A relentless pursuit from Vietnam to Saudi Arabia in which augmented reality distorts the nature of attachment and desire. In a world where augmented reality blurs the line between the real and the computer generated, Charlie cherishes the reality of Lauren.... His life as a young American banker in Vietnam seems idyllic until a series of events precipitate her disappearance. When her trail leads to Saudi Arabia, he must navigate a criminal underworld. The stakes grow higher as it becomes apparent that reality isn’t what it once was.
Buy on Kindle | Paperback
Follow updates on Facebook | Goodreads
Follow T.Warwick on
Facebook | Goodreads | Literary Addicts | Blog
Excerpt
“What are you
thinking?” AR Lauren’s innocent purr came through his right earbud and caught
him off guard as he surveyed the room. He looked at her and took the earbud out
as he set her speech to captions. She gave him a cute frown. The women found
the large white cotton thobes of the Saudi men ideally suited to sharing
projections. Charlie saw a few fragments of some animated Goyas and more than
one dancing Rodin. The words “Cogito ergo sum” were snaking their way up and
down the large thobe of a Saudi—a joke that had a group of women in strapless
sequined dresses in tears of laughter. In AR they created cartoonish likenesses
of the Saudis that mimicked their walks and gestures.
Harold was nowhere to be seen. Charlie
wondered what he was doing there. He didn’t belong. He belonged back in Cities
of the World at a sidewalk café in Buenos Aires, savoring the rhapsodic
awakening of espresso and Cointreau—a real place with real women. He refreshed
AR Lauren, and she sat next to him with her legs crossed and seemed to give him
an empathetic smile.
“Charlie!” Stephanie
clamored his name as if she hadn’t seen him in years. She grabbed his hand and
took him on a whirlwind trip of dashing in and out of conversational groups—the
same groups he had just been scanning. Saudi men seemed to be lining up for the
occasion. “This is Omar!” She beamed at the Saudi, who seemed to convey an
immense gratitude that she had bothered to take the time to say hello to him.
Out of the corner
of his eye, he thought he saw the real Lauren. He looked back and blinked, and
there was just the constant turning of dresses like at a dry cleaner’s.
He traversed
through the crowd with Stephanie, tacking back and forth like sailboats, before
dropping down on a vacant black velvet couch.
No comments:
Post a Comment