Attrition of the Gods: Book 1 of the Mystery Thriller series Gods Toys. Read Online Free PDF

still on a high from the drone ride and the feel of her touch. The two sit in a mixed section and when Ember activates a Micro data streamer via her implant Adam resumes his protest concerning the chips.
    “Raphael told me that back in the day the chips were brought in under the guise of a convenient accessory to help people shop and stuff. He says they were like the latest must-have gadget – however, he believes the purpose was to make people so reliant on them that they would be helpless without one. You have to admit, people got on fine in the twentieth century without them. Now, as you say, we can’t shop, travel, and even take a piss without one.”
    Ember’s intense concentration is broken by this last remark.
    “Eh, gross!”
    “You know what I meant.”
    But she doesn’t. She doesn’t get it at all. To Ember the chip is pure luxury and convenience. “Well the way my father tells it is that when chips first appeared in 2014 they were a great idea, soon they were introduced by banks for contactless payment. Before long you could simply walk out of a shop with your shopping and not have to queue to pay. They were a revelation, no need to carry lots of bizarre plastic rectangles around anymore, did you know people had to do that back in the day?”         
    Adam shakes his head despairingly and is about to demonstrate but Ember carries on with her explanation.
    “Also you would need to carry around tickets to go to music and theatre events, they couldn’t store their own medical records, documents like travel or vehicle insurance would be on bits of paper, now all these things are loaded on to the chips, never left behind and never lost.” She opens her arms out looks at him wide eyed, as if to emphasize how obvious her argument was.”
    Adam delays his response as he recollects Raphael’s version of the chips introduction into human live. He told him that the uses were limitless and the Western world fell for the chipping idea, hook, line and sinker (all except the crazy conspiracy theorists, that was, and no one listened to them). The chips really took off when a tracking device for children was added and, after several high-profile rescues of abducted children, it was soon judged irresponsible not to have your child implanted. Within a decade seventy per cent of adults and ninety per cent of children in the Western world had implants. Many retail outlets started to refuse any other types of payment.
    Then, what was known back then as the UK was the first country to input more official documents in the chip, like passports, visas and driving licences as a reaction to the horrendous Heathrow bombing by the Diabolicals. This eventually meant that everybody simply had to get a chip to function in society. Most people didn’t really have a problem with this, it was terribly convenient after all. The telecommuting companies were not slow to react either. Soon the chip became your sim card and a small earpiece was all you needed for a call.
    When Ben Starkey went on a killing spree in small-town America and then went into hiding, the LAPD tracked him down within minutes using the unique signal from his chip. A good thing really as he was a callous murdering bastard and everybody was greatly relieved, but when the same thing happened to a government whistle-blower, people became aware that each and every one of them was on the radar, so to speak. Some got their chips removed but they soon realised that it was very difficult to survive in society without one. Without a chip it was hard to buy food, impossible to travel, drive or even enter a public building.
    Then there was the luxury chip given to the rich and famous that allowed entry to areas that normal people could not go: exclusive clubs, expensive shops, VIP bars in nightclubs, Disneyland on special days. And thus a two-tier chipping system was born. And yet this was not the most sinister side of the chips, nor was the tracking