The
Liberty Box
The
Liberty Box Trilogy Book 1
by
C.A. Gray
Genre:
New Adult Dystopian
**Dystopian
mind control with metaphysics**
Kate
Brandeis has it all: a famous reporter at the age of twenty-four,
she’s the face of the Republic of the Americas. She has a loving
fiancé and all the success she could wish for. But when she learns
of the death of a long-forgotten friend, her investigations unravel
her perfect memories, forcing her to face the fact that she’s been
living a lie.
Jackson
MacNamera, trained from a young age in the art of mind control,
returns to the Republic for his mother’s funeral. Within a few
hours of his arrival, authorities collect Jackson and take him by
force to a room ironically called The Liberty Box, where he must
choose between surrendering his thoughts to the new Republic, or
fleeing for his freedom.
Kate,
bereaved and confused, finds her way to a cave community of refugees,
where Jackson seems to offer her an escape from her grief. The two
forge an uneasy bond, and in the process Jackson learns that Kate has
some insight which may help the hunters in their attempt to free
other citizens from the tyranny of the Potentate. Against the
expressed wishes of the Council, the hunters plot a series of daring
raids, attempting to prove that not only is freedom possible, but
that the citizens are not too far gone to desire it. But with the
odds so stacked against them, can the refugees succeed in their
rescue missions right under the Potentate’s nose?
***Get
it FREE!!!***
Goodreads
* Amazon
Prologue: Twenty Four Years
Ago
Smoke billowed up
into the sky as far as the eye could see. Benjamin Voltolini took a step back
as a looter dashed in front of him with a torch, lobbing it at the vacant bank
not ten feet away. Within minutes, it went up in flames. The other looters cheered,
throwing rocks to shatter the windows, or lobbing more torches for good
measure.
The banks had gotten the worst of it
from the start.
Calmly, Ben weaved his way through the
crowd, head up, his expression vacant, but with a hint of amusement that he could
not quite erase. He’d intentionally ripped his clothes and caked
them in mud to blend in, so that he could steal a large container of gasoline
from one of the few remaining gas stations. He paused every so often to change
his grip or wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, keeping as
far away from the flames as he could.
He’d left his Mazerati well
outside the city limits. He had a long way to go.
By the time Ben drove up to the
fortress built into the side of the mountain, the sun dipped low behind it. Two
armed guards stood by a high chain link gate, and they leveled their machine
guns at him as he slowed to approach.
“Whatever happened to a
simple greeting?” Ben muttered to himself, but raised his hands in the air
behind the windshield.
One of the guards pulled some sort of
device to his mouth and spoke rapidly as he jogged to Ben’s
window.
“Identify yourself and state
your business!”
“Benjamin Voltolini, Venture
Capitalist.” Ben’s teeth gleamed in perfect rows. “Here to present to the
former Congress of the United States of America the answer to all of their
problems.”
“Do you know any members of
the Tribunal personally? Have they summoned you?”
“I guarantee they all know me
by reputation.”
“Get lost,” the guard ordered.
“Oh, I don’t think you want
to do that, Sergeant—” Ben read the young man’s lapel, “—Branson, and I’ll tell
you why. Pretty soon I will be the dictator of this country. And I never
forget a favor. Nor a slight.”
“I tell you what, you
arrogant bastard,” Sergeant Branson snarled, moving the safety off of his
weapon. “I’ll give you to the count of ten, and by the end of it if your tires
aren’t screaming on this pavement,” he pointed out into the wasteland, raising
his gun, “I’ll give you exactly what you deserve.”
Ben looked Sergeant Branson up and
down, as if committing him to memory. “Go on, then.”
The sergeant’s
mouth fell open for a moment, unsure how to respond to this. “One!” he shouted,
“Two!”
Ben watched him as the sergeant’s
face turned various shades of red and finally puce by the time he reached
number nine. Then, just as he leveled the weapon with Ben’s face and was about
to pronounce the number ten, Ben punched the accelerator as hard as he could—not
in reverse, toward of the wasteland behind him, but toward the locked gate up
ahead. The other armed guard scarcely had time to leap out of the way before
Ben plowed through. The gate itself snapped open and huge sections of the fence
clattered to the ground in its wake.
