Golgotha Run is a novel written by Dave Stone. Released in 2005, it ties into the series Dark Future and tells of a man picking up a hitchhiker in Middle America.
Characters[]
- Eddie Kalish
- Trix Desoto - a mysterious shapeshifting being with ties to GenTech
- Masterson - a GenTech Suit who effectively leads the events of this novel. It is implied that Masterson is more than human and in contact with the Factions.
- Laura Palmer - a GenTech nurse that cares for Eddie. Her name is possibly a reference to Twin Peaks.
- Karl and Lenny - two San Angeles Paramedical Service medics (read: corpse-looters)
- Commander Thomas Marlon Drexler - a NeoGen commander
- Mobile Intrusion and Recon Application (or MIRA) - an artificial intelligence used by Commander Drexler
- The Testostorossa - a sentient (and deeply homophobic) car
- Colonel Roland Grist - the colonel effectively in charge of Arbitrary Base
- Artie Newbegin - an assassin hired by GenTech
- Alex
- Mico
- Little Deke - Eddie's ex-friend
- Dogboy Who Waits - a nonverbal native of the San Angeles Sprawl
- Father Barnabas - a Josephite
Publisher's summary[]
My Mom said, "Never, ever, pick up hitch hikers..."
America, tomorrow. Multinational corporations control the media, the government and maybe even people's thoughts. Sinister religious cults are growing in power and influence day by day, and politicians are little more than media celebrities.
In the polluted dustbowl of Middle America, Eddie Kalish makes a terrible mistake when he stops to help a pretty nurse stranded in the desert. Little does he realize that this simple act of kindness will catapult him into a vicious, all-out corporate war to gain possession of a mysterious artefact. Will country boy Eddie be able to get out alive?
Too wild to be true - or too close for comfort? Welcome to Dark Future
Plot[]
After looking at himself in the mirror, Artie Newbegin begins his job in a Welcome Wagon for GenTech. While most people in the Des Moines area have been affected by a virus known as the "Rapture Bug" which inflicts nigh-immortality, GenTech has tasked Artie and his bunch with kidnapping and vivisecting various Bug-infected humans as a prelude to their deaths by subatomic destruction. While doing one of these jobs, Artie is accidentally injured by a piece of rib returning to its host body. Meanwhile, Eddie Kalish and a "Testostorossa" are attacked by a group known as the "Severcy Sisters".
First Quadrant: Las Vitas Fault[]
After a group of "jackgangers" attack a GenTech Corp road-train and get slaughtered by GenTech shock-troops, a scavenger named Eddie Kalish swoops in to find whatever is left. Among the wrecked carriages, Eddie finds a mysterious old strapped to a hospital bed and his beautiful nurse with a gunshot wound in her stomach. The nurse (whose name is Trix Desoto) asks Eddie to bring her and her charge to GenTech. While driving to the "settlement" of Las Vitas, a storm of junk from the New Soviets rains down on Eddie's RV (including a large sledgehammer which smashes through the roof) and Trix lapses between speaking in inhuman tongues and lucidity.
Upon reaching Las Vitas, Eddie finds that the small settlement has been completely destroyed and the few people living in it have been slaughtered. He decides to visit the compound of his former friend Little Deke but finds the compound abandoned and his ex-friend dead. Shortly after this, he is found by a military van used by NeoGen (a rival company of GenTech's who sent the jackgangers). Though things seem bleak for Eddie, Trix promises to do something about it - with her body shifting as she says this. Inside of the military van, Commander Drexler and an AI named MIRA watch over Eddie's van before a briliant light pours out of it and the demonic being that was once Trix Desoto emerges as an EMP slams into Drexler's van. This disables MIRA and makes him a sitting duck for Trix - who promptly kills him.
As this is going on, Eddie flees in absolute terror while carrying Trix's elderly charge. Soon, though, he ditches the elderly man. While fleeing, he runs into a NeoGen soldier and accidentally causes her death. Shortly after this, he finds a GenTech van arriving. He attempts to identify himself but is shot by the GenTech soldiers.
At the same time as all this, something begins to consume the life-force of creatures throughout the wasteland. An immensely powerful creature (possibly the same thing which consumed the creatures in the wasteland) begins to breach into "our" reality.
Second Quadrant: Section in the City[]
In the corporate rat warrens of the San Angeles Sprawl, a young native named Dogboy Who Waits escapes a conflict with a small tribe to be immediately shot with an incendiary round while climbing the ruins of a maintenance gantry.
