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Description:

In this future earth, if you're not connected, you simply don't exist. Ecological collapse, terrorism, and new, opportunistic viruses have devastated the entire planet. All faith in authority has vanished, and people are loyal only to their tribal networks. Zachary Crowe is a facially disfi gured outcast who escapes a low-tech prison zone and begins a desperate search for his vanished wife. On the run from the authorities, he wanders the world alone—without a network, friends, or life-enhancing technology. Hunted by a tribe that wants to cull his unadulterated genetic material, Zachary Crowe will soon discover the true nature of terror—and the impossible price of love...

“A spellbinding vision of the future realized in fantastic detail. This is what the human race is in for. The taste, the sound, the very feel of the future is written here—and it’s terrifying."
JC Smith, author, The Pathless Land

“Fascinating elements of fairy tales, magic and legend. A fast-moving tale that touches on all the major themes—death, celebrity, love and loss. A gem.”
Lou Rhimes, COSMOS magazine

“A great debut. It’s rich with detail, utterly convincing and terrifying, too.”
Lynne Bryan, author, Gorgeous and Like Rabbits

Excerpt:

Josh carried me bodily through a gang of gloating onlookers and back to the blue strip where AT waited. “Don’t try it, dipshit. You’ll get through. There’s no going back now.”

This nightmare I knew would end at the exit-gate screen. It performed hundreds of checks: ID authentication, brain scan, body scent, facial recognition, deep tissue DNA. Thousands of DNA particles were shedding from my skin every second. No one had ever escaped. I knew I could signal the monitors, call out for a ward guard, tell them I was a DATCHO. Maybe they wouldn’t kill me, maybe just take away my privileges, put me back on the street. But I knew I wouldn’t. I couldn’t go through it all again. All those years of guile, of second-guessing the shifting sands of gang hierarchy, of fear in the night. Over to our right, the barrier, pylons of filament punctured the sky and between them a grid of vibrating sensa-wire. We followed the barrier, buzzed constantly by our host of hornets and already the main gate was in sight. Pillars of steel curved gently outwards forming the giant “O” of the exit shutter.

Involuntarily, my feet stopped when I saw the cluster of blue-sheathed ward guards waiting by the screen gate.

“C’mon!” Josh’s fist in my back. I took it all in, the puce blotch of obscured sun, distant vultures spiralling in a vortex of heat, the orange stained sidewalk scrawled with tribal markings like runes. I felt my final moments falling away. The monitors closed in to a “V” formation as a ward guard approached.

“Wait!”

The guard wore ludicrous amounts of body armor, the blue plates overstating the curves of her body like some fetishist’s idea of a mechanized Venus. Her elbow creaked as she put her hand on my shoulder.

I brought my hand up, pinching the bridge of my nose as she scanned me with lupe-sheathed eyes. I heaved hard at the air, trying to drag down the speed of my maddened pulse. When I glanced into the polished black face I searched vainly for the eyes behind the blue-tinted lenses. Those spex could sample DNA from a hundred feet, could input monitor feeds, read my body language, and, in particular, smell bullshit, with lie-detecting hardware built in. Her voice was surprisingly soft.

“You people are in trouble. Your movement patterns display erratic configurations. You haven’t followed normal procedure and you aren’t accompanied by a ward guard. I’m extremely concerned.”

“We’re leaving,” Josh barked uselessly behind me.

I kept my hand over the middle of my face. She was so tall I could see the honeycomb air filters in her nostrils. She bore the scent of something oily and dark, like graphite. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” I said with an edge of apology. “These people are responsible. I’m just trying to stay out of trouble.”

Her expressionless visage turned to AT. “Anthony Taldori, why did you tell your escort you would remain for three hours, when you actually stayed for only twenty-five minutes? What was the purpose of your visit to block E?’

“Ah, I had an argument with my proposed inmate…The guy I was visiting wasn’t in his cell. I was kinda lost.”

That was three reasons and clearly crap, but it didn’t stop Josh adding, “That’s correct.”

Her blue-glazed gaze returned to me. “Why did you run off the safety strip?”

I said nothing, rubbed my nose as if to wipe its stain away. I must have looked the shiftiest shyster in the zone.

“I need to cross reference your signs with facial recognition,” she said. “Take your hand away.” Hot prickles ran over my cheeks, a thunderous pulse in my ears. My ankle throbbed. How unexceptional these last moments, no transcendental insights, no divine visions. Just the mundane sensations of the body.