He saw the commotion behind him from
the rearview mirror, but didn’t slow down until he reached the
courtyard, skidding to a stop just before he crushed a fountain in the shape of
an eagle. The burnt rubber smell assaulted him even before he opened his car
door.
He stepped out, opened his arms wide,
and held up his hands in a gesture of both surrender and welcome as most of
what remained of the Congress filed out of the meeting hall in disbelief.
“So this is the secret lair
of the last vestiges of Congress!” he declared.
“Who the hell do you think
you are?” snapped an old man with a shiny pate.
Ben gave a little bow. “Forgive
my rather dramatic entrance, gentlemen. It was the only way I could get past
your guards. Excellent young men. You should give them both a raise.” He
chuckled at his own joke.
“Nobody gets paid anymore,” snapped
one of them unnecessarily.
“Oh?” Ben raised his eyebrows
in mock surprise. “Well, that’s a shame. I can help you fix that.”
“You can help us pay our
guards?” cried one, incredulous.
“I can help you get paid
again yourselves,” Ben clarified, “you and everyone else in this country. Well…”
he chuckled again, “more or less.”
“That’s Ben Voltolini,” he
heard one of them whisper to another, and then the whispers swept throughout
the crowd. “The billionaire?” and “Where did he get gas for that car from,
anyway?”
Ben gestured inside the fortress,
adding, “May
I?”
Now the hoary members of the Tribunal
stepped aside one by one, exchanging glances with one another that suggested
they knew this was against their better judgment—but really, what
harm could there be in hearing him out?
The entrance led to a long hall lit by
torches, the light from the sky growing dimmer and dimmer as they walked.
Torches, everywhere torches, Ben
thought with disgust. It was like the Dark Ages all over again. But not for
long. Everything is about to change.
At last the hall opened up to a wide,
irregularly shaped room looking like it had been hewn out of the side of a
mountain—which,
in fact, it had. The men filed in behind him to their seats, and Ben walked to
the white boards at the front and grabbed a marker. He wouldn’t need to draw
much, but this established to all that he had the floor, which was his
intention.
“Gentlemen,” he grinned. “Indulge
me just for a few moments whilst I remind you all where we are.
“The United States is no
more. For one hundred and twelve days now, there has been rioting in the
streets. You, the remnant of the Congress who were not killed in those first
few days after the collapse, now fashioning yourselves the Tribunal, emerged,
and have attempted—badly, I might add—to maintain order as a police state. You
haven’t the manpower to arrest all the rioters, of course, so instead you have
resorted to gunning down citizens at will. I am not judging you.” He held up
his hands as the protests began, the mocking smirk never leaving his face. “I
understand that there is a greater good at stake. You are doing all you can to
maintain order. But you and I both know that it is not enough. Creating order,
and maintaining it, requires money.”
“As if we don’t already know
that,” someone grumbled from the front row.
“Ah, yes,” Ben said calmly. “But
where does the government get its money from?”
The question was patronizing, and the
Tribunal glowered at him collectively, refusing to play along.
Undaunted, Ben answered his own
question. “Taxes,” he said.
“There’s nothing for us to
tax, idiot!” shouted one. “There’s nothing left!”
“Of course there is not. The
people have to get back to work first so that you can garnish their wages. But
I understand your conundrum—how can you create jobs for them when there is no
industry left, when the few functional businesses left are being razed to the
ground as we speak by angry citizens needing to feed their starving families?
“This is where I come in.” One
hand fluttered to his chest, an affected gesture he’d perfected. “In the last
ten years, I’ve funded two projects in particular that have the potential to
turn this nation around, from absolute destitution and anarchy to a thriving
Republic.” He paused. “Yes, that’s right, I said Republic, not Democracy.” He
waited to be asked. When nobody did, he continued, unfazed, “The first of these
projects is a genetically engineered version of the Epstein Barr Virus,
distributed by an airborne vaccinia vector.
