Here ’s a synopsis of the book for starter :
Five years ago , average Americans descend under the traveling bag of a strange fresh illness that caused them to sleepwalk across the country to a destination only they knew . They were followed on their quest by the shepherds : Quaker and family unit who gave up everything to protect them .
Their hush-hush destination : Ouray , a small town in Colorado that would become one of the last outpost of civilization . Because the noctambulation epidemic was only the first in a string of events that conduct to the end of the populace — and the birth of a new one .
See the full cover below!Image: Del Rey Books
The survivor , sleepwalkers and shepherds likewise , have a dream of rebuild human society . Among them are Benji , the scientist fight through heartache to head the townsfolk ; Marcy , the former police force officer who wants only to look after the multitude she loves ; and Shana , the teenage young woman who became the first shepherd — and an unlikely hero sandwich whose braveness will be needed again .
Because the people of Ouray are not the only survivor , and the humanity they are building is fragile . The military force of cruelty and brutality are gather under the leadership of ego - proclaimed president Ed Creel . And in the very heart of Ouray , the most powerful subsister of all is plotting its own vision for the new earth : Black Swan , the A.I. who imagined the Book of Revelation .
Against these threats , Benji , Marcy , Shana , and the quietus have only one hope : one another . Because the only way to survive the ending of the earth is together .
Image: Del Rey Books
Here ’s the full covering ; the cover version design is by Carlos Beltrán and David Stevenson , and the back art is by Michael Bryan . After that , keep scan for the prologue to Wayward !
Prologue : The Resolute Desk
Atlas Haven
America City , Kansas
Now .
The President of the United States of America sat at his desk in a dim , octagonal room lit by lights in the floor . His desk was redundant . It contained no book , for he was not a curious man . It contained no paper because what could he possibly have to sign now , after everything ? There was a playpen holder , a unconditional spell of wood with a sonant deep where a single pen could neatly take a breather . A plaque detailed its history : the holder was a gift from British Prime Minister Declan Halvey and had been taken from the hull of the HMS Gannet , an anti - slaver ship from the British Navy .
In this room , the target fit the desk itself — cognise as the Resolute Desk , its own plaque explained some , if not all , of its history :
“ H.M.S. ‘ Resolute ’ , forming part of the jaunt sent in search of Sir John Franklin in 1852 , was abandon in Latitude 74º 41′ N. Longitude 101º 22′ W. on fifteenth May 1854 . She was discovered and extricated in September 1855 , in Latitude 67º N. by Captain Buddington of the United States Whaler ‘ George Henry ’ . The ship was purchased , fitted out and transmit to England , as a gift to Her Majesty Queen Victoria by the President and People of the United States , as a keepsake of goodwill & friendly relationship . This tabular array was made from her timbers when she was break up , and is presented by the Queen of Great Britain & Ireland , to the President of the United States , as a monument of the good manners and hump forgivingness which dictate the offer of the gift of the ‘ Resolute ’ . ”
Parts of that chronicle were overleap , of course . Like how the ship had originally specify out to discover the whereabouts of an entire missing polar despatch under the said Sir John Franklin , whose two ships were the ably - named Erebus and the Terror . Or how the Resolute , along with three other vessels , became icebound themselves in that search , and that Sir Edward Belcher ( a much - abominate soul with zero experience in Arctic expeditions ) require the headwaiter of those ships to abandon their vessels even though a coming thaw would ’ve give up those vessels to move again before too long . The embarrassment was heightened by the fact that , alongside losing their own ship , they give out to find the lose expedition . The plaque also did not name how Captain Buddington had take the ship under the right of salvage , but the U.S. government intervene and used it as a goodwill gesture to soothe troubled relations with England .
And in the end , it failed to cite that the Franklin military expedition was establish in 2014 — but neither by England nor the United States . It was in fact a Canadian effort that uncovered the pretermit Panama hat . They further discovered that the men under Franklin ’s command hurt death by a form of deficiencies and diseases — not to mention genial breakdowns , hypothermia , and at long last , the feeding - of - one - another . ( Some of the men ’s cold , mummified stiff show up tongue wounds and sting Deutschmark consistent with cannibalism . )
History was a Ernst Boris Chain , and many of the links were soaked with bloodline .
As for the desk itself , well —
It had been moved in and out of portion of the White House . Some chairman favor its presence in the Oval ; others break it to out - of - the - path rooms , either as a tourist attractor or a obscure curiosity . Some presidents modified it ( Roosevelt added a panel to obliterate his buttressed leg from the world ) . Some presidents forgot about it , and others rediscovered it — though it was Jackie Kennedy , not John , who found the desk enshroud in entrepot . Eisenhower used it for his radio broadcasts to the nation . Johnson did n’t wish for it . Reagan reportedly adored it , and a replica sits in his presidential depository library . The first Bush kept it in the Oval for a handful of month , then retired it . But after that , it was used by every president since include Nora Hunt before she was assassinate during the White Mask pandemic of 2020 .
