Backfire Crash, A Mind-Bending SF Thriller - Book 1 (e-book)

Book One of "The Crash" Series

About this premium eBook:

When a mass psychosis from misuse of new technology spreads with the aid of social media, the entire world experiences an apocalypse that is labeled The Crash. People shed all logic and become possessed by rage that leads to killing and destruction on a scale that destroys societies and infrastructures everywhere. Amid the chaos, Ben, an evolutionary psychologist and the inventor of the world-changing Stoffer Solution, must find a way to halt The Crash while battling the organized forces trying to take control of his technology and use it for their own dark purposes. In his quest, he finds unexpected and extraordinary allies with incredible stories of their own, such as Jason, a man suffering from the devastating effects of The Crash, but who may also hold the key to rebuilding civilization.

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Enjoy a sample from Backfire Crash.

The sound of machine gun fire made me toss my old porn magazine onto the floor and roll off the couch, knocking over a half-empty bottle of vodka and spilling it on the carpet. Gunshots had become common in my neighborhood, but machine gun fire was new, and so was the whining of a diving prop plane. At first, I thought it was the vodka making me hear things, but I’d never experienced hallucinations from vodka before, at least not that I knew of.

Crouching low, I opened the sliding glass door, and crept onto my second-floor balcony to see what new insanity was happening outside. The sight of a parachute coming out of the sun’s glare made me think of old war movies, and the red biplane flying behind it, firing a machine gun, made it a World War I movie. But the parachute wasn’t an old round jellyfish chute. It was a newer rectangular chute with directional controls, though the person pulling the steering lines was not in full control. 

The plane howled as it plunged toward the parachute. Its machine gun strafed the air around the dangling paratrooper and finally connected with something under him, creating a burst of papers that scattered in the wind like doves as the plane climbed higher and circled back. The guy hanging from the lines continued pulling on the steering handles, which made him swing back and forth. 

I could see it was a man now because he was getting close to me, and he wasn’t a military paratrooper. The plane dove in for another strafe and the pilot fired recklessly, hitting the building across from me. It was a biplane with the pilot sitting in the open. Taking cover, I stumbled back into my apartment and fell on the floor as the parachute dropped out of sight. Who the hell was this, the Red Baron? After the plane blew past, I edged back onto the balcony to see what had become of the guy hanging from the parachute. 

The plane was now a red smudge receding under the spotty clouds. Below me, part of the white parachute hung from a street sign down the block, but the rest of it was behind a building. I assumed the man was there, too, and because I couldn’t just ignore this, I threw on my skivvies, pants, and shoes. After picking up my rifle, I went out to find the guy.

The sun was low in the cool air. Dodging the trash and rubble, and tripping into some of it, I walked around my apartment building and across the road, past the vandalized cigar store, and to the street sign where a piece of the parachute was caught. I looked about, to see if any of the crashed were flailing in the shadows, ready to charge at me. I didn’t see anyone.

Past the corner, backlit by the setting sun, the guy was untangling himself from the parachute lines while sliding off the dented hood of an older, blue BMW Z3 that was crumpled into the back of a newer, white Hyundai Elantra. I briefly mourned the Z3. 

The man and I were the only ones on the debris-filled street. I knew who the guy was the moment I saw his face: the roundness; the downward and inward-turned eyebrows that made him seem angry; the intense, bright-blue eyes that could capture the attention of the most distracted millennial; the sandy hair with a buzz cut that harkened back to the sixties. And yet, with all this intensity, he had a handsomeness that balanced the disconcerting impact of his unusual features. He was also relatively tall, though not quite as tall as me. 

He wore a tux, making his appearance even more unusual, especially in the dirty street. A briefcase attached by a cord trailed open and empty from his left foot. I figured that was where the papers had fallen from, but I didn’t see any of them floating in the sky now, nor any papers scattered on the ground. 

His familiar face turned straight toward me. There was no reason for him to know me, but I knew who he was: Ben Stoffer.

He had invented the Stoffer Solution, which was named after him. He had been on the news daily when cable still worked. I wanted to turn and go back home, leave him to his own fate.

How someone could invent the greatest, world-changing modality and be so hated, was a conundrum I hadn’t thought about then. What he had done was improve the lives of most people on Earth, but it was his personality that people didn’t like, so his accomplishments dimmed under the cloud of his offensive character. I used the Stoffer Solution myself, but I also hated Ben Stoffer because he was an asshole. 

He was worse than an asshole. He was unpleasant, crass, insensitive, blunt, uncaring, self-centered, and many other nasty things. I didn’t know this about him from direct experience, but through old social media and other news, all of which had been gone for a couple weeks now. 

I’m aware that it didn’t make sense for me to have such an emotional reaction to his very presence when I hadn’t met him before, and he really hadn’t done anything to harm me. In fact, the Stoffer Solution had helped me quite a bit, not that it mattered much now, with world economies crashing. But here he was, dropped out of the sky like bird shit. It wasn’t as if I wanted to hurt him, but I also didn’t want to help him.

Steve Patchin is an author, photographer, and artist who has been working and running a studio in Las Vegas, Nevada since 1996. Derelict Dreams, an Illustrated Novel is his first novel. It includes more than 80 full-color original artistic photographs that make his apocalyptic story of two young sisters come alive. Steve is a Las Vegas native with an extensive portfolio of photographic images, realistic composites, and impressionistic paintings. He has owned and operated his photography and video business, Patchin Pictures, since 1996, winning eight Emmys for his work.

Steve has never stopped expanding and refining his art, photography, and writing. His resume of images displays an abundance of styles and subjects that are uniquely appealing: from traditional landscapes and cityscapes to his distinctive “photo paintings” that are more impressionistic, sometimes surreal, or other-worldly. The next book in The Crash series is Beyond The Crash, The Cosmic Consciousness.