Panic Button (Frazer Lee) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

PANIC BUTTON movie novelisation by Frazer Lee ^based ^{upon the screenplay ‘Panic Button’ by Frazer Lee, John Shackleton, David Shillitoe & Chris Crow}

This book is respectfully dedicated to the passengers and crew of Deppart Airlines Flight D-665.

May their story be a warning to us all.

Prologue

Viewed from above, the earth is a schematic, a complex network populated with avatars and their constructs. Human beings and animals going about their daily business, their very lives hotwired to a web of their own invention. Every movement, and every choice, a series of variables driven by fateful algorithms — seemingly infinite possibilities narrowed to a fixed set of outcomes.

Let’s open a window on that world.

Let us zoom in and find a city, a termite mound of industry and activity. They look like insects, the people, from this high vantage point. Their buildings are like nests.

Let’s zoom in some more, find one such nest.

Here’s one, a modern redbrick housing block. A black vehicle waits outside, its engine throbbing like a worker drone’s wings. Three insect figures are gathered around, saying their goodbyes.

Full zoom now, and we can see these insects for what they really are.