Piggyback to the End of the World

SECOND RUNNER UP FOR THE DEL SOL PRIZE FOR FIRST NOVEL! (And re-proofed after a helpful reviewer pointed out some errors) Nil Steivenson and Lucy Wu are not exactly mad scientists. They are, however, a pair of furious misanthropic bio-engineers. Nil has lost his family to horrifying legislation, coupled with the perverse misuse of technology he pioneered. Lucy, a genius by any standard, has had the future she was promised all her life abruptly crushed by a glass ceiling set so low she's stuck in her parent's basement. Having lost everything but their friendship, the pair enlist the help of a stolen corporate artificial intelligence to beat the world at its own game and set humanity on a better course. That's plan A, anyway. Unfortunately, Plan B is much more likely. Plan B keeps them up at night. Plan B might be the end of the world. Following the trail blazed by Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, and the many other writers of darkly absurd science fiction, "Piggyback to the End of the World" is the story of flawed people, caught in the cruel machinery of a society that runs on quarterly bonuses and humanity's indomitable ability to pretend everything is just fine in the face of atrocity. It's the end of a near-future science fiction story that begins with our lives today; our absurd politics, our unbalanced economy, our overpowered armies and our blindness to our own failings. Piggyback to the End of the World tells us how it all turns out.