Author(s): Marko Newman

Fiction

Speculative fiction set in the near future. Malignant technology. Morality. Survival. Love.Dronikus tells the story of a man who stands up to the cynical destruction of our human and natural worlds.Unbearable heat by day; torrential rains at night; city streets flow like rivers; people huddle in doorways; dronikus and rators clash with protestors; city streets crackle with fire and glo-slime; dronikus kill with exploding darts.Zola - returning from years of lonely exile - re-connects with his past, finding friendship and love. But this is abruptly snatched away; his friends are murdered and he is kidnapped, imprisoned in his family home by his brothers, Enrike and Meriti. They control Pandoke, the family's huge armaments and surveillance corporation. Pandoke is genetically modifying human foetuses, working to engineer a new human being that will survive the environmental cataclysm. They try to coerce Zola to join them.He escapes. Pursued by his brothers, Zola joins an island community which is in a life and death struggle against the corporation and their inhuman plans 'to save humanity'.