“Epstein Barr has been around
for many generations now. This particular strain is highly virulent—much more
so than the original strain, primarily causing anemia and severe fatigue.” He
uncapped his marker and drew a squiggly line on the white board, and an
incomplete squiggly circle next to it. Then he drew an arrow, where the first
squiggly line fit inside the circle. “This,” he pointed to the circle, “represents
the vaccinia vector. It is a version of smallpox, minus the portion that makes
it smallpox. Now it’s just a shell, a perfect delivery system for other genetic
information. It has been engineered to cover hundreds of miles at a time once
it is released. In this case, it is a delivery system for the Epstein Barr
virus.”
Ben read confusion and disgust on
their faces. One said, “So you want to make us all sick?”
“Not sick,” Ben held up one
finger, “exhausted. You see, anemia slows people down. Takes the fire
out of them. Takes the fight out of them. But it will not last forever—eventually
people’s immune systems will be strong enough to fight it off. This baby will
buy you—oh, about six months. Oh, and not us, mind you. I have vaccines
against the virus for a—ehem—select few.” He cleared his throat with a
contrived little cough.
“Six months to do what?” someone
shouted.
“I’m so glad you asked.” Ben
said graciously. “This brings me to the second brilliant invention I’ve funded
in the last decade or so: the common carrier brainwave.”
Blank stares met him. Ben turned to
the white board again, erased the vaccinia vector and its contents, and instead
drew something he only just remembered from gradeschool: a sine wave.
“Pretend for a moment,
gentlemen, that this is a brainwave. Everyone, every human being, has a
brainwave that corresponds to this carrier wave. Now, yours, or yours, or
yours,” he pointed to a few in the front row, “all have slight variations
unique to you, but they all have a form more or less like this one. Just like
we all have an idea what fingerprints look like, but each person’s fingerprint
is slightly different, variations on a theme. Yes?”
“Get to the point,” someone
shouted in the back.
“This is
the point,” he said. “In broadcasting, all information gets transmitted via a
common carrier wave, right? Brainwaves work the same way. The variations upon
the carrier are what transmit information. Your thoughts are like that.
Variations on your specific carrier wave get interpreted by your brain as
information.
“Now. What if we, the
government, the Tribunal, could create a broadcasting center that would
broadcast a version of the common human carrier brainwave that was slightly
altered, to suit our purposes? Once the citizens of this new Republic are
fatigued and a bit addled, they’ll be highly suggestible.”
“You want to brainwash the
public?” cried one.
“That is an ugly way to put
it,” Ben retorted in an injured manner. “I prefer to think of it as
reprogramming the way they think—for their own good, of course. What we must do
in order to create a productive, healthy society is to alter human nature.” There
was a cry of outrage, and Ben shouted over them, “Come now! Which of you can
refute the fact that the U.S. collapsed because the rich refused to share their
wealth for the common good? That they were motivated by selfishness and greed?”
“This from you, the greediest
of them all!” someone snarled.
Ben raised his eyebrows in mock
offense. “On the contrary, I am proving right now that I’ve
invested my wealth in the ultimate good of the people! But as I was
saying, it was because of the greed of the rich that eventually all of the
government programs to support the needy ran out of funds, requiring us to
borrow from overseas to keep our government afloat. But in that process, we
buried ourselves in such a deep hole that eventually no other nation was
willing to lend to us anymore. And then, as you know all too well, the United
States eked out a few last years by printing more and more money, leading to
such massive inflation that a loaf of bread cost thirty dollars—and then the
whole system collapsed on itself. U.S. dollars are worth about as much as
toilet paper. Businesses collapsed, people lost their jobs and subsequently
their homes, and they can’t afford to buy anything—so they started stealing
what they needed, causing even the few remaining businesses to go under until
resources were consumed and nobody has anything. That’s where we are now.
“But all of this happened because
of the greed of the wealthy!” Ben declared. “If they would simply think of the
greater good, as you fine gentlemen have been trying to do all along, if they
would do their part in helping society, then all of us could rebuild a nation
much stronger than the U.S. ever was!”
After a long pause, during which Ben
could tell that the Tribunal considered his words, someone asked skeptically, “And
you propose to do this how?”
