A. Hoag

I knew before I got to high school that I wanted to write books.  I did, too, dozens of short stories I thought someday I'd turn into novels.  Oh, how I wish I had those spiral notebooks full of wild ideas and teenage musings.

I still have the ideas from many of those stories - some of  them make me cringe.  There are always new ideas too.  Some are amazing, some are just silly.  A few will become something more as I add books to my list of those that are published.

For now, I live in the desert and many nights, in between writing and sleep, you can find me out watching the stars.  It's dark, out here in the desert and I can see so many stars that weren't there before.  I make time to write now.   The tiny seeds of stories demand that I write them down.

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy creating them.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

'The Vista', Book 1 of The Wildblood will be available in April, date TBA. 

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My blog:  https://topaz08.wordpress.com/