After being fatally shot, Eddie is brought to GenTech's facility within the Sprawl (known as the Factory) and revived using a process devised by Doctor Zarathustra. After having a vision of a hellscape, Eddie awakens in a bed and is informed by a GenTech Suit that the company effectively owes him now. As he begins to have some unusual dreams, Eddie is supplied with a datanet-capable tablet by Masterson. Finding his that his body and mind have been "upgraded" by GenTech's procedures, he looks into the origins of their regenerative procedures. He quickly learns about the outbreak of the Rapture Bug within the Des Moines area and deduces that GenTech deliberately unleashed the Bug as a test. Along with this, he watches as GenTech operatives vivisect Trix's elderly charge. Due to all this, he decides to escape the Factory.
While a member of GenTech's staff named Laura Palmer tries to apply a tranquilizer to Eddie, he smacks her face into the wall (accidentally breaking her nose due to his increased strength) and takes her anesthetics and keycard. He then sneaks into Trix's room while she is sleeping and (though she is in-between her human and demonic forms) tranquilizes her. He then manages to sneak out of the Factory without alerting any guards. Unbeknownst to Eddie, Masterson is not concerned by this as all - as the "peculiarities" of the Zarathustra processes within Eddie will soon become overt.
Shortly after escaping, Eddie begins having even stronger odd visions before waking up in an abanonded Mister Meaty restaurant and discovers that he is very hungry. While Eddie's peculiarities become overt, his body becomes inhuman and he travels to a nearby adult amusement park owned by the "Mimsey" brand (presumably, this park used to be Disneyland before Disney was bought by GenTech and became Mimsey). He begins frantically looking for something to eat and accidentally causes the deaths of hundreds of patrons. By this time, he is found by Masterson - who sends "medics" from the San Angeles Paramedical Service to the Mimsey park. Two of these nurses (who also killed Dogboy-Who-Waits) wander into where Eddie is holed up and are killed before Eddie is recaptured by Masterson and Trix.
Some time later, Eddie recovers from the despair from what he did while transformed. He is kept within the same hospital room he originally escaped from while Masterson pontificates to him. Masterson reveals that time and the makeup of reality itself are seemingly being warped. Cracks have opened up and a creature of unknown makeup has been using various beings as test subjects for its malign designs. Fortunately, GenTech has figured out a way to put this to their advantage. By augmenting the Zarathustra procedures with genetic information from the rifts, GenTech is able to make humans into test subjects in a process known as "the Loup". Using a chemical known as "the Leash", GenTech is able to make these subjects dependant on them. After revealing this, Masterson reveals that Eddie is being sent to a place where only those augmented with the Loup could survive.
Shortly after this, Eddie is brought to the Factory's warehouses and introduced to the "Brain Train" (a series of vehicles used by GenTech to transport an unknown cargo). While Trix controls it, Eddie will serve as a canary for the Train (fleeing at any sign of true danger while being kept in check due to the Leash). After being given a sentient car dubbed a Testosterossa, Eddie sets off with the rest of the Brain Train convoy in close pursuit. Shortly after leaving Checkpoint-9, they are attacked by Severcy Sisters but are able to dispatch them.
Third Quadrant: Impactor Road[]
As a child, Trix lived in an extremely squallid Nevada Baby Camp (where excess children were dumped and left to die). While she was effectively on death's door, GenTech visited the camp and spirited Trix (along with its other members) away for unknown purposes - presumably experiments involving the rifts.
As Eddie drives with the Brain Train, he begins to dislike the one-dimensional and abrasive character of the Testosterossa. While the Brain Train drives through the Mojave, they are attacked by a gangcult dubbed the "Long Reds". While Eddie initially flees, he is brought back to the Brain Train to repair a critically-damaged vehicle (something he only begrudgingly does after Trix threatens to eject him from the Testosterrosa) by pulling a handle on the side of the vehicle. Eddie is able to get onto the side of the vehice during the assault by the Long Reds but accidentally breaks the handle off and is forced to use inhuman strength to move what remains of the handle.
Soon, the Brain Train moves onto the California-Nevada border. While there, Eddie tries to hire the services of a few "prostitutes" but is arrested by undercover police officers. When Trix arrives, she is also arrested. Though angry with Eddie due to his extremely stupid decision, Trix talks with him and reveals some details of her childhood. Once they are released due to the influence of GenTech, the Brain Train rolls on while under a "blackout" (which, unbeknownst to Eddie, is put in place to let the Loup lurking inside him take reach more effectively). Unbeknownst to anyone at GenTech, the Brain Train is being tracked by NeoGen (who hired the Long Reds) but a force controlling both companies makes NeoGen do nothing until the Brain Train reaches its destination.
