Twenty years in the future⊠a U.S. president seizes control of all U.S. missiles, the power grid, the banking system, and every computer-like device in America as he hides in a nuke-proof bunker while a robot version of himself sits in the Oval Office. In this not-too-distant future, robots have passed the Turing testâwe canât tell them from human beings. Artificial Reality has become a commonplace part of life. Hidden Internets claim that the major superpowers have psychic agents.
We discover they do exist. Five psychic agents are somehow connected. Four are on the U.S. team and one is on the Russian team. We discover these five are Agents of a cosmic Intelligence not of this Earthâthis is their connection. Williams is the only one of the five who remembers the truth. Thatâs because he is physically dead. Free of the sabotaged brain and at his full power.
The Agents are up against Rebels in a hidden war. And now, the Rebels control the President of the United States. The five Agentsâ worst nightmare: the Rebel leader known as Perse is hatching a plan to start WWIIIâsure it cannot be stopped. Can he be stopped?
Twenty years in the future⊠a U.S. president seizes control of all U.S. missiles, the power grid, the banking system, and every computer-like device in America as he hides in a nuke-proof bunker while a robot version of himself sits in the Oval Office. In this not-too-distant future, robots have passed the Turing testâwe canât tell them from human beings. Artificial Reality has become a commonplace part of life. Hidden Internets claim that the major superpowers have psychic agents.
We discover they do exist. Five psychic agents are somehow connected. Four are on the U.S. team and one is on the Russian team. We discover these five are Agents of a cosmic Intelligence not of this Earthâthis is their connection. Williams is the only one of the five who remembers the truth. Thatâs because he is physically dead. Free of the sabotaged brain and at his full power.
The Agents are up against Rebels in a hidden war. And now, the Rebels control the President of the United States. The five Agentsâ worst nightmare: the Rebel leader known as Perse is hatching a plan to start WWIIIâsure it cannot be stopped. Can he be stopped?
Theta Force methods were bizarre, by the Army standards Templegard knew. Tim had explained the method they were now practicing as his own interpretation of something WilÂliams had said about the advantages of psychic nakedness: one day theyâd been listening to the Beatles sing Revolution Number Nine and both had heard a womanâs soft voice in the background say, âIf you become nakedâ. Marty had said, nodÂding in agreement, âSheâs a psychic.â Tim admitted he was just guessing what Marty meant.
Templegard found it easy to maintain his erotic concentraÂtion shield while naked in a hot tub with three naked female Theta officers as they attempted remote sensingâseeing things as if being thereâof the Kremlin. It was Templegardâs first attempt. He got nowhere. His mind wandered.
What am I doing here? Do they seriously believe they can leave their bodies and fly into the Kremlin, and that I can, too? The notion seemed suddenly preposterous. It must all be a cover operation for something totally different. Is the presiÂdent aware of the sham? He has to be. Why would he assign a non-psychic to spy on psychics?
It felt surreal. He couldnât begin to guess at what was really going on. Like a detective, his mind flitted back to where this all startedâmaybe in thinking back over it, he would see some clues to penetrate this farceâŠ
It had all started with the monkey test. His mind went back to the morning of that fateful day...
Ω
Shortly before dawn, he had woken up briefly but had decided to go back to sleep and catch a few more winks. He found himÂself dreaming of the same woman again. Sometimes she was a girl and sometimes a woman, but always with the same beautiÂful face.
This time she was being taken away by Roman legionnaires, one on each arm, coming toward him across the plaza. Venice! He didnât know her but he recognized herâwas he dreaming? Yes, he must be dreamingâŠ
The woman locked eyes with him, imploringly. As he passed the trio, he kicked out at one of the guards, which woke him up.
It was dawn. He switched the alarm clock to the off posiÂtion and got up. He was scheduled for more tests today and thought with relief, at least this is the last day of this stuff.
Soon he was at the lab, playing one of his favorite games and thoroughly enjoying himself. His drill sergeant had called it the Haunted House from Hell. He hadnât been back through this particular combat course in years and they had made many improvements. Like a kid with a new videogame, he darted and spun through the interior infiltration course, blastÂing every target with inhuman efficiency.
None of the other tests was particularly enjoyable. For the hundredth time, his brain robotically wondered why they were testing him at this time, while his disciplined mind, havÂing thoroughly contemplated the question and come up blank, once again ignored the thought.
