The story begins with the normal boring life of a mid-level clerk working at the CIA HQ. He has a wife that is unhappy with him and four children. His wife makes more money and feels he is an underachiever, so she divorces him. He lives in a small apartment and can barely make ends meet. He takes his children to the national mall in DC for a pleasant afternoon of walking and getting ice cream. Then his entire world is upset when they stroll past a large crowd of weapons activists gathered in the mall. A shooting takes place to attempt to kill the activist speakers, and his youngest child is killed as an innocent bystander. The shooters are clones that disappear after they carry out their mission right in front of his eyes.
Why did I decide to finally write? Spoiler, it's not a midlife crisis.
Like most people, mass shootings have always left me speechless. Of course, I don't need to have lived in other countries to know that the approach the USA takes regarding gun-related violence is perplexingly unique. I consider myself a keen observer, so I noticed that during the lockdown of the pandemic in 2020-2021, mass shooting news reports drastically went down (even as violence overall seemed to reach new records). So, I found myself wondering whether the lockdown would help with the gun violence crisis, and save lives from the lethal virus. It was a little bit naive, wasn't it?
When the country started reopening to normal activities, between March and April 2021, punctual like a clock, mass shootings were also back to being part of life! That struck me to my core, and I decided to act on the idea of a book I had been keeping in my mind for some time.
Even though I was trained as a scientist and engineer, I always felt drawn to literary endeavors but never had the time and the dedication to get the training I knew I would need to come up with a book worth anyone's time. But on this occasion, I was gonna do something about this book idea. Even the ugly divorce I was going through was not going to stop me. That's how I started working on this book, and I think you'll find it worth your time. I hope you enjoy the story.
The book is simply a warning against complacency toward mass shootings. Accepting them as a normal part of our life may numb us from the fact that advanced AI technology can potentially be weaponized for seemingly random shootings, that perhaps cover up a crazy agenda, like world domination. Of course, it would take a resourceful evil genius to do that, but how many tech billionaires would or wouldn't fit that profile?