Love In The Wasteland

Hired by Dr. David Bartram to escort his son, Jeremy, across the Western wastes two hundred years after the Nuclear Apocalypse of 2030, Daniel is the best damned tracker in the business. But when Daniel's long-time rival, a dealer in sex, drugs, and weapons who goes by the all-too appropriate name of "Scat," kidnaps Jeremy with the intent to auction him off to the highest bidder, he fears a replay of the previous year's events during which an innocent victim got caught in the crossfire. Jeremy, in the meantime, continues to look for love in all the wrong places, not only in Scat himself, but also Pete, Daniel's friend from the Eastern Corps, Dr. Meister, a bi-curious professor at Banyon University, and a philosophic transman, who does the best he can without benefit of synthetic testosterone, regardless that Pete admonishes Jeremy not to "fall for every man who plays in his backyard." The Repopulation Initiative, a scheme of the Corps, continues to gain ground, adversely affecting not only queer people like Jeremy and Daniel, but also those who fight to protect their rights. It causes them to wonder if humanity learned any lessons at all, even after having been driven nearly to the brink.