Book 1 in the series.
The year 2028. Mankind is in the stranglehold of a worldwide surveillance state. Frank Kohlhaas, a petty citizen, lives a cheerless life, working as an agency worker in a steel plant.
One day, he gets into a conflict with the tyrannical system, because of an unfortunate accident. An automated trail convicts him to five years of imprisonment and Frank disappears in a detention centre, where he suffers under a cruel system of brainwashing and reeducation.
After eight months of pain, the authorities decide to transfer him to another prison. On the way there, something unexpected happens. Suddenly everything changes and the young man finds himself caught between the fronts...
Excerpt:
Frank Kohlhaas, who was called citizen 1-564398B-278843 in his everyday life, because this was his official administrative code, was already dreaming of the unpleasant smell in the hall of his flat, reminding him of rotten eggs. In his mind, shortly before 5.00 o'clock in the morning – soon the dream would be terminated by the alarm – Frank was on a walk through a sunny valley. But even at this beautiful place, the moldy smell was still pervasive, so that Frank wondered, how such a beautiful valley could smell so repulsive.
When the alarm-clock rang, it quickly became clear that the sunny valley was just fantasy, although the smell was real. The noise was shrill and Frank awoke swearing. Now he had to get up, put on his clothes, have a hasty breakfast and walk to the production complex 42-B.
„Damn!”, hissed the unshaven man as he moved his not excessively tall, but amazingly strong body from his cheaply produced bed.
„Hmmmhaaa!”, yawned Frank, shuffling through his still dark apartment to the next room, where a dirty kitchen was waiting for him. The citizen tore open the refrigerator door and chocked down a cheese sandwich, the meager left-overs from yesterday`s supper.
The water kettle was started with a loud whoosh and, after a few minustes, supplied hot water for a cup of instant coffee.„Nnnhhaa!”, uttered the young man, a statement, that could be interpreted in many ways at this early hour, and could have referred to his life situation in general. At 5.27 o'clock, Frank closed the battered door behind himself and walked listlessly down the dark corridor on his way to descend the even darker stairway. The source of that foul stench, that had been torturing Frank`s nose for days, was somewhere here. Perhaps one of the other tenants, damn idiot, had left his garbage in the corridor.
Each morning it was the same old story: „Rising, eating, walking, slogging away...“, as Kohlhaas always said.
In the past years, he had learned to hate his life. He was 25 years old now, living in a more than shabby flat on the outskirts of the former FRG capital, Berlin, working for modest wages as a temporary help in a steel plant. In former times, he had wanted to study, but this issue was over - for reasons that Frank never mentioned.
Actually, he was not dumb, but, according to his own words, he couldn`t hack it yet. However, the job at the steel plant was better than nothing, because it gave him the chance to earn some money and to survive – an advantage that was not enjoyed by millions of Germans in the year 2027.
Book 2, Prey World II - Rebellion Beyond
Book 3, Prey World III - Organized Rage
Book 4, Counterrevolution