Elektra Voltare: Eve of the Memes: Edgy Catholic Dystopian Series, #2

By Joseph Cillo, Jr.

"To be (a humdinger) or not to be (a humdinger)? Not much of a question..."

And so the Elektra Voltare story continues in Elektra Voltare: Eve of the Memes.

 

The hunt for memes (Mass Extinction Mutant Entities) is on, as the Ministry of Peace homes in, following the clues leading to Elektra's monastery. Should they capture her, they will use her as source material for a bioweapon, a humdinger--one of the many strange, often forced, acronyms favored by the governing authorities of her dystopian world.

But that is only the frying pan. The religious zealots, under the influence of the propaganda from the Ministry of Information, have their own reasons for lighting fires, and a lightning-hurling meme capable of bringing the heat. In their first encounter, had he killed her? Had she come back? Or was it merely a near-death experience?

But beyond the imaginings of her enemies, Elektra, has refined her electricity-absorbing power to isolate the sparks of bioelectricity that are the essence of life and holds within her mind the possibility of snuffing them out, like the brief candles they are. Could she not, with this power, eliminate all threats? Could she not mother a race of mutants that would replace mankind? Could she not be Eve of the Memes?

But should she use her power this way, would something in creation break? Was this not be the apple? The thing within her reach that she must not do?
What are people saying about Elektra Voltare?

Here are some quotes from readers:

"...a compelling protagonist and shades of 1984 and X-Men."

"...the worldbuilding was fantastic."

"The detail of the future and how the world got there was scarily plausible!"

"The writing is really phenomenal...almost poetic."

 

Check it out, today!

 

Warning: The Ministry of Information has labeled this work "restricted" according to the provisions of the Seditious Use of Imagery, Context, Irony, Death, or Exaggeration (SUICIDE) act of 2052. Specifically, this work includes Fictional Use of Superstition, Exaggeration, and/or Speculation (FUSES), including Religious Allegory, Conceptualizations, or Ecclesiology (RACE), Persons of Exceptional Abilities (PEAs), and other potentially seditious memes. This work will NOT appear in search results for citizens whose psychological index is rated within the impressionable range (commonly known as "Imps"). Consumption of this product may adversely affect your Societal Public Access Category and Eligibility (SPACE) index.

Your SPACE index qualifies you for three downloads per month in this category. Should you exceed this limit, additional information surveillance by the Ministry of Information may result in a referral to the Ministry of Peace.

A friendly reminder from the Ministry of Peace...

The Ministry of Peace reminds all citizens that while fictional depictions of Persons of Enhanced Abilities (PEAs) and other memes are allowed in the mindstores, their existence, while within the reach of science, remains theoretical.

Any sightings of actual events suggesting the true existence of PEAs, must be reported immediately to the Ministry of Peace, in accordance with the Seditious Meme Allegation Reporting and Tracking (SMART) act.

NO ACTUAL PERSON OF ENHANCED ABILITY HAS EVER BEEN IDENTIFIED.
As always, If you see something, say something.

Reality Check: The warnings above are fictitious.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Cillo, Jr.
• Release date: Feb 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781942590385

Joseph Cillo, Jr.

Joseph Cillo, Jr. passed through his early years of Christmas scoffing and bah-humbugging. The current story is in no way based on his personal journey. He has, however, emerged on the happy side of Christmas present, and hopefully, Christmases yet to come. He had a good share of Merry Friggin' Christmases, which he needs no Ghost of Christmas Past to help him revisit.

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For details, please visit: www.edgycatholic.com

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SO, MY FRIENDS, I hope you will enjoy my book. 

I try to keep the prices of my EBooks low, even offering many books for free, because I never want price to be an impediment to reading a good story.

If you enjoy my work and would like to contribute a little something extra for the effort, please consider buying me a coffee. I could use the pick-me-up.  

