Cirrus@Austlit

'“Players, welcome to the apocalypse…”

'Kelly Lawrence is a grieving widow. Jack Minnow is a website designer. Reis Anderson is the son of a senator. Each of these players has their own reasons for signing up to The Apocalypse Games, a state of the art virtual game designed to entertain doomsday preppers, gamers, and cosplayers.

'Altogether, over 100 people enter NASA designed simulation pods and hook up to the mainframe computer with one goal: survive 24 hours of an apocalypse. Instead of game over at the end, they’re plugged straight into a new game. Then another. It’s clear the computer has malfunctioned. What’s not clear is why.

'With no communication to or from the outside operators, they can only fight endless battles and hope they’re rescued before it’s too late. While they can’t die inside the game, they can die if the pods break down while they’re still hooked up.

'This game of survival just got real.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Kelly Lawrence, Jack Minnow, and Reis Anderson survived the failed virtual reality game only to discover they’ve been transported to a facility hundreds of miles away. It is here they learn the reason for the malfunction. Now they must journey home.

'Their experience inside the game should have given them skills to survive any disaster situation, but not the one they’re facing: they weren’t the only ones playing the game. Those who played before have become the new face of humanity. And this group sits between these friends and their homes.

'When one of them is seriously injured, the only way to survive is to go back to the CyberNexis facility where it all began and go back inside The Apocalypse Games.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'They survived the game. They survived the cyber sickness and loss of friends. Now they will face the hardest journey yet: choosing sides.

'From the very beginning, Kelly, Jack, and Reis have had one goal: to get home. But the event that caused the virtual game to malfunction has plunged the world into icy darkness. Technology is gone, food is scarce and while many survivors have settled into evacuation centers, many more have not. Along the way these three friends will have choices to make, secrets to expose or keep, sides to choose, and some will forge their own path.

'But all will face a harsh reality. Their lives are changed forever and home is where they least expect to find it. And then there is a group of people who hold the secret to humanity’s survival - the Nexis. Will they choose to fight them or join them?'

(Source: publisher's blurb)