MindWar: A Novel

by Andrew Klavan Narrated by Andrew Kanies

Overview

When Rick lost the ability to run, he came one step closer to becoming a hero.

New High Score! New Record Time!

Rick nodded with grim satisfaction. He laid the game controller aside on the sofa and reached for his crutches.

Rick Dial was the best quarterback Putnam Hills High School had ever seen. Unflappable. Unstoppable. Number 12. But when a car accident left him crippled, Rick's life as he knew it ended. He disavowed his triumphant past. He ignored his girlfriend. He disappeared into his bedroom-and into the glowing video screen.

But Rick's uncanny gaming skills have attracted attention. Dangerous attention. Government agents have uncovered a potentially devastating cyber-threat: a Russian genius has created a digital reality called the Realm, from which he can enter, control, and disrupt American computer systems . . . from transportation to defense. The agents want Rick, quick-thinking quarterback and gaming master, to enter the Realm and stop the madman-before he sends America into chaos.

Entering the Realm will give Rick what he thought he'd never have again: a body as strong and fast as it was before the accident. But this is no game, there are no extra lives, and what happens to Rick in the Realm happens to Rick's body in reality.

Even after Rick agrees to help, he can't shake the sense that he's being kept in the dark. Why would a government agency act so aggressively? Can anyone inside the Realm be trusted? How many others have entered before him . . . and failed to return?

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In the tradition of Ender's Game and The Matrix, MindWar is a complex thriller about a seemingly ordinary teenager who discovers a hidden gift-a gift that could make him a hero . . . or cost him everything.

"Edgar Award-winning Klavan's well-orchestrated fantasy thriller features . . . an imaginative mix of gaming action with real-life stakes. With just the right cliff-hanger ending, this trilogy opener shows promise." -Booklist

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

05/19/2014
Klavan (the Homelanders series) kicks off a trilogy with this fast-paced cyberthriller involving a teenager tapped by a secret agency to fight evil inside a form of virtual reality. Former football star Rick Dial has been living in a funk ever since his father walked out on his family and Rick himself was injured in a car accident. A self-described “useless cripple,” Rick has taken to playing video games nonstop. His exemplary skills lead him to be recruited by the MindWar Project, where he’s charged with a vital mission: go into the digital “Realm” to investigate, spy on, and possibly combat the terrorist Kurodar. Inside the Realm, Rick fights code disguised as monsters as he learns how to achieve his full potential. While Rick starts out as depressed and surly, his self-image and confidence are gradually restored. The story, while interesting, suffers from a lack of focus—both an awkward romantic subplot and religious undertones involving the power of spirit feel tacked on, rather than an organic part of the novel. Ages 12–up. Agent: Robert Gottlieb, Trident Media Group. (July)

Booklist

Edgar Award–winning Klavan’s well-orchestrated fantasy thriller features...an imaginative mix of gaming action with real-life stakes. With just the right cliff-hanger ending, this trilogy opener shows promise.

Kirkus Reviews

2014-04-09
A young video game whiz squares off against monsters and terrorists in a mad genius' cyberworld to save America.Ex-football star Rick gained world-class Xbox expertise during months of seclusion following the sudden disappearance of his scientist father and an accident that cost him the use of his legs, so he puts up only minor resistance when federal agents kidnap him and demand that he allow his mind to be wired into a MindWar Realm. The Realm's creator, Kurodar, is lining up support from the Axis Assembly ("the gathered leaders of every tyranny on earth") to wage cyberwar on the United States. Rick works to learn how to use spiritual force in the Realm to battle ravening security bots on the way to sabotaging a never-specified demonstration of Kurodar's powers. Meanwhile, the bad guy himself pursues a certain American computer expert known as Traveler—whose real identity is telegraphed well before a big reveal in the late going. In the end, Rick's immediate lot has improved, but Kurodar remains at large, and evidence of a traitor sets up the next episode.The cyberthrills are stylized, but the focus is on action, and there's just enough left unresolved to tempt readers onward. (Science fiction. 11-13)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171104184
Publisher:	Nelson, Thomas, Inc.
Publication date:	07/15/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Mindwar

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By ANDREW KLAVAN

Thomas Nelson

Copyright © 2014 Andrew Klavan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4016-8892-9

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CHAPTER 1

STAR FIGHTER

RICK DIAL STREAKED through the vastness of space, starlight and gunfire blazing all around him. The seat of his battlecraft shook beneath him as he pressed the button to unleash another deadly barrage from his two forward guns. He caught one glimpse of the pilot of the Orgon ship veering in toward him from starboard, then his shot struck home. There was an orange blast of flame and scrap metal. When it was over, both the Orgon ship and its pilot were gone.

