The wonderland gambit
2 primary works • 3 total works
Book 1
That was the strange message left on Cory Maddox's e-mail - just at the moment when years of work on a revolutionary subspace computer system were about to pay off. Nothing would be the same for Cory again. Suddenly his life was thrown into chaos when the company that controlled his patent was sold out from under him, and instead of imminent watch, Cory was facing immediate poverty. Then along came Alan Stark, who wanted to recruit Cory for a special research project on virtual reality.
Initially thrilled to be involved, Cory quickly discovered that there was nothing virtual about the realities he was working on. Instead, he found that Stark was on the verge of controlling the very fabric of reality itself.
Cory was unsure of Stark's ultimate goal until he began to recall pieces of another life and found himself in the middle of a battle between two groups of people who could use "rabbit holes" in space and time to jump between different realities, personalities, and lives. Whoever had control of the power to shape reality would have power to become a god - or a devil. But before Cory could combat Stark and his minions, he first had to remember which side he was on.
Book 2
Time after time, life after life, Cory Maddox was being incarnated into worlds he found both familiar and strangely different. And only in this latest incarnation did Cory bring along knowledge, skills, and memories of his previous existence - memories of cold betrayal that promised nothing he saw or felt could be trusted. Nor could he trust his companions who, like himself, kept moving from life to life trying to escape the endless cycle.
But it was only with the help of those companions that Cory could develop the technological means to peer beyond the veil of reality - to the shadowy figures whom he was sure were manipulating reality . . . if what he was experiencing actually was reality.
Time was running out. His memories gave him an advantage over the others, but he would have to act quickly and surely if he were to discover the truth - before truth itself could no longer be trusted . . .
Reality wasn't what it used to be. Life after life, as man, woman, and child, Cory Maddox was trapped in an endless cycle of ever-changing realities, on the run from his ruthless companions and from the shadowy figures that seemed to exist outside the increasingly unstable matrix.
As each new world proved increasingly bizarre, Cory wanted nothing more than to find the way home. Fragments of knowledge - a mysterious UFO crash, alien technology, glimpses of a computer that was controlling his fate - all pointed toward Matthew Brand, the virtual reality genius. But Brand had vanished long ago, into, or perhaps beyond, the borders of reality.
To break the cycle of cyber-reincarnation, Cory had to find Brand - before the actions of his enemies destroyed reality altogether . . .