Sci-Fi has always been a setting, pretending to be a genre. Ideas that exist today but are taboo to talk about. Ideas that we never considered until we saw them. Trendlines that exist with an unknown destination.
That’s Sci-Fi. The problems of today wrapped up in the setting of tomorrow.
What problems? What trendline? Half the fun is in finding it. I’ll be sending snippets from the book for you to read and see if it’s your cup of tea. If so, pre orders for the kindle version are live now, release data, August 1.
Jake’s Ghost is an interesting trickster. Is it a schizoid embolism? Is it some kind of techno god, born out of the mix of tech and wetware? Is it a plain old fashioned god?
Imagine a stroke giving you illumination.
Enjoy
Conceptual HardcoverCathode Ray Redemption
“Yeah, I know. I just wanted to see if your face was lagging or not. I’m Han.”
“You keep saying New Kowloon. I thought we were in the Ukraine?”
Fatahl chuckled,
“Well, I would call you an idiot, but that’s good for once. New Kowloon isn’t just a city. It’s a VLAN. It’s a city, like San Fran, or Odessa, except distributed through the Faraday cages. Every city has em. We’ve borrowed some old copper wiring and connected them all to the Gopher.”
It explains why New Kowloon was a thing. All those wires, all that plumbing. Every city was building inadvertent Faraday cages, free from the wireless. Why wouldn’t they be piggybacking off the old tech to connect to each other. No one knew how it worked anymore. DARPA made the original internet to protect nodes in case of catastrophic disaster. The Soviets could nuke half of America and the other half could reconnect and keep going. Now everyone who wanted freedom from Fem-Law had the same idea.
“Fatahl, how many Kowloons are there?”
“Who knows? One day you see one pop up. Another day you find out the CCP retooled a city and it closed down. Finish your coffee.”
“Han. You’re the one everyone’s been telling me to talk to then?”
“You’re that softbone, then. I expected you to be, softer, if I’m being honest.”
“I didn’t expect there were any of you left. After the Sino-Nippon genocide, I thought everyone had been wiped out.”
“What can I say. Chineese can hold a grudge better than anyone, but Japanese don’t know how to die. Plus, the commies aren’t known for being competent or thorough. And if you’re as useful as everyone says you are, we might be able to rebuild Neo Tokyo with what you got rattling up there in your wetware, softbone.”
“You can cut out that softbone shit anytime, friend. Just let me know what we are doing so I can start preparing.”
Jake was impressed with himself. Not only had he maintained eye contact for a full conversation, but he managed to assert the smallest of boundaries without having a panic attack. He was finally getting used to freedom.
“Oh, no problem man. You got it. Wait. You came all the way here from your cushy job in Lab126 and you didn’t even know what you were here to do?”
“I know I’m here to keep everyone from getting chipped. I also hear that the coffee here was the best in the Analogue so I thought I’d see for myself.”
Fatahl interrupted. “He knows enough, let him enjoy his coffee, Han.”
“I think he deserves to know. It might just save his life.” Fatahl looked consternated. Jake asked,
“What is it I deserve to know?”
“Well. Since Fatahl likes her trickle truth, I’ll let you in on a secret. Those chips? We aren’t going to destroy them. We are going to steal them. Samsung finally developed working nanotech, and this stupid virus that the CCP are manufacturing with Amazons help to infect everyone with is going to be the transmission vector.”
