Peace is just a quieter kind of war.
Two years after the "Hollow War" ended in a radioactive stalemate, America has been carved in two. To the west lies the Silicon Mandate: a gleaming, autonomous city-state run by the Pacific Consortium, where safety is guaranteed, surveillance is total, and freedom is a relic of the past. To the east lie the Free States: a ravaged, lawless buffer zone where survival is a daily battle against radiation, starvation, and warlords.
Jackson Reed has traded his captain's bars for a marshal's badge. patrolling the dusted-out highways of the Nevada border. But when a routine interdiction uncovers a smuggled piece of dormant PLA technology in the Black Rock Desert, Jackson realizes the war isn't as over as the politicians claim.
Inside the gilded cage of San Francisco, Sarah Miller serves as the US Liaison to the Consortium. But beneath the diplomatic receptions and clean streets, she uncovers a conspiracy codenamed Project Chimera: a secret program to reactivate a terrifying hive-mind weapon left behind by the Chinese army.
As a black-ops hit squad known as the "Black Lotus" begins erasing witnesses across the desert, Jackson and Sarah must bridge the divide between their worlds. From the neon-lit back alleys of Reno to the frozen passes of the Sierra Nevada, they are hunting a ghost that threatens to turn the Cold Peace into a hot war.
Genre: Science Fiction
Two years after the "Hollow War" ended in a radioactive stalemate, America has been carved in two. To the west lies the Silicon Mandate: a gleaming, autonomous city-state run by the Pacific Consortium, where safety is guaranteed, surveillance is total, and freedom is a relic of the past. To the east lie the Free States: a ravaged, lawless buffer zone where survival is a daily battle against radiation, starvation, and warlords.
Jackson Reed has traded his captain's bars for a marshal's badge. patrolling the dusted-out highways of the Nevada border. But when a routine interdiction uncovers a smuggled piece of dormant PLA technology in the Black Rock Desert, Jackson realizes the war isn't as over as the politicians claim.
Inside the gilded cage of San Francisco, Sarah Miller serves as the US Liaison to the Consortium. But beneath the diplomatic receptions and clean streets, she uncovers a conspiracy codenamed Project Chimera: a secret program to reactivate a terrifying hive-mind weapon left behind by the Chinese army.
As a black-ops hit squad known as the "Black Lotus" begins erasing witnesses across the desert, Jackson and Sarah must bridge the divide between their worlds. From the neon-lit back alleys of Reno to the frozen passes of the Sierra Nevada, they are hunting a ghost that threatens to turn the Cold Peace into a hot war.
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for Ray Lux's The Silicon Mandate