The Third Time is the Harm (Cities of the Dead)

Deep into the Zombie Apocalypse, Malcolm Kempf has made a decent life for his family by living in the woods with his best friend's family. And then a salvage operation quickly turns bad, and Malcolm has to make a split-second choice that will change one family forever.This is the ninth story in the series. A new story will be released each week in the final weeks of 2011 and early months of 2012Andy and David are poles apart. They are from different eras, they have different physiques & different friends. Yet their lives are about to become inexplicably intertwined.December 2022 - An errant team of scientists reverse the earth's magnetic poles generating worldwide natural disasters. Six billion people die. Twenty year old David - a brilliant inventor - & his custom built computer Kojak survive what comes to be called The Event.December 2057 - Thirteen year old Andy lives in Zone 1 (formerly Perth, Western Australia), 35 years after-the-Event (AE). People wear radiation suits due to particle bombardment. Water's restricted. No one gardens. Most before-the-Event (BE) knowledge has been lost (computers were wiped out & few books remain). Andy wears a family heirloom - a PC pendant named Kojak. A team of scientists (The Watchers) strictly control scientific pursuits. Interacting with survivalists is discouraged because they know about banned technologies.Andy's parents (Leo & Mani) are Watchers. The family travel to Zone 5 (formerly the Kimberley, Western Australia) to investigate survivalists' weather modification activities.Andy's family head off to locate the survivalists. Andy stays near the camp metal-detecting. He discovers a hologram disguising an amazing garden & meets a survivalist named David. He learns that David designed the original Kojak prototype.Next day Andy secretly meets David again, but Leo & Mani discover them. David recognizes Mani as his daughter. While the adults catch up, Andy hangs out in David's workshop. He & Kojak activate David's time-travel invention & reappear in Karratha in 2022.Andy's love for books draws him to the library to research forgotten technologies which might improve AE life in 2057. A student (David) helps him use the internet, & later they head back to David's place. Andy realizes David is his grandfather (back when he was 20). He also discovers that the Event will happen in 40 hours.David is spending Christmas at his research station & decides to take Andy with him. Because he knows the future, Andy convinces David to take a fuel-oil press with him & also seeds - hinting he may be "desperate for food" in the days ahead.Upon arrival at the research station, Andy discovers the incomplete time-travel transporter module in David's workshop & realizes it's the same workshop where his adventure began. Next day Kojak tells Andy to hide in the unfinished invention. During the Event, a plasma ball energizes the transporter module. Andy reappears in 2057 with the press - which will revolution everyone's AE lives. That evening he starts planning his next history changing trip - to the Svalbard heirloom seed vault (Book 2).Andy & David are poles apart, but they discover they have a lot in common. They both desire to make the future a better place. Readers with an interest in alternative fuels, seed banks & inventions will resonate with this low-key sci-fi book. Like the other books in the Rebelutionaries series, the characters in this series are out to rebel against society's low expectations of teens and young adults. Content for homeschoolers includes low-key sex-education themes.