Shade's Children

Shade's Children takes place in a not-so-distant future where evil Overlords have ruled for fifteen years due to a catastrophic "Change" which caused all people over the age of fourteen to simply disappear.There is only one exception to this rule: some young women are kept for "breeding" to maintain the supply of children, until a suggested maximum age of eighteen.This radiation allows the Overlords to control the weather and warp certain physical laws, which is critical for some creatures such as the Wingers, which would otherwise be too heavy to fly.Yet as the story begins, he is finally trapped by the Myrmidons, and prepares to kill himself to prevent his organs from being harvested.This turns out to be unnecessary as he is saved by a team of strangers who stun the Myrmidons with a flashbang grenade and lift him to safety.This mission is a critical one: to retrieve the equipment and data from Shade's abandoned laboratory on the university campus in the Department of Abstract Computing, including a device that measures Change radiation.Ella's team is successful, even when the Overlord Black Banner surrounds and invades the building, alerted by Leamington, a pre-Change artificial intelligence who calls the police on detection of the intruders.After resting at the Sub, Shade unveils the reward created with the recovered data: metal crowns called Deceptors which scramble the sensory input of the Overlords' creatures, effectively making a human wearer invisible and non-olfactive to them as long as the power supply is maintained.This mission is not successful: on entry, the team discovers that the stronghold stretches underground, allowing for the unforeseen presence of creatures.The team's Deceptors run out prematurely as they discover a Myrmidon barracks, and they escape with a conch-shaped Overlord device called a Thinker, but without Drum who, having been winded, stays behind to fight.The team, led by Ella, defies Shade's orders and infiltrates the Meat Factory, successfully rescuing Drum.They continue, to discover on reaching the Submarine that it has been invaded by an Overlord, Red Diamond, and that all of the people inside have been killed or captured.Fortunately, Shade had realized long before that the Sub was not a permanent base, and established multiple supply caches throughout the city in case a team was stranded in the field or the Sub was taken.True to their training, the team heads immediately to the nearest cache - to discover Shade, who escaped, apparently by chance, while testing a mobile robotic body for himself based around the Thinker.Ella and Drum, managing to escape, climb to the top of Mount Silverstone, meet a hologram of Shade, who though having been physically destroyed, is spread through the Overlords' computer systems.The burst of Change radiation, while not lethal where Ninde and Gold-Eye are (they are being executed by an Overlord), enables them to respectively read the minds of thousands of newly freed children, and see a distant future, at which time he and Ninde are the parents of two children named for Ella and Drum.Shade was originally named Robert Ingman, who somehow managed to upload his consciousness into the machines and systems in his lair at a time before the Change occurred.After transferring himself to the Thinker, Robert develops multiple personalities and one of these, "Shade", becomes so obsessed with gaining a human body that he does not care how many children must die or be captured for him to get one.She seems closest to Drum, and there is evidence of a romantic attachment to him, but his permanent emasculation by steroids prevents any sexual relationship.Ninde is somewhat childish and watches many pre-Change movies to escape from her reality to that older world, into which she would probably be integrated well—she is emotional, dramatic, and attractive.Drum is an embodiment of physical strength and is described as having to use special clothing on account of his size (he is much bulkier than the average teenager), but has been emasculated by steroids given to him by the Overlords since he was to become a Myrmidon.She was dedicated to Shade and his cause, much like Ella, and is furious when her teammate Sal suggests leaving the Sub rather than tackling the dangerous mission.He is used in one of the elite Myrmidon guards that belong to no particular Overlord, which are ordered to drown Gold-Eye and Ninde near the end of the book.When the Change Projector is destroyed, the device controlling his brain is disabled, giving him a few moments of humanity during which he recites a small poem in English and tells Gold-Eye that he was once Sam Allen; after this, he falls into the water and dies due to the lack of Projector radiation energy.All of the creatures are created using human organs and body parts processed in the Meat Factory, and are heavily specialized for their purpose to the detriment of other attributes.A standard size of Drone groups is not mentioned in the book, although when Ella, Ninde, and Gold-Eye infiltrated the Meat Factory, they met a pair of them together.Ferrets are similar to their real-life counterparts in appearance, but are notedly larger, more intelligent, and have hollow fangs with which to partially exsanguinate their victims.They use fist-sized glowing globes called witchlights for light, and are mentioned as using "battle sprayers" that spray acid.Interaction with the Overlords finds them considering humans as animals, bred for their amusement and violent battles, lesser in mind and speech.