by Purple Hazel
TWIN PARADOX
BOOK ONE
by
Purple Hazel
TORRID BOOKS
www.torridbooks.com
Published by
TORRID BOOKS
www.torridbooks.com
An Imprint of Whiskey Creek Press LLC
Copyright © 2017 by PURPLE HAZEL
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-68299-262-3
Credits
Cover Artist: Kristian Norris
Editor: Dave Field
Printed in the United States of America
Other Books by Author Available at Torrid Books:
www.torridbooks.com
Spanish Posse Serial
Episode 1: The Gentleman and the Saloon Girl
Episode 2: The Casanova and the Cyprian
Episode 3: The Hunters and the Hunted
Episode 4: Heroes and Villains
Dedication
To Dave Landes, our coworker, who came up with the basic concept for this incredible book. Thanks for all your crazy ideas, Dave!
To Miguel Alcubierre, theoretical physicist from Mexico City, author of The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity, and creator of the Alcubierre Drive Metric.
To Albert Einstein, Max Born, Paul Langevin, and Max von Laue, for their theories on special relativity and the twin paradox, which inspired the premise for this novel.
Also, a special acknowledgement to rock star Ted Nugent. Thanks Ted, for being so amazing.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Part One: Collapse and Aftermath
Chapter 1: The Great Collapse of 2028
Chapter 2: A New World Order
Chapter 3: The Rise of the Global Union
Chapter 4: Solar Revolution
Chapter 5: Operation Goldilocks
Part Two: Pioneers and Explorers
Chapter 6: The Twin Paradox
Chapter 7: Three Adorable Pairs
Chapter 8: Katerfrüstück
Chapter 9: Non mais allô quoi
Part Three: Journey and Conquest
Chapter 10: Year Five
Chapter 11: Year Ten
Chapter 12: Reach the Beach
Chapter 13: All Ears
Chapter 14: Somewhere. Anywhere. Nowhere
Chapter 15: To the Surprise of Everyone
Part Four: Heroes and Scapegoats
Chapter 16: Year Fifteen
Chapter 17: Schmutzfink
Chapter 18: The Virch
Chapter 19: Shah-zee
Chapter 20: Garden Geeks
Chapter 21: Missing Link
Chapter 22: Star Babes
Chapter 23: Dropping a Dime
Foreword
When we set out to write Twin Paradox, we wanted to create a realistic and believable world only one hundred years in the future. Rather than devising or assuming technology that would be barely conceivable given known scientific principles, we tried to take current developmental theories and apply them in our story. It wasn’t too terribly difficult to find them.
Today, in 2017, mankind is working feverishly to move our species from the Computer Age into the next great era of human achievement. Thus, researching these new advancements was quite easy, even given the scope of this epic science fiction trilogy, which begins in the year 2086.
In this first book of the Twin Paradox trilogy, the reader learns of our current society’s eventual collapse…and rebirth. How the major cities of Earth plunge into anarchy. How the American credit-based economy comes crashing to the ground, bringing an abrupt end to a financial system that goes back to 1971. Here, the reader learns of the sad end to a way of life most of us living today would dearly miss.
And yet, the resilience of humanity once again shines through. A new world order is established. Mankind recovers. New technologies resolve most of the problems still facing the world's dominant species.
That being said, the growth of the world’s population only leads to yet another ominous threat: that the world may not be able to feed itself within another century. This inevitability prompts the best and brightest to once again gather together and propose radical solutions; leading to the ambitious space mission we describe in our story.
Twin Paradox is about three pairs of identical twins—all orphans—separated from each other, and with one from each set recruited into the Earth’s international space program. According to scientific theory, if one individual from a set of identical twins were to travel through space at or near the speed of light for an extended period of time, they will likely return to Earth only to find their brother or sister has aged significantly faster than them. Thus, as part of a bizarre social experiment, scientists decide to place them on board an intergalactic spacecraft and observe the results. Their entire lives are then monitored, along with the lives of their siblings back on Earth.
In this book, the reader learns of their development into young adults—both the three bright youngsters brought in to become astronauts, as well as the three twins left to eke out a difficult existence back home. Book Two of the trilogy goes on to tell the exciting tale of their return to Earth many years later. Book Three will detail what ultimately becomes of them once they’ve been reunited with their now much older, yet otherwise identical siblings.