“We got passes, we’re within the law,” Josh was getting agitated, panting heavily, his brow blinking red.

Data fluttered briefly in the blue lupes. She knocked my hand away, grabbed my chin and wrenched my face up, inhaling sharply as she saw the birthmark, the ravaged skin. A full minute passed while more data blinked under her brow.

She hesitated.

“Why didn’t you explain yourself earlier, Mister Tarn?”

Mister Tarn. Maybe the trick was still holding. Instinctively I repressed the lie give-aways—any exaggerated gestures, blinking, shuffling feet. I’m Mick Tarn, I told myself, a putty-faced, personal lifestyle consultant, from Chicagoland. I love shoes, blues music and near-milk coffee.

“I don’t know what my situation is…”

“Fascists!” Josh leaned forwards and rapped his knuckles on the seam around her armored shoulder. “You think all men are criminals? You think you can do with us what you like? We’re not DATCHOs!”

Her arm flicked up like a signal, catching Josh under the jaw, knocking him backwards.

“Josh Christos. Your recent activity patterns are suspicious and your words of dubious verity. Both of you are detained here for examination. You.” She brought her hand back to my shoulder, grip like a grape-press. “What is your relationship with these people?”

I tried to stay light, like this wasn’t happening, like I wasn’t about to become dust. “They’re friends, sort of, they’re here looking for a healer.”

She pulled off her helmet and became human. Her ebony face beautiful in an average sort of way but her furious eyes and the emotion in her tight jaw made her quite stunning. She scratched knotty fingers through the silver stubble of her scalp and turned to Josh.

“You know what the DATCHOs call you people? ‘Popeyes.’ You get a pass to ‘broaden your knowledge of human difference’ or for ‘inspiration for artistic projects’ but you’re just rubbernecks. This zone is dangerous, inhabited by violent and unstable elements. It’s not a theme park or a place to seek a quack cure off some faker. You will be subject to a full data trail analysis and security code check. You have, of course, the right to appeal, or to consult a legal team. Transgression code fifty-four. Do you wish to dispute this ruling?”

“Yes. No. Go ahead,” said AT looking as if he were about to explode.

From the freeway came a whine of distant traffic like the cry of some dying creature. The scene—guards, gate, graffiti-daubed houses—all melted into a lake of fire.

She looked at me and pointed a finger at the gate with a kind of violence, “You. Go.”

Josh shouldered his way between us.

“Not you.” Up came the barrier-like arm again, blocking Josh’s path. “His speech, scent and body sign patterns run true. Yours do not. I told you, you and your accomplice are detained here while monitor and data logs are examined.”

A similarly armored male ward walked over, ushering me to follow. I tried to slow the ticking bomb of my heart, to mimic the serene stroll of a visitor. I was in the space between breaths. I couldn’t keep up, the man’s stride was for a world on a larger scale, one I’d never get the measure of. How come everyone was so damned big? I used to consider myself tall. Now the world was full of giants. My time had come and gone.

“Hurry.” There were two of them now, waving me to the screening gate. They watched me approach the screen. Red lettering danced in the air.

DATCHO ZONE GATE EAST.PASSES MUST BE VALIDATED BEFORE ENTRY AND EXIT.EXCEEDING YOUR PASS TIME WILL INCUR A PENALTY CHARGE—MINIMUM 900 DOLLARS. CRIMINAL CODE 46 APPLIES. INMATES: IF YOU ATTEMPT TO PASS THROUGH THIS SCREEN YOU WILL DIE.

A skull with crossbones leered obscenely. Hair-fine lasers pulsed from post to post, uttering a faint hum. A silver harp, singing a death song. Had I spun out my days to end it all like this? The beams crackled with excitement, bounced outwards to find me. I saw in the spray of phosphorescent light, the moment when I brought the long night of incarceration upon myself.

”Alvina,” I cried. “The waiting is over. I’m coming to join you.”

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant book! Non stop action, amazing descriptions and the author draws the reader in, so you identify with the anti-hero Zachary, even when he's doing morally dubious things. The sense of invention and the entirely credible scenes keep you hypnotised by the story to the end. The best SF novel I've read since 'Do Androids dream of electric sheep?' which is the book that became the film: 'Blade Runner' and that was ages ago.