TakeIT: read an excerpt from Jagna Rolska’s sci-fi novel on release day
A new novel by Jagna Rolska has been published by the Mięta publishing house. TakeIT is a continuation of the nominee for the Janusz A. Zajdel SeeIT.
In this series, the author takes readers to the 22nd century, where rebels fight against the powerful World Government. In Novels SeeIT a cyber virus has been released, and in the new story, the heroes will have to face the consequences of this act. The old order is in ruins, but will a new order be established?
takeIT it was published in paperback with flaps and has 368 pages. The book is also available as an ebook and audiobook.
TakeIT – description of the novel
The year 2118. Unleashed by a group of rebels, the SeeIT cyber virus unleashes worldwide chaos, and people suddenly opened their eyes and discovered that they had been living in a cruel illusion until then. However, for revolutionaries, this is only the first step. If their next mission is successful, a whole generation of blind people will regain their identity and memory of their ancestors.
The Internet, the collective consciousness of people from the old days, is at stake in this ruthless game for freedom, which the society, suppressed by the totalitarian system, simply does not remember.
What was the Great Reset? Will the Council of Twelve, which has ruled the world so far, divided into warring factions, help save the world or will it plunge it to the end in destruction and fire? Will the rebels manage to rally ordinary people to fight the totalitarian government? If not, there may be no hope left for humanity. Unless TakeIT’s holostage explains what it’s all about.
TakeIT – excerpt from the novel
Sara shared a small room with Allie and Monica in the farthest wing of the convent. It was as if the monks wanted to keep women out of the corridors they walked silently about their business every day. The girl didn’t mind. She liked this place. She would lie down on a low bed covered with a gray woolen blanket and stare for hours at the snow-covered peaks outside the window. Mostly Allie spent time with the professor in the convent library or followed Max like a shadow. Monica took advantage of the warm weather and went for long walks in the company of Jordan. In addition, she helped in the kitchen. Sara shamefully admitted to herself that she herself should be more involved in helping the hospitable monks. Only it was in danger of running into Yoshi. And she wouldn’t be able to bear it. She replayed her shame over and over again in her mind. How could she not sense anything? And how could she feel lust for her own brother? Especially that last question, which she struggled to formulate even in her innermost thoughts, remained unanswered. And about her father. True, they never got along well, but the indifference he showed when they last met just hurt. Sarah had never thought of it once, but if Wordsworth ruthlessly had his own daughter pursued, what fate had befallen her mother? She was never particularly attached to it. You could say that since Sara grew up and began to see the sick world around her, she moved away from her mother. For her, she was part of this perverted system in which her father, mother and a few others were the executioners of the rest of society. The young, simple-minded girl couldn’t accept that the world was just like that, and she was a privileged person in it. Because that’s what her mother was trying to tell her. Always busy with exclusive treatments, always concerned whether her father would like her, she lay in successive beautube cabins and explained to her daughter, who was sitting at her feet, what she thought reality looked like.
I’m fine. A canary who has spent his whole life in a gilded cage tries to explain to another canary how an eagle soaring in the sky feels. For Sara, that was more or less what her mother’s monologues boiled down to. When she was younger, the woman’s words simply bored her, but then she grew older and began to understand her and her role in her father’s world better. And she began to feel sorry for her mother. More and more, she picked up on the fear in her words, and it finally convinced her that her father, Chairman Wordsworth, was a ruthless tyrant. And with each passing day, the desire to escape grew stronger.
Sara often wondered how her life would have turned out if it hadn’t been for Yoshi’s help during the escape from her father’s mansion. She would probably end up like her mother. A pretty, emotionless doll sipping champagne from morning to evening in frosted crystal glasses, emptied in one gulp and clattered onto golden trays carried by countless waiters filling every floor of a mansion with marble floors.
Instead, she got involved in an affair with her brother and became Public Enemy Number One, pursued by all the officers of Morality and Geneo at the behest of her own father. In addition, she lived in a cramped room with a pregnant woman and a little girl. But though she was resentful, she had to honestly admit that even her current shelter at the end or roof of the world, as Professor Howard used to say, was infinitely better than the fate her own father would have wished for her. Sarah did not know what fate would bring next. It was rather certain that she would not spend the rest of her life in a convent. On this she agreed with her comrades.
They didn’t discuss what to do next. There was an unwritten rule that until Monika gave birth, everything remained the same. Whatever happens after, will be after. Now the most important thing is that the baby is born healthy. The past experiences connected them with such a strong bond that practically each of the group of friends felt responsible for the baby that was to appear in this cruel world.
Sara glanced out the window at the snow-covered peaks, then looked down at a meadow dotted with mekonopses. The intense blue color of these Himalayan poppies contrasted amazingly with the emerald grass in the valley. This one, in turn, stood out from the whiteness of the snow lying in the higher parts of the mountains. Against their background, the flame-haired Monica was also perfectly visible. She was standing on a carpet of blue flowers with her face turned towards the sun. Even from this distance, Sarah could see the bulge of her belly.
Allie was running nearby. Strangely enough, neither Max nor Monica’s inseparable companion, Jordan, was with her. Yoshi was rushing after the girl with his arms outstretched. Clearly these two were playing tag. Two thoughts struck Sarah at once. The first: how different Allie must have seemed to be living among flowers and open spaces since her early years of existence spent locked up in the concrete basement of the Space.corp factory. The second made her think about Black’s carefree behavior. Contrary to what she had previously believed, the ex-boyfriend and the most current brother did not deal with experiencing despair in the four walls of the monastery cell. Sara took several deep breaths and stood up. She went to the window and watched the three people so close to her for a while. The idyll of the scene was absurd in the context of their recent experiences, but paradoxically it cheered the girl up. If a man has enough strength, he will get up after everything. With this thought and a deep conviction that she would cry more than once from shame, and – what can I say – from longing for Yoshi, Sara left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She walked briskly towards the convent kitchen. She decided that a therapeutic session of washing pots in cold water was just what she needed at the moment.
Professor John Howard felt at the monastery like a fish in water. He was not disturbed by the withdrawn style of the monks or the harsh mountain climate. After years of hiding in successive apartments under an assumed name, he felt that he was finally alive. That the stage of grim rat existence and the time when he cowardly hid from Wordsworth was over. As if the fact of revealing himself and the fact that he stood face to face with the dictator returned the professor’s dignity. He may not be young anymore, but at least he felt needed by this group of random people, linked by dramatic experiences. Howard wholeheartedly wished everyone that fate would finally bring them happiness and peace. Especially brave Monika and her baby, which she carried under her heart. The very fact that a woman would give birth to a second child was a miracle. Howard was additionally electrified that the child would be a sibling to Allie, a brilliant girl. The professor hoped to live long enough to find out if the baby would follow in her sister’s footsteps and be endowed with such a unique brain. The only thing left was to wait patiently for the solution. It should happen soon.
