Dark Tides
Escape The Dark Book 1
K. M. Fawkes
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
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Also by K. M. Fawkes
Copyright 2020 by K. M. Fawkes
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
Prologue
Nanotechnology was supposed to change the world.
That was the prevailing message in the year 2025. It was, as reporters liked to say, the mood of the masses. Humanity had spent decades prolonging its own lifespan with new, constantly evolving treatments that had the power to keep you motoring on even as your body wore out. Scientists boasted of keeping their subjects alive to the age of eighty, ninety, one hundred and beyond. But what kind of quality of life could these long-lived specimens expect?
No one looked forward to aging. Death was still out there, still hanging over the heads of every human who walked the earth. It was just that now the process was longer, more drawn out.
That was what nanotechnology was supposed to address.
With nanomachines in the bloodstream, you could be assured of a happy, healthy existence. Nanobots would clear your system of blood clots. They would fight infections. They would clean the cholesterol from your arteries and destroy cancerous cells without harming healthy ones.
Los Angeles became the epicenter for the rollout of the new technology.
It wasn’t such a surprise, really. Nanobots were expensive, and celebrities had the expendable resources to undergo the procedure. The rest of America was only too happy to let them be the guinea pigs. They tuned into to TV interviews and stalked their favorite stars on the internet, latching on to any mention of feeling better, any cleared-up symptom.
When a late-night TV host appeared on the air after a week’s vacation looking noticeably younger, his fans cried out with joy. Of course the nanobots would combat the effects of aging! Wasn’t aging really just a long, slow slide into disrepair and decay? It was something nobody had anticipated, certainly, but it made perfect sense.
A few internet pundits wrote think pieces. “The human body must be allowed to age,” one opined. “To resist is unnatural. This will result in grotesque overpopulation, which will lead to our demise as a species.” He was shouted down. The human race didn’t require its members to die in order for it to continue. That was absurd. There would be no overpopulation. It wasn’t going to go that far.
For most people, the far more pressing concern became affordability and availability. It was fine to let the rich and famous be the first to benefit from the technology, but everyone had fully expected that after a few months the price would drop and the bots would become more widely available. Everyone had assumed that by now they and their families would also be able to benefit from the new tech. But it wasn’t happening. The scientists who had developed the tech were privately funded. They didn’t have to share their discovery with anyone, and they went on the news to say so. If anyone wanted their nanobots, they would have to pay the price. If they couldn’t pay the price, well…the scientists shrugged as if to say that’s just too bad.
By late autumn of 2025, the celebrities who had been early adopters of nanotechnology had largely fallen out of favor with the American public. The stories about them on the internet changed, became less about their remarkable courage in being among the first wave to try this new tech and more about their greed and self-importance. “Writing a few hit songs certainly does not entitle you to a longer, happier life than a working single mother in Ohio,” one reporter famously wrote, and the sentiment was seized by the masses.
The wealthy recipients of nanobots responded in various ways. Some retreated from the public eye. Others chose to sponsor less privileged individuals or families, allowing them to get nanobots of their own. This was largely seen as a PR ploy, but the lucky families chosen didn’t mind a bit. As one father of a four-year-old boy with leukemia said, “I’ll do as many of these interviews as you want, as long as you give my kid the bots.”
The boy was given nanobots. Two weeks later, he was declared cancer-free.
Doctors applauded themselves. Scientists clapped each other on the back and shook hands. The boy and his celebrity sponsor were photographed together. The parents gave a short interview during which the mother, in tears, said, “Nanotechnology has changed our lives forever.”
How right she was.
How right everyone was.
Nanotechnology was indeed going to change the world.
Chapter 1
March 5, 2026
Adam flipped through the online takeout menus on his phone. He hadn’t been out of the house in almost a week, and today wasn’t going to be the day he broke his streak. He was short on groceries, but whatever. That was what delivery had been invented for, right?
He told himself he was staying in to watch the basketball game on TV tonight—his favorite college team was playing—but the truth was that he was avoiding cameras. Even though Adam Parkhead was no longer a household name by any definition of the phrase—he hadn’t been on TV in over ten years, for God’s sake—the paparazzi hounded him every time he went out. He had thought it would end when he moved from LA to San Francisco, but no, they’d found him here too.
It was always the same article they ran. Always either “Adam Parkhead Looking Healthy and Fit!” or “Adam Parkhead: Is He Suffering a Relapse?” As far as Adam could tell, the only evidence they ever had in either case was what he was wearing. If he went outside in shorts and a V-neck that showed off his abs and biceps, the story would be about his muscle tone and how he was clearly eating right and working out. If he wore a hoodie, or anything that was a little oversized on him, they would write about how he was looking “rail-thin” and speculate as to what drugs he was on.
