The Bloodlight Chronicles: Redemption (Bloodlight Chronicles, 3, Band 3) - Softcover

Stanton, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1550229990 ISBN 13: 9781550229998

Verlag: ECW PR, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Presenting the thrilling culmination of the epic sci-fi series, this novel revisits a world where global economic activity is carried out in a virtual-gaming realm. A new blood-transmitted virus has become a black market staple due to its rejuvenating effects, forcing infected 'Eternals' into a tightly knit underground where they must hack the 'V-net' for food and shelter. When the leader of the Eternals, Helena Sharp, begins to lose her immortality, she flees to an old lover for strength and solace as the entire Eternal community is thrown into chaos. Meanwhile, the young clone Niko discovers the truth about her gifted daugher, who carries the future heritage of humanity in her augmented DNA. This knowledge forces Niko to confront her progenitor, Phillip Davis, with a litany of experimental abuse, only to discover that Phillip has fully integrated his persona with the Al Beast who controls V-space. With the aid of the charismatic avatar Philomena, he embarks on a program of manipulation and control that will redefine the boundaries of death and consciousness. Advancing the post-cyberpunk genre into new territory, this compelling series delves into intriguing question of religion, God, family, and the universe's central source of life.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Steve Stanton is the author of "Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation" and "Bloodlight Chronicles: Retribution." He is the vice president of SF Canada, the nation's bilingual organization of science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. His short fiction has been published in 16 countries, including translations into Hebrew, Greek, Italian, and Romanian. He lives in Washago, Ontario.

Steve Stanton is the author of "Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation" and "Bloodlight Chronicles: Retribution." He is the vice president of SF Canada, the nation's bilingual organization of science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. His short fiction has been published in 16 countries, including translations into Hebrew, Greek, Italian, and Romanian. He lives in Washago, Ontario.

Steve Stanton is the author of The Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation and Retribution. His short fiction has been published in 16 countries, including translations into Hebrew, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, and Romanian. His writing regularly appears in more than two dozen magazines and journals, and he currently serves as the president of SF Canada, the bilingual organization of science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. Stanton lives in Washago, Ontario.

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The Bloodlight Chronicles: Redemption

By Steve Stanton, Chris Szego

ECW PRESS

Copyright © 2012 Steve Stanton
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-55022-999-8

CHAPTER 1

Jimmy Kay frowned when he first saw the girl. Her background harmonics sounded like a symphony to his highly trained senses, a holy aura of speed and potency. She should have been way up Prime with logistics like that, not cruising Main Street like a tourist. Very odd. Jimmy Kay edged away from this exotic young avatar. She was out of place yet seemed an integral part of the landscape, at home and connected to the heart of the digital city. A couple of grey-suits ambled near, checking for vagrant users and bad buzz on the boulevard, but gave her nary a glance as they passed. Very odd. Jimmy seized the moment to drop Sublevel through a back-door conduit. He had business downstairs, not illegal exactly, but not licit enough for Main Street.

He pushed some arbitrage buttons and slid some data, massaging the white market for his daily bread, but when he turned to exit he saw the girl again, watching him from a careful distance. Not good. He was supposed to be invisible in this avatar; this was his best outfit, the one he always relied on for anonymity. He wondered if she was a regent hunter or government gestapo. Why else would she follow him down to Sublevel Zero?

"Who are you?" he said, preparing to flee at the first perturbation.

The young avatar approached him without hesitance, making eye contact with familiarity, sucking his source code into an infinite vortex of power. "I have another job for you, Jimmy."

In a flash he recognized the persona—an echo of a deal gone sour. "Phillip?"

"Hardly appropriate now. Call me Philomena in this form."

"The virgin martyr?"

"Well, I know you have a penchant for the pretty girls." The avatar smiled to show no offense. Her harmonics were impeccable, deep and placid like a black lake. She blended seamlessly into the terrain, comfortable even here in the underground.

"I thought you were dead," Jimmy said.

"I was."

"How long have you been following me?"

"All your life."

Jimmy Kay winced and turned away. Philomena appeared in front of him again, faster than a blink. Jimmy shook his head, feeling weak and weary of existence. "I'm just washing some money, clipping data, nothing for you to worry about."

"I like you, Jimmy."

He inspected the young avatar with greater care, now that his future hung in a delicate balance. Asian, almond-shaped eyes, black hair cut short and spiky, designer body somewhere in that sweet spot between twenty-five and thirty-five—just another perfect girl off the digital shelf. "You're not even real."

