'A story where reality and unreality are braided together until the very last page.It hit me in the gut. Must Read!' - Faith Hunter, NYT and USA Today bestselling Author 'Searing, powerful – a story every person in this country should read. A.J. Hartley is as skilled a storyteller as I’ve ever encountered. To step into his imagination is to place yourself in the hands of a master.' – D.B. Jackson, author of Time's Assassin. Trina Warren didn’t think she was going to be a hero. She thought she was going to go to fourth period, hopefully avoiding any more hassle from the jocks about dropping their plates at her waitressing job the night before. Then there was a bang, and an overturned chair, and everything was different. Now Trina finds herself in a fantasy world, pursued by a faceless, nameless monster that only she can stop. But she doesn’t know how to stop it, she doesn’t have any weapons, and her only clue is the necklace that arrived in a mysterious package that morning, with no return address and a cryptic note inside. She must navigate an unfamiliar world full of monsters, magic, and danger if she is to defeat the mysterious Soulless One and save her friends. And herself.
They have witnessed what is beyond the bounds of possibility. Lights sailing across Nevada's desert night sky in fluid and rapid motions that are impossible for even the most technologically advanced aircraft. They have encountered those responsible for the unexplained. Men in black suits, white lab coats, and military uniforms who do not want their secrets exposed.
Brought together by fate-or phenomena-heiress Jennifer Quinn, journalist Timika Mars, pilot Alan Young, and ex-Marine Barry Regis are bonded by the incidents they've witnessed, hunted by agents of a wealthy corporate cabal desperate for unimaginable power, and possessed of extraordinary abilities they do not understand, much less control.
Now, they're on a mission of their own. As Alan and Barry test the limits of their strange gifts inside the military complex known as Dreamland, Jennifer and Timika begin a quest to locate an ancient tablet that may hold the answers to humanity's greatest question.
Are we alone in the universe?
Based on the accounts of credible UAP observers drawn from expert sources within the scientific, military and intelligence communities, Sekret Machines: A Fire Within is the second fiction book within a multimedia project that has become part of the most ambitious investigation of the phenomenon in history.
Ten teenagers broke behavioral law. Sentenced to be reeducated on the moon of Jerem, they were placed in stasis on the automated ship Phetteron for their six day journey. They never reached their destination. Thrown off course by a computer malfunction, the Phetteron is damaged in an asteroid belt and crash lands on the uninhabited ice planet of Valkrys. Having spent their lives in temperature controlled environments, consuming nutrient supplements, and interacting with people mostly through the infonet, the teens are unprepared to depend on each other to face the harsh, hostile, and hellish landscape. Home will send a rescue party long before their meager supplies run out. Sola was a roamer. She wandered the city after curfew, reveling in the freedom of being disconnected from the techgrid and embracing the joy of physical activity. For those actions, Home declared her deviant. But on Valkrys, her deviance is an asset that may be the teens' only hope for survival. As Sola explores their strange new world, she discovers that she and her shipmates are linked by something more frightening than their subversive behaviors-and uncovers a truth about the planet the authorities at Home wanted buried.
The witnesses are legion, scattered across the world and dotted through history, people who looked up and saw something impossible lighting up the night sky. What those objects were, where they came from, and who-or what-might be inside them is the subject of fierce debate and equally fierce mockery, so that most who glimpsed them came to wish they hadn't. Most, but not everyone. Among those who know what they've seen, and are forever changed by it, are a pilot, an heiress, a journalist, and a prisoner of war. From the waning days of the twentieth century's final great war to the fraught fields of Afghanistan to the otherworldly secrets hidden amid Nevada's dusty neverlands-the truth that is out there will propel each of them into a labyrinth of otherworldly technology and the competing aims of those who might seek to prevent-or harness-these beings of unfathomable power. Because, as it turns out, we are not the only ones who can invent and build . . . and destroy. Featuring actual events and other truths drawn from sources within the military and intelligence community, Tom DeLonge and A. J. Hartley offer a tale at once terrifying, fantastical, and perhaps all too real.