He checked in for the last test. âNumber forty-five,â he said as he approached the receptionist, who got more attracÂtive the closer he got. Somehow the eyeglasses that had made her seem mousy now made her seem vulnerable and sweet and approachable. What a lovely face, he thought to himself.
âGo right in,â she said, appreciating his attention. TempleÂgard was ruggedly handsome. He had a cleft chin, was built like an Olympic swimmer, and moved like a dancer. His tousled hair and neat stubble, and the twinkle in his eye, suggested a more complex personality that eluded pigeonholes. Women found him interesting, and vice versa.
âForty-five, doc, wire me up,â Templegard announced as he entered the lab.
The lab techâs vibe was subtly hostile but easily read by someone who has lived in harmâs way most of his life. âNo wires, lie down here.â
The man positioned sensors near Templegardâs head. âThe first part is easy. Think of a monkey. Visualize it in vivid detail, hear it, smell it.â Templegard did as instructed. The monkeyâs smell was not offensive. It was a spider monkey, the kind that had attached itself to him in Mexico once and would not tolerate being peeled off until it pooped on his arm to indicate that the love affair was over. He pictured it green because he had once heard that if you paint a monkey green, or advertised its extreme difÂference in any regard, the rest of its tribe would tear it apart.
âOkay, got it. Now hereâs the hard part; very few people can do it, and itâs never one of you supermen. Try not to think of a monkeyââ
âAnd it knows,â Templegard interjected.
âNoâwell, yes,â the lab tech replied with surprise. âIt will know if your brain is producing the same pattern as when you were thinking of the monkey.â He looked up at the moniÂtor where a small monkey image was growing slowly larger. âThere, it has caught you thinking of a monkey. Youâd better try to stop that, Iâm about to start keeping score.â
The monkey image kept growing, although Templegard could not see it as he was engaging a program in his mind that he had not had occasion to use for many months.
âFew have the talent for it, and itâs never you macho men,â the lab tech gloated.
âI take it your distracting is part of the test conditions,â Templegard murmured from his deep concentration, abruptly silencing the lab tech. A few moments later, the monkey image began to diminish on the screen and the lab tech suppressed his reaction. When the image disappeared entirely from the screen, the tech looked at a one-way mirror on the wall and nodded pointedly.
Although Templegardâs conscious mind was unaware of it, his inner psychic selfâthe part of him that remembered all his previous lifetimesâsensed a familiar man with a strange voice who had just sat bolt upright at his writing desk, nearly half a world away in the palace of a former shah.
The man had been jotting a note giving orders but someÂthing had stopped him. He felt around inside him and as far away as his senses could reach, in deep concentration. A moment later he had it: one of his ancient enemies was stirÂring.
Templegardâs conscious mind remained blissfully unaware of this. His inner psychic self took it in impassively.
Ω
Ed Templegard had a big day tomorrow. Heâd be meeting the President of the United States, for the second time. Theyâd met before in a ceremony when he had been awarded the CongresÂsional Medal of Honor, along with Tim Shannon and Olivia Rodriguez, for saving most of their unit. Olivia got hers postÂhumously.
It was hard to get to sleep because he was so jacked up about the meeting, his mind jumping from subject to subject despite his powerful self-control. Heâd been told nothing about the purpose of the meeting, and his hunch was that the intermeÂdiaries themselves had no idea what it was about either. They had put him through all those tests, some involving shooting, which he enjoyed and aced, and some that he couldnât make sense of at all. Has to be another secret mission. The thought excited him a lot. He wanted nothing more than to do someÂthing positive and essential for the human race, which sorely needed it. He had felt that way as long as he could remember.
His last secret mission had been to investigate the one terrorist group that did not seek publicity. Even now, no one knew the name the group called itself, let alone the name of its leader. He was lucky to escape after only a few days of torture with what little information he had gleaned. It was pretty thin: size of the main body he tracked, about ten thousand; all angry young Mideast men, heading toward Tehran; sophisticated weapons and electronics; blue turbans.
Now that Tim Shannon headed the new secret Theta unit, maybe he asked for me, and thatâs what these tests are about.
He finally fell asleep and found himself dreaming. He had been a lucid dreamer all his life, except when he drank too much. In this dream, he relived a scene from his childhood:
He saw the street heâd lived on, a tree-lined wide subÂurban street, and himself, at about six years old. He was about to break up an uneven fight. A boy who looked about thirteen was tormenting one smaller and younger than Eddie. He had seen both boys around the schoolyard but didnât know either of them.
