The Terror Starts Today
by Unknown on Nov.22, 2009, under ARCHIVE
Coming soon from new UK publisher Writers of Worlds
WAR isn't coming anymore – it's already here. On the street corners, outside the window, smashing through the door… it's come home.
The zeros – the poor, the destitute, the unemployed – are in open revolt, turning the high streets and suburbs of prosperous cities into the battlegrounds of a final, desperate civil war.
It's a world born of today's globalisation and the War on Terror; a society founded on privilege, where the fear of terror and crime keeps the population passive, where the poverty of the many has bought the prosperity of the few. And where the Reaper has finally come to collect his dues.
For some, this cowled spectre is the avenger of justice and liberty, for others the monster of social disintegration. Either way, the spectre is far from pretty.
Technology intended to control the populace – rfID cards, CCTV, automatic facial recognition, tagging and more – are rendered ineffective. The traditional 'iron fist' of the state is overwhelmed by an awakened power as old as civilisation.
And the violence is spreading. A contagion of rage, infecting the world, overturning old certainties, upsetting the balance of power and calling into question the very notion of the future...
SO he reaps what he sowed… Britain's longest serving Prime Minister clings desperate to power as cities descend deeper into the quagmire of chaos. Somewhere, a former accomplice who paved his road to power, has turned self-styled prophet of revolution with the vow to bring down the man he once served.
At his command, an underground army of dedicated revolutionaries determined to change the world. Beneath the rhetoric of a better world, however, is a nihilistic vision of apocalyptic proportions. His weapon, a psychotoxic virus specifically designed to knock out artificial reality and AI systems.
There is only one hope to restore order, and that is to find this virus and destroy it at source. So begins a desperate manhunt across two worlds to find and kill a zero.
DAVID Mills never asked to be a zero. He never asked to be 'volunteered' to the JobNet system, and he certainly never asked to be the virus carrier. Nobody asks a pawn what it wants, but seldom does a pawn gain such a chance to shape human destiny.
Now he faces a struggle to stay alive in the midst of a nightmare, stalked by a hideous alter ego that is the virus grafted to his mind, tormented by the ruins of the JobNet system that has become his prison, haunted by the death that has engulfed the world he knows.
If he can stay alive, if he can keep his sanity, if he can avoid the agents sent to kill him, then he might just be able to save the world. In the process, however, he will face his final – most demanding – test.
For buried deep in the core of JobNet is a chilling secret that will rock his sanity to the foundations. The true nature and purpose of JobNet will reveal not only why the zeros exist, but also why a civilisation faces execution.
Conscience demands the question: does the world deserve to live in the face of such a horrible revelation? There's no one else to answer it – and his choice will shape the fate of human existence.
Saviour or destroyer. The choice belongs to Mills, and he’s not exactly qualified to play the role. His day just keeps getting worse...
As with so many events in history, it was born in the mundane: with a simple trip to the local Job Mart.
The work creates a powerful amalgam of science fiction, political satire and social commentary reminiscent of Orwell, Kafka or Braddbury. The result is a compelling and powerful future shocker rooted firmly in the social landscape of today.
Originally published: 14-4-2007 | Archived: 28-10-2011
9 comments
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Wally Banners
9:59 pmBro we are so overdue for a thinning of the planetary herd man.ww3 should be around the corner :)
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Anonymous
6:35 amhello
I really enjoy reading your blog. If i were you i would go to http://www.autosurfmonster.com and submit this blog and get thousands of viewers to see it for FREE... well, i look forward to all the updates. Thanks again.
Jessica
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Anonymous
2:00 amAnonymous said...
hello
I really enjoy reading your blog. If i were you i would go to http://www.autosurfmonster.com and submit this blog and get thousands of viewers to see it for FREE... well, i look forward to all the updates. Thanks again.
Jessica
your getting old/ you don't enjoy shit!
bring it on, revolution style, fuck the rich!
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Ed Dickson
4:09 pmLove your blog. It appears, you and I write about some of the same subjects.
Keep up the good work!
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WagerWitch
12:08 pmI don't mean to be rude... or invasive - but why aren't you trying to get published?
Get yourself an agent.
Check misssnark.blogspot.com
Get in with the SF groups on blogspot and submit.
You write very well - you have a very "ENGLISH" list in your voice - so I don't know if American markets will pick up on it - but hard core SF fans will.
Offer small glimpses to the SCi -Fi mags.
You can find entries and more online to go to.
Keep on writing on.
Much luck to you -
Wager Witch
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Anonymous
12:20 am'v' for violence? 'v' for virus? all very true - but people don't fight until they have nothing to live for - or their children are starving
- two far more likely scenarios than dissatisfied job seekers revolting...
see http://newilluminati.blog-city
and
http://centraxis.blogspot.com
and keep up the Great Work!
Welcome To 'Broken Britain'
“Those people are no-hopers.”
“And what does that make me?”
In a bitterly divided nation where security trumps civil liberty, unemployed David is on the verge of sinking into the ‘Zeros’ – a destitute underclass numbering millions. But then JobNet's advanced virtual reality world offers him a gateway to a worthwhile future, and a chance to rejoin society.
But David is an unwitting pawn in a deadly conspiracy to topple the Government: he's the ideal carrier for an intelligent virus designed to shatter the system and set the Zeros free.
When the virus activates, chaos ensues and the Zeros rise. David is left trapped inside a corrupted reality. If it doesn't shatter his sanity, the secret he finds there will change everything...
Sometimes even a pawn can hold the balance of power.
4:42 am
Probably won't happen.