Realware
by Rudy Rucker
The year is 2054, and Phil Gottner doesn't know where his life is. His girlfriend is hooked on fusion, a drug used in "bacterial"-style sex. His father was swallowed up by a hyperspace anomaly embodied in a work of art designed to project images of four-dimensional objects into three-dimensional space. Later, at the funeral, Phil meets Yarmo Starr-Midol, a young and beautiful guest from the Moon, and falls in love with him. Relying on Phil's advance, Yoke flies to the Polynesian island of Tonga, where he discovers the presence of aliens at the bottom of the sea. Aliens, calling themselves metamartic, offer Yoke an alla that gives its owner the power of the mind over matter, a portable device that almost looks like having a magic wand. But as Phil pursues Yokeh and distributes more and more altruistic meta-Martyrs, he begins to suspect that his father's disappearance and alleged death are due to aliens and his miraculous gifts. Because it seems that the allies are accompanied by a quaternary entity known as Om, a god-like being who deals specifically with humans. Now Phil and Yoke must solve the mystery of the Meta-Martyrs and their gods before humanity can use its newfound powers to completely destroy itself. For more information, visit Rudy Rucker's website.
