Novels by Ceecee

Kathy parked her car on the gravel shoulder along the cracked asphalt of Gate Seven and stepped out.The Westside Industrial Park was quiet. A light breeze moved through the wide, unpaved lanes and carried the smell of dust, engine oil, and sun-baked concrete. On either side of the road, low steel warehouses and commercial yards sat behind chain-link fences.She walked up to the perimeter wall of the Westside Depot. The ten-foot wall was poured concrete, topped with angled rows of rusted razor wire. The main entrance was a double steel gate anchored into concrete pillars.She took the master key card from her bag, slid it out of its blue protective casing, and pressed the magnetic strip against the scanner on the iron post.A red light flickered twice and turned green, and a pneumatic latch released with a dull thud. Kathy pushed one side of the gate open just wide enough to step through, then latched it behind her.The inner courtyard was wide. Weeds grew through the cracks in the co

On the morning of June 14, the glass doors of Meridian Commercial Bank's central branch slid shut behind Kathy and cut off the noise of downtown traffic. The lobby was lined with marble, and its high ceilings were built to project permanence, safety, and authority.Kathy walked past the line of tellers toward the glass-walled offices for executive account services. In her jacket pocket, her phone vibrated every few minutes with alerts about failed electronic payments.She pushed open the glass door of the third corner office. Behind a dark desk sat Arthur, senior vice president of personal asset management. He adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles and looked up from a thick paper folder."Kathy," Arthur said, his voice measured and warm. He gestured to the leather chair across from him. "Please, sit down. I saw your name in the priority queue, though I wish we were meeting under better circumstances."Kathy did not sit. She stood in front of the desk with one hand on the back of the cha

The fluorescent lights of the wholesale outlet hummed overhead, casting a harsh glare across rows of stacked pallets. It was late morning, and the dry goods aisle was nearly empty.Kathy pushed a steel flatbed cart down the main lane, scanning the cardboard boxes. On her left wrist, under her sleeve, the faint square mark pulsed with a low, steady beat.She needed to know the exact rules of her space before spending a single dollar of her capital.She stopped in front of a pallet of bulk instant noodles and loaded ten twenty-pack boxes onto her cart. Two aisles down, she added twenty five-gallon jugs of drinking water, five cases of canned meat, and a box of commercial heat packs used for warming food.She pushed the loaded cart to the far corner of the warehouse section, behind a wall of stacked timber pallets, where an overhead concrete pillar blocked the security cameras.Kathy checked her surroundings. The nearby aisle was silent.She rested her bare hand on top of a water jug and

The morning of June 13 was mild outside the notary's office, but inside the glass-walled room the atmosphere was stiff and cold.Luiz sat back in a leather chair with his ankles crossed, tapping his fingers on the armrest. Beside him, Arzu smoothed the hem of her tailored cream dress and glanced at Kathy with a thin, satisfied smile. On the desk between them lay two thick sets of legal forms: the corporate asset division and the property release deed."Let's be clear, Kathy," Luiz said, resting his elbows on the desk. "The fifty thousand dollars you took yesterday was a personal courtesy. The board reviewed the filings this morning, and the agreement is not valid until it is notarized, along with the release of your shares. Technically, your operational role was classified as advisory. If we take this to court, the case will drag on for two years, and you will end up with nothing after legal fees."Arzu leaned closer to him and rested a hand on his forearm. "Luiz is only trying to sav

The concrete pressed hot and hard against Kathy's face. Every breath pulled dry heat into her throat and burned her lungs until she could barely expand her chest. Outside the central supply bunker, the air in the shade was over fifty degrees Celsius and the ground in the sun was over sixty, and the soles of her shoes had started to soften.Behind the iron security gate, Luiz stood in the shaded entrance, his linen shirt completely dry. Arzu stood beside him, tilting a plastic bottle to drink ice-cold water and letting the excess spill onto the stone floor."We ran the rationing algorithm again, Kathy," Luiz said, his voice flat over the gate speaker. "There is no room in the allocation for someone who isn't assigned. Arzu needs the stability, and so does our child."Kathy pressed her cracked, bleeding palms against the hot steel bars and tried to force words past her swollen tongue. "I built this supply network, Luiz. Every crate in that vault has my signature on the manifest."Arzu t