Quote from my next book (3)

His office was in the spare room of his house, and of course there was no electronic kit. The layout of the office, equipment in it, and even the furniture, would not have looked out of place in the 19th century. Well, except for the tape player. The walls were lined with dark wood pannelling reminiscent of some stately home; there was an ornate picture rail below which hung mostly rennaissance paintings (though there were only two modern pieces: a large photo of Blackpool taken from offshore somewhere, just before the bombing), and another photo of the current President of Europe, Bearnard Cody, which he would throw darts at when he was feeling frustrated. He had filing cabinets (for storing the few things he really did need to write down) that were wooden, with old fashioned locks to which he kept the keys on his person at all times; a large oak desk with Gillow chairs, salvaged from some of the wreckage of the bombing, and an ornate standard lamp that ran on paraffin.
All in all he had a plush office that, in times gone by, would have been favoured by the elite class that he now sought to destroy. He was pleased with the irony of this. Queen Victoria had once sat in the chair he now slouched on. She would meet with the judges and the lawyers in Lancaster castle and help preside over cases, and help direct the future of the law in England. Her legacy was to bring England struggling from the Industrial Revolution into the beginnings of the information age that had now gone so wrong. Could she have envisaged this world, Boon wondered? She reigned during the time when the telephone was invented; now there was instant video and voice communication all over the planet. She ruled over the British Empire that. despite its faults, brought so much prosperity to the third world. Now, Britain was no more, there were only five countries, that same spirit of imperialism brought war and suffering all around the globe and Boon longed for a more localised world. Victoria's age invented the car, and aeroplanes were the stuff of science fiction. Now even the poorest had cars and the richest had cars that could fly; 12 hours was all it took to get to the other side of the world. Coal and oil production begun to really take off under her leadership, bringing an unimaginable energy revolution. Now there was nuclear fusion energy that was millions of times more powerful. The Victorians started the process of running censuses and monitoring the population, but they knew almost nothing about the lower classes. Now, governments could know anything about any of their citizens in an instant, including their genetic code and hiding from this was almost impossible.
Did she know where all this was heading? Did Queen Vic look out over her realm and wish she knew every tiny detail about her people? Did she want the Empire to just grow, and grow, and grow? Did she wish she could talk to anyone in the world in an instant?
Of course she did. The elite ruled the world from way back before her day. She was just the latest in a long line of rulers of England who joined the ranks of the elite. For centuries the world had been controlled by small groups of very powerful people, having secret meetings in very plush houses. "The only difference now", thought Boon aloud, "is that they have nothing to hide any more. All the cards are on the table. We citizens are actively 'subjects'. We do what they want and they watch us to make sure we are doing it. That's not a secret anymore. It's very difficult to hide. every time you go outdoors, log on, get on the telephone, use any kind of machinery, they are watching, and they're ready to dock you a week's pay if you do something minor and have you shot if you do something major. And in the meantime the wars rage on all around the globe and the only winners will be the elite themselves, from all the five sides, who have probably planned the whole thing together secretly since the war."
This was the mantra of the Freedom Party, and not the first time Boon had spoken it aloud to himself, but in light of his recent experience the words seemed more real to him. He felt a release from the harrowing tribulations of earth-bound life that he could not possibly have imagined before, the notion that he had the power to depart from his body. The perpetual sadness that had gripped him since the bombing, that relentless feeling of powerlessness and resignedness to a dreadful fate, had lifted a little. He was feeling positive, he could see his work really going somewhere, and for the first time in years, he really had the notion that his work might make a dent in the elite and bring a little more freedom for the ordinary people. This made him smile, and he pressed play on the stereo to be met by a wall of sound: hypnotic techno beats that sped up his mind and reinforced his rebellious, cunning nature.

Quote from my next book (2)

Cannabis smoke filled the recovery room of the large house. Shane Boon's body had been on the sofa there for exactly one hour. Shane Boon's soul, well, that was a different matter. He couldn't be sure. He felt sick and somewhat disorientated. He didn't know how his body had got from the ritual room to here, his memory of returning to the house was somewhat hazy; so he was quite confused as to how long he had been back in his body. In fact he was only about 70% sure that he was in his body even now, though to imagine otherwise seemed laughable. He saw that his body was, indeed, laughing.
"What are you laughin' about my friend?" enquired a light-hearted voice from the other sofa. Boon looked over. He was sure that only a few moments ago he knew who was on the other sofa and he had in fact been having a conversation with them, but now it seemed that information had gone. He felt extremely guilty at this apparent failure to socialise properly. He sat up, squinted a little, trying to focus his gaze on the person who had spoken. It was Lizzie. Rowena sat next to her. Both seemed to be smiling. Rowena's hand was extended towards him, with something white between her fingers. He could not make out what it was, and scrunched up his face at her hand in confusion, before burping. He laughed again, at which Rowena and Lizzie collapsed into fits of giggles.
"Mate, mate, I'm saao glad ye came round here, this has been a right entertainin' evenin'! Lizzie'ere's telled me all sortsa funny stories! Saahnds like ye've done yeself praahd mate! Nice one!" Rowena's accent was much more London than before. Boon struggled with this concept as well, was with really the same person he had met earlier? He squinted at her some more. Then he realised what she held in her hand, which was a spliff she was offering to him, and that she held a bottle of beer in the other hand, then he realised that there were empty beer bottles everywhere and that Rowena and Lizzie were quite drunk as well as more than a bit stoned.
Boon laughed again and took the spliff from Rowena's hand, taking a long, deep toke on it before finding an ashtray by the side of him and sitting back again on the sofa. A flood of increased consciousness swept through him, like the spliff had literally topped it up. Suddenly he was becoming more aware of his surroundings and his mind. He was in a brightly lit room with a large window in the ceiling. There were three large sofas, a couple of coffee tables in the middle, a fridge, tea-making equipment, drinks cabinet, and a small stereo with old-fashioned CDs strewn around it. Some sort of slow-beated ambient music gently oozed out of the speakers. The tables, as mentioned before, were littered with beer bottles. They also harboured a box containing weed, various other potions and powders. The only people in the room were himself and Lizzie and Rowena.
"Are you happy, Shane?" asked Lizzie, more seriously. He gave serious thought to the question, which was both very simple and yet extremely complex.
"Yes," he replied. Then he burped again and the three of them creased up with laughter once more.
Coming to, a moment later, Lizzie explained: "We are still heavily under the influence of the psilocybin. It has been three hours in the normal world since we took the drug. You will be tripping for quite some time yet. In the meantime: sit back, get high, enjoy the ride baby. You have passed your initiation test with flying colours. Congratulations my friend! You have left your body and found your astral consciousness. And you have seen how our group does its work."