Part One
Collapse and Aftermath
Chapter 1
The Great Collapse of 2028
“You’re on in about five minutes, Miss Redmann,” stated a very rushed but politely professional studio producer as the savvy news reporter sat in a raised director’s chair. It was nearly six in the morning—about time for her rather thorough makeup artist to finish dabbing facial powder to her foundation and send her into the production stage area for her weekly news show Worldweek, now in its ninth season on GBN Global. Ratings had been stellar ever since she’d taken over the nearly decade-long news magazine at the start of the 2086 season.
Coraline “Cory” Redmann had certainly paid her dues as a cub reporter and then a local news anchor for a time, working in small markets throughout Canada. Her groundbreaking exposé called “The Great Collapse of 2028” which had detailed the tragic fall of the western economy, was filmed when she’d been an energetic young journalist, fresh out of college in 2076. It had grabbed the attention of network executives when it first aired on Canadian regional Ultravision. Soon she’d found herself being highly sought-after and the big-shots at GBN were calling her up to the “big leagues” of international broadcast journalism. She certainly had the pretty face, lovely curves, and tough street savvy to rise quickly through the ranks!
Now thirty-three, her bright, peppy smile, hard-nosed interviewing style, and buttery, resonant studio voice had won her quite a following. Her show’s popularity on Sunday nights following the last of the GBN weekend sports broadcasts had made it a staple in many North American homes.
The Great Collapse was a five-part series she’d written and produce
d while working for a small outlet news station in Rochester, District of New York, and it became a media sensation when the independent broadcast of the series on the worldwide macronet stirred up almost immediate controversy. Basically, the global government had long since sought to suppress widespread knowledge of this dark and horrendous period in human history, and at the very least had directed educational systems and history book publishers to provide a far more sanitized version of the events which took place during those terrible months after the virtual overnight implosion of the American credit-based economy. Yet the rather brave and stubborn young reporter strove to delve more deeply into the past and dig up long-buried facts and details including eye-witness accounts from people who were mere children or young adults at the time.
In the summer of 2028, tensions among working class citizens in the United States of America were at an all-time high. Five decades of liberal economic policies had left—what was at the time—the world’s strongest consumer economy in shambles. Living standards for most Americans had been drastically reduced due to the gradual conversion of American labor into a primarily service-based economy. Thus the perception among many was that the once-great American middle class was disappearing completely never to return to prominence.
Radical change was necessary, yet the status quo of complacency continued to be maintained within the American legislature. Nothing ever moved—creative solutions or suggestions would be swiped away like flies from a picnic table. Even revolutionary concepts proposed by respected citizens that might gain traction among the electorate would eventually be dissected, diluted, and discredited by that very same political machine whose ultimate survival ironically depended upon maintaining the ongoing malaise that was eroding America’s economic clout.
Reformist candidates came and went. The best and the brightest came forward with their warnings and their suggestions. Everyone agreed with them too, in part if not completely.
Yet the stagnancy of America’s two-party democratic system, which discouraged any form of radical change at the risk of social turmoil, quashed any strong action to correct the steady and constant downward spiral. Reform in government spending would mean loss of entitlements to the poor or elderly. Belt-tightening by American business might mean a temporary reduction in spending power for those stably employed. Therefore, resistance to change was stubbornly entrenched and quite insurmountable. No one wanted to give up their lofty over-leveraged lifestyles or suffer reduction in their standard of living.
What’s more, any threat of the removal of entitlements from the public trough would doom any politician’s ambitions for reelection. No one would yield. Everyone fought for their little piece of turf at the expense of the greater good—until the entire system teetered precariously on the verge of systemic collapse.
Essentially all that was needed was one more trigger; and with the Americans’ demonstrated propensity for self-centeredness and greed, it was indeed quite quick in coming. It didn’t take long, of course; and when it did, once again everyone—from all levels of educated society—could see it coming just like two steam engines approaching a train station from opposite directions…two speeding locomotives mistakenly routed onto the same track for a deadly collision.
The culprit was Credit Default Swaps, and these complicated investment instruments—right along with the market created for their distribution—was just as precariously devised as the absurdly over-grown sub-prime mortgage-backed securities market had been back in the early 2000’s. Basically, money center banks holding trillions upon trillions in corporate debt; usually in the form of long term corporate bonds, would issue insurance policies on those bond portfolios to large investors who would pay premiums to banks betting on the likelihood of their default.
These Derivatives—or Swaps as they were called—were also tradable, therefore with each change or threat to a corporation’s financial fortunes, the value of the Swap could fluctuate and therefore be traded sometimes at a premium to its original purchase price. It was nothing more than a high stakes game of commodities or stock options trading. Betting on a crash that was all but inevitable and not long in coming.
