Silicon Blood by Arlan Andrews

Virtual Reality: generates computer-controlled artificial environments, just like reality. Only better.

The Guy. After a disastrous plague of destructive nanobots kills nearly a billion people and destroys nations, an unknown criminal mastermind, The Guy, sets up a new worldwide drug ring, controlling it with Virtual Reality, enforcing it with nanobot threats. The Guy’s new drugs are grown in human bodies – pharms – and gruesomely harvested. Drughettos are The Guy’s profitable domains, in every city.

Jerry Gade. A former nanotech engineer and entrepreneur, Jerry Gade holds himself responsible for a billion deaths. Having destroyed all the old drug cartels with nanotech, he now has to find and eliminate the worst drug plague of all time – the pharms. Working as a crop-spraying specialist in a drughetto, Jerry Gade’s one feverish goal in life is to find The Guy. And kill him.
In this tale of an all-too-possible future, Jerry Gade and The Guy carry on struggles in both the human domain and in the invisible world of their own nano-creations.

For the destiny of the human race. And their own souls.

About Arlan Andrews:

Dr. Arlan Andrews, Sr., is a Registered Professional Engineer and a former ASME White House Fellow in the White House Science Office (Office of Science and Technology Policy).  While at the White House he wrote the first government endorsement of nanotechnology in 1993.  He retired from the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as Manager of the Advanced Manufacturing Initiatives Department, to co-found MuSE Technologies, Inc., a virtual reality software firm, which was NASDAQ-listed for several years.  He then co-founded a biotech process company, Kinetic Biosystems, Inc., now located in Durham, North Carolina.  Arlan previously held positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories and White Sands Missile Range, N.M.  In 2013 he retired as the Environmental Director of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas.  He holds six patents.

Arlan has published over 500 articles, stories, books and columns on the subject of science fiction, ancient civilizations, Forteana, the paranormal, futurism, technology, politics and humor, in over 100 venues worldwide.  His stories have appeared in ANALOG and other science fiction magazines, and his fact articles in ATLANTIS RISING, ANCIENT AMERICAN, STRANGE, and FATE, and he had a regular column (“Arlan’s Arcanae”) in UFO MAGAZINE.  In 2011, he was interviewed on the TV series ANCIENT ALIENS, for the episode “ANCIENT ENGINEERS” and for other TV appearances in Canada and France.

While serving in the White House Science Office, Arlan founded SIGMA, the science fiction think tank, to provide the Federal Government with pro bono futurism of the type that only science fiction writers can provide.  SIGMA has consulted with numerous government agencies and outside groups, including presentations at the Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in January 2012, and at the NASA/DARPA 100 Year Star Ship Symposium in Orlando in September 2011. Arlan is a professional member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), and currently has a novel of lost worlds, VALLEY OF THE SHAMAN, and an anthology of short stories, OTHER HEADS & OTHER TALES, both available as e-books for both Kindle and Nook.  He was a nominee for the Hugo Award for best novella of 2014.

Arlan is a former Member of the Board of Directors of the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, and in 1976 was the Libertarian Party candidate for Governor of that state.  He is married, with six children and eleven grandchildren.  He and his wife Joyce recently moved from Texas to Kentucky.

Selected bibliography for publications in Atlantis Rising Magazine:

“Hydraulics of the Ancients,” issue #58, July/August 2006

“In Pursuit of Ancient Precision,” issue #83, July/August 2010

“Indians and Aliens,” issue #90, November/December 2011

“Technology and the Hieroglyphs,” issue #91, January/February 2012