David Mingolla is an
artillery specialist in the
United States Army serving in a near-future Central American war (references are made to then-future "
Afghanistan in '89" and a
nuclear weapon that destroyed
Tel Aviv). As his unit serves in "Free Occupied
Guatemala", Mingolla goes on leave and meets a woman named
Debora in a
cantina. They gradually become
lovers; however, as they get close to each other, Mingolla feels intense mental pain later identified as a
psychic probing his
mind. Soon after this, Mingolla is recruited into the Psicorps, an elite group of psychics the United States has assembled to counter the
Soviet Union's own. Debora, a veteran of the revolt that led to American intervention in the first place, is designated his target. On his way through Psicorps training to refine his mental abilities, Mingolla learns that this front of the ongoing
Cold War, as well as the war itself, is a manipulation by two
Panamanian families, the Madradonas and the Sotomayors, over three centuries to increase psychic potential in humanity as well as their own genetic diversity. Mingolla and Debora meet and part several times before their meeting with the Madradonas and Sotomayors in
Darién, Panama and become embroiled with the members of Mingolla's former
squad in a firefight which culminates in the nuclear destruction of
Panama City. David and Debora leave the city and their former friends and antagonists behind them, deciding that ultimately what matters is their love for one another, the only item that has not been blatantly manipulated. The
fictional work excerpted several times in the novel, Juan Pastorín's short story collection
The Fictive Boarding House, gives clues to the nature of the novel and Mingolla's experiences himself in a type of
foreshadowing. The
lyrics of
Prowler heard or sung or thought among members of Mingolla's unit which bookend
Life during Wartime serve this function as well. As a nod to science fiction author
Philip K. Dick's work, the text itself does not present a clear or objective account of what truly happened to Mingolla or what was
hallucination on his part. (At one point on Mingolla's journey, an
AI combining a downed
Sikorsky helicopter and a long-range
guided missile imparts "revelation" to him.) PsiCorps' intensive
drug therapy to hone Mingolla's potential as well as the presence and use of "Sammy" (short for
Samurai, an intense
stimulant) and Frost, a super-addictive version of
cocaine, make the
third person point of view essential for this novel. == References ==