That was the last of the guardians. Rick righted his battlecraft and zoomed in toward the mothership, which now hovered in the endless darkness undefended. He held the Fire button down. His forward guns bucked and spat death in a continual rattle. The black wall of the mothership frayed, chipped, and then burst apart. The landing bay was laid open to the vacuum of space.

As Rick guided his craft in toward the interior landing strip, he could see the insectile Orgon crewmen screaming in terror as they were swept from their battle stations into the infinite emptiness around them. He kept firing. The last parked crafts of his alien enemies exploded, killing whatever crew members were still on board.

With that, it was over. None of the giant bug-like creatures were left. The landing bay was clear.

Rick slowed his craft into a sleek glide and headed toward the centerline. He touched down effortlessly. The moment he did, words flashed on the television screen:

Starlight Warriors

New High Score! New Record Time!

Rick nodded with grim satisfaction. He laid the game controller aside on the sofa and reached for his crutches.

CHAPTER 2

A HALF Life

WITH THE RUBBER pads of the aluminum crutches wedged under his arms, Rick swung himself across the dark room to the door. He paused by his workstation there. Reached down to touch the keys of his Mac. The monitor woke and glowed in the shadows. There was a new e-mail—another note from Molly.

For a moment, he let himself remember her. The light brown hair tumbling down to frame the high cheekbones on her robust, delicately freckled face. The tall, shapely figure. The smart, strong gaze. He remembered the last time he had kissed her—four months ago—the feel of her lips. The last words he had spoken to her, face-to-face:

I never expected this, Molly.

He meant he had never expected a romance between them. They had always just been friends with a lot in common. She was the child of a local college professor, like he was. She was an athlete, like he was ...

Or, that is, like he used to be.

An acid bitterness went through his heart and Rick forced the memories away. He deleted the e-mail without reading it. Molly had not given up on their relationship—not yet—but she would get the message sooner or later. He'd make sure of it.

He opened the door and, propped on his crutches, swung out into the hall.

He squinted as the morning light hit him. He was surprised how bright it was. He hadn't seen it in his bedroom, not at all. His mother had set up the new bedroom for him on the ground floor so he wouldn't have to negotiate the stairs anymore with his busted-up legs. He kept the curtains in there pulled shut twenty-four/seven. He didn't want anyone to look in at him from the sidewalk. He didn't want anyone to see him sitting there playing his video games hour after hour after hour—sleeping the days away—doing nothing—a useless cripple.

He swung himself down the hall to the kitchen. He could smell eggs cooking, bacon, too. It suddenly occurred to him he was hungry.

His mother was at the stove with her back to him when he came in. She didn't turn around—probably didn't hear him enter over the crackling of the eggs in the frying pan and the bacon sizzling. But Raider saw him—his kid brother, Wade, eight years old. Raider was sitting at the round kitchen table in the corner. When he saw his big brother come in, he lit up like a Christmas tree. Big, big smile on his round face, blue eyes bright and beaming. That was typical Raider: no matter what happened, he could always find a reason to grin. Kid probably had some kind of weird psychological condition or something.

"Hey, Rick!" he said. He sounded as glad to see him as if they'd been apart for months instead of a few hours.

At the sound of Raider's voice, Rick's mom turned and looked at Rick over her shoulder. She smiled, too, but she wasn't as good at it as Raider. No matter how hard she tried, Rick could see the sorrow in her eyes. He could see it in the way the corners of her mouth always turned down. Her face—round like Raider's—was pale and saggy. No makeup. No energy. Not at all like she used to be, like she was in the old days—the old days being five months ago, before Rick's father tossed their twenty-year-old marriage in the garbage and ran off, no one knew where, with some old flame of his.

"Well!" Mom said, trying to put some feeling in her voice. "You came out of your room!"

Rick only nodded. He hobbled to the refrigerator.

"Will wonders never cease?" his mother went on. "Who knows? Maybe you'll even shave."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Rick muttered. "I just got hungry, that's all."

"Mom's making eggs!" said Raider, as if he were delivering news that World War III was over and the good guys had won.

"Wow," said Rick, but his voice was expressionless. Leaning on his crutches, he pulled open the refrigerator door and snagged a bottle of orange juice. Carrying it clumsily by the bottle neck, he thumped his way back to the kitchen table.

