Ghost Sickness Version Two

I'm rewriting all my Nuegua pieces, except for "No Mercy in the Cathedral", which is already complete.

To prevent info dump, I'm going to rewrite the first chapter of the Nuegua books , "Ghost Sickness". All the elements are there for building a complete world, but the sense of urgency was not. Therefore the plot got bogged down in the middle. I went back to a present-day street map of Paradise Valley Arizona for my solution. The team of Finds-Water, Hunts-The-Ruins,Alathea and Rintiala have just come from Pima Highway and are facing west, staring at the fetish (a combination of biohazard signs and vulture skulls). As soon as they set foot in Aqua Linda park, the Sky Wanderer technology and the local ecology is alerted to intruders. The team's goal is to travel down East McDonald Drive (approximately one and a half miles straight run. The Sanctuary at Camelback Mountain is line-of-sight to the team. I'm going to stress how easy it looks: flat desert highway, no visible obstacles. All that remains of Paradise Valley's inhabitants are the chandelier-like buildings of the Sky Wanderers and their indestructible roadway called carbocrete.
Arrayed against them, and well hidden in the safe spots are the Western Bandits, coyotes, bioengineered wolves, and worse automatons who normally are the maintainers of the Sanctuary.

What is the main goal of this guantlet? Rintiala has had a dream (inside a Cactus Mother, so that Alathea can verify it) of a glowing sapphire ball that will open up all the Sky Wanderer buildings and deactivate their defenses.

Just how dangerous are these buildings. All one has to do is to direct one's gaze into a ground-level window, and the automatons will sense intelligent life. Coyotes are free to roam the streets. The wolves, created by the Sky Wanderers , will catch and kill any interlopers that manage to get by the automatons.

Even worse, earlier attempts to open even small outlying buildings have unleased virulent plagues that decimated the Western Bandit population in the area. Rintiala plans to enter the Sanctuary itself.

Further complications: Paradise Valley is a highly contested area. The Phoenix Apache, wishing to take their place in the nation of Apacheria, need to drive the Western Bandits out of the greater Phoenix area, and to remove the dangers of the Sanctuary. To do this, they have entered into an agreement with the Healing Sisters of Tiala, altering the political structure of the area. The Tialans, have never ventured out of the confines of Nuegua. Finds-Water and Hunts-The-Ruins are taking a calculated risk that the resulting wealth flowing out of the Sky Wanderers cities will position them at the top of Apacheria. Both have their reasons for doing so.

Alathea, knowing that Tialans are declining in influence within Apacheria as the Demetrans grow vastly more numerous has decided that the direct approach of a joint venture is necessary. Demetrans are having many, many children from the Apache Traders and as a result the purist Tialans may become a mere curiosity in a few more generations.

For Rintiala, the youngest of them, the goal is simple. To find and control this talisman will ensure her promotion to First Sister.