The Outcasts: Episode One

by Bill Thompson

Seventeen-year-old Nate Dax sometimes asks himself if a person can die who’s never been alive. He’s an Outcast – he doesn’t have a government chip so the authorities don’t know he exists. But if they find him he’ll be put to death immediately. Today it’s 2094 and Nate hides in what used to be called Colorado when the United States was a country.

Everything that’s wrong now started with the disastrous presidential election of 2016, when most Americans didn’t like either candidate. Four years later the people revolted, tossing out the incumbent and voting for a social democracy that lasted for twenty years. That election – the one in 2040 - was the last in America.

Two years later came the disasters. Doomsday prophets called them God’s wrath, but they were simply natural phenomena on an unthinkable scale. The Pacific earthquakes and tsunamis killed millions and weakened the San Andreas Fault. The Big One struck with fury, obliterating southern California. America floundered as its leaders helplessly wondered how to respond to such destruction. Others watched too, pleased at what was happening. Soon the enemies of the once-mighty nation took advantage of America’s weakness and struck.

The Great War of 2042 – also called the Twenty-Minute War – was a terrible demonstration of what concentrated nuclear war can do and it brought down America and the world as it had been. Nations were abolished and the World Union assumed control of planet Earth.

What the government did regarding population control is one reason why Outcasts exist. But how can Outcasts like Nate live when they can’t buy or sell anything, go into a store, attend a football game or go to school?

When Nate’s mother and father disappear he thinks he knows what’s happened. He has to save them in a world where Outcasts like him will be killed if they’re captured. Are there others like him out there … people who can help? Nate Dax must find out.

100 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 9, 2016

About the author

If variety is the spice of life, author Bill Thompson’s life so far has been spicy for sure! Over the years, and in no particular order, he’s been

• an international insurance broker
• a mayor
• head of a state prison board
• a stockbroker
• a newspaper reporter
• a Bourbon Street piano player
• a corporate entrepreneur
• presented to Queen Elizabeth
• in jail (briefly … and wrongly!)
• a goat herder
• a church organist and choir member
• a real estate broker
• a world traveler
• president of an animal shelter
• a husband, father and grandfather
• an observer at a knighting in Westminster
• a fluent Russian speaker
• a passenger on the Concorde
• a caregiver
• a lifetime dog lover
• an award-winning novelist

Reviews

[Todd Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely Brilliant. It’s incredible how the Author can pack so much into a 100 page story. Bill Thompson first caught my eye with another one of his amazing books ‘Order of Succession’ (also well worth a read). This is a story that really grabs you at the start with some devastating events around the world, and it certainly doesn’t let up with the tense plot, that is intriguing all the way to the end. With the past election not delivering what the majority of the public wanted, it was time for a different movement to step forward. Out with the old and in with the new. The Social Democrats had arrived and they were not scared to make some serious changes. Reducing military spending, and winding back privatisation on manufacturing and essential services. Major change was in the air. Mother Nature was about to put her two cents worth in, and it started with a few rather large earth quakes around the world that did a fair bit of damage. However she would really unleash her fury in the year 2042 with an earth quake so large it almost split Southern California in half. As a result of this earth quake a Tsunami of six hundred and forty feet high hit Hawaii, and over a million people would be killed. All told between the earth quake and the Tsunami it would kill untold millions. Russia would make the mistake of sending 6 nuclear submarines to the coast of America, to take advantage of the devastation of many of their cities due to the earth quake. The mistake would be firing nuclear missiles into a number of American cities, and of course the US would retaliate with firing many nuclear missiles of their own. This would only last 20 minutes, but go down in history as the worst war ever. Especially with other Countries being bombed as well. The world is in such a mess that all of the countries would get together and form the World Union. The most controversial change would be forcing all of the world’s population to be injected with a chip, and anyone not being chipped would be called an Outcast. Unfortunately if the powers to be decided that the world’s population was getting out of hand, then your number could come up, and you would be “put to sleep”. This is a very unique and satisfying read, and I’m glad the Author made it into a series. Hands down, great book.