Bravery strengthens the will to live, a will for Good against the Evil hidden in our world. There are many known obstacles put in the way of our heroes but many more are still to be discovered. However, defeating an evil enemy takes more than bravery and hope.
It is time for Jack George to step forward.
Number 1 bestselling author, David Edwards has created an adventure story teen readers that combines action and pace with technology and social networking in an epic adventure.
The plot is based around Facebook.
On the author's website there is a free electronic game of swap cards to go with the free ebook.
Excerpt:
The light was intense from 1000 computer screens. A white light interspersed with patches of colour. The light blue of Facebook and the pink of a child’s face, usually smiling in the profile photos that were aligned in a horseshoe shape around the silent black hulk.
There were 10 screens mounted vertically and 100 horizontally, creating a modern glass screen suspended from cables of reinforced steel that reached into the darkness above.
But some of the screens had dark grey backgrounds with a black hand turning anti-clockwise at their centre. 30 degrees at a time and twelve times each minute to make a complete revolution. At the midnight position, the hand implied stop! Danger! A signal, warning you away from the blackness beyond, where you would be lost in the bowels of the internet. The hands resembled a reversing set of clocks with three fingers and a thumb etched in the blackest of black. On each hand, the little finger was missing, creating a terrifying claw that reached out from the depths of the screen. The glass wall had hundreds of hands that relentlessly revolved until it was their time to disappear, as a screen saver was de-activated to admit another electronic victim for an online chat with the faceless MM.
Madam Musseine, or MM as she was known to the children playing the game on her world domination website. It was an electronic game with no consequences, a bit of a laugh with a couple of letters to identify your foe. Word of mouth had made it a popular game to play via the sponsored online app within Facebook. The automatic translation between English and Chinese, Spanish and French and every popular language in the world made your distant new mates appear stupid as their sensible comments were mistranslated for you but that made it even more fun. It was a fabtastic game because it could be played 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in real time across the globe. You against the world; a prime motivator in its appeal.
The huge leather chair creaked as Madam Musseine leaned backwards, her giant legs and feet supported on a padded hydraulic rest, barely wide enough to hold the splayed fat and muscle. Her arms were resting either side of the giant keyboard, especially designed for her massive fingers to feverishly jab at the keys as she messaged the junior gamers. Her teeth reflected the variety of colours emitted by the screens as she smiled, but the colours were stained by the brown rot. She was the ugliest person on this earth with bulbous lips and a fat nose, she had no left ear only a gaping hole. MM was dark skinned apart from the lighter coloured scar down her left cheek, a memory from her first knife fight in the dock area of Marseille, Southern France, at the age of ten. Her greasy black hair clung to the headrest until she shook her curly but lank locks in frustration as someone beat her on the game. It was the first child to win in that week and that made her snarl with anger as drool dripped from her lips.
‘Techno!’ She howled the name and listened to it echo off the hidden walls of the volcano. ‘Techno, come here now!’ A shadow of a man slipped into the pulsing light of the screens and grovelled beside her. Techno was 20 years old and had served his mistress for five years as her geeky lap dog. Born in East London, he had run away from home at age 15, leaving his younger brother and mum to fend for themselves. His dad had run away years before and Techno was too scared to assume the responsibilities of running a house, of being a man, and so he had run as well. It was in Marseille whilst earning a paltry living mending equipment in a gaming arcade that Twip Twop had found him. Twip Twop was one of the first of Madam Musseine’s henchmen, a short and vicious albino from Greece. But Techno was tall and gangly, with a mop of red hair above his thin white face. He kept his eyes to the floor as he spoke.
‘You shouted me Madam?’
‘No you stupid man, I shouted you twice. Where have you been you lazy piece of scum?’ He kept his head bowed and moved slightly away from her side but it was too late as her huge hand slapped across the side of his face. He was hit so hard, that he felt the imprint of her stunted hand on his cheek as it immediately glowed red with pain.
‘I’m so sorry Madam Musseine, please forgive me. I was redesigning the new stealth gyroscope. So sorry madam.’ He grovelled in front of her as she eased her bulk out of the greasy chair and towered above him. At 160 kilos and 3 metres tall, she scared everyone she met, so it was lucky the real world never saw her now.
‘Fix the program geek. I never want to be beaten again.’ After kicking him harshly, she lumbered away into the darkness and headed for the distant light pouring through a metal door set in the granite rock. Squeezing through it, she rolled her way down the long tunnel that led to her quarters located 700 metres below the summit of Mount Kibo, the dormant volcano that made up Mount Kilimanjaro. She made a mental note to see the gyroscope the next morning and demand that Techno should resolve the issue with the hydrogen engines or else... Tests had shown that water droplets created within the twin exhausts were visible on radar defence systems and that was unacceptable. She would give him a week to resolve the issue, and after that? Well, in The Black Hand Gang there was no ‘after’ when a gang member had failed to meet her wishes.
