|
Forced to pay off a skyrocketing gambling debt, Byron Reborr submits to an illegal mind merge, sharing his body to save his life, only to realize that gambling with your morals, freedom, and sanity can have deadly consequences. In the near-future, the only crime worse than murder is sharing bodies through mind merges. After a prominent scientist discovers the part of the brain where consciousness?or the soul?resides, an elaborate machine is built that transfers one person?s consciousness into another person?s brain, where it remains until transferred out. The government fears they?ll lose all ability to police the nation if criminals can use any body they want for committing crimes, so they ban the manufacture of the machines and make the punishment for voluntary mind merges the highest possible?death in most states. Nonetheless, a well-guarded underground of mind merging springs up for the rich and the powerful. Normally, when mind merging, the host gives up control, but is fully aware and always has the power to override the occupier. Problem is, occupier David Caine has mastered a way to keep control and uses host Byron Reborr?s body to kill Lilly Caine in public... After exiting Byron?s body, Caine eliminates the doctor who performed the transfer, knocks Byron unconscious, and leaves him to take the blame. When he awakes, Byron remembers everything?including the feeling of stabbing the victim?but he can?t go to the police or a psychiatrist, so he goes on the run. But Caine isn?t through with him yet?he murders Shank, the mind merge ?dealer,? and frames Byron in order to intensify the police?s manhunt. The only person left who knows Caine was involved in a mind merge is ?Soul Priestess? Shandria. Caine has sinister plans for the exotic beauty, but Byron reaches her first...and abducts her for his own desperate purposes. With Shandria's help, Byron puts into motion a dangerous plan to steal back his freedom, but his life will never be the same... NOTES: In a subplot to this first story arc, sparks will fly between Byron and Shandria, even as bullets fly all around them. In the second story arc, our hero is going to delve deep into a coma victim?s mind and bring the ?trapped? man back to the surface. In the third story arc, a new handheld mind merge device will be used by a terrorist that plans to jump into the President?s mind (and take control of his body...and the free world). |
