Black Tels Trilogy

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-62095-749-3
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 536 Seiten

Now, for the first time, the complete Tels three volume set in one book! It's the near-future. A new revolution has spread across the human landscape. The Biolution and its flood of technology have changed almost every aspect of life. Also changed, is the face of terrorism. Throughout his life, Jonathan Kortel always sensed he was different, but never imagined how different, until two rival factions of a secret group called the Tels approach him out of the shadows of government. He has a unique gift that could change his life, and possibly the world, forever. This is his story. A battle for the loyalty of a man who could change the course of human evolution. And the struggle inside this man as he comes to terms with his destiny. Deeply intriguing and powerfully suspenseful, Paul Black's award-winning series has created a future described as 'one of the best science fiction novels.' Part X-Files, part cyber-thriller, Paul Black unveils a dark and compelling view of a world.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Black, Paul

Leseproben

Thank you, God…1 JONATHAN felt his heart beginning to beat harder with each sudden jerk of the toggle, and the booming bass emanating from the car’s MuzSat link only intensified the pounding in his chest. The Interway was clear, and Tarris piloted the car like he was raging on some biovid game, high into the bonus levels. He calmly hummed as they slipped through the hot Midwestern night. “Well?!” Jonathan yelled over the deafening sounds of Nymphia Scooter Pie, this week’s flavor for Tarris. “Well what?” Tarris shot back and brought the music down a click. Tarris had been Jonathan’s friend ever since the “event,” three years ago. He was older, cooler and could drive. And if you could drive, then in this little town you were free. “How does it feel?” “Oh, the car?” Tarris asked dryly. Even Tarris’s name was cool. He was of the generation whose parents had abandoned the typical names that had permeated the culture for the last hundred and fifty years or so in favor of techno-names. Sharp-edged names. Names that melded the cultures, even the world, into a standard, much like the Internet did a century earlier. And he was Jonathan’s friend and brother figure, even, he dared think, a father figure. At least as much a father figure as a 17-year-old can be. “The car handles as it should,” he said. “Yeah?…” Jonathan pressed. “Damn right it does!” And with that, Tarris asked the car to accelerate beyond the legal Interway limit. “How did you do that? I thought these models were unalterable.” “Don’t worry, Jonny, just a little retroengineering trick my dad taught me.” (Jonathan hated that version of his name.) “My dad says that even after alterations, the biochip’s constructs can’t be permanent. They just regenerate and reconfigure to the factory specs and before you know it, original car. Just like it was right out of the tank.” The car Tarris piloted was as much a car of the last century as milk that was actually milked. Or a building that was actually built. The Biolution of the mid-21st century had changed much of life. The way the world was headed in the first half of the century, who would have guessed it? The Biolution was predicted, but nobody expected it would happen this fast. And with consequences such as the event. It was hard for Jonathan to hold back, to swallow the pain every time the event was mentioned. Every time he thought about it. He swallowed. Hard. Thinking he could gulp down the fear. But he knew what would come next. The tears. He used to run. Anywhere where he could be alone. Then came the rush of memories, of faces, of a life he knew he would never have. The stolen life he would never reflect upon. The life he should have had with his mother and father. And their Hawaiian home where he used to play, three years ago. Where he had played was now what the world called “ground zero,” still dominating the news. Even if Jonathan could, he would never be able to outrun the event. In many respects, it forever changed the world. Much as, the history pads said, the atom bomb did in the mid-20th century. But what the pads left unsaid is what his grandfather called the “collateral damage.” The shattered lives of thousands of relatives and friends left behind, alive. No one saw it coming. The world’s collective fear of terrorism had waned by the mid-21st century. Individualism and information had been interwoven, due in part to the Internet revolution. But the Biolution made the bandwidth issues of the late-20th and early 21st centuries a thing of the past. The world had been lulled into a false sense of security, thinking there wasn’t any problem the collective intelligence networks of the G-12 couldn’t find and solve. The Biochip ushered in a flood of technology that changed almost every aspect of life. Information didn’t flow; it ran like a torrent. And the world, it seemed, rode along helplessly like tourists shooting rapids