(K)night of Babel

A lone man asleep in a high-tech pod is awakened by a bad dream. His mind begins to analyze the dream soon realizing something sinister is going on. Technology in this not-too-distant future society has developed surgically implanted communications devices so he is constantly online. He logically follows the clues to uncover the threat and reach a thrilling conclusion.

All action takes place in our hero's mind as he lies in total darkness. It is a story with one character devoid of scenery, costumes, dialog or any of those other extraneous things usually thought to be part of a story. He lays still in total darkness throughout the story.using his implanted device and his intellect to analyze the situation. Important philosophical issues must be confronted in addition to solving the mystery. How much power can be entrusted to a central authority? is it better to rely on your own internal memory or stash it in the "cloud?" Imagine having your cell phone, calculator and GPS coupled with gigabytes of memory all tucked away safely within your own body, always online, never lost, never forgetful, never out-of-touch.

It may sound like far out science fiction but I'm old enough to have grown up in a world where phones were attached to walls by coiled wires, phone calls cost money, calculations were done on slide rules, no satellites orbited the planet to support GPS and the first high speed digital computers occupied several rooms. We've come a long way in less than one lifetime.