After Life Online: Chronicles of iMortality

By A J McKeep

What good is a military-grade, cyber-enhanced body if you haven't got the juice to power it?

What chance do a few plucky outlaw misfits have against a giant killer robot? 

And how did the fascinating intruder come to be in someone else's body?

They could all be really interesting questions, if only giant stomper robots were not crashing through the forest to kill Moses, Cal, Darbi, and all of their off-grid, outlaw huddle. Is it all because of the dark forces in pursuit of Angel, the mysterious intruder?

Solving that riddle could save them all but there's no time. Now, it's fight or die.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alice May Ball
• Release date: May 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386868583

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Copyright 2018 A.J. McKeep

COPYRIGHT © 2018 A.J. McKeep

All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this ebook.

First Published by in 2018 by TzZ Publishing

Chronicles of iMortality

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THE OUTLANDS: FINAL CENTURY, 3rd Quarter

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AFTER LIFE

AI’s rule the world in the third decade of the final century.

Along with terrorism and the endless foreign wars, the genetic plague known as rDNA is a constant threat. Early ‘retirement,’ salvaging and maximum age limits are enforced everywhere. In USCom a program called iMortality seems to offer hope with continued life online. But some say the program is not what it seems.

Small pockets of rebels still try to evade the authority of the AI’s. Living off-grid, with unCert communications and hardware, they are hunted by stealth and surveillance.

If they are found, members of the resistance are retired with force and extreme prejudice.

What chance can a few plucky outlaw misfits have against a giant killer robot?

What good is a military-grade, cyber-enhanced body if you haven't got the juice to power it?

And how did the fascinating intruder come to be in someone else's body?

They could all be really interesting questions, if only giant stomper robots were not crashing through the forest to kill Moses, Cal, Darbi, and all of their off-grid, outlaw huddle. Is it all because of the dark forces in pursuit of Angel, the mysterious intruder?

Solving that riddle could save them all but there's no time. Now, it's fight or die.

Stomper

THE GROUND SHOOK. LESS than fifty feet away, the gray stomper clanked and menaced outside the edge of the bare forest. The huge, wide, two-legged slaying and demolition machine was just sixty feet away. All of my military-grade body-enhancements and upgrades were dead-weight. Powered down and useless. Frontline combat-grade, power enhanced limbs and semi-intelligent hands, a titanium-braced powered spine, all of it was so much dumb baggage. Without the juice to run them, they were tired, unwilling hydraulics. Power steering with no power.

In the field of combat, all recruits are enhanced with insurgent-grade optical and aural implants when you pass boot camp. Grunts starting out are juiced up with the good pay from USMilCorp, and when you were injured, the only thought was how a new arm or a spine upgrade was was going to transform you into a kind of superman. Part man, part mech. You outran evolution with new, everlasting, fast legs.

Impossible weights and endless endurance were nothing to your super-strength arms. Your heart and hormone pumps were beefed and you got a charged up neuro-network. You were a post-human hero with neural info-systems feeding data direct to your optic nerves.

What could possibly go wrong?

You never stopped to think about how the future would play out. Like most surviving vets, I carried a whole mess of superhuman replacements, extensions and enhancements. And, like all the vets