First published 2022
Bill Bartles works as a data washer for DRONC, the Department of Receipt and Organization of New Content. His job is simple: find information, clean it, and store it in the Infinity Drive. He describes his work as saving all human knowledge to a black box the size of a shoebox. Bartles enjoys his life with his companion in their mid-tower apartment and expects a promotion soon. But he obsesses over entropy and the second law of thermodynamics, which promises that human extinction is certain through natural decline. When Bartles investigates the restricted archives of Aleph-1, the advanced computer controlling the Infinity Drive, his comfortable existence collapses. He finds himself in a transformed world of red wastelands, abandoned cities, and shrinking seas. New predators rule this landscape where humanity's survivors face extinction. Bartles must choose between preserving the Infinity Drive with all of mankind's accumulated knowledge or saving what remains of the human race.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, thriller, post-apocalyptic
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: chosen-one, man-vs-society
Setting: DRONC, Aleph-1, Infinity Drive
Period: 21st-century
353 pages · ebook · CYI Publishing