In the near future, scientists develop a magic cure-all connective tissue, a thousand times more networked than a natural brain pathway. Injected in to the cranium like a botox shot, they claim it can accelerate human evolution: give access to new senses, new dimensions, new views of reality. Society splits along lines of perceived consciousness. An Upper-Therer returns from his self-imposed seclusion to those left behind, but why? What is different? Adopted Alexandria struggles with her surrogate family(s) to find out.
2:10 “
I sat on the porch swing which rocked gently back and forth in the spring breeze. It was as run down as the wood planks with the chipped white paint that gilded the small house set back from me just two feet. The porch was smaller than a hallway, but it was there. There was a great shadow cast down and through. It was cast off the top of a sloped roof, so that it distorted itself, but the origin of it was the great steel and rebar and concrete column to makeup the jetway that ran above. It was abandoned, and it cracked and it fell. At times chunks of pebbles – fake pebbles, out of concrete instead of a river – would cascade down and take out a shingle. Why they didn’t move into one of the ten dozen houses, all near enough the same, sitting down the street this way and that – it was beyond me. Sentimental reasons. They were all empty. What was there to be sentimental for? The world that had killed their child?
from the MIND of cole webber
Cole Webber, age 20, describes himself as an inventor and comprehensivist (the opposite of a specialist). His aspirations are to be a modern day renaissance human. He believes that all children are born creative geniuses (as does NASA). Cole has co-designed 23 schools, spoken at over 30 events in four countries including a TEDx talk, helped to write policy for the government, acted as an advisor to over 15 government officials and agencies, and sat on numerous international boards regarding education and development. His work relating to anthropology, design, education, film studies, and construction has been published in various journals and magazines and indexed in the international web of science. He is the author of three other books. His inventions relating to conferences, education, healthcare, real estate and scheduling have been filed for patents in 153 countries. He is the author of over 100 short stories, some published elsewhere and most through his media organization Think Worlds. He is a founding member of the technology company Betterfit. This is his first novel-novella.
