Changed

by M.J. Carlson

Over the next three days, Kelvin Wilson will be shot, hit by a car, and blow up a multi-million dollar building - and everyone he trusts will either die or betray him. The year is 2132. Oil is the past. America has fractured into regions where violence is rampant and legal and illegal drug use is common. Global warming and sea level rise have changed the planet and sent most of humanity to giant orbiting habitats. One of those left behind, 25-year-old Kelvin Wilson, works as a janitor for the giant Mahatsu Corporation, a global company involved in shipping and technology research. Kel is average in every way-except-in the last six months he's developed the unexplained ability to do increasingly complicated mathematics in his head, a photographic memory and, disturbingly-the apparent ability to slow time. When Kel is accidentally hit and knocked unconscious by a car, a scan of his brain reveals the source of his new abilities-miniature computer processors wired into his brain-technology that doesn't exist, and where they came from and how they got there is a mystery. When his best friend is murdered, Kel, a young woman whose scientist father was murdered for saving her life using the same technology, and the prototype experiment: a cat with near-human intelligence, must evade a private SWAT team and an obsessed cybenetically enhanced former soldier hunting them. With humanity's future hanging in the balance, the trio must discover why Kel was changed and stop those responsible from taking the next step.

342 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2014

About the author

M.J. Carlson is an American science fiction author. Four of his short stories: Paradox Effect, A Simple Breach Of Etiquette, Promises in a Reflecting Pool (Of Love and Sacrifice), and St. George, the Princess, and the Dragon received honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest in 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2016, respectively. One of his early novels, The Alien Who Fell and a short story, Wish Upon a Falling Star were finalists in the 2010 Florida Writers Association Royal Palm Literary Award competition. CHANGED, INDIGO MAN, ENGINES OF DESTRUCTION: Nicole Piricelli, book 1, and DISINHIBITION: Nicole Piricelli, book 2 are currently available. Two more, THE ALIEN WHO FELL and THE MISSING TRICK LIST: Nicole Piricelli, book 3 are scheduled to be released in September. SOMEBODY'S DAUGHTERS: Nicole Piricelli, book 4 is scheduled to be released before the end of 2025 and OFFICER NEEDS ASSISTANCE: Nicole Piricelli, book 5 is scheduled to be released in early 2026. M.J. spends entirely too much time fiddling around with computers in Brevard County, Florida, where he lives with Sparkle, his Wise Reader and muse — right down the road from where Major Anthony Nelson used to live with that nice girl, Genie.

"I try to explore issues of basic humanity on a backdrop of changing social forces in my writing. For instance, what does it mean to be human? Free? When does safety and security become tyranny and oppression? What is privacy, and can true intimacy exist without privacy? While at the same time, I try to soften the gravity of those questions with small twists of everyday humor."