Ben was waiting for this question. “By
fundamentally changing human nature,” he replied again, his eyes twinkling. “You
all recognize, of course, that what I propose is a socialist system. And of
course you all know that socialism does not work, in most cases, because men
are too busy looking out for themselves, and never for the good of their fellow
men. They protest. They rebel against their lot.
“This is why the common
carrier brainwave is so important!” he declared. “Don’t you see? We must change
the way men think.”
There was a long pause, and then
someone shouted, “And this will work on—everyone?”
“It has worked on
about ninety-seven percent of our test subjects,” Ben returned, “but that extra
three percent would require us to collect an imprint of each citizen’s
individual brainwaves. Once the population has been infected, we will set up
stations around the nation where citizens can be scanned, and make the scanning
mandatory. That way, we will be able to find and eliminate the rebels before
they can become a problem.”
“What if they don’t come?”
“Easy enough. We’ll offer rations
of food to those who come, and a threat of jail to those who don’t. Still, not
everyone will show—but it’ll be easy enough for us to track down the remnant,
since my technology can detect and locate undocumented brain waves.”
“So you’ll just—kill the
dissenters?” cried someone. “Anyone who doesn’t do what you want them to? That’s
murder!”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “Is
it so much worse than shooting rioters to protect the rest of the people? What
I propose is no different than that, and much more effective. In both cases you
will eliminate the few for the good of the many.”
There was silence, then a slight
murmur rippled through the crowd. Someone from the back shouted, “So
you infect them and brainwash them. What then? What exactly do you envision for
the future of this socialist nation, Voltolini?”
Ben’s face took on a bit of a
glow. “Picture this,” he declared. “There will be no private businesses. All of
them will be government-run. Everyone will be a government employee, and will
be placed in a position that best suits his abilities. Higher education will
exist, but only for those who score high enough on placement exams; everyone
else will be funneled into trades or physical labor. The education programs
will be selected for the individual, based upon aptitude. And because there
will be no market to determine value of a given skill, everyone will make the
same hourly wage—but all of it will go into government coffers. Then the
government will dole out what each person needs for survival, and no more than
that: a standard ration of food, health care, housing, and etcetera.
“The primary difference
between this new Republic and other socialist systems is that the people will
have a mindset of true selflessness and altruism. They will adore their
government. They will see the government as a loving parent, meeting their
needs with abundance—because that is what they will be programmed to believe.
Anyone who resists will first receive another injection of the virus to see if
they can be rehabilitated. In the event that the second attempt also does not
work, they must be swiftly eliminated. This is absolutely necessary, or we risk
rebels who might start a revolution.”
The irregular room burst into murmurs
at this. They were excited murmurs, as Ben knew they would have to be—he
had thought of everything.
“But!” he cried out, his
voice ringing over the chatter of the crowd, and he waited for their voices to
die down enough before he declared, “in order for this vision to become a
reality, you will need a strong leader!”
“You, I suppose?” cried one.
“Of course,” Ben grinned. “I
am the one who knows more about both of these measures than anyone. I will, of
course, require your complete allegiance. This will be no easy task. The time
for dissension and such antiquated ideas as checks and balances has come and
gone.”
“What will you call yourself?
The President?” shouted one, scornfully.
“Oh, no no no,” Ben said,
softly. “The title of President implies a democracy, and I do not wish to be
misleading. I will call myself—the Potentate.” Yes, he thought, sighing
with pleasure. What an appropriate title.
The Speaker for the Tribunal put it to
a vote. Ben Voltolini was elected Potentate with an eighty-five percent
majority in the last democratic act of the former Congress of the United States
of America.
As his first act as Potentate,
Voltolini declared that the nation would henceforth be known as the Republic of
the Americas.
“Gentlemen of the Tribunal,” he
declared, “we are making history. Together, we shall create the world’s very
first utopia.”
The
Eden Conspiracy
The
Liberty Box Trilogy Book 2
The
refugee caves have been destroyed, and most of the refugees are dead.
The Potentate now knows of their existence and will stop at nothing
to wipe them out completely. He suspects that terrorist Jackson
MacNamera is among them, as well as reporter Kate Brandeis’s
fiancé, hacker Will Anderson—and probably therefore Kate herself.
