Working Titles
Regarding the first project listed here, I felt compelled to pursue it as I have watched the world and our freedoms steadily erode around us. More and more, I find myself reflecting on my days in government service and the projects and activities I was once involved with.
One of those projects focused on identifying the dangers of unchecked corporate power, the consolidation of influence in the hands of a few, and the warning signs that accompany such shifts.
It was in some respects like any other contingency plan, although different from our plans for pandemics and natural disasters, or for wars both limited and total.
The reports we produced showed a clear awareness of the signs of danger, but they offered very little in the way of strategies for addressing them.
For even the most far-fetched scenarios we had contingency plans. When I say “far-fetched,” I mean things like: What if Canada decides to invade the United States? Or, What if space aliens, friendly or hostile, make contact or land either inside the continental United States or elsewhere?
I know this because I worked on many such plans, of which our nation’s military and civilian planners have thousands.
Yet for what we face now, I know of very few options, and none that I am comfortable laying out here or even discussing outside a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility). For this reason, I write both fiction and non-fiction as warnings. I also sit on panels at science fiction conventions in the hope of educating others about the threats that are already present and growing.
Law is not Justice
In a world not too unlike our own, greed is the Law of the land. Money talks, Corporations are people, and the rich are untouchable. Only a fool believes we have a Justice system that is blind to such little things as race, or sex, and most especially not to poverty or wealth.
The system is broken, but Jared has a plan to fix it.
His country taught him how to build a team, how to plan a mission, and if necessary pay the cost to get the deed done.
They took everything from him and countless others; all for one more yacht, one more mansion, or mistress, or few million dollars in stock options.
Jared has nothing left to loose. He doesn't need the money. He doesn't want fame or glory. Jared is out for justice.
For they taught him well,
"The deed is all, not the glory.