Book 2: Entanglement
May 8th, 2008 by Duane Poncy
It is seventeen years since the portals to Sweetland were destroyed, and new colonists stopped arriving in The Communities. On the other side of the continent, however, New America Corporation continues to import workers, mercenaries, and heavy machinery from Earth in order to exploit the new planet. And between them is a great forest with a mysterious power to change reality and inspire fear and dread in any immigrant who enters. Only the native born children seem to be immune.
Until now there has been an unspoken agreement between the parties to leave one another in peace. But the balance of power is shifting, and a power struggle is developing within the ranks of the New America Corporation. Chief Security Officer, Jolene Cheng plans to become the Queen of New America. She aims to form an alliance with the colonists and the powerful Sisters of the Temple to topple New America CEO Dick Miglia. And she has no qualms about using her grandson, Joey, as a pawn to bring her plan to fruition.
The Temple, with one foot on Earth, and the other on Sweetland, has its own Manichean design on young Joey. He is the new Messenger of Light who will inspire the faithful on Earth to rescue the colonists and defeat the evil corporation, allowing a scientific aristocracy to fill the void.
Seventeen years ago on Earth, people were told that travel to Sweetland was a one-way journey which left behind the dying bodies of the emigrants, to be born anew on a distant planet. New America Corporation has gone along with the fiction, because it helps them control a virtual slave workforce. Now, millions of the restless poor have become ardent followers of The Temple, which claims to be the only conduit to their loved ones.
The Sisters have spread the word that the Messenger is coming. Through their clandestine networks, they have arranged for Joe Larivee to make the pilgrimage to St. Louis, the arrival destination. Unknown to Joe, 12-year-old Joey is his grandson by his daughter Jessie, who immigrated to Sweetland years before. The Sisters hope that reuniting the two will help foster an alliance with Cascadia, a breakaway republic in the Pacific Northwest, where Joe is an influential apparatchik. But their ultimate goal is to spark a revolution against New America Corporation.
In St. Louis, Joe meets Andy Stephens, a professor of religious studies who has spent his life studying The Temple. Dr. Stephens warns Joe of the Sisters plans, but Joe is ready to ally himself with the Sisters if it will help protect his daughter on Sweetland.
What no one counts on is Molly Whitedeer, Joey’s seventeen year old aunt, who arrives with him from Sweetland. Molly has a special relationship with the sentient forest of Sweetland; she is its ambassador to Earth. It is a very important assignment, because, if she can’t bring about peace, then the forest will destroy humanity.