During the blackout, the Testostorossa stops dead to recalibrate its systems. While it is stalled, Eddie notices some fires in the distance and decides to find out who made them. He discovers a camp of "Josephites" (a small cross-denomitational religious sect) who plan to visit Deseret (the sanctum of Elder Seth in Utah). They invite Eddie to join them but before he can make a decision, he is found by the Testostorossa and leaves. While Eddie is sleeping, the Testostorossa drives to its destination (a secluded California National Guard base called Arbitrary Base) at full speed. Eddie awakes just in time to see the Brain Train entering into the base right before Trix gives him his shot of the Leash.
Final Quadrant: Arbitrary Base[]
Some time before Eddie's innoculation, a "Research Consultant" hired by the NYPD Missing Persons Unit uncovers a massive government conspiracy dubbed the Janus Program which involved experiments on children taken secretly. It appears that the Program has begun again but, due to its immense size, the Consultant tells his paymasters to "run and hide".
Shortly after the Brain Train arrives at Arbitrary Base, Trix basically takes command of the base and has the soldiers escort her and Eddie to "Shed Seven". As they descend into the depths of the "Shed", Trix talks about Eddie's status as an "Outsider". Soon, the two enter into a chamber that Eddie has seen before in dreams. Sitting within this chamber is an "Artifact" - a massive glove-shaped spaceship. Trix and Eddie enter into the Ship (whose interior is seemingly organic in nature) and has Eddie put his hand on some of its technology. Though Eddie is zapped by this, he survives. Once Eddie has passed this "test", Trix lets a lump of mimetic biogel with Masterson's memory engrams explain what is happening to Eddie while a communications blackout is put into effect by Trix.
First, the "Talking Head" explains that the Ship was found during nuclear testing when the aftermath of a fusion bomb unleashed extremely unusual and never-before-seen radiation (dubbed Upsilonic Radiation). When it was first uncovered, it was discovered that the "Ship" looked completely different to various observers. The US Government then began experimenting on the Ship but was unable to do much with it. Even human experiments involving material from the ship (largely done on citizens taken away using the Patriot Act) did little besides make the subjects into extremely mutated creatures which promptly died. Another set of experiments (the afformentioned Janus Program) produced a few humans who survived the experiments but subsequent testing on their descendants also produced almost no survivors. The Talking Head sums this up by saying that "the whole thing just turned out to be totally without meaning and pointless".
Though this seems to answer Eddie's questions, Eddie slowly realizes that something is up with the story and (by unknowingly using his Loup powers) convinces the Talking Head to tell him the truth. The Talking Head reveals that humanity as a whole is being manipulated by various ancient and otherworldly Factions. At some after the Ship (or the Hammer of God) was found, the Faction that created it attempted to communicate with Earth and caused mass panic before they were able to make actual contact with the holders of the Hammer and exchange a deal to gain the Hammer back (claiming that they would exchange an old spaceship that would be easier for humans to understand) for their efforts in a war they were fighting.
Some time after this explanation and the cargo of the Brain Train (which is revealed to be quite literal, as it is the brains of cloned beings like Trix's old charge), Trix and Eddie begin carefully "rewiring" the nodes of the Hammer of God to prepare the ship for the handover. During this, the Colonel effectively in control of Arbitrary Base has something of a mental breakdown due to his inability to perceive the Hammer and sends his own men to fire on the GenTech forces - starting a massacre. Trix and Eddie only discover this when they feel the Hammer "screaming" in alarm. While Trix stays behind, Eddie is shooed out to find out exactly what has happened. He finds that Shed Seven has been barricaded off but is able to exit by climbing up the elevator shaft. He discovers that the "top" of Shed Seven has also been laid to waste and that a NeoGen (who have been working for one of the Factions) VTOL craft is nearby the base.
While the VTOL disgorges power-armour wearing soldiers that shoot at Eddie, Trix Desoto rips her heart out of her chest and feeds it to the Hammer. This awakens the Ship - which smites the VTOL and disgorges the creature that once was Trix before (after thinking over its mission and anger over being awakened) leaves Earth completely. Trix and the Loup-transformed Eddie massacre the rest of the NeoGen troops before "forming new life". Several hours later, Eddie is found by GenTech soldiers and wrestled back into a human form. Upon returning to clarity, Eddie argues with Masterson about the waste of the recent events before riding off on the Testosterossa. Meanwhile, the creature that once was Trix gestates her new young.
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Return to the Fractured Planet | Dave Stone | 1999 | An apocalyptic novel from the same author |
| Ghost Dancers | Brian Craig | 1991 | A Dark Future novel largely focused on GenTech |
| Demon Download | Kim Newman (under the pseudonym Jack Yeovil | 1990 | A Dark Future novel featuring demons |
| Warhead | Andrew Cartmel | 1992 | A dystopian novel dealing with immoral corporate affairs |
Sources[]
- Goodreads