in a giant, guideless river raft. The Biolution affected everything in its path. Like a monstrous Midwestern thunderstorm, it swept across the human landscape. Even the most sacred of resources could not escape its effect. The corpulent oil industry that dominated the world since the late-19th century was irrevocably changed. Gas now could be synthetically made with biotechnology, cheaply and without end. The power of the Arab nations disappeared almost overnight and, with it, the collective grip they held on the throat of the world. This demotion in world ranking was more than their Arab pride could take. Their radical fringe elements joined forces and set out to teach the world a lesson in Arab anger. No one knew how important this lesson would be. ~ “Hey, are you crying, Jonny boy?” Tarris asked, glancing at his younger friend while piloting the vehicle through a series of sharp “S” curves. “No! I just got crap in my eye. I need to raise this window; your driving is freaking me.” “Aw, don’t worry, Jonny boy,” Tarris said with that look. Jonathan knew that look. “Tarris is captain tonight, we’re free to sail!” “Are you riding?” Jonathan asked, though he already knew the answer. For all his strengths, Tarris had one weakness. He loved to ride. But the drugs of the latter century had evolved into a new form. A bioform. And it scared Jonathan when Tarris was riding. The phrase was true. You didn’t take a drug, the drug took you. For a ride. Good or bad, you rode. And because of their biomatrix structures, each biodrug reacted differently with each individual. The effects were only somewhat predictable. That was their allure. The unknowing. The surprise inside each box. That’s also why some called it Cracker Jack. Jack, for short. “Just a little tonight…come on, it’s our first time sailing this piece. I gotta have an edge, little buddy,” Tarris begged. “You understand, don’t you?” Jonathan understood all too well. It wasn’t the first time he had been along for a ride. Usually it went smoothly. The Tarris Jonathan knew just became more of himself. Funnier, sillier – and the girls loved this Tarris. But if it went badly, the friend he knew disappeared. The bioconstructs of the drug altered his persona, and it wasn’t pretty. But tonight looked clear. Clear of the Tarris Jonathan had come to call The Mean Man. “Hottttt damn,” Tarris screamed as he, the drug, and the car all synced into perfect harmony, “let’s sail toooonight!” And as his hand passed over the car’s interface pad, he lightly touched the BR button, changed the ratio, caused the car to punch forward and threw Jonathan back against the seat. Tarris pushed the car to its design limits, weaving in and out of the Interway traffic, throwing the boys from side to side. The scene outside the window blurred, and the car seemed to float above the ground through the “S” curves. Tarris was piloting like it was his last ride. Jonathan couldn’t tell if the cause was the altered state of the car’s system or of Tarris, but whatever it was, the car reacted with pinpoint accuracy to all of his commands. After 12 miles of riding Tarris’s high, Jonathan couldn’t take any more. “Tarris!” Jonathan screamed. “Tarris, please slow down!” He gripped the leather, leaving indents no biochips could reconstruct, and as he watched his friend reach the height of his ride, he began to pray. He hadn’t prayed since the death of his parents. He had given up on a God he thought had abandoned him. Had abandoned man. What kind of God would allow something like the event to happen? Right now, though, he was reconsidering. If there was a God, Jonathan could have used just a little of his grace tonight. “Now that’s what I call a bitchin’ killer ride!” the 17-year-old blared. And with that, Tarris grazed the ratio button again, and the car eased into legal speed without so much as a change in G. “Open those eyes, little buddy,” Tarris said. He piloted the car off the Interway and into the urban flow. Jonathan looked up from his conversation with the Almighty and saw that his friend wasn’t riding anymore. He couldn’t tell specifically how he knew; he just knew when Tarris was coming off. Or “jerking off” as Tarris liked to put it. “This is your captain speaking. That was one bitchin’ killer ride, folks.” Tarris burst out laughing. “Yeah, you were the captain tonight, Tarris,” Jonathan nervously agreed. “And you…you’re sitting there praying….” Tarris roared as he slapped the car’s toggle to a beat only he was hearing. Neither of them saw the lights of the two-ton recycle hauler entering their road’s interface space. “Shit, Tarris!” Jonathan’s heart almost exploded from his chest as he turned and realized the fate that awaited them both. In the 20-foot space between their car and the poly-bio grillwork of the hauler, Jonathan saw what was surely the end of his life. No force on earth was going to stop it. “Shit!” Tarris screamed, and his hands danced on the protocol pad of the vehicle. But it was too late. In the chaos of the moment, Tarris had tried everything he knew, which, at 17, wasn’t much. Looking past...