He wasn’t on any drugs. He hadn’t touched anything harder than caffeine since 2020. But that wasn’t the story they wanted. That wasn’t clickbait. They want him to be newly recovered or just off the wagon. The truth just wasn’t news.
You brought it on yourself, he thought to himself now. You’re the one who spent your teens and early twenties getting high. It’s your fault that’s what they think of you now.
Then he shook his head. His sponsor would give him hell for that kind of self-talk. Yes, all right, he’d made some bad choices, but he’d also been served some difficult circumstances. It wasn’t easy to be a child star, to have a mother who bullied you into performing so she could reap the profits. Adam’s mother hadn’t made more money off his career than he had, but it was a close thing.
He sighed. I should probably go to NA tonight, he thought. He’d mi
ssed last week’s meeting, too afraid of the cameras to go outside, although he’d told himself it was because he wanted to watch a tennis match. That was a lie. He didn’t even like tennis.
With a sigh, he tossed his phone aside. Ordering food would give him an excuse to stay in. If he didn’t place an order, he would need to go out and pick something up, and once he was out there would be no reason not to go to NA. He flipped on the TV instead, thinking to set up the basketball game to record on his DVR. Maybe he could avoid spoilers and watch it later tonight, after the meeting.
“…another case of the strange “nano flu” has been reported, this time in San Francisco,” the newscaster was saying. “More on this after the break.” The newscast faded to a commercial for laundry detergent, an amusingly frustrated housewife bemoaning the stains in her son’s soccer uniform.
Adam paused in his attempt to find the best channel to see the basketball game in high definition. He had heard the reports of the nano flu, of course, but until now it had been confined to Los Angeles. He had assumed it was just some local thing, maybe something people were picking up from birds or tourists. Maybe a whole planeload of people had been infected and were passing it on to LA residents.
He hadn’t really believed the theory that the nanobots were causing the flu. That didn’t make any sense. Nanotech was supposed to cure disease, not cause it. Adam sided firmly with the school of thought that held that this new virus had just evolved to beat the tech. It had always been just a matter of time before that happened—that was one reason Adam hadn’t gotten the tech himself.
Had the flu really spread to San Francisco? Of course, there had only been a couple of deaths so far. It didn’t seem to Adam as though whatever it was really spread that quickly. Maybe someone had become infected in LA and had simply traveled to San Francisco. Adam wondered whether the new carrier would become the flu’s first survivor. As soon as that happened, he knew, they would have the information they needed to beat the damn thing.
He turned up the volume on the TV and went into the kitchen to grab a can of soda. By the time he’d returned to his recliner, the newscaster was back. Adam took a seat and cracked open his soda, ready to listen.
“By now, most Californians are aware of the so-called nano flu,” the newscaster said. “Many live in fear of what some are calling America’s next great epidemic.”
Adam rolled his eyes. That was overstating things a bit. Only a handful of people had died, right? Adam wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure that more people died of the regular flu than had died of this one. Yes, it was scary that it could beat the nanobots, but come on.
“Just last week, this network reported the deaths of Imogen and Derek Bell, and their three young children,” the reporter continued.
Who? Adam thought.
“Imogen and Derek met while shooting season forty-one of Within These Walls, the popular reality show on which they were both contestants and which Imogen won. They married just a few months after the show’s finale aired. Although Imogen had said during the finale that the couple planned to use the money for their honeymoon, she later revealed that they had decided to spend only half of their winnings and to save the other half for the future. When the nanotechnology was announced, the Bells were among the first to adopt it, purchasing nanobots for themselves and their children.”
Adam sipped his soda. He felt bad for the children, of course. He didn’t watch Within These Walls so he had no idea who Imogen and Derek Bell were or why they were considered famous. It seemed like the same kind of bullshit fame that had kept him semi-relevant in the news for the last several years. Everyone wanted to keep up with people who caused drama, even if they weren’t actually famous for doing anything successfully or well.
The difference between Adam and the Bells, he thought, was that he wished everyone would just stop talking about him already. He would have been happy never to see another reporter again.
Still, even if they were fame-mongers, they hadn’t deserved this. Attempting to cheat death by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for nanotechnology was kind of ridiculous, Adam thought, but he couldn’t help thinking of how they must have felt after they’d bought the bots. They would have felt so sure that their health problems were over, that their children would never have to worry about getting sick. And now, just a few months later, they were dead. It was shocking to see the technology failing people so quickly. Even Adam had believed it would last longer than this.