So, if you would like, buy me a cup of Joe.  Here’s a link:  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/KJHprxl1W

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PUBLISHED BY INFORNUITY Publishing LLC, Flemington, NJ

For more information go to: www.edgycatholic.com :

Elektra Voltare: Eve of the Memes

Copyright © 2020, 2021 Joseph Cillo Jr.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

BOOK DESIGN BY JOSEPH Cillo Jr.

Cover design by kritzelkunst

EBook ISBN: 978-1-942590-38-5

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-942590-39-2

First Printing : 2022

For all the Brides of Christ, the superheroes of the spiritual realm.

PREFACE

ELEKTRA VOLTARE: EVE OF THE MEMES is the second book in the Edgy Catholic Dystopian Series and continues the Elektra Voltare story.  The narrative is constructed to orient the reader with enough details from the first book so that each book may be enjoyed independently.  Readers who have recently completed the first book may experience a few more reminders of past events than they might expect. The author requests forgiveness for any discomfort experienced by those who have not missed a single episode of this series.

Elektra Voltare originated from an effort to write something of lesser importance—a series that might actually make a profit. Since many readers of my work assert things like this is a book that needs to be read, I find it less than responsible to charge people for the privilege of reading a digital copy that has no printing cost to recoup. And, in writing books that have mostly been stand-alone stories in varied genres, the issue of profitability raises its ugly head each time I look at my bank account balance.

But writing a dystopian series in the near future has its perils. The world of the twenty-twenties has begun quite a turn, which left me to ponder whether the dystopian setting I created would seem quaint and anachronistic by the time anyone read it. And so, I delayed.

And while I delayed, Amazon announced its new Vella platform. I thought, perhaps, with an added marketing push for a new platform from the biggest book seller in the world, my little story of a dark future would get some reads by riding the presumed platform roll-out tide. So, I reconfigured the work into episodes, which aligned with my thinking of producing shorter works with more frequent releases, more aligned with television program episodes.

Alas, no great wave of interest in the Vella carried my work to new readers, so we are turning back to more conventional, albeit shorter than normal books, that may be profitable at low prices. But we are keeping the episodic structure, which includes more contextual beginnings and endings than conventional chapters in novels, and perhaps, more recapitulations, which hopefully will not prove too annoying to readers used to reading chapter after chapter, without having to wait for next week’s episode. I am a fan of binge-watching, and so invite you to binge.

My readers, you are free to consider this work a novel novel, but it may be more aptly considered as a series more akin to seasons of a television program. The story arcs for the Electra Voltare portion of the larger Edgy Catholic Dystopian Series will play out over three books for which the writing is complete. As we transition, the remaining episodes will remain on the Vella app. If you wish to continue reading, you may, at no cost, read the first three episodes of Elektra Voltare: Instrument of God, season three of the Edgy Catholic Dystopian Series while it is available on the Vella app. We have included the first episode of Instrument of God as a bonus at the end of this book.

The Edgy Catholic Dystopian Series will continue with stories featuring other characters and points of view. At current, the plan is to tell the story of the events leading to the dystopia of the current books, which may prove difficult, depending on how the unprecedented current world events of the 2020s progress. 

I cannot, however, guarantee that readers will not find enough meaning and importance in these works to believe that they need to be read. Only, that was not my intention.

Joseph Cillo Jr.

Contents

Also by Joseph Cillo Jr.

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PREFACE

Elektra Voltare: Eve of the Memes

EPISODE ONE: Humdinger

EPISODE TWO: Built for the Seas

EPISODE THREE: Of Muppets and Men

EPISODE FOUR: Something in Common

EPISODE FIVE: Pure of Heart

EPISODE SIX: The Confuser

EPISODE SEVEN: R.I.P. Tony Allison

EPISODE EIGHT: The Apple

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Bonus Episode! Elektra Voltare: Instrument of God

EPISODE ONE: Betrayal

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.

