Echelon

1 In the moments after impact, cold fury consumed Ryan Laing. Adrenaline blasted through him. Rage fired hot. Electric pain racked limbs, joints, and bone. His blood flowed, staining the desert earth. Muscles locked in spasm, drawn taut. Then the shock wave receded. Sensation slipped from his hands and feet. One by one, each point of input faded to static. He felt desiccated, a husk left to California's Santa Ana winds. Only the jagged rocks digging into Ryan's back cracked his isolation. As death neared, breath came harder--gulps of air drawn through frothed lips. Desert sun lanced him. The granite spire vaulting over his head offered little protection. Seconds earlier he'd clung to that rock, climbing smooth and well. It had taken half an hour to climb the spire. He'd caught the express train down. Darkness crept in even as memories circled, vague and illusory--the parting explosions of a billion synapses. The flickering images refused to coalesce into a life Ryan could recognize; he felt as if he were watching someone else's childhood vids. Only the past weeks stood clear. What he'd seen. What he'd done. That memory refused to follow Ryan's pain into oblivion. It bore into him still--as it had during mission debrief. Despite the interrogators' relentless questioning, he'd talked around memories of the old man dying at his feet--and by his hand. Work defined Ryan Laing, Echelon agent. If Echelon was the puppet master controlling humanity, Ryan was a string linking the manipulator to the puppet. Work outlined the shape and texture of his life. But there were days when it cored him, the brutality of the means he utilized not quite justifying the ends. On those days, self-respect came hard. During the debriefing, the interrogators had caught onto that weakness and exploited it, blasting him with questions. Ryan had done the right thing; he'd done his job. But guilt ate at him as the debriefing dragged on. The old man's eyes haunted him. Finally, Ryan cut out. The interrogators had his feed; they could see what he'd seen and didn't need a narrator. He removed his goggles and flow-space blinked out, leaving him alone in the prefab perfection of his Los Angeles apartment. He leaned back in his chair, letting his senses adjust to reality. Hours in the flow affected perception. Ryan tried to shake the old man's death from his mind. It wouldn't budge. Rarely did Ryan take notice of the cramped space he called home. Most of his domestic life was spent in the flow, or asleep. His flow deck bulged from an alcove next to his bed. As he rose, it recessed into the wall. He slipped past the molded plastic dining nook, which he'd never used, and out onto the terrace. LA's high-rises ghosted up through the smog-strangled air. He took a deep breath, coughed it out, and knew he had to leave. Rock climbing was part of the cycle. Some people shot chems, some fucked toward a state of grace--Ryan climbed. To set the ledger straight, to rebalance, to avoid a system crash--he climbed. No rope, just hands on rock. The promise of release pulled him from the balcony, and he was out the door in seconds. Ryan hopped the maglev to Palm Springs, which was difficult to differentiate from Riverside, from Los Angeles itself. For a thousand kilometers in any direction 'scrapers cut up the sky, negating topography. The monoliths blurred as Ryan slid east on the maglev's smooth track. He lost himself in their unbroken consistency. Ryan imagined the 'scrapers' residents scurrying through a daily grind as constant as the scenery itself. They lived easy, worked their jobs, slurped through bioengineered meals and returned e

Review :
"Imaginative and intuitive . . . Conviser mines and mints a nonstop stream of visual images." -Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files "A terrifying glimpse into the future. Jam-packed with intrigue, terror, and suspense. Conviser is a writer to watch." -Allan Folsom, author of The Day After Tomorrow "From the Trade Paperback edition."