A Gluttony of Plutocrats (The Respite Trilogy Book 1)
Page 24
Sy rocked on her seat. “They will never again be able to say it doesn’t happen.”
I could have told her that they would say just that, and be widely believed, but I chose silence.
Twice that day, I had killed, but that was to save my own life and the lives of my friends. Now I had the power to unleash a rebellion, with inevitable deaths. What would Linnet want? What did I want, for the future? What person did I want to be?
I instructed Newton to proceed.
A week later, half the men at Bandstorm’s gluttony of plutocrats were dead, together with many of the protesters who had attacked them. Emergency laws, under the umbrella of National Security, forbade public gatherings or incitement to harass others still living but hidden. The evidence was officially declared a hoax, with no attempt to explain how such a hoax could have been perpetrated.
I walked with Sy along a sun-drenched beach. “Now we must build a new society, with better ways.”
Suspended around my neck was a combi, in the shape of a rumpard, as we had yet to work out a suitable symbol for our undeclared state. Newton spoke from it. “Who can you trust, Lemuel? Would you believe that nice man Oliver Arkbuckle, who you thought of as a friend, has started a campaign to have your citizenship revoked?”
I smiled. I had never thought of myself as a leader before. But with friends like Arkbuckle, perhaps the challenges that lay ahead might be within my grasp.
The End
Coming Soon, Also by Ella Swift Arbok:
Book 2—The Philosopher’s Experiment (due 2020)
“No, Professor, I’m not concerned about what may happen if I’m wrong, but I’m terrified of the implications if, by some fluke of random thought, I should be proved correct.”
Gulliver Heyho battles to come to terms with the nature of the universe, but developments nearer to home threaten to overwhelm him.
Book 3—The Gos Islands Affair (due 2022)
On Lemuel Gulliver Oneway’s e-grave are inscribed the words: ‘The abuse of power is a denial of our humanity. The use of power is an abuse of responsibility.’ But building the state he founded, without a structure of centralized power, threatens to undermine world peace.
For more information, see TheRespiteTrilogy.com.
About the Author
Ella Swift Arbok hails from the planet of Respite. She was born on February 32, 2972, in Lemon County, Elysium. Her father was famous paleontologist Wellum Grooce, best known for his work categorizing the fossils of the Gos Islands. Arbok’s mother, Umbo Arbok, a physicist whose contribution to our understanding of stellar formation was little regarded during her lifetime, strongly encouraged her daughter’s academic curiosity and future career.
While studying at Barford University, Arbok became fascinated with twenty-seventh-century literary personality Oliver Arkbuckle and was inspired to write. The volumes of her Respite Trilogy were published on Earth after her death in 3080.
Arbok’s representative on Earth, SJRichards, was a postal clerk, programmer, and systems analyst based in the United Kingdom. He received his degree in philosophy from Warwick University. Richards is happily married with four children. After spending several years owning his own general store, he retired to write full time.