ATOM INC

In this third installment of a series, a new teleportation technology, intended to extinguish global warming and fossil-fuel fires, is corrupted to offer eternal life.

Heaton continues his SF/techno-thriller series that started with LEAP (2022), which posited an alternative 2003 in which the world faced a paradigm shift. The change was sparked by eco-entrepreneurs Uma Jakobsdóttir, a scientist’s daughter obsessed with lowering carbon emissions, and Britain’s Ethan Rae, a tainted billionaire whose Green Ray fund supported “decarbonization.” Their killer app: LEAP, free technology that passes for teleportation. It breaks down matter at one gateway and reconstitutes it at another. If LEAP prevails, all fossil fuel-dependent transportation and shipping becomes obsolete—and with it, greedy business lords who prosper from petrochemicals. But LEAP has another side; quantum-computing can digitally record the atomic records of users and re-create such individuals indefinitely, thus conferring clone-based immortality and endless human backups. John Forsyth, a vile, CIA-connected capitalist, was previously defeated by Ethan and Uma after the villain and his chief scientist stole LEAP’s secrets and sold them to some Saudis. Now, in 2010, as LEAP gains favor with the White House over industry opposition, Forsyth counters with a Riyadh-backed venture, called “Eternity,” providing perpetual life to rich elites (“Not even the top 0.1%. But the lucky 0.001%. The fortunate few. His few”). This violates the “LEAP Laws” against mortal resurrection codified by Uma, who is forced by Forsyth’s media manipulation to admit that she and Ethan (now lovers) used LEAP data to cheat death in previous adventures. But worse than the public-relations damage is a LEAP-revived rogue Navy SEAL with a vendetta against Ethan, and a flesh-eating virus that gruesomely strikes thousands of LEAPers. Though much of a piece with the other books in Heaton’s saga, this solid volume is especially pulpy fiction with an emphasis on gruesome torture, deviancy, twisted revenge, and poetic justice. Between bouts of mayhem, the gripping story skillfully explores the ethical dilemmas of effectively Xeroxing human beings (or their mental processes, another LEAP effect), even touching on the abortion controversy and definitions of humanity. Unintended consequences of science innovations are an SF mainstay, and Heaton has done considerable looking before LEAPing. It’s clear he isn’t done with the energetic premise yet.

An engaging SF page-turner that delivers outsized characters, fiendish villains, and vicious paybacks.