"Jim Stark - LieDeck Revolution 02 - Endgame" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stark Jim)

The LieDeck Revolution (Book #2)
The Endgame
Jim Stark

v1.0 by the N.E.R.D's
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In 1997, I received a literary grant of $19,650.00 to write this book. I would like to thank the Conseil
des arts et des lettres du Qu├йbec for their indispensable support. I hope I have done them proud. I also
wish to thank Dr. Robert Bernstein, without whose help this book would likely not have been written,
even with the grant.
****
Note to readers

This book was written in the late 1990s (and re-written in 2006) but it is set in 2033. As such, certain
terms will not be familiar to the reader. For this reason, I have added a short glossary at the back of the
book. (Confession: I had to use it from time to time myself, so I can vouch for its convenience.)



Chapter 1

EMOTION WRESTLING

Tuesday, February 8, 2033тАФ11:45 a.m.

Lilly Petrosian took off her headphones, leaned to the left, and looked up the aisle to see what all the
commotion was about. Two flight attendants in the forward alcove were trying to fend off an attack of the
giggles. Well ... pretending to try, thought Lilly. They were doubling over, turning their jiggling backs to
the passengers, wiping their eyes, putting hands over their mouths to kill the sound, each begging the
other to stop. Every time there seemed to be a glimmer of hope for self-control, the giggling would start
all over again, with each one blaming the other. тАЬEmotion wrestling,тАЭ it was called by the pop shrinks.
тАЬVery unprofessional,тАЭ Lilly scowled under her breath. They're probably Evolutionaries, she figured.

The performance in the alcove was infectious. Many of the first class passengers were smiling and
suppressing laughter, even though they had no idea what was so funny. Instinctively, Lilly wanted to be in
on the joke too. On the other hand, she thought wearily. She straightened up in her seat, put the
headphones back on, and closed her eyes. It made her feel old, somehow, seeing these civilians just
enjoying life, without the tensions of the world welling up, closing in, and getting in the way. She was only
a few years older than the two flight attendants, but she felt like she could have been their aunt, or their
sergeant.

Captain Lillian Petrosian had joined the WDA in 2026, the very year that Sheena Kalhoun took over the
leadership of the world body. Lilly had been an agent for seven years now, and the first six had been
grand. Her work had been confined to the United States, and most Americans were still in a state of
wonder that war and crime had finally been dumped from the human condition. Indeed, civilians had
responded to her as if she were the fountainhead of the magic, as if she had personally waved the
extra-terrestrial wand that some people believed had to be behind that hairpin turn nineteen years ago.
After a seamless tale of bloody turmoil, stretching back to the first hunter-gatherer tribes, people were
profoundly relieved that тАЬhistoryтАЭ had finally reached the end of the track, that human life could finally just