Kurzbeschreibung

In a near-future world plagued by war and disaster, Toroop, a mercenary, is given the perilous task of escorting a mysterious young woman from Russia to Canada, only to discover that his charge is no ordinary woman but instead is carrying a mutant embryo that could change the world.

Klappentext

"What makes the novel so haunting is its vision of a near future in which society has fractured along every possible national, tribal and sectarian fault line."-The New York Times Book Review

In the hidden "flesh and chip" breeding grounds of the first cyborg communities, Toorop, a hard-boiled Special Forces veteran of Sarajevo, is hired by a shadow organization to escort a young woman, Marie Zorn, from Russia to Canada. But what appears to be a routine job is anything but. After completing the mission, Thoorop discovers that Marie is no ordinary girl. A genetically altered pawn in an elaborate plot, Marie is carrying a dark secret that could spell destruction for all humankind-if Thoorop doesn't track her down before it's too late.

"A vast encyclopedia of the future as seen through a crystal ball with cracks in the glass."-The Sydney Morning Herald

"Intense."-Publishers Weekly

Now the major motion picture Babylon A. D. starring Vin Diesel.

Auszüge aus dem Buch

1

So living was an incredible experience, where the most beautiful day of your entire existence could be your last, where sleeping with death guaranteed seeing the next morning, and where a few golden rules were constant. Never walk in the direction of the wind, never turn your back to a window, never sleep in the same place twice, always stay in the sun's axis, trust in nothing and no one, suspend your breath with the perfection of the living dead on the point of freeing the metal's salvation. Occasionally, a few variables could slip in, the sun's position in the sky, the weather, who you were dealing with.

From where he was crouching at the top of the embankment along the path, Toorop towered over his victim. In the west, the sun was lowering onto the horizon, lacquering the ochre earth of the Sinkiang Northern Highlands a volcanic yellow orange. The air was dry, still vibrating with the day's accumulated heat. It had an unreal purity. It was perfect weather for killing.

A cool wind blew in from the east, from the low grounds, the great Taklamakan Desert. The word in Uygur meant, "the place you enter, but from which you do not depart." The air, which was torrid in the plains, at this 2000-meter altitude was as sharp as a bayonet sheath. Once the sun had set behind the eternal snow-capped peaks, the air would freeze faster than you could breathe in or release your last breath.

The man was lying on his back. One arm, stretched perpendicular, had been stranded on a little thistle bush. The other was folded beneath him. The man was still alive. It wasn't his lucky day. Each breath produced a reflex shudder of muscles. An exhausted groan intermittently escaped his blood-filled mouth. Toorop was giving him a grace period of a few minutes, at most. Minutes that would seem like hours. The 12.7 mm bullet had entered the biological structure diagonally, near the liver. Toorop knew, however, that it could have come to rest in the cerebellum, in the femoral artery, or in an even more sensitive organ.

The young guy's face, like a chemical test, revealed the surprise of a life viciously sliced by a crazy projectile turning back upon itself on impact, before zigzagging in all directions inside the body. This type of ammunition diffuses its energy with such intensity that, in addition to physiological trauma, the shock wave it puts in motion provokes serious nerve damage. A beautiful Manchu face, not more than twenty; the watery eyes endlessly pondering the fragility of existence faced with the metal of pain.

Toorop remembered the I-Ching aphorism to which the fourteenth of the Thirty-Six Stratagems referred. "It is not I who seek the young fool; the young fool seeks me." The 14th stratagem was curiously entitled "Raise a corpse from the dead," and went like this:

He does not let himself be used who can still act for his own purposes.

He will plead to be used who can do nothing more.

One must use the useless for one's own ends.

In such circumstances, this sermon was no more obscure than another. The agonizing man had served his ends well. Climbing down the embankment, Toorop knew what had to be done.

Three young buzzards had just alighted, croaking, next to the body. Not paying it the slightest attention, they started furrowing into the olive-green jacket, boring through the cloth with a single honed stroke, to recover a piece of bloodied meat they'd gulp down with a jerky head gesture. Toorop had a clear vision of the condemned man's ultimate reflex movement, trying to delay his end. The carcass shuddered; a trembling hand attempted in vain to raise itself from the earth and scribbled upon it an illegible message. For an instant, Toorop considered the natural process occurring. His gaze didn't even try to avoid the bloody rosette constellating the soldier's abdome