Here is an excerpt from the first chapter of my book, "The STARLING Connection."
The narrator, 15-year-old Simon Laramie, speaking in his very special, personal "diary" in the year 2045, describes the colossal chill that has completely replaced what was once the First Amendment.
This widespread chill of fear is caused by the convergence of extremely powerful surveillance technologies, the convergence of State-"Church"-Corporation, and the complete melting together of the military-industrial, prison-industrial and surveillance-drone-building industrial complexes into one massive Construct crushing humanity. But is humanity truly "dead," even in the face of this technologically-enabled Goliath?
This is how "The STARLING Series" begins, with a description of a society posing as "America" in the near-future.
Can we prevent what Simon and other kids in the near-future must go through and suffer? Simon is a fictional teen character who represents the grandchildren of our generation currently in our third decade of life, but he has something important to say about a far greater terror than anything we've faced before that is unfolding today before our eyes.
Is there a way we can work together now to ensure that our children and grandchildren have liberty-privacy and individual rights? The natural truth behind the First Amendment has always been a huge challenge for imperfect human beings, who have a difficult time seeing beyond force, to respect.
Is there a way that we can prevent our First Amendment from being merely words on paper?
Check out Simon's introduction to "The STARLING Series."
If you want to read more, then go to the digital version of the first four books in the series here.
The narrator, 15-year-old Simon Laramie, speaking in his very special, personal "diary" in the year 2045, describes the colossal chill that has completely replaced what was once the First Amendment.
This widespread chill of fear is caused by the convergence of extremely powerful surveillance technologies, the convergence of State-"Church"-Corporation, and the complete melting together of the military-industrial, prison-industrial and surveillance-drone-building industrial complexes into one massive Construct crushing humanity. But is humanity truly "dead," even in the face of this technologically-enabled Goliath?
This is how "The STARLING Series" begins, with a description of a society posing as "America" in the near-future.
Can we prevent what Simon and other kids in the near-future must go through and suffer? Simon is a fictional teen character who represents the grandchildren of our generation currently in our third decade of life, but he has something important to say about a far greater terror than anything we've faced before that is unfolding today before our eyes.
Is there a way we can work together now to ensure that our children and grandchildren have liberty-privacy and individual rights? The natural truth behind the First Amendment has always been a huge challenge for imperfect human beings, who have a difficult time seeing beyond force, to respect.
Is there a way that we can prevent our First Amendment from being merely words on paper?
Check out Simon's introduction to "The STARLING Series."
If you want to read more, then go to the digital version of the first four books in the series here.
To those who put their lives on the line to be real friends.
Chapter 1: Breaking “Tradition”
If anyone breaks through my encryption to read this, as a person who can make choices without PATRIOT SECURITY watching you; then you might as well know who I am. My name’s Simon Laramie. That’s not my “hacker” name. It’s my real name.
I just turned 15. This is my freshman quarter at Briarwood Public High School. Most of us just call it “Briar High.”
It’s January 2045, the first month of my classes here. The temperature’s still really hot outside, about 125 degrees by noon. But don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely not complaining. Winter sure is a lot better than summer!
Briarwood’s our town. It’s near a tiny river in what used to be mountains, about 60 miles south of Capital City. The river doesn’t usually have much water, well at least not like it did when our grandparents were kids.
There used to be a lake in Briarwood, but now it’s just a big empty dry crater. We get strong winds like hurricanes and tornadoes a lot. About once every few years, when we actually get some real rain, we get a huge flash flood. It floods most of the shelters that sit low.
These are the run-down solar reflective shelters where almost everybody lives. Nearly everything most people work for goes just for paying rent on a shelter. The rest of it goes for soda, lab food and Meds.
At school, we get soda, lab food and Meds for free. We get it all for free because we’re just public school kids, and PATRIOT SECURITY likes to say “No Children Go Hungry.”
But if you’re a grown up, it’s hard to pay for just basic stuff, even if you’re lucky enough to have been chosen by an Employer. If you’re able to work the full 18-hour-day quota or more, then you can usually get by at least.
Yeah, most of us know soda and lab “food” isn’t real. We know it’s synthetic. But no one I know ever gets real food because there are only a few special kinds of genetically modified crops farmers can still grow and only a handful of places left they can grow them.
I heard people used to catch fish in Briarwood’s river a really long time ago. Pretty wild, huh? But most of the rocks are stained red now from all the mine runoff, so there’s no fish or crawdads or anything. The river’s kind of like how a lot of the ocean has gotten, hot and dead.
All day during school, we hear explosions where the mining companies are blasting the last mountains just outside of town to get what’s left of the coal. Sometimes the blasts are so loud you can’t hear the teachers.
Above the blasting, above the school and our town, silver-metallic aircraft with coal dust-like specks and sleek lines that look like spaceships fly over us several times a day. Every town is assigned at least one, the cities have several. The aircraft can move in about every direction and even hover. Everyone calls them “The Drones.”
The Drones have been over us ever since I can remember. Heck, they watched our parents and grandparents too! Most of our parents and hardly any of us kids think about The Drones much. Well, maybe I’m the only one that thinks about them, but I’m not for sure. Maybe there are other people out there who think about The Drones and what they really mean too. But because everyone is being watched, everyone is too afraid to talk about their thoughts.
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To read more, click here, "The STARLING Connection."
To read more, click here, "The STARLING Connection."
