Sakey's Brilliance Saga Slumps with A Better World

A Better World - Marcus Sakey

When we last saw Nick Cooper (“Just ‘Cooper,’ please”…) he’d tossed his job. To be more accurate, he tossed his boss – off the roof of a 12-story building. The guy deserved it, though, and so Cooper’s been rewarded with a new job: he’s a special advisor to the President. The country’s a mess, though, and the situation in the Oval Office isn’t a whole lot better.

Out in flyover-land, Cleveland to be exact, Ethan Park and his family had finally become accustomed to suburban life when “The Children of Darwin” cut that city (and two others) off from the rest of the country. First there were empty shelves in the groceries, and then the power went off. And finally, the mistake by the lake was quarantined by armed soldiers.  Cooper knew from analyzing the patterns – his special gift – that this was all part of a plan, a plan that he’d been tricked into setting in motion. Not only did he set it in motion, but by doing so he made the mastermind untouchable. Cooper could sense what was coming, and knew that it ain’t gonna be pretty. Can you say “civil war”? A war between “normal” and “abnormals”? Well, that’s what he saw coming…

There's Just One Word to Describe Marcus Sakey's Brilliance: "Brilliant!"

Nick Cooper – just “Cooper” to his friends – might be considered a traitor to his kind. His kind is the gifted, also known as brilliants, abnorms, twists, freaks… the small segment of humanity born with special abilities. Not X-Man powers like teleportation or pyrokinesis, though: just a little tweak to the brain that makes them much, much, much better at one thing than “normal” people. Imagine an NFL running back who can see where the defense will be in two seconds instead of where they are now; or a savant who can predict to the microsecond when any stock will rise or fall. Get the picture?

Cooper’s gift is pattern recognition. He can look at a person’s face and instinctively know what they’ll do; what they’ll say. He can even look at a person’s cell phone bill or credit card charges and figure out precisely where they’ll be tomorrow. That ability makes him invaluable to his employer; the government agency charged with fighting a “silent” war against abnorm terrorists, terrorists like John Smith. For a decade, Smith has been killing innocent civilians and, for a decade, “Equitable Services” and Cooper have been on his trail.

That’s about to change: in a desperate move, Cooper goes underground, into the giant Wyoming compound of the abnorms. His cover story? He triggered a terrorist bomb that killed over a thousand; and now his old unit is on his trail – and they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.

What Cooper learns inside that compound, however, will change his life…