Exit Black
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Imperium is the most expensive structure ever created. Once an orbiting laboratory, it is now a space hotel for the fantastically wealthy. But as the station preps for its first group of space tourists, Dr. Chloe Bonilla, Imperiumâs resident biophysicist, finds herself questioning whether babysitting a passel of space glampers is worth the distraction from her research.
A private rocket delivers a roguesâ gallery of the worldâs elite to Imperium: eccentric billionaires, callow tech bros, a sponsored Instagram influencer, and a seemingly saintly philanthropist. However, posing among the staff are members of a global terrorist group who call themselves the Reckoners, hell bent on upending the economic inequality of twenty-first-century Earthâand they have a bone to pick with these scions of the 1 percent.
As the Reckoners take control of Imperium and demand an $8 billion ransom from their wealthy hostages, itâs up to Dr. Bonilla to save them, and fast. Or the captives will be forced to exit the stationâand thereâs only one way out.
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Joe Pitkin has lived, taught, and studied in England, Hungary, and Mexico and now teaches at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. His short stories have appeared in the Boston Review, Analog, Black Static, Cosmos, and other magazines and podcasts, as well as on his blog, The Subway Test. He lives in Portland, Oregon, in the shadow of a small extinct volcano.
