Tal Klein - The Punch Escrow

THE PUNCH ESCROW

TAL M. KLEIN

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2017 Tal M. Klein

All rights reserved.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint copyrighted material.

“Karma Chameleon” as written by George Alan O’Dowd, Jonathan Aubrey Moss, Michael Emile Craig, Roy Ernest Hay, Phil Pickett. Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Rights Management US, LLC

“Bette Davis Eyes” as written by By Donna Weiss, Jackie DeShannon. Copyright © Donna Weiss Music, Inc. and Plain and Simple Music Author Photo © Lai Long

All product and company names are trademarks™ or registered ®trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them, or any of their future successors-in-interest in the year 2147.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Inkshares, Inc., San Francisco, California

www.inkshares.com

Edited by Matt Harry, Adam Gomolin, and Robert Kroese

Cover design by M.S. Corley and interior design by Kevin G. Summers

ISBN: 9781942645580

e-ISBN: 9781942645597

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017940692

First edition

Printed in the United States of America

“I read a lot of books but haven’t enjoyed one as much as The Punch Escrow in a long time. I picked it up for a cross-country flight and didn’t put it down until we landed in New York. Tal Klein creates a plausibly real future that sucks you in. He powers his story with action, twists, and more than a dash of humor. Young actors will be lining up to play the lead character, and any director worth his salt would kill (or at least teleport) for a chance to adapt The Punch Escrow .”

—Andy Lewis, book editor, The Hollywood Reporter

“A compelling, approachable human narrative wrapped around a classic hard sci-fi nugget, The Punch Escrow dives into deep philosophical territory—the ethical limits of technology, and what it means to be human. Cinematically paced yet filled with smart asides, Klein pulls off the slick trick of giving readers plenty to think about in a suspenseful, entertaining package.”

—Sean Gallagher, IT editor and national security editor at Ars Technica

“An alt-futuristic hard-science thriller with twists and turns you’ll never see coming. I couldn’t put it down.”

—Felicia Day, author of You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)

“Klein transports us to a beautifully rendered near-future world. This is refreshingly original and immersive hard sci-fi. You’ll turn the last page and yearn for Joel Byram’s next chapter.”

—Ben Brock Johnson, host of Codebreaker podcast and Marketplace Tech

“A headlong ride through a future where ‘huge international corporate conspiracy’ is a box you check on a form and teleportation takes you anywhere—it just blows you to bits first.”

—Quentin Hardy, head of editorial at Google Cloud and former deputy technology editor at The New York Times

“If I lived in the world of The Punch Escrow , I’d teleport around the world shoving copies of Tal M. Klein’s thrilling, hilarious, and whip-smart debut into everyone’s hands. Save me the trip—buy this novel now.

—Duane Swierczynski, author of Revolver and the bestselling Level 26 series

“A fast-paced near-future sci-fi adventure peppered with exotic technology and cultural references ranging from “Karma Chameleon” to the Ship of Theseus, The Punch Escrow will have you rooting for its plucky, sarcastic hero as he bounces between religious fanatics, secret agents, corporate hacks, and megalomaniacs in a quest to get his life back. If you’ve ever wanted to get Scotty drunk and ask him some tough questions about how those transporters work exactly, The Punch Escrow is the book for you.”

—Robert Kroese, author of The Big Sheep and its sequel, The Last Iota

“This book angered me to my core, because it’s based on an idea that should have occurred to me. The fact that Tal executed it so well, and made such a page-turner out of it, just adds insult to injury.”

—Scott Meyer, author of the Magic 2.0 series

“Some writers take us to the future so we can question the effects that technology can have on humanity on a global and personal scale, along with the impact upon the social fabric. Others do it to take us on a wild ride made all the more fantastic by pushing the boundaries of what we can expect from the world of tomorrow. Tal M. Klein masterfully balances both and sets it all to the beat of an 80s soundtrack. An excellent piece of contemporary science fiction.”

—J-F. Dubeau, author of A God in the Shed and The Life Engineered

McCoy: Where are we going?

Kirk: Where they went.

McCoy: What if they went nowhere?

Kirk: Then this will be your big chance to get away from it all.

—from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Actually violets are purple

Irises too

CONTENTS

AB INITIO

STICK!

SYMMETRY BREAKING

NEARLY INFINITE

SITUATION

HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE

CUT LOOSE LIKE A DEUCE

SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE

IT’S MY LIFE

ANOTHER OTHER

LOVE PLUS ONE

THE LAW OF HOLES

THE BIG MAC OF THESEUS

TARZAN BOY

TAINTED LOVE

TAKE ON ME

THE FIRST NOBLE TRUTH

DOCTOR! DOCTOR!

CURST BE HE THAT MOVES MY BONES

THE CRETAN LABYRINTH

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

THE BUMMOCK

CHEKHOV’S GUN

THE ROAD OF TRIALS

MAGIC MIRROR GATE

DON’T YOU WANT ME

A PERFIDIOUS INDULGENCE

MISE EN ABYME

IT’S A HELL OF A TOWN

ONE-HUNDRED STEP SOUL CATCHING

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD

JEOPARDY

HALCYON

SUPERCALISOLIPSISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS

NULL ROUTE

A BORROWED SWORD

MAKE WESTING

THE BATTLE OF CHELSEA PIERS

OH L’AMOUR

THE LASKER TRAP

ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME

AD FINEM

LA GIOCONDA

AFTERWORD

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LIST OF PATRONS

AB INITIO

IF YOU’RE READING THIS, then you’re officially in charge of figuring out what to do next. I’m off the hook, probably because I’m dead. Consider the baton passed. Hooray for you.

The problem for me is trying to figure out how much you know, and more important, how much you need to know—because you’re in the future, and I’m in the past. Maybe it’s a good idea for us to start with the past past, like stuff that happened in my past that is relevant to my present, which is still your past, but now possibly relevant to your present.

Do they still teach you guys about the da Vinci Exhibition? Maybe that’s a good place to start.

STICK!

TELEPORTATION KILLED THE MONA LISA .

More specifically, a solar storm during the teleportation of da Vinci’s masterpiece was to blame. It happened on April 15, 2109. The painting was being teleported from Rome to New York City for an art exhibition when a huge flare erupted from the Sun, sending something called a coronal mass ejection on a collision course for Earth. Think of it like a zit popping on the Sun’s forehead, only the zit was about the size of Venus and the pus inside was an electromagnetic shit storm. Okay, that’s a pretty gross visual, but now it’s in your head and out of mine.