2084
A Tale of Post America
by
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The wind had been rocking the Humvee harder and harder, with hailstones smashing against the car like sledgehammer blows. Suddenly they heard a deafening roar and through the mud-streaked windshield they saw the roof explode off the inspection station as lumber flew in all directions – setting off land mines as the debris fell to the ground. One of the eighteen-wheeler trucks flipped end over end. A whole line of trucks were knocked over on their sides. The Humvee was airborne for several feet, but landed upright.
Then the tornado was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
“You OK?” Carlton asked.
“I think so,” Tori said, swallowing hard to open her ears. “My eardrums hurt a little from that sudden drop in air pressure. Lucky we were both wearing our seat belts. I just hope the car will still run. I see a gap between those two overturned trucks at the gate... maybe we can squeeze between them.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” he said, then held his breath as he turned the ignition key. “Yes!” he whooped, as the engine roared to life. Slowly, Carlton drove along the line of overturned trucks, zigzagging around spilled cargo, chain link fencing, and piles of broken lumber from the building. When he reached the gate, the only soldiers visible were either dead or staggering in a daze, trying to find shelter from the punishing hail.
Carlton carefully squeezed the Humvee between two overturned trucks at the gate and floor-boarded the accelerator as soon as they were in the clear. “Anybody following us?” he asked.
Tori rolled down the mud-caked side window and cautiously stuck her head out. “Nope. I don’t think they even care about us,” she said. “They’re just trying to protect themselves.”
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About the Book
Who murdered the chief engineer of the RUR robotics company of Portland, Oregon, and stole his prototype computer chip? By 2084 atmospheric temperature is up by eight degrees and ocean levels are up by eighteen feet. Both federal and state governments have collapsed, replaced instead by a system of city-states. Carlton Smith, sales manager of RUR, is tasked with finding out who-done-it and saving the company from bankruptcy. Carlton is a widower with an eighteen year old daughter named Tori. The company provides Carlton with several high tech bugging devices, as well as a custom built vehicle modeled after the old army Humvee. The investigation would lead Carlton and Tori on a dangerous trip through the Wild West back to the ruins of Chicago, which is a Christian Fundamentalist city-state at war with the Black Muslim city-state of Detroit. In Chicago Carlton is kidnapped by Yakuza gangsters and taken to the Roman Catholic city-state of San Antonio, where Tori rescues her father in spectacular fashion.
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Carlton and Tori travel across the desert toward Los Angeles. But near the ruins of Las Vegas, Tori is kidnapped from the ladies' room of a restaurant. There are no police between Albuquerque and Los Angeles so Carlton continues his trip and reports the crime.
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He drops into a bar, where he is picked up by a beautiful hostess named Julia O'Brian. Julia works for a politically powerful New Age preacher named the Prophet, whose church is in a political tug-of-war with the American Catholic Church over control of the city. The key to the Prophet's popularity is the fact that he seems to be eternally youthful.
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How does he do it?
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What happened to Tori?
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Will Carlton save the company?
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Will civilization survive?
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Read the book to find out!
About the Author
Milt Timmons holds a PhD in Communications from the University of Southern California and has taught all aspects of Speech, Drama, Radio, T.V., film, and Journalism for thirty years. He was head of the Motion Picture Department at Los Angeles Valley College for twenty-two years, and head of the Broadcasting Department at Sam Houston State University, in Texas, before that. He is the author of several books, including “Orientation to Cinema,” “Everything About the Bible That You Never Had Time to Look Up,” and the philosophical novel, “Regarding an Angel’s Flight.” He wrote most of “2084” in the 1980s, but scheduling conflicts prevented bringing it to market earlier. Since this is a realistic novel, solidly based on scientific extrapolation, elements of the story that were regarded as sci-fi fantasy as late as 2006 have now become yesterday’s news.