The collapse, when it finally occurred, was epic in its scope. International confidence in the American economy vaporized overnight, right along with billions in cash from the world’s money markets, literally freezing commerce in its tracks within a day. There was no possible bailout from the US Treasury this time. Panic was both widespread and deep as investors fled like herds of terrified sheep from the carnage and no amount of intervention on the part of securities exchanges could stop the outflow of capital.
It was indeed the last hurrah for the American financial system and effectively proved to be an indictment of the entire American three-part government system as well; which had maintained a careful equilibrium of checks and balances so effectively since the end of the Civil War, yet stymied much-needed reform or even restraint at the risk of political backlash. It all came tumbling to the ground like the Roman Empire centuries before it; and when it did, the results were devastating…at every level of western society.
On the day of the market crash, large institutional investors attempted to withdraw trillions in funds, causing the entire world economy to seize up, just like it was a human body experiencing a stroke. The Fed became insolvent within days, and shockingly, all the major banks failed within a year. Mainly this was due to the threat of major corporations defaulting on their corporate debt, which prompted panicky investors in Credit Default Swaps to try and cash in their securities—or essentially file claims on their policies.
Thus, when the stock market crashed in early 2028, and corporations began missing debt service payments during the months following, the value of these derivatives skyrocketed and there was once again a run on the world’s money markets as major banks had no way to afford liquidating them—while desperate investors began clamoring to redeem these now illiquid securities. And the US Treasury—the Fed? Unfortunately, there was no bailout possible and for months, the world’s economy languished in a pathetic state of suspended animation. Those were very dark days, indeed.
It affected everyone, too. Cars couldn’t run because people couldn’t buy gasoline without cash. Debit and credit cards ceased to function, groceries could not be purchased without cash. Prices soared for food and basic necessities. Paychecks couldn’t be cashed because banks had suddenly been forbidden by The Fed from permitting large cash withdrawals. Only US$500 per diem withdrawals could be accomplished, and to do so, folks stood in line for hours waiting for a teller window to open up at the local bank.
Companies closed, jobs were lost, and common people began to panic. Worse, the government could not make its food stamp and social security payments either, and the millions living in poverty and supported by the nation’s swollen welfare system fell into outright desperation.
There’s an old saying that there are really only nine meals standing between mankind and anarchy; and the speed at which this 1906 prophecy from Alfred Henry Lewis came true was both swift and terrible when it suddenly came to pass.
Stores would go out of business and then be looted by roving gangs or rioters. Public insurrection soon followed. Entire communities were compelled to band together and share resources with families now out of work and facing foreclosure on their homes. Neighborhoods in the inner city became war zones as hoodlums raided homes and killed or brutalized anyone attempting to resist. Suburbanites even began forming local militias to defend themselves; and anyone who had a working car or truck plus a gun to defend themselves was immensely valuable to their community—as well as a target for attack.
This also became true of people who possessed large stores of food. Therefore, some neighborhoods resorted to forming foraging parties to go look for supplies of nonperishable food in an effort to survive. Domesticated pets often became dinner.
“Stray cats and dogs became a delicacy in our neighborhood,” said one withered old man inter
viewed by Cory in her exposé, “and when we ran out o’ them, we learned how to trap squirrels and jackrabbits instead…whatever Mom and Dad could figure out just to put meat on the table.”
In the inner city, it was far worse. Gangsters in urban areas would take over a grocery store and sell off its stock of packaged food to hungry city folk. Out in the suburbs or smaller cities, local “militias” would seize a grocery outlet and simply “ration” out its inventory based on dire need. Inevitably however, atrocities and exploitation occurred. Women sold their bodies to feed their children. Elderly people and those with infirmities or even diabetes, perished by the thousands from an inability to acquire needed medications. Sickness or illness became almost a death sentence during those first six terrible months as the government and local law enforcement sought in vain to reestablish order.
In only a few months, hundreds of thousands died. The U.S. military focused on major cities mainly, especially on the eastern seaboard. However, things would never return to anything like normal because in the meantime the entire federal government was, for all intents and purposes, insolvent. “Dollars” were essentially valueless within a year and anything the government could do to try and reestablish some sort of stability to the economic system only failed miserably or led to hyperinflation.
Meanwhile in other parts of the world, insurrections turned into full scale revolutions and over the few years following the collapse, weakened third world governments were overthrown or supplanted by regimes hostile to the west. Islamic radicals rose up in the Middle East, installing religious theocracies in place of liberal democracies who’d been propped up for decades by financial support from the now bankrupted west. Nations fell. The entire world seemed to spiral into a new Dark Age of human decline and the destruction of modern civilization.