A Consortia of Babel

One theory for the fall of the Roman Empire is lead poisoning from their plumbing. In 1989 an opportunistic bureaucrat in a government research agency stumbled across a modern day parallel produced by the repetitive flashing of images from movies, TV, and computers through the eyes into the cerebral cortex. The discoverers of this effect not only found out how to counteract it, they developed a way to use the technology to implant new information into the human brain. This is the ultimate information technology; a machine that can instantly impart encyclopedic knowledge with no effort from either teachers or students. Its appeal to university administrators is enormous! The inventors expended the last of their financial resources preparing a demonstration for a gathering of academic consortia at Midlothian University and will stop at nothing, including murder, to prevent anyone from revealing their secrets before they can collect cash advances on contract sales to academic institutions across the nation. Unfortunately, they haven't taken into account the Ten Basic Laws of Higher Education, the tenacity of a reclusive netizen known as Cerberus, and a multicultural cast of hackers, attackers and slackers.

The author has been variously employed as a carpenter, photographer, audio tech, writer, instructional designer, video producer/director, and university administrator.