Here is a page with all prior chapters. Colliding Worlds is set in New York in 2030. Nell, Justin, Denny, Denny’s twin Del and Rachel had grown up together and gone to the same college. Nell and Justin had been a couple forever, but Denny convinced Nell that Justin was seeing somebody else. They married in college. All had been recruited by The ISB, an international peace organization. Nell found out that Denny was secretly working for The USC, an organization that wanted to take over the newly peaceful world. Nell played along for a year then left Denny and married Justin
In 2028, fourteen months prior to this story, Denny kidnapped Nell. She was fed hallucegnics and meds, and would have brief periods where she remembered her former life. Denny convinced Nell that she was named Ella, had left Justin who supposedly died. Denny convinced Nadia a nurse for the ISC that Justin and Nell were traitors. He brought both Nell and Nadia to Colombia where Nell was constantly losing and sort of gaining her mind. Two months ago he brought them back to New York. Nadia was feeding Nell more drugs for her own agenda. Nell had regressed to an almost infant like state with periods of lucidity
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Two months ago he brought them back to New York. Nadia was feeding Nell more drugs for her own agenda. Nell had regressed to an almost infant like state with periods of lucidity
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The United States is now controlled by eleven major corporations. Actually the corporations are controlled by The ISB. Global warming is a thing of the past. Most American’s are content as diseases and poverty are being controlled. The average life span is 98. Workdays are short and work is fun. Most people don’t mind that The Fourth Amendment was done away with in the last days of The Bush admin. They don’t mind the security cameras that are everywhere or that Google controls the news. They have gladly sacrificed some freedoms to live great lives.
Denny minds. He wants The Constitution back. More than that he likes strife. He doesn’t realize that while The ISB is in control they are also working to get back freedoms. That in order to keep peace they have to pretend to agree with the CEO’s of the Big Eleven as the corporations are called, all other governments, that include new “Third World” countries. The ISB is about to take over everything, and bring true peace to the world. Denny has always been a tool and he is a tool of The USC which is trying to stop the USC.
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I am telling that part of the story quickly and the following two chapters as this is a first draft and I do want to move the action along.
Denny felt on top of the world. He was walking back to the townhouse from a meeting with the top USC people. They had assured him that their new laser guns would cut through brains and hearts with one quick motion. Denny had slowly been getting his revenge but soon he was going to have it all. Justin was going to pay for getting Nell back. First he was going to allow Justin one night with the old Nell.
It pissed Denny off that no matter how much truth serum he had inserted into Nell she would never talk. The regression experts had assured Denny that if he regressed her and let her come back, she would talk. It had never happened. The USC regression experts insisted that he keep regressing her. They wanted to see the affects of continually regressing a person and then giving her different levels of awareness. They wanted to see how implanting false memories into a person who couldn’t break would eventually affect that person.
The USC regression experts had the highest security clearance. The USC revolution was going to be conducted through mind control. Control the mind, control the person, control the country and eventually the world. Denny wasn’t supposed to tell anybody including Max about this, but he had been so excited when the laser gun was perfected, he couldn’t help himself. Denny had never slipped before. Max was loyal. Max hated Justin even more than he did. Max hated everybody who worked for The ISB. There was something more. Something personal. Max wasn’t a big talker but sometimes when he had too much to drink, he would let out his hatred of Justin out. When Denny was arranging for Nell to be taken to Colombia, and during the time in Colombia, Max was working on another weapons project in the Arabic world. It would have been smoother if Max had been with him, but the head of The USC wanted Max there. The operation had been a success. It didn’t amaze Denny that Max was content to be his second in command. Max’s forte was computers and weapons not designing and managing operations. Denny thought of himself as a theater director/producer in charge of every person from the stars of the operation to the grips. Workers at The USC spoke in show talk. There were times Denny thought that his most brilliant contribution. Not that he would ever admit that.
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The Imac screen, and laptops were set to show when people walked to the townhouse. It showed all movement from the downstairs duplex to the top triplex. One laptop monitored the duplex, the other the triplex. The sensors were above state of the art. Denny didn’t know that the room monitors could be manipulated. The real ones were invisible. He thought he was working on state of the art security for the ISB. The USC, designed programs that could override the ISB’s. Denny was sure that The ISB hadn’t figured that out. Denny had been sure of himself since the day he had talked Anna into seducing Justin. When Nell had divorced him, he was glad as he was sure she would interfere with his plans for The USC. But he hadn’t met a woman he loved more, and he hated that she left him for Justin.