Now that the Potentate is aware of security threats, most of the
strategies the rebels used to get back onto the grid before now no
longer work. The Potentate knows the rebels are on foot, and he knows
they were at the caves not long ago—they can’t get far.
The
remaining rebels, among them Jackson and Kate, have Kate’s fiancé
Will to thank for their survival: he arrived back from the dead and
in the nick of time, bearing classified information about the
Potentate’s plans to expand his influence internationally. But the
remaining rebels and the Council cannot agree on whether their top
priority should be spreading truth far and wide and freeing as many
citizens from government control as possible, knowing that they will
likely die in the process—or escaping to New Estonia, in hopes that
they might live out the rest of their days in peace.
Kate,
meanwhile, finds herself torn: between Jackson and the fiancé she
thought she lost, and between the damsel-in-distress she once was,
and the rebel she believes she has always been underneath. Whether
the other hunters will support her or no, she knows she must use her
influence over the people of the Republic to tell them the truth, no
matter the cost. But is she strong enough to withstand the
government’s lies?
Kate is reunited with her fiancé Will whom she thought was
dead. Will tries to control Kate much like the Potentate but maybe in a little
different. Will tries to control by using manipulation in order to make her
believe that is she is incapable of doing things for herself that she needs him
to take care of her. While the Potentate uses a kind of brain washing or hypnotism
to control her and everyone else.
After the explosion at the caves the surviving rebels
regroup only to be split up soon after. Kate, Jackson, Will and someone the
others want to try and stop the Potentate from controlling the people. They want
to wake them up and show them the truth. But not all of the group feel the same
way or want to fight they just want to find a safe place to live out their
lives in peace by trying to stay under the radar and off the grid. This is
where the rebels become two or they go their separate ways.
Can Kate, Jackson and Will stay off the Potentate’s radar
long enough to find a way to stop him or set their plans in motion? Can they
save everyone from the Potentate and give them back their lives and freedom to
live it the way they want? Or will they fall back under the Potentate’s mind control
once again? To find the answer you will just have to read The Eden Conspiracy
but I do suggest that you start with The Liberty Box first cause you don’t want
to miss out on any of Kate’s story.
After reading the first book The Liberty Box Trilogy and
loving it I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of The Eden Conspiracy. I
love the world that has been created in The Liberty Box Trilogy. I love the
context of the story about brain washing people to control them like subliminal
messages. It is probably not too far off from what is going on today with commercials
to try and make people want to buy something or used as a suggestion that you
need this real bad or even some things that are reported on in the news. Or
even ball games or other games to help in keeping people occupied and not knowing
or seeing the truth.
I really love stories like The Eden Conspiracy that has a
little bit of the truth packed away inside them on some level. Books like The
Eden Conspiracy pull me in from the beginning and will hold my attention right
up until the end and leave me wanting more. I loved all the technology in the
book and how it was used. I loved the training exercises when Jackson was
teaching Kate how to properly use a pistol and how to hunt so she could take
care of herself if she ever found herself to be alone.
The Eden Conspiracy is one book that I highly recommend to
anyone who loves dystopia. I can’t wait to dive into the next book The Phoenix
Project.
The
Phoenix Project
The
Liberty Box Trilogy Book 3
The
haven city of Beckenshire has been demolished, and most of the rebels
lie beneath the rubble. The few that remain scramble to communicate
with the the outside world, knowing that if they are to stand a
chance in the coming war, they can’t do it alone. In a last ditch
effort to grow their ranks, the remaining rebels systematically
destroy the repeaters which help to propagate the control center
signals. And it’s working: citizens in targeted cities are waking
up in droves. But Ben Voltolini will stop at nothing to quell the
uprising before it has a chance to get off the ground. And he has one
major ace up his sleeve: Kate Brandeis.
During
Kate’s broadcast to the nation, Voltolini unleashed targeted
brainwave signals against her, causing her to allow both Jackson
MacNamera’s capture, and her own. Now, despite Voltolini’s
exquisite wining and dining, she can’t seem to stop the panic
attacks. Whom can she trust? What is truth? Is there even such a
thing?
