Hopkins - Zone 23

Critical acclaim for C. J. Hopkins previous work

A brilliant (and hilarious) critique of the emptiness of American life and the meaninglessness of the popular culture that attempts to fill the void. - Toronto Globe & Mail

A blistering revelation ... Hopkins body of work owes a huge debt to the absurdists and so manages to blast beyond the merely political or allegorical to the existential. - Time Out New York

Sharp, brilliant, intense, fast-moving, made for the moment we live in ... a portrait of a culture caught in a strange and painful paradox between progressive and reactionary attitudes. - The Scotsman

A feral ferris-wheel of comedy, confusion, contradiction, obfuscation and bent-out-of-shape straight talking that leaps out of the room at you and harnesses you to its mischievous mindset. - Metro

Americas relationship with consumerism and the media is unerringly skewered. - The Times

Sharp-toothed satire ... a dystopia in which the desire for consumer goods and high ratings trumps all principles. - Village Voice

Hilariously at odds with the mainstream, and much bigger and deeper than the sum of its apparent parts. - The Herald

Stimulating and thought-provoking ... a welcome addition to the canon of all things absurd and beautiful. - The List

A gripping satire, which spills into sinister weirdness. - Die Tageszeitung

ALSO BY C. J. HOPKINS

HORSE COUNTRY

SCREWMACHINE/EYECANDY
(OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP

WORRYING AND LOVE BIG BOB)

THE EXTREMISTS

ZONE 23

C. J. HOPKINS

Copyright 2015, 2017 by C. J. Hopkins

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks

This Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant trade edition May 2017.

SNOGGSWORTHY, SWAINE & CORMORANT is a trademark of Consent Factory Publishing.

Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant is an imprint of Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc., distributors of high quality literary content throughout the developed and developing worlds. For more information about Consent Factory Publishing, visit the Consent Factorys website: consentfactory.org.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, corporations, or their subsidiaries, agents, or assigns, is not intended by the author, and is either a coincidence or the work of devious supernatural forces which neither the author nor the publisher would ever claim to understand or speak for.

Cover design by Anthony Freda and Dan Zollinger.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-3-00-055526-8 (pb)

For Billie and her cowboy ...

ZONE 23

The Normals

For the Normals, the vast majority of consumers living and working in Northeast Region 709 of the United Territories, a globalized monetary and fiscal alliance of the nominally sovereign, democratic nations that were huddled together side by side on the habitable upper third of the planet, 17 April, 2610, or 02 Iyyar, 6370, or 01 Shawwal, 2049, or Day 600 in the Year of the Lemur (or any of a host of alternative dates, depending on their proprietary calendars), was just another perfect, peaceful day in the Age of the Renaissance of Freedom and Prosperity.

Or at least it started out that way.

At approximately 0530 that morning, having finished their normal morning ablutions (i.e., waterless showering, laser body shaving, anal bleaching, and other ablutions), and having broken the seals on the recyclable containers of their anti-oxidant, soy-milk smoothies and lowfat, totally gluten-free breakfasts, Normals and their families were gathered together in their temperature-regulated, self-cleaning kitchens, heads slightly bowed in an attitude of prayer, scanning, each on their All-in-One Viewers, their personally programmed proprietary streams of individualized Morning Content, a lively mix of information, entertainment and social networking customized to reflect their interests and individual purchasing patterns ... everything was just as normal as could be.

The forecast that morning was particularly pleasant ... clear and sunny throughout the Region. Winds were out of the west and light. The projected high was 46 Celsius. Heat advisories remained in effect for Communities south of the 45th parallel. Consumers were advised to refrain from any non-essential outdoor activity. Everything else was looking rosy. SatCom signal strength was excellent. Check-in times at the local airports were averaging under fourteen hours, down from their previous eighteen hours, down from their previous twenty-two hours. The odds of a devastating Terrorist attack with an improvised low-yield nuclear weapon, or some horrible chemical or bio-agent that would kill you the second it touched your skin, were low to acceptable.

Life was good.

Business was good. Extremely good. Little green upward-pointing arrows were dancing across the bottom of their screens. They were chasing a parade of little three-letter acronyms ... CRS ... BBB ...HCM ... FFC ... each of which stood for some corporate entity, all of whose shares were trading heavily. Normal consumers could track this trading in Real-Time right on the screens of their Viewers, or they could download individualized streams of market data from selected Regions. Or they could visit these Regions on their Real-Life maps, search nearby for business establishments, zoom right into their virtual interiors, and virtually experience their virtual environments. Or they could search for Entertainment Content in which these business establishments were featured, or the names of which were casually mentioned ... household names like Chloes, Chaneys, VR Universe, and Big-Buy Basement, where every GMAX Model 30, whatever that was, was drastically reduced. Or they could comparison shop at CRS, Big-Buy Basements fiercest competitor, which would match or beat Big-Buys best price on any prescription medication. Cylozilatrin Z, for example, a popular Amyloidosis preventative, or Buxafenanadrine, or something like that, which reduced the adverse effects of ... something. And that wasnt all, oh no, far from it, because the Normals were free to share this offer (the conditions of which were subject to change) with their Big-Buy Family, Friends & Contacts, some of whom were just bound to be fans of Brandon Westwood, the Content designer, who had just won a Golden Penguin in Gothb, where currently it was 18 Celsius and partly cloudy with scattered light showers, and to which last-minute round-trip tickets were being offered at the following portals ...

Which millions of Normals were actually doing, or were seriously considering contemplating doing (i.e., sharing this offer with their Friends & Contacts, or checking on last-minute flights to Gothb, or searching to find out where that was, assuming it was somewhere that actually existed), when suddenly the peace of their perfect morning, or the fugue state they were gradually entering, was shattered by an all caps BREAKING NEWS message.

The news was bad. Extremely bad. Jimmy Jimbo Cartwright, III, founder and CEO of Finkles, had lost his battle with intestinal cancer, and died at the age of one hundred and thirty. The actual message read as follows:

CANCER SCOURGE CLAIMS FINKLES JIMBO!