“The latest victim of the so-called nano flu is comedian and voice actor Henry Pratt,” the newscaster went on.
Adam sat up abruptly and set his soda down hard. He did know who Henry Pratt was. Everyone did. Pratt had won awards for his acting, and made millions for his comedy specials. He had voiced some of the most beloved children’s animated characters of the century.
“Pratt was reportedly on the phone with his manager when he began to show symptoms,” the newscaster said. “According to the manager, Pratt was in perfect health at the beginning of their phone call. During the course of their conversation, he began to cough. Pratt’s manager, worried about the consistency of the cough, suggested that Pratt see a doctor, at which point Pratt admitted that he was coughing up blood.”
Coughing up blood? Adam hadn’t heard that the nano flu caused that to happen. He shivered slightly.
“Pratt’s manager called for an ambulance,” the newscaster said. “But by the time the paramedics arrived, Pratt was lying unconscious in his own blood. He was running a fever of a hundred and five degrees.”
Shit. That was insane, Adam thought.
“Pratt died later that evening,” the newscaster concluded solemnly.
Henry Pratt was dead? That was hard to believe. It was one thing to hear about B-list celebrities Adam didn’t much care about being hit by the nano flu. But now it had claimed someone who had been a figure in his life. He hadn’t known Pratt personally, of course, but he had always enjoyed seeing the man’s movies and watching his standup routines. And now he was gone. Just like that.
And Henry Pratt had been a major advocate of the nanobots. Adam didn’t need this newscaster to remind him of that. When the technology had first gone public, Pratt had been one of the very first in line to receive the injection. A month later, he’d revealed via a press conference that he had been suffering from congestive heart failure. His doctors had predicted that he had less than a year to live…but now his scans were showing that his heart was in perfect health.
He’d be dead by now anyway, Adam thought vaguely. If he’d never gotten the bots, he’d have died of the heart failure. So, really, the tech bought him extra time. That was all it was ever supposed to do for anyone.
So why did he feel so ill at ease?
It was something about the image of Henry Pratt coughing up blood. Burning with fever and struggling to breathe. Lying alone and unconscious in his home while the ambulance raced to get there, to save him, no one knowing it was already too late.
When he thought of Henry Pratt, Adam though of a man who had a laugh for every situation. But he had died in the most grotesque, horrific way imaginable.
And suddenly the nano flu was feeling a lot more real.
Adam shook his head. There was no reason to get worked up about it. After all, whether you believed it was caused by the nanobots or not, the simple fact was that it hadn’t struck anyone who hadn’t gotten the injection. Which Adam hadn’t. He was perfectly safe.
He turned off the TV. This was stupid. He couldn’t allow his thoughts to spiral like this. That was a pattern that always led to dark places. No, he would pull himself out of this and he would go to NA. No doubt somebody else in the group would have seen the news, would know what had happened to Henry Pratt. There would be a discussion about it, and people would share their feelings. Adam would have a chance to talk about his own weird response to the news. By the time he came home tonight, he’d be feeling a lot better.
He gulped down the remainder o
f his soda and got up to dispose of the can. Ordinarily, leaving the house would prompt him to spend a significant amount of time going through his clothing options, deciding how he wanted to be portrayed in the media if someone should happen to snap a picture. But today he was too stressed and distracted to care. He threw on a leather jacket and a pair of sunglasses, hoping they would be enough to disguise him. If not, oh well.
It took a while to find his keys and wallet, since he hadn’t been out of the house in so many days, and by the time he located them, he was running about ten minutes late. Running late was frowned upon in NA meetings, and even though Adam knew his excuse would be accepted, he didn’t love the idea of walking into the room well after everyone else had already arrived. He dashed from the front door to his car, hurled himself into the driver’s seat, and backed quickly out of the driveway, praying that traffic would be good.
He didn’t think he’d been seen by any photographers, so there was that, at least. The last thing he needed was to be followed to an NA meeting.
By the time he reached the highway, he was lost in thought about what he was going to say to his sponsor when he arrived and what kind of reception he would get from his peers after missing last week’s meeting. All the spare attention he had was focused on the task of driving, weaving his way down the busy San Francisco freeway, shifting from one lane to the next and trying to keep things moving as quickly as possible.
The thought of the nano flu still played at the back of his mind, an uneasiness he couldn’t quite shake off. But as he pulled into the driveway outside the church where his NA meetings were held, he decided he was being silly. People came here to discuss real problems, not to mourn the deaths of celebrities, no matter how well liked they were.
Chapter 2
“You’re not going to let another two weeks go by before you come back to see us, are you?” David asked.
Escape The Dark (Book 1): Dark Tides Page 1