"I'll get you a glass!" said Raider—and he was off on the mission before Rick could stop him. He practically ran to the cupboard. Grabbed the glass like it was the baton in a relay race. Came barreling back to the table to set it down beside the juice bottle.

"Thanks," Rick managed to say. He set his crutches against the wall and dropped into a chair.

The kid kept hanging over him, though, all hopeful and eager. For what? What did he think Rick was going to do for him? Toss the football around with him in the backyard? Teach him some gridiron moves like he used to? All that was over now. He couldn't be that kind of big brother anymore—a hero a younger brother could look up to and imitate. Those days were finished. The kid just never learned, that's all.

"Hey, I know: maybe you could get some exercise today," Raider suggested helpfully. "The doctor says if you exercise enough, you'll get the strength in your legs back, then you won't have to use the crutches anymore."

Rick poured himself some juice and drank. "Aw, what do doctors know?"

"Uh ... doctoring?" said Raider.

Rick smiled in spite of himself. It was impossible not to like the runt.

"Sit down and eat your breakfast," said their mother. She set a plate with eggs, bacon, and toast on the table for Raider.

"Rick can have those," said Raider. "He's hungry. I'll get the next batch."

"Sit down and eat, punk, or you'll get the Crutch of Doom," said Rick.

"Not the Crutch of Doom!" cried Raider in mock horror. But he sat down and started eating his eggs.

Rick and his mother exchanged a look. She lifted her chin at him—a little gesture of thanks for not being cruel to his kid brother. She knew it was hard for Rick to be nice to anyone anymore. And she knew Raider worshipped the ground Rick walked on. Or hobbled on.

"I'll make some more for you," she said and moved back to the stove.

Rick's eyes hung on her retreating figure for a moment. Her sad, slumped figure, still in her bathrobe, her graying hair uncombed, all out of place. She never looked like that when Dad was still here ... but there was no point thinking about that anymore, was there? Those days were over, too. Dad was gone.

His eyes moved away from her—but it didn't matter where he looked. There was something in every direction that brought the situation home to him. Over there in the corner of the kitchen counter, for instance, there was a glass bowl full of unpaid bills. Rick could see the red writing on them: Second Warning. Urgent Notice. Final Warning. Soon the debt collectors would be after them, calling at all hours, ringing the doorbell, hounding them. Or the electricity would be turned off or the bank would come to take the house away. Maybe all those things together.

His gaze moved on—and he could see through the kitchen doorway into the dining room beyond. There on the sideboard were photographs, snapshots in frames. He couldn't really make them out from where he was sitting, but that didn't matter. He knew what was in them. They were pictures of his dad and mom with their arms around each other, smiling happily at the camera, their two sons nearby. And pictures of him, Rick, proud and straight and strong in his football uniform, holding a ball, striking a quarterback pose, looking like the local hero he was, ready to head off for Syracuse and a full scholarship and college glory ...

Was that only a few short months ago? It was. A few short months—and another lifetime. He'd been the big man at Putnam Hills High School then. Six-foot-two, broad-shouldered, muscular. Captain Hunky, the girls called him, on account of his sandy-blond hair, his even features, and his intense blue eyes, full of feeling. Good grades. More friends than he could name. As many girls as he could handle. And on the football field? A star, pure and simple. The quarterback, Number 12. His teammates, his Lions, would have followed him anywhere. No matter how far down they were in a game, no matter how outmatched, if Number 12 said to them, "Don't worry. We're going to win this," they didn't worry and they did win it. They knew that nothing could stop the man under center when he was on his game. Even on the rare occasions when Rick got sacked, when some 250-pound lineman barreled into his midsection and laid him out flat on his back, even then, when some lesser quarterback might have lain in the grass for thirty seconds or so watching the twinkling stars and twittering birdies dance around in the air above his dazed head, Rick would leap to his feet while the defender was still doing his sack dance. He would spit in the hash marks defiantly and swagger back into the huddle—and the whole team would swagger with him. Because he was Rick Dial—he was Number 12—and they would follow him anywhere.

Rick turned his eyes from the snapshots.

She oughta throw that stuff away, he thought. She ought to throw away every photo taken before Dad left and before the accident turned him, Rick, into the cripple he was. Why wallow in what they'd had and lost? Why not just forget the past and deal with the facts as they were now?

He was still gazing in the direction of the pictures, gazing into space, when his mother plunked a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast in front of him. He thanked her and lowered his head to begin to eat, but he could feel her, still standing over him, looking down.

"Raider's right, you know," she said softly after a moment. "It wouldn't kill you to get some exercise. You ought to go outside at least and get some air."

