In an all too realistic future of constant surveillance, drones, cyberwarfare, and paranoia, maintaining privacy is a crime. Schools are chipping and iris-scanning children. When police officers see an Army veteran, they don’t think “War hero.” They think, “PTSD. Terrorist. Ticking time bomb.” And when an innocent family is killed after a hacked 911 call? Cover it up, boys.
Just days after moving from Texas to California, fifteen year-old Alexis Parker's family is brutally killed in a botched police raid. Then, a few weeks later, the officers involved in the raid start dying in a series of “accidents”. At first it seems like a bad case of karma and coincidence, but -- after an injury, two deaths, and a pretty clear message -- it becomes entirely too clear. Someone, somewhere is picking off the Parkers’ killers.
In the meantime, Alex has disappeared. Before her parents and little sister were gunned down, she was just a precocious student with a penchant for computers and mischief. Expelled from three schools in Texas for suspected hacking and property damage, she has the skills to pull a drone out of the sky and send it crashing into a police cruiser. Could Alex be the phantom hacker, taking revenge for her family, one cop at a time?
Fuel -- the first installment of Electric Sheep Press’ young adult technothriller Fighting Fire -- sets the stage. Good people make bad decisions, and we all know what paves the road to hell.