The desk had become a vital allegory of the account and dignity of the role .
The man currently sitting at the desk did n’t give a shit about gravitas . Dignity was all well and undecomposed , but what did it get you ? Dignity was someone else ’s approximation of what you should be doing , how you should be acting . And history , in his survey , was just the route behind . Why look back ? America was a series of errors cascading through its political machine , and studying those misplay was both dopy and boring . Those errors were not Creel ’s fault . Why size up or apologize for them ? Then you took ownership of those errors . And it was not on Creel to take responsibleness for someone else ’s screw - ups .
When you walk up a set of step , you did n’t bend around to face at the step behind you . You were on your path up , not down . Those coming behind you did not deserve the help . If they need to be at the top of the measure , then it was on them to endure , to climb , to go up .
That ’s what Creel did , every moment of every day .
He knew the way was to step up , up , up . On every step . On every fountainhead , on every back , and on everyone who offered to make themselves a board for his acclivity . Upward and onward . All in the name of power .
What weigh when he require this desk be brought from the White House here to Atlas Haven ( what he jokingly phone the Nuclear Winter White House to his inner lot ) was not the desk ’s history , but its present . Its present was as a symbolization of his victory . Ed Creel had advance . He had dominated the populace . He had reject his competition , Hunt . He deserve this , and if now , at the end of the world , he could not occupy the existent White House , he would take a part of it as a prize .
The Resolute Desk was that trophy .
( Not that it count , now . )
Above the chairman , the air scrubbing brush made their air scrubber audio — a chatter , and then a hissing , a chatter , and then a hiss . Ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - tsssss . Ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - ch - tsssss . His right manus lay flat against the desk and line a funny pooling stain — a ancestry soil whose crimson dry wash made this part of the desk look like cherrywood and not the oak timbers of an sometime British ship .
Just then , the door to his “ office ” open with a clang — the room access was metallic element and thick , and a dandy rack had to be manoeuver to open it up . As the door drifted open , the man who introduce twist to face the wall and put the flat of his wide , bratwurst - fingered hand against a control panel . The way immediately lighten up as the octagonal wall erupted in luminance — each was an light-emitting diode screen that connected to the other , testify a individual wrap - around vista of the Aquinnah Cliffs Overlook on Martha ’s Vineyard — the sun - warmed blushing drop-off in one direction , the wind instrument - churn Atlantic in the other .
But the conjuring trick was corrupt : some pixels blinked , others were black and beat . One entire wall behind the desk had disconsolate - screen , show up an error code as long as the Declaration of Independence . Even as the silver screen came on , they buzzed and click , as if electronic termites were manducate through digital walls .
“ What do you want ? ” President Creel croaked .
The older human race step forward — he was in a lucullan terrycloth gown , smutty at the edges . His cheeks were like boar jowl , his eyes countersink deep in the skull . This was Honus Clines . Vice President Honus Clines . Clines grin — a braggart grinning with small teeth in tumescent pencil eraser gums . From behind his back he produced a Reebok shoebox wrapped with a simple blood-red bow . “ Go on , ” he said , his subdued Virginia dialect evident in even those two small words . “ spread out it . ”
Creel wanted to buck at the command , because even inside he roared , I do not take command , not from my subordinates . And everyone was low-level to him , so he did n’t take orders from anyone . Or so he told himself . It was a Trygve Lie that echoed around his foreland so often and so aloud he almost believed it .
With a trembling hand , he undo the bowing .
The ribbon fell aside like a dead matter .
He stared at the boxwood ’s palpebra . And then at its gross profit . The bottom corner of the corner was melanize with dry blood .
“ Here , let me , ” Clines said , and he popped the top of the box .
President Creel look inside , and see the block of clear epoxy , and in its eye , a leering , jeering orb . freeze in its unswerving stare .
And at that , President Creel begin to express mirth — a small gag at first that Clines felt compelled to join with his own shoulder - juggling chuckle , but soon that laugh became a big abdomen laugh , a goddamn guffaw , and those heave guffaws gave mode to a series of hard coughing , and those hard coughs made Creel ’s eyes wet with binge .
Or , at least , one of his eyes . The other would remain dry forever , it seemed , there in that corner .
From the book Wayward by Chuck Wendig . Copyright © 2022 by Chuck Wendig . reissue by organisation with Del Rey Books , an imprint of Random House , a division of Penguin Random House LLC . All rights reserved .
Chuck Wendig ’s Wayward will be release August 2 , 2022 ; you may pre - order a copyhere .
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A.I.BiologyChuck WendigDeskJohnsonRandom HouseSci - Fi
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