"Don't start, Ma, okay? I just want to have some breakfast," Rick said.

"You can't spend every day playing video games and nothing else."

"Sure I can. It just takes a little effort, that's all." Rick concentrated even harder on eating his eggs, but all the same he was aware his mother was still there, still looking down at him.

"Rick ...," she began.

A hot gust of anger went through him. He'd had enough. He tossed his fork down on the plate hard enough to make it clatter. He started to look up. He was about to tell his mother to back off and leave him alone, quit nagging him all the time. But before he could speak, he caught a glimpse of Raider. He saw the way the kid was staring at him, the freckles on his round cheeks standing out as he turned pale, the smile draining out of his eyes as he realized that yet another argument was about to start, and that his big brother—his lifelong hero—was about to disappoint him again.

Rick got control of himself just in time. He didn't want to torture the kid. Or his mother either, for that matter. He loved them both—more than he could say—it was a warm, pulsing ache inside him. He loved them, but they just didn't understand. He just wanted to be left alone, that's all.

He looked up at his mother, into her damp, sorrowful eyes.

"Okay," he said with a sigh finally. "Okay, Mom, sure. I'll take a walk. Or a limp. Whatever."

Mom managed a tight-lipped smile. She nodded at him. "Good," she said. "You don't want to be on those crutches your whole life, after all."

What difference does it make? he thought. No matter how strong my legs get, they'll never be strong enough. I'll never play football again, not like before. I'll never be what I was going to be. So why bother?

But—because he really did love her—he willed himself to keep his mouth shut. As his mother finally turned away from him, he looked across the bright kitchen at the window over the sink. He could see outside into the sunlit morning. He could see through the branches of the cherry tree to the front yard, and beyond the front yard to the street. He could see beams of sun falling on the scene and patches of blue sky above.

At least it's a nice day for it, he thought. And he thought:

His mom was right—a walk probably would be good for him. It wouldn't kill him anyway.

He put his head down and picked up his fork and continued eating his breakfast. He did not look up at the window again.

So he never noticed the green van parked out there, beyond the cherry tree, beyond the lawn, across the street against the far curb. He never even saw it.

But the people inside the van—they saw Rick. They had a camera with a powerful zoom lens trained on his window, and they watched him on the video screens they had set up behind the van's driver's seat.

And they waited for him to come out.

CHAPTER 3

CRASH DAY

RICK STEPPED OUT of the house. As he moved down the front walk, he was slumped over his crutches like a marionette hung from a hook. He barely lifted his eyes from the concrete paving stones. He moved past the lawn toward the sidewalk with a slow, jerky shamble. With three days' growth of beard, with his hair overlong, flopping down into his eyes, with his flannel shirt hanging untucked over his worn-out jeans, he looked like a panhandler searching for pity and spare change.

He came to the end of the front path and continued hobbling on his crutches down the sidewalk.

His street, Oak Street, was lined with modest houses, lawns, and trees—oaks and maples overshadowing the pavement, their leaves turning bright yellow, bright orange, and red. This early on a Saturday morning, there were a couple of families heading out to the mall or one of the reservoirs—a woman walking her dog—but mostly it was quiet. Cars stood still in driveways and on the street, parked by the curb.

Including the green van—which Rick still didn't notice—and the people inside, watching him, tracking him, taking his picture.

It was a short walk to the corner, but it took Rick a long time, nearly ten minutes. Partly because of the weakness in his legs—because he had to pause to rest every couple of steps—partly because he just didn't care enough to hurry. By the time he reached the intersection with Lincoln Avenue, he was breathless and sweating under his shirt despite the pleasant chill in the fair October weather.

He paused where he was, standing under the yellow leaves of a broad maple, scanning the quiet streets of the small town. Putnam Hills, New York. A nowhere place a couple of hours north of New York City. Nothing special. Good fishing in the local reservoirs. Hills for hiking and limestone caves for exploring. And the sprawling campus of the university where his father used to work.

Rick wondered if it was too soon for him to turn around and go home. Would his mother be annoyed with him if he came back through the door only minutes after he'd left? Or would she finally leave him in peace, let him return to his video games without nagging him? As he considered the question, his eyes swept over the scene—and paused as he saw a panel truck rattle by the corner of Lincoln and Elm.

The sight of the truck made him grimace. Something sour came into his stomach. It was a truck just like the one that had plowed into his silver-blue Accord four months ago—and it was just at that corner, just there.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Mindwar by ANDREW KLAVAN. Copyright © 2014 Andrew Klavan. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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