Without a momentâs thought about it, he moved forward to intercede. Something inside just made him do it, though he didnât feel anything in particular. MovÂing quickly, he jumped and kicked the taller boy in the thigh. âOww!â the boy yelled. Feeling his kicked muscle cramp up, he involuntarily released his hold on the smaller boy, who ran away. So did Eddie. The older boy hobbled after them and quickly gave up, cursing.
Far away behind a big tree, Eddie and the lad flopped down and caught their breath, leaning back against the comforting willow. The smell of oleander filled the air. The younger boy sat forward to look Eddie in the eye.
âYou donât even know my name, whyâd you do that?â he asked in a somewhat challenging way, as if it broke some moral code. As Eddie searched around in his mind for the answer, the young boy added, âSave my ass, I mean. Oh, and my name is Earl.â
Eddie didnât really know why he did what he did so when he opened his mouth, he didnât know what would come out. âIâm Eddie and⊠I guess Iâm a protector,â he said. Hearing himself, he laughed. But Earl seemed to get it, for he nodded and sat back thoughtfully.
âYou gonna be a cop or sumthinâŠ?â he asked more quietly a minute later.
âSumthinâŠâ Eddie agreed amiably.
Earlâs head jerked. âHowâd you know to kick him in the thigh? I wouldnât have known to do that. But he wasnât able to chase us then.â
âMy dad says I have an instinct how to fight right,â Eddie confided.
Earl thought out loud. âI wish I had that. But it sounds impossible. How could you be born knowing how to do something that smart?â Quiet for a moment, he came back with, âMaybe you learned it in another life.â
Eddie laughed. What a funny thought.
âYou know that kidâs gonna be out to get you now, and he wonât stop until he gets you,â Earl added, soundÂing guilty.
âFor sure,â Eddie agreed.
Templegardâs interest in the dream was piqued because the conversation between Earl and Eddie hadnât actually hapÂpened. In reality, the younger boy had run one way, and he had run another.
Templegard had decided early in life to have an iron will and use it to squash out all the fear that ever arose within him. Snuff it right out. He had exercised that strategy in the dream. Instead of letting fear in, he would make a plan for whatever might happen. This was becoming a key part of his system of life, though at age six he didnât know it in those terms yet.
Looking back and seeing how he had been molded by his early experiences, Templegard mused about what he could learn from the dream as the image of it slowly became fuzzy. He realized he now had the ability to think and reflect while still in a dream state. He didnât remember having that ability before. Maybe he had always done it but now he had gained the ability to be aware of it.
He saw now clearly, as if considering some other person, that whatever happened to him in life, he would use each expeÂrience to create new rules for himself. One such experience as a child was having bad nightmares that scared him awake, so he taught himself to concentrate as he was falling asleep to know when he was dreaming; this way, he would not be afraid because heâd know it was only a dream. Then he discovered that he could do anything he wanted to do in the dream, like flying, which he loved to do in his dreams. These moments of clarity in self-observation often came to him when he was awake, and recently they had started to occasionally come to him during lucid dreams, often time-hopping across his life.
The fuzzy dream image morphed and in his next dream he saw himself in Paris. He recognized the white dome of the SacrĂ©-CĆur Basilica high above. He was at an outdoor cafĂ© sitÂting with that same familiar girl again. He felt something on his head and reaching up he felt a special hat; he recognized it from old war movies and documentaries as a military garrison cap from World War Two. The girl looked very French today, wearing a peasant blouse and a pleated skirt.
This was the same girl who had appeared in his dreams from childhood on. He didnât recognize her from any of his classes or the neighborhoods he had lived in, having been moved around a lot as an Army brat. She was his best friend in his dreams. She was so pretty and nice. She smelled like some kind of flower. He was pretty sure he loved her. He had felt that way all his life, and wished he could meet somebody that sweet in real life.
He reached across the table and held her hand. She looked at him and his heart swelled. He knew she loved him too.
THE NEXT MORNING
Templegard didnât let his emotions run too high, so as to not let his guard down. But hell! Here he was talking to the PresiÂdent of the United States! The two of them alone in a rowboat on a lake at Camp Davidâexcept for the frogmen he saw in the lake and the snipers all around the lake, ready to take him down if he presented any threat to President Gomez.