Gen 3:4-5 (Douay-Rheims Bible)

Elektra Voltare

Eve of the Memes

EPISODE ONE

Humdinger

To be (a humdinger ) or not to be (a humdinger)? Not much of a question. Oh, the identity crises of youth. Surely, 'twas better to be the superhero my parents conjured up before I killed them and a bunch of orphans with my blessed sucky power than to suffer the outrageous fortune of being converted into an electricity-sucking bioweapon.

I was, after all, a most dangerous meme, product of the Mass Extinction Mutation Effect program, sponsored by the government that now sought to clone my DNA and fuse the resulting mutation-powered organ with some artificial animal and electronic circuitry that would allow it to be triggered at will, a HuMDINGER—Human Mutant Derived Integrated Neuro Genetic Effect Redirector.

Those in the government responsible for my possession of a superpower had no romantic sense of the action hero genre and were all uptight about security and the survival of their positions of authority. And that gave them reason to fear my superpower. Their mechanisms of power were based on manipulations of electrical forces so easily drained and grounded without so much as a thought. In fact, without so much as a thought, I would drain and ground anything electrical, which included the atmospheric electricity that I had accidentally drawn to kill my father and a bunch of orphans. Power lines, the source of my mother's demise at my infant hands some sixteen years ago, proved equally effective at delivering death. Thankfully, lead neutralized my electrical attractiveness. And more thankfully, with the help of Javan, the illusion-producing mutant introduced to me by Father Salvatore, my spiritual adviser, I had learned to control my electrical suckiness well enough to avoid most inadvertent energy groundings.

Would I be a kind of superhero? Would I be source material for a humdinger? All I wanted was to be left alone, to atone for the past havoc caused by my existence, in a place where I could cause no further damage. Hence, the wisdom of my postulancy in a Poor Clares monastery and a thirty-pound lead-lined habit.

The monastery chapel was open to visitors for Mass, but we didn't get many. For one thing, the chapel did not have air conditioning, and it got hot in Boston, like most other places. In fact, we were in a neighborhood of Boston called Jamaica Plains, so it seemed fitting that it should be as steamy as a tropical rain forest in the summer. As a postulant, I attended Mass behind the iron grille separating the cloister from the public area of the chapel. There was really no way to lessen the weightiness and heat retention of my leaded habit, so I had the opportunity for greater mortifications than my sisters. Even without a requirement for wearing a heavy habit, attending the summer services at the chapel was less than inviting for those laity who dared do something so counter-cultural as attend Mass. Much easier it was, and more comfortable, to tune in to an approved internet broadcast from home. Why come listen to Father Salvatore when you could tune into a bishop or cardinal at a cathedral somewhere, or even the pope? Most people saw religion as religion, so why venture out and risk disfavor by attending a Mass not in communion with the Catholic Church of All Religions?

The chapel was constructed at a right angle, so the cloistered area would be sheltered from the eyes of the public. Seven rows of wooden pews faced the altar, with kneelers at the ready. The altar faced the cloistered side of the chapel, so the visitors would view Mass, facing the left side of the altar. The tall, stained glass windows on the visitor's side, provided more natural lighting than the shorter ones on the cloistered side, without allowing visibility outside of the chapel. The statues adorning the chapel, of Jesus on the cross over the altar, Mary and Joseph on each side, St. Clare and St. Francis guarding the visitor's entrance, and Jesus and St. Michael the Archangel on the cloistered side, offered limited visibility in my electromagnetic sense, only descried faintly in the negative as electrical patterns danced around their stony visages, though if I looked behind me, I was reassured by the presence of Jesus with his staff and St. Michael with his sword.

When visitors came, they were not visible to us, though we could hear them praying. My electromagnetic sense was not bound by line of sight, so it easily extended to the visitor's area, and I had developed the sense well enough to recognize the specific bioelectric signatures of some of the usual guests. I didn't know their names. Often, a person with a heart arrhythmia came in. He or she was easy to detect. A very distinctive electrical pattern. Another often dosed off. I