Chasing the Light
by
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Struck by a sudden sense of unreality, Michelle watched Tom as he walked back down the ridge toward the tent. She wondered how she had ever ended up out here in the middle of nowhere like this with someone she barely knew. She was supposed to go to the beach with her best friend Melissa and her two kids today. These raw and wild mountains were about as far from the beach and the Bay Area as she had ever imagined. Farther. It wasn’t the distance but the environment. The alpine air was thin and dry and saturated with the scent of pine trees. It wasn’t anything like the heavy, damp air and salty smell of the ocean. Michelle was still exhausted from the last couple of days, and everything had such a dreamlike quality to it. Even though she was tired and could have used some sleep herself, she was still too tense from her scare in the truck. Tom had turned her life upside down, not to mention Alvin. The world was falling apart and she had no idea how they were going to put it back together again. Alvin was just a hodgepodge of spare parts from her lab, an advanced light machine resting in the back of Tom’s truck. It contained only a partial copy of the mind of a sentient being from another world. His true name was in a form of light, so Michelle had given him the name of a voice recognition software program she had developed for kids. It was kind of ironic that this twelve thousand year old alien spoke with a voice of a ten year old human, but it was the only way she had thought of to make a way to communicate with him. She hoped he would be able to retrieve the rest of himself before they were caught. He was still scattered all over the World Wide Web. Transmitting a virtual version of himself and his entire civilization in stages, he had broken all our encryption codes and disrupted millions of computers worldwide since we didn’t have any one that was powerful enough to receive him. Everyone one was in a panic and still didn’t realize what had happened. That was just as well, because they only had five days left to stop the next transmission.
"How many children do you have?" Alvin asked, using the link in the VR glasses. "I don’t have any yet," Michelle said poignantly. "But I plan to have some someday." "What are you waiting for? You have to have some right away! Otherwise you might die first and I won’t have anyone to visit when I come back," he said, deeply concerned. "I know. You and Tom should have some children right now, so your DNA will be passed on, and I can find your great great great grandchildren without any problems." "Alvin. It doesn’t work that way. People have to love each other first, so they can pass that love on to the children." "Now you are talking about emotions again," Alvin said, still puzzled. "I guess I don’t understand those very well. Tell me more. Don’t you love Tom?" Michelle didn’t know if she should answer that, or how she should answer that. "Don’t you love Tom?" Alvin asked again. "Well yes sort of. He’s becoming more and more important to me," she said, trying to face the emotions Alvin was stirring up in her. "I just met him a couple of days ago. You don’t marry someone after only a couple of days and decide to have kids." "Why?"
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About the Book
Chasing the Light
Alvin is a sentient being from another world who explores the galaxy by beaming a virtual version of himself and his entire civilization by stages to likely planets that might have intelligent life. When he arrives on earth his transmission is so immense that he ends up scattered all over the World Wide Web in millions of computers, causing havoc to businesses, governments, and law enforcement agencies.
By a chance meeting Alvin is able to contact Tom through Michelle’s VR glasses and tells him what happened. Michelle helps him build an advanced computer so he can retrieve the rest of himself before they are caught by the military and dozens of other agencies trying to find the one responsible for a looming world wide disaster. But if Alvin is detained or disconnected from the web, another transmission, much more powerful than the one he came in on, will disable most of the computers on the planet. They reach the refuge of the high Sierras, where Alvin can use a satellite dish to access the Web, while Tom and Michelle go on a lot of personal adventures, trying to hide in a remote wilderness.
Alvin is intensely curious about earth, and asks a lot of innocent questions about love and human relationships. Michelle had been hurt in a lot of her relationships and has a hard time trusting anyone. She is a beautiful woman, but her beauty had always been a handicap for her in the business world. Men saw her as a trophy, something to conquer and posses. Tom is a passionate artist who loves the outdoors. He spends most of their time in the mountains putting Michelle in situations she isn’t used to, trying to get her to really trust him. Their lives are in each other’s hands, and Tom knows that he’ll never reach her until she learns how to trust again.
About the Author
I’ve always wanted to know why about almost everything, and even as a teenager I was interested in science and technology, especially about how the universe and everything in it came into being. From there I digressed for years, studying many of the world’s religions, meditating and searching for the answers to life. Before I got serious about writing, my creative needs were met through photography. I’ve been shooting photos of the Sierras and other wilderness areas for thirty years now and love the pristine, untouched world of the high country. In the last forty years there’s been a revolution in science. We are in a golden age of discovery. I wanted to have an overall picture of how everything came into being for myself, so I started a book entitled Life in a Violent Universe. I wanted to trace everything from the beginning of time up to the present. A method of interstellar travel was born out my work on Life in a Violent Universe. The concept was so unique that I decided to write a novel and called it Chasing the Light, using a fictional character to popularize the idea. The plot for Sarah came during the middle of that writing. The two novels are like apples and oranges, both fruit and very delicious, but with their own unique taste. At one point I had started three books and hadn’t finished one of them. The novels became so exciting that I ended up alternating work on both novels until they were finished. Life in a Violent Universe is still in the works, as well as a sequel to Chasing the Light.