Meanwhile,
imprisoned and hopeless, Jackson realizes the depths of his feelings
for Kate only after he has already lost her. The incredible
self-control upon which he prides himself gets put to the ultimate
test when he meets an unlikely ally who just may turn the tide in the
rebels’ favor—but only if Jackson can put aside his own
bitterness. In this gripping conclusion to The Liberty Box Trilogy,
new and surprising alliances are formed, passions run high, and our
heroes learn what they are really made of. Do they have what it takes
to fight for freedom—even if it means paying the ultimate price?
Goodreads
* Amazon
Kate, Jackson, Charlie, Will along with the surviving rebels
are still trying to stop the Potentate. The Potentate has been brain washing
people for years ever since he took over. The rebels are trying to take back
their freedom and to be able to think for themselves and to see what is real
and what is not.
Kate and Jackson are in love with each other but can’t seem
to find the time to actually let the other know. There is one thing or rather
person that is standing in their way of revealing to the truth to each other
and that is Will, Kate’s fiancé or ex-fiancé if or when she ever gets around to
telling him. Jackson doesn’t want to come between a man and his woman. Kate
doesn’t want to hurt Will or maybe it is more like Will won’t listen. Will is
very controlling. He wants to take care of Kate and keep her safe but he goes
about it in the wrong way by being bossy and telling her what to do.
Who will Kate pick in the end? Will she listen to her heart?
Will she obey Will? Will the rebels win in the end? Can they stop the
Potentate? Can they stop the Potentate from brain washing them?
I really and truly loved the world that the author created
for The Liberty Box trilogy. I loved the method that she used to explain how
easy it is to get people to follow along with whatever they are told or maybe
believe just about anything they are told. There is more than one way to brain
wash someone or get them to believe what you want them to believe. I also loved
the technology and the software programs, the science/science fiction that was
used. With the description of the software and all the technology I could tell
that the author did her research. The world building was just amazing I would
love to see more in this world. I really hated to see the end of this world.
The Phoenix Project is a fast paced read and once I picked
it up I didn’t want to put it down I wanted to keep reading to see how it all
turned out in the end. The suspense and action grabbed me from the first page
and didn’t let go until the last. I say the last but I have this feeling that
The Liberty Box will be with me for a very long time to come. It is not going
to be easy just to lay this one down ever. Yeah I bet this is one trilogy that
is going to be with me for a long time in the future.
If you like reading science fiction, dystopian books then
you are going to love this trilogy. Pick your copy of The Liberty Box trilogy
today and begin the adventure of a lifetime.
C.A.
Gray is the author of three YA Amazon bestselling trilogies:
PIERCING THE VEIL (magic and quantum physics meet Arthurian legends),
THE LIBERTY BOX (dystopian metaphysics and mind control technology),
and UNCANNY VALLEY (dystopian coming-of-age with neuroscience and
super intelligent A.I). She starts with some scientific concept that
she’s interested in learning more about herself, and then creates
lots of epic chaos and high-stakes action to go along with it. Her
stories are free of gratuitous violence, language, and sexual
content, and she abhors depressing endings… but they’re not all
kittens and rainbows either! She also listens to and reviews
audiobooks on her website, here on Goodreads, on Instagram, and on
her podcast, Clean Audiobook Reviews, where she also
occasionally interviews other authors.
By
day, C.A. Gray practices naturopathic medicine, podcasts, and writes
medical non-fiction under her maiden name (Dr. Lauren Deville). She
lives in Tucson, AZ with her husband Frank, and together they
maintain an occasionally contentious film review blog (under her real
name: Lauren Baden. Three names. Yes.) She’s kind of the queen of
multitasking—so in her spare time, she creates whatever meals or
crafts she found most recently on Pinterest, drinks lots of coffee
(Aeropress btw) and occasional wine (reds—and she saves the corks
for craft projects), works out (while listening to audiobooks), and
studies the Bible—about half of the podcasts on Christian Natural
Health are scripture meditations.
She
does sleep, too. Promise.
Follow
the tour HERE
for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!
0 comments:
Post a Comment