Book Excerpt
Chapter 3
Enraged, Brandon kicked the sliding doors to the Intelligenz boardroom
before they could open automatically. The doors swiftly parted and Brandon
strode into the spacious room. Sat around a grand glass table were members of
the board, technologists, his public relations consultant Jenny Alvaro and
press officer Quentin Davoz. Brandon had called a hastily arranged emergency
meeting.
Pulling his chair forcefully
away from the table and slumping down on it, Brandon slammed a fist against the
glass in frustration. “Quentin, I can’t believe you allowed me to go out there,
knowing what had happened to that girl!” Brandon glared angrily at the young
press officer. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Quentin’s Adam’s apple rose and
fell as slight signs of perspiration appeared beneath his blonde trendy gelled
back hairstyle. “Brandon, you had a huge launch ahead of you - I assumed it
needed your full focus.”
Brandon felt his entire body
grow hot. He pulled hard on his neck tie, loosening it in a bid to cool himself.
He suddenly wondered whether he had put too much faith in his relatively
inexperienced press officer. “So, the death of a young girl in one of our homes
didn’t need my full focus - is that what you’re saying?”
“I only found out about this
incident two minutes before you were due on stage. I figured it was best to go
ahead with the launch, considering how much time, effort and money had gone
into it.”
Brandon stopped short of
retaliating on hearing that crucial word, ‘money.’ He had always drummed it
into his workforce and close members of his team, that in business, money
should not be wasted and at every opportunity utilised effectively to push the
business forward. He wasn’t about to go back on that tenet inside the
boardroom. “So, what more do we know about the situation the girl was found
in.”
Quentin’s young eyes looked
heavy and his nostrils quivered. “It seems she was scalded to death. I sent one
of our cameras down to take pictures before the body was taken away.” Quentin
removed a silver pen-like object from his shirt pocket, pressing down on it. “I
must warn you these pictures are graphic.”
The transparent table under
Brandon’s fingertips suddenly morphed into an image of a bathroom. At the centre
of the picture, a woman - skin red raw with peeling white flesh - lay lifeless
at the bottom of a shower cubicle. A smashed shower cubicle door wide open, a
naked smouldering torso half out of the cubicle.
Brandon felt his stomach wrench
as another graphic scene emerged. “My gosh. How could this have happened?” He
turned to John who sat on the opposite side of the table.
John looked stunned. “After her
body was removed, I sent a team of experts on site to take samples of the
nanorobots within the shower cubicle computer system, to determine whether a
fault occurred between the nanorobots and the shower equipment. At this moment
they haven’t come back to me with anything solid.”
Brandon could feel his heart
race and a burning sensation surge through the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t
believe he was sitting here for the second time in three weeks discussing a
death in one of his state of the art homes. The first had been an elderly lady
who was found at the bottom of her grand staircase in an accident that looked
to be of her own making. The police had informed him, the woman hadn’t strapped
herself into her IHC or Intelligenz hover chair, and whilst it was on the move
had fallen from the machine to the bottom of the staircase. That incident, he could
somewhat understand, this one left him bewildered. Eyeing Jenny Alvaro, his
chief public relations consultant on the other side of the table, Brandon
sensed her apprehension. Her pursed lips were quivering ever so slightly and
she was blinking almost every second. “Jenny, what are you thinking?”
Intelligenz
Title: Intelligenz
(The Dark Atlanta Series)
Author: Lloyd Blake
Genre: Science Fiction
Atlanta, Georgia.
Something disturbing is happening at one of America's most successful tech
companies. A girl is found dead in her home shower cubicle. A home linked to
the Intelligenz corporation network of technologically advanced gated
communities. This suspicious death, in a world where everything is scrutinised
by the media, sets off unprecedented interest.
A young rookie journalist, Clara Flockhart, is assigned by her chief editor, Eric Nash, to investigate the strange happenings at the Intelligenz compound. An assignment that will plunge her into the unknown and lead her straight to the man whose company is being rocked by events outside of his control, Brandon Bloomfield.
At the same time, a young college dropout, Karl Jones, has his own suspicions about the recent death and the gated community that has overtaken his neighbourhood. Suspicions that will see him undertake his own exploration of the Intelligenz compound, he calls the fortress.
As the body count climbs and the nanotechnology, Intelligenz has secretly guarded, comes under scrutiny, the mysterious riddle as to what is actually happening deepens.
Is there a saboteur lurking within the corridors of the fastest growing company in America's corporate history? Or does the darkness come from an unlikely source.
A young rookie journalist, Clara Flockhart, is assigned by her chief editor, Eric Nash, to investigate the strange happenings at the Intelligenz compound. An assignment that will plunge her into the unknown and lead her straight to the man whose company is being rocked by events outside of his control, Brandon Bloomfield.
At the same time, a young college dropout, Karl Jones, has his own suspicions about the recent death and the gated community that has overtaken his neighbourhood. Suspicions that will see him undertake his own exploration of the Intelligenz compound, he calls the fortress.
As the body count climbs and the nanotechnology, Intelligenz has secretly guarded, comes under scrutiny, the mysterious riddle as to what is actually happening deepens.
Is there a saboteur lurking within the corridors of the fastest growing company in America's corporate history? Or does the darkness come from an unlikely source.
Author Bio
Lloyd hails from
London, UK, and has always been fascinated by the power of words and books. As
a child he engrossed himself in books, his favourite author being Roald Dahl.
Years later, he was reading his brothers X-men, Spiderman, and all other super
hero comics. Soon after, he would try his hand at writing short stories, mostly
grizzly stories dripping with horror elements.
It wasn’t until he was
at university studying business and marketing, he decided to fulfil his
lifelong ambition of writing a full length novel. ‘The fight for Naturah’ was born, a science
fiction fantasy epic set in a parallel universe. The idea for his second novel
sprung from the technological revolution that has immersed our world – what with
social media, the internet, and the proliferation of gadgets and gizmos to aid
our lives. The dark Atlanta series: Intelligenz, is the first book of an
intended series and is a science fiction psychological thriller that examines
the perils of our fascination with technology. The first book is published
through shiftingpaperpublishing.
Lloyd will soon start
work on the next instalment, so watch this space…
Links
Amazon Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Intelligenz-Dark-Atlanta-Lloyd-Blake/dp/0957394101/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384451460&sr=1-1&keywords=intelligenz
Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Intelligenz-Lloyd-Blake-ebook/dp/B00BU15JIQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384451460&sr=1-1&keywords=intelligenz
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