After the Zap

Book excerpt: The Zap gives... and the Zap takes away. Because of the very nature of the Zap -- the big thermonuclear bomb that had scrambled and rearranged the neurons of everyone's brains -- there was no way of telling what it had taken from them all. The past was a jumbled mass of tantalizing glimpses and agonizing blanks. But the Zap's gifts were many and varied. The "Readers" got the rare and often dangerous ability to make sense of the writings of the past... The "Memors" got perfect recall -- of everything they'd heard since the Zap... The "Bush Punks" got a chance to live free and easy -- and die the same way... The "God Weirders" got religion -- if you could call it that... The "Blimpers" got a purpose -- a purpose that could save them, or destroy them all. Now Holmes, a "Reader, " was in the perfect position to tip the scales for or against survival -- if only he could figure out which side was which.