BOOK
' LAAGLAND X. '

MIND-YOU synopsis / augustus 2020

Early retired journalist Nick moved several years back to a mountain area in central Europe to live a simple life along with his dog. He renovates his cabin, grows vegetables, and writes occasionally articles about the agriculture politics in the EU.

He barely interacts with his neighbors in the small mountain village, and the corrupt head of town. Although the surrounding is beautiful, generally simple things in his live go wrong and the atmosphere is tense. Suddenly he is confronted with a computer virus that makes working impossible and gives him small clues to fulfill.

If unknown people are walking around his house and take over his neighbors chalet, life for Nick becomes almost unlivable, strange invisible threats are an attack for his health. The pressure results in an escape with his dog and backpack to the mountains. He tries everything to stay alive and to distract the people that follow him, but he is confronted with ultramodern tools and traps, he hardly can avoid. Together with his dog he is able to miss some of them, but he is affected by others. It becomes clear that they do not want to kill him, but this manhunt is overpowering him.

He leaves his dog with a mountaineer, and escapes incognito the country.

We see Nick again in his homeland united with his dog. Living a normal life in a normal city. Everything looks fine. After this welcome he meets a girl in town, but soon after that, the nightmare return into his life. He is confronted with people that try to manipulate him and confront him with a major crime decades ago, he is not guilty on.

The girl he has a relation with, is more involved into his live, and slowly she takes over his daily routines. But she also tries to manipulate him. Nick experiences people who are trying to insist him to join the Secret Agency as a journalist, but all meetings go wrong. Again, his house is no longer a safe place to live in, strange things do happen and he feels the pressure. Slowly his mind is being altered and attacked. He knows this force is coming from outside. They are trying to take over his will and try to create a puppet on a chain from him, someone they can manipulate and give orders to fulfill. Dangerous orders.

He is slowly losing his will and personality, although he knows this new technic is able to enter his mind, he does not find a solution to stop it. When Nick becomes sick and almost helpless and dreams exactly what they want him to see, the harsh reality sinks in. The Secret Agency wanted Nick as a guinea pig, someone that is good to test their new technology at, and Nick as a creative independent person was the ideal man to fulfill that role.

By hunting him down, they were able to test their new satellite based technics on him, by breaking his mind under the scull they could fine tune their interrogation methods.

With an enormous effort, some luck, and with help from his old friend, Nick is able to gain control over his mind again, and to write his story as a journalist. Together with proof it is published and soon after that the government collapsed. Nick gets his old life back and returns to the mountains. But is it safe over there?

© Raymond  / august 2020

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.