The Last Taken

By L.K. Samuels

A scientist, abducted to the other side of the galaxy, returns to earth after 30 years and discovers he was given unwanted, forbidden and often uncontrollable powers.

Prof. Jade Faraday moves to the high desert of the Eastern Sierra with his cranky Russian wife and alien-born daughter. He attempts to remain anonymous in an effort to avoid contact with the authorities. Despite his best efforts, his old miner’s shack is attacked by a SWAT team of IRS agents eager to arrest Faraday for failure to pay back taxes. But the professor has something up his sleeve. Reluctantly, he summons up his powers and throws a force field around himself, stopping a hail of bullets. His family is not as fortunate.

After butting heads with a high-handed IRS official in Sacramento, Faraday wanders eastward without friends, money or a clear sense of purpose. After being demonized in the press, Faraday is inundated by throngs of sympathetic people who begin to follow him as if he were Moses leading them to the Promised Land. Within months he reaches Washington DC with almost a million zealous followers who demand changes. Faraday must calm his followers while wrestling with the double-dealing backstabbers of a government panicking over whether the protestors will turn violent and overthrow the existing political regime.

Unpublished as of May 2021