The president, a middle-aged Latino with bright eyes, looked like a kind schoolteacher. He had just been re-elected to a second term.
How did I get to be here? Templegard had fought well in Afghanistan the last few years with Shannonâs Raiders, but so did thousands of other guys and women. The memory of successfully spying on an unheard-of Mideast terrorist group and surviving torture at their hands flickered across his mind again. He suddenly remembered and understood.
âThe monkey test,â he said to the president with a question in his voice.
âYes,â President Gomez laughed. âHow come you were the only one to pass it? I tried to see if I could avoid thinking of a monkey, and I decided it was impossible.â
Templegard explained his trick. He could block out anyÂthing by having an erotic fantasy with extreme concentration.
âHow did you come up with that?â The president wanted to know.
âI was being tortured, sir.â
âOh!â
President Gomez, feeling regret about putting such fine young men in harmâs way, quickly went on to disclose the misÂsion. Templegard would be spying on US Army trained psyÂchics including his former commanding officer, Tim Shannon, now a General. West Point alumni rumor had it that Tim and his team had very recently unearthed a Nazi plot, after almost 100 years of everyone thinking that Nazis had been wiped out.
Nazis! Somehow connected to that rich guy they call Mr. Brain. Although Templegard didnât believe in psychic powers, he always forced himself to leave an open mind on everything until he had real proof, ever mindful of Herbert Spencerâs admonition about contempt prior to investigation. He quickly saw why the monkey test was necessary.
âSo, sir, youâre saying that to keep them from unmasking me as a spy, I have to have continuous erotic fantasies?â They shared a laugh, although the president nodded in agreement. âWhat am I trying to find out, sir?â
President Gomez showed him pictures of a man. About forty, sandy hair, big rangy body, a kind-looking smile, TemÂplegard noted. âColonel Martin Williams,â the president said, âhead of security and training at Theta. Maybe a more powerÂful psychic than the rest of Theta combined. Disappeared. No one has any idea where he is, if heâs alive, whether he left of his own volition or what.â His eyes became urgent. âWilliams is too important. Youâve got to find him and bring him back.â
Pandemonium: Live to All Devices by Bill Harvey is a highly ambitious and thought-provoking novel that explores the intersection of science, spirituality, and technology in a fast-paced and action-packed story. Drawing inspiration from Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, the novel tells the story of a war for Heaven and Earth, and is a meditation on rebellion, loss, and redemption.
The book is told from the point of view of an ensemble cast of psychic warriors, known as Theta Force, who are tasked with preventing World War III and healing the wounds of a second American Civil War. The author, Bill Harvey, is an Emmy-award winning media technologist, and his expertise in the field shines through in the novel, as he presents a believable and compelling vision of the future of communication technology. The depiction of near-future military technology is also highly detailed and credible, adding to the novel's overall sense of realism.
The central theme of the book is consciousness, and Harvey explores this concept in depth, weaving it into the story in a way that is both thought-provoking and accessible. He postulates that "The selves arenât really separate; each one is a projection of the whole Master Mindfield. The local self thinks itâs an entity unto itself but itâs really a camera lens for the One Consciousness. Each Self, and the One Self, develop new character through experiences in each life." This idea is not only central to the story but also serves as a commentary on the nature of reality and the human experience.
The writing style is cinematic and fluid, making it easy to visualize the action and the characters in a range of exotic settings. The pacing is brisk, and the novel is filled with lots of sex and interesting technology, like in a classic James Bond movie. The humor in the book is also well done, as Harvey presents a disturbing yet funny vision of a world where holographic human spam tries to strike up chatbot conversations.
The book has its flaws, such as inconsistent use of verb tenses and some unnecessary sexual content, but overall it is a solid read. The pacing is fast and the action is gripping, making it hard to put down. The blend of science fiction, espionage, and theology creates a unique and entertaining story that will have readers on the edge of their seats. The ending leaves readers wanting more and the series has potential to be an exciting and thought-provoking read. I would rate the book 4 out of 5 stars and recommend it to readers who enjoy action-packed thrillers with a philosophical twist.
Overall, Pandemonium: Live to All Devices is a highly recommended read for fans of science fiction and political thrillers. The novel is well-written and thought-provoking, with a strong sense of realism and a satisfying ending that leaves the reader wanting more.