Denny had met Max when he was a nineteen year old Stanford scholarship student. Bitter because Google who owned 90% of the Internet had rejected him for his attitude, Max made the perfect USC computer geek. He turned out to have many other talents. Denny trusted him as he had never trusted his best friend, Justin, or his own twin Del. Del supposedly had been lost in one of the new Arabic countires.
Denny didn’t know that Max reconfigured the programs to sometimes show people in different rooms than they were really in. The programs could make people seem to disappear and other people appear. The programs could make many false images and other things. There was no way The USC could detect the program changes. He had no idea that Max had been working for The ISB since high school or that the people Max hired were ISB agents. Still two thirds of the agents who worked and/or lived in the duplex were bona fide USC people.
Though all spoke with distinct American TV voices most were from other countries. They hated this new America that had seemed to risen from ashes in 08. What Google didn’t control, Apple, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Home Depot, Juicy Couture, Coach, Barnes & Noble, McDonald’s, Ben & Jerry’s, and HBO did. Americans were happy again as most had good jobs with one of the Big Eleven. American salaries were huge, health care was what Americans had never dared dream of. Six week vacations were mandatory as was the four day work week. The USA wasn’t quite the country the Founding Fathers had dreamed of. The Fourth Amendment had been abolished in the later days of Bush Two’s admin.
Somehow the Democratic admin under President Cash, a Steven Colbert type president, who had come out of nowhere before the first primary in 08 had never gotten around to insisting that the Supreme Court rule on the legitimacy of abolishing an Amendment without proper procedure. People were used to The Big Eleven knowing more about them then their spouse or therapist did. Most people didn’t go to therapy anymore. Life was easy. Life was fun. Global warming was a thing of the past. Pills helped many conditions. Laser therapy helped many more. The average life expectancy was 98. People still got cancer, heart attacks, strokes, dementia and other things, but they lived longer in better condition.
Denny felt more secure and happier than he had been in a long time as he walked into the first floor of the townhouse. This new America was a conglomerate dependent shit country. Even farmers worked for Whole Foods. He would never understand why people were satisfied working for one of eleven companies. His disaffection with America began the day Juicy took over the clothing industry. Women ran it. Not just women but rock star’s wives. When one retired another took over.
Nell would have made a good rock star’s wife. Denny had been a Google/YouTube star in high school. Still Nell preferred Justin. He could never forgive her for that. He would never stop loving her. When this was over, he was going to take her to a country far far away. The years she had been with Justin would be erased from her memory. She would be constantly confused. Denny had loved her when she was smart but this was better. He wanted an old fashioned dependent women. His father had talked so lovingly of his grandmother who had been a typical 50’s housewife. Denny had never met his great grandmother but idealized her.
Justin and Max watched Denny walk onto the building.. Justin shook his head. There was a jaunt to Denny’s step Justin remembered from childhood. He would walk that way every time he had a plan to beat somebody in a game. He walked that way during the weeks he had hatched his plan to get Nell from Justin in college. Denny had convinced Anna that Justin wanted her. He talked her into seducing him. There were many things Justin hated Denny for but that was the first. Until the kidnapping he hated Denny more for that than the betrayal. Justin could understand hating this Googlized world. It was better than the alternatives. He spoke to Max:
We have to get Nell out of here tonight. He’s up to something.
We need a few days.
I can overpower Denny. You stun Nadia. We can have enough people here in minutes to stun all Denny’s people.
We have to wait for the laser disenabler. I gave them the prototype yesterday. We only have the three I made
You said three disenablers can stun 30 guns
I said I think they can. We haven’t tried it and they’re still working on getting out any possible bugs
We have to chance it.
OK suppose you’re right. What about the safe house and getting Nell there?
I have my own safe house. I can have a helicopter here in five minutes.
I know you’re rich, but The ISB…..
That nice elderly professor? The one that recruited you? My father? What do you think he really does?
Max tried to joke:
He screams about The First Amendment.
Yeah, he does that too. And his father began The ISB. My family, it’s ours. I don’t know what Denny did to Nell. I don’t know if he inserted her with a truth serum. I know Nell. There isn’t a truth serum we know about that could make her talk. But it’s what we don’t know. We’re getting her out tonight.
I know how much you love Nell. But you almost sound as if you want her out to see what damage has been done.
I want Nell back. The real Nell who wouldn’t want to live like this.