"None of us are real," she said. "You know that better than most."

"What do you want, Phillip? Sorry, Phil-o-men-a." He stretched out the syllables with sarcasm.

"I'm looking for a business partner."

"I'm retired."

"You keep saying that, but you don't mean it."

"This time I'm serious. It's nothing but blue-zone livin' for me now. Get lost." He turned away again, but the girl blocked his path. She moved without effort. She was already everywhere.

"Don't underestimate me, old friend." Philomena winked at him and Jimmy heard a pop in the back of his head like a bubble bursting, felt a warm glow seep down his spine, some direct-connect devil hack. His eyesight went fuzzy for a moment, then quickly cleared again, more focused than ever, as though he was seeing everything for the first time with a brilliant lucidity.

Jimmy felt a whisper of fear. Phillip had been burned by the Beast. His brain had been obliterated for manifold sins against the V-net. He had died, that much was certain. Now this powerful girl was impersonating him. She had probably hacked into his system as his spark faded, stolen his access logarithms, some otaku genius from out east.

"You're wasting your talent on me, kid," he said.

"I'm spinning a web on the V-net, Jimmy, fixing things. Everybody wants a better world."

"I'm kind of busy today," he said. "Can we talk later?"

Philomena flashed a toothy grin. "After all these years, you still won't believe your own eyes, your own ears. Why do you doubt the truth?" She took a step back and began to metamorphose. Her body expanded. She grew taller, wider. Hair sprouted from her skin as her face took the snouted shape of a bear, her teeth long and pointed like daggers. Her bandwidth went off the scale as data cartwheeled around her like spinning whorls of light, a direct connection to Prime Eight or higher, into unfathomable reaches. Her eyes became red demonic beacons as she stretched out her hands and her fingers elongated and intertwined into the walls and ceiling, into the fabric of Sublevel Zero. She laughed and the sound came from everywhere, even inside his own avatar, in the very core of his being.

Jimmy turned and ran in blind panic from the Beast unleashed, holding both hands up to his skull as he stumbled forward, his neurons overclocking in the upper registers, his cerebrum beginning to cook. Holy ghost, his synapses were at stake, his life! He was too vulnerable, caught in a snare like a vagrant animal. The Beast could flense his brain to the bone in a flash. Who was this mystery girl? He jumped in a public zoomtube and quickly willed himself back home to Main Street. He dove into the milling V-net crowd for safety, spread his parameters wide, submerged into the digital underground to hide from the AI monster, just another anonym in the mix, transient code, a digital gypsy from nowhere, no ripples, no traces.

But infinite eyes followed him even there.

In desperation, he pulled his plug.

He felt pain like a hammer blow to his temple.

God, what happened? Jimmy sat up from his launch couch and blinked his eyes a few times for surety. He had a fearsome headache from his overclock—could almost smell the fried dendrites—and he reached up to massage his bald pate, trying to think. Was Phillip back and more psychotic than ever? Was he impersonating the Beast? How could that be?

He stumbled to the kitchen like a zombie burn-out, parched and thirsty. A security chime sounded from street level as Jimmy downed a glass of cold water from the communal tap. He checked the webcam and saw Helena's face looking up at the camera, grim and tired. Helena Sharp, Chairman of the ERI, power broker extraordinaire. He hadn't seen her in two years and had a bad feeling. They had been lovers once and had never broken it off officially. Weeks had drifted to months. He touched his finger to the sensor pad, feeling spacey and vacuous at the twisted turn of events. "Helena?"

"Hi, Jimmy. Can I come up?"

"Sure." He pressed the lobby unlock and heard a click. "Take the elevator to the top and go up one flight of stairs to the penthouse. Never mind the gridwork. It's a Faraday cage." He watched the top of her head turn and disappear from view as vacancy gnawed at him. He should have kept in touch. He tried to remember back to the last time they had met in V-space. She had been busy running the Eternal Research Institute, getting younger every day thanks to the regenerative virus in her veins. She had been throwing money at a public inoculation program, a black hole of interminable and expensive research, and resources had been growing tight. He had granted her a small loan of a few million and never expected repayment.

Jimmy stood in the doorway to watch her come down the hall, recognizing her walk like a welcome vision from the past, her royal stance with determined and magnificent gait a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: ECW PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1550229990
• ISBN 13: 9781550229998
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 244
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar