2094

In 2094 ... ... citizens of Illumined Cities enjoy cerebral microchips and SexBot service ... .... Badlands desperadoes sabotage nuclear waste storages sites in Mexico ... ... detainees of Gulag Cuba wage jihad against Discipline & Punish ... ... Initiates and Adepts on Mars seek the Philosopher's Stone. J Melmoth and wife Raquel are leisured, privileged, self-indulgent, and at peace with the world that is. SmartBots do all the work, CellRenew keeps them young, organ cloning keeps them healthy, and microchips integrated with their prefrontal cortexes keep them connected. Newsstories manifesting on their windowall nag at their attention: Gulag Cuba remains full of detainees, New Age alchemists on Mars still cannot establish a viable atmosphere for the Red Planet, and EcoTerrorism is rampant across the Badlands of Mexico. Puzzling, that Gulag prisoners refuse microchip implantation despite rewards on offer. Inside Mars Colony's geodesic domes, Initiates and Adepts control the dispensation on Earth while Mexican guerrillas elude ambush and cheat death. Against long odds, they cross the Badlands and Sierra Madre in search of stolen families and an ancient treasure that may ransom them. Initiates know the secret to immortality lies in gold. It is a question of creating enough or of finding it. The paradise promised by a century of high technology and ancient knowledge seems at hand. Or is it? Why does Melmoth's SmartBot malfunction, and Raquel's follow suit? Why has the historical record been changed and the text of a famous novel tinkered with? Gulag detainees court death by resisting microchip enhancement. The Mexican's quest brings them to the ancient city of Teotihuacan - conveniently for the eggheads on Mars, who fail repeatedly to transform base metals into gold. And Melmoth? His head hurts. That microchip must be on the fritz. Can he remediate? In the world that is, it is late in day. For Melmoth. For everyone ... Tragic and comic, realistic and fantastic, 2094 is a narrative mosaic, a speculative dystopia jazzed with science-fiction and fretted with gold. It is a story of quest and protest, esoteric theology, Meso-American legend, and synthetic technologies. Visionary, sardonic, and fiercely honest, it imagines a future being born today.