Clone Who Loved Voltaire

John Holt had never been a lucky man, and he had the bullet hole scars to prove it. He hated the Precog sparklies, and he hated the dream, and he hated being different, but the dream was the worst. The dream showed him the deaths of everyone he loved if he didn't act. Or sometimes, even if he did. He didn't want to make a fuss, but he didn't know what to do. He was only weird John, the soulless clone, that Dr. Escuniti had made in his lab; the crazy clone with the silly kaleidoscopic dream. That was the worst part. How could he plan if he couldn't see what to do? The Nonco People's Army and the Corps had been at war for years. The Non-Corporate Citizens, the Noncos, were trying to take control from the Corporate Citizens, the Cozies. The Noncos outnumbered the Cozies a hundred to one, but the Cozies had the weapons and science and technology. The Corps had held power for a century and wouldn't allow a Nonco rabble to defeat them. One corp, Dhar-Scheele Medical, had created a plague by resurrecting a virus from centuries earlier, and had been almost ready to unleash it. He had stopped them. Temporarily. But another corp, Allied Defense, also had a terrible weapon. And all the death he saw in the shifting dream fragments came from that. He was almost sure. But he thought he saw a way to stop them, if his brones, Cole and Bret and Adam and Ewan, helped him. If the dream was true. If he wasn't crazy like everyone thought.