When the world has had enough...
SINCE the early decades of the 21st Century, when society was scarred by the traumas of globalisation and a protracted war on terror, Britain has become a peaceful and prosperous consumer society.
Historians are already talking of a Golden Age, but under the security-driven authoritarian regime of Alexander Carlisle – Britain’s longest serving PM – they know not to say anything else.
But this Golden Age masks a rotten core – and it is about to come crashing down.
On the fringes of society are the ‘zeros’ – the poor, the unemployed, the destitute – who paid the price for society’s affluence. Lurking in their midst is Clute, one of Carlisle’s former comrades-in-arms who helped him seize power. He has turned self-styled prophet of revolution, but behind his rhetoric of a better world is a nihilistic vision of apocalyptic proportions.
Clute is about to destroy the technological chains of social control by attacking its weakest point. In so doing, the zeros will be unleashed to rampage through the consumer citadels in an orgy of violent rage. So will begin a catastrophic struggle between society and those it exiled.
David Mills is about to become a central player in this world-shattering power struggle. He is a zero, ordered to take part in the JobNet global recruitment scheme. To begin with, it seems to fulfil all its promise as he finds a woman to love and prospects for a better life through this artificial world, then it all goes insane and he is struggling to save both his sanity and his life.
Unbeknown to him, he was used to carry a deadly virus into the heart of the global network’s weakest link – JobNet. Now the virus is spreading, corrupting, destroying all the technology that kept the zeros down throughout the world.
While Mills is struggling to exist all over again, the real world is burning in civil war and he has become the focus of a desperate manhunt by Government forces. If they can find his ‘kidnapped’ body or his projection in AR, then they hope to destroy the virus at source. It is a desperate gambit in a desperate time.
Yet again, Mills is the victim of forces beyond his control or knowledge, but this time – if he survives – he can be a force for change. From being nothing, Mills has become everything; he can save the world. There’s only one problem – he might have to destroy it first.
1:16 am
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