"Jak Koke - Shadowrun 28 - Dragon Heart Saga 02 - Clockwork Asylum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Koke Jak)

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and
nei-ther the author nor the publisher has received" any payment for this "stripped book."
For Frances Cogan, who showed me love for the written word,
 and for Thomas Lindell, who encouraged me to try it myself.
This book would not have been possible except for the generosity of Jonathan Bond. The effort he put forth for me
was indispensable, especially on the outline and the first draft. Credit should also go to Mike Mulvihill for his great
help with the plots and characters in this trilogy.
I'd also like to thank Tom Lindell, Nicole Brown, Seana Davidson, Don Gerrard, and Marsh Cassady for their
insightful critiques of the manuscript. My appreciation also goes to Donna Ippolito at FASA, who originally made it
possible for me to play in this wonderful uni-verse, and who has kept me focused on character and clarity.

The year is 2057

And magic has returned to the earth after an absence of many thousands of years. What the Mayan
calendar called the Fifth World has given way to the Sixth, a new cycle of magic, marked by the waking of the
great dragon Ryumyo in the year 2011. The Sixth World is an age of magic and technology. An Awakened age.
The rising magic has caused the archaic races to re-emerge. Metahumanity. First came the elves, tall and slender
with pointed ears and almond eyes. They were born to human parents, just as were dwarfs shortly there-after. Then
later came the orks and the trolls, some born changed, like elves and dwarfs, but others goblinized тАФ transformed
from human form into their true nature as the rising magic activated their DNA. Manifesting as larger bodies,
heavily muscled with tusked mouths and warty skin.
Even the most ancient and intelligent of beings, the great dragons, have come out of their long hiding. Only a few
of these creatures are known to exist, and most of them have chosen a life of isolation and secrecy. But some, able to
assume human form, have integrated themselves into the affairs of metahumanity. They have used their ancient
intellect, their powerful magic, and their innate cunning to ascend to positions of power.
One is known to own and run Saeder-Krupp тАФthe largest megacorporation in the world. AnotherтАФ
Dunkel-zahnтАФis the most controversial creature to ever to have been elected to the presidency of the United
Canadian and American States. Dunkelzahn was assassinated in a myste-rious explosion on August 9, 2057
тАФthe night of his inau-guration.
The Sixth World is afar cry from the mundane environ-ment of the Fifth. It is exotic and strange, a paradoxical
blend of the scientific and the arcane. The advance of technology has reached a feverish pace. The distinction
between man and machine is becoming blurred by the advent of direct neural interfacing. Cyberware. Machine and
computer implants are commonplace, making metal of flesh, pulsing electrons into neurons at the speed of thought.
People of the Sixth World are a new breed тАФ stronger, smarter, faster. Less human.
The Matrix has grown like a phoenix out of the ashes of the old global computer network. A virtual world of
computer-generated reality has emerged a universe of electrons and CPU cycles controlled and
manipulated by those with the fastest cyberdecks, with the hottest new code.
It is an era where information is power, where data and money are one and the same. Multinational
mega-corporations have replaced superpower governments as the true forces on the planet. In a world where cities
have grown into huge sprawls of concrete and steel, walled-off corporate enclaves and massive arcologies have
super-seded two-car garages, vegetable gardens, and white picket fences. The megacorps exploit masses of
wage-slaves for the profit of a lucky and ruthless few.
But in the shadows of the mammoth corporate arcolo-gies live the SINless. Those without System Identification
Numbers are not recognized by the machinery of society, by the bureaucracy that has grown so massive and
com-plex that nobody understands it completely. Among the SINless are the shadowrunners, traffickers in stolen
data and hot information, mercenaries of the street тАФdiscreet, effective, and untraceable.

The Sixth World is full of surprises, not the least of which is the recent discovery of a Locus by Aztechnology, a
megacorporation with a dark and bloody core. The Locus serves as a focus for metahuman sacrifices. It gives the