Death Dream

In this breathtaking tale of suspense and terror, bestselling author Ben Bova combines cutting-edge technology and deadly mystery in a state-of-the-art thriller.... Death Dream.
It's the ultimate adult playground. Cyber World will use the latest technology in computer-produced virtual reality to provide thrills and chills beyond any ever experienced at a theme park. Here children of all ages will live out their wildest fantasies: fly jet fighters in combat, take part in a gunfight at the OK Corral, play in the World Series, or take a walk on the moon or a trip inside the human body. Way beyond video games or rides, Cyber World's simulations are indistinguishable from reality and have a pulse-pounding, often terrifying, immediacy.
Dan Santorini has been hired by ParaReality, Inc., the Florida-based high-tech firm behind the project, to make sure that Cyber World opens on schedule. But violence shadows the project from the very beginning. First Dan's young daughter, Angela, begins to see disturbingly sexual images in the VR programs used at the company-supported school. Then Dan learns that an Air Force pilot has suddenly died while using one of the flight simulators. As the line between fantasy and reality grows razor-thin, only one thing is clear: Something is terribly wrong behind the scenes at ParaReality, and Dan and his family may be the next victims.
Now he is thrust into a real-life game in which the stakes are life and death and everyone is a suspect: Kyle Muncrief, the company's hard-driving CEO who wants the park opened at any cost and who harbors an obsession too dark to name...Jason Lowrey, an eccentric programming genius whose single-minded passion for his work could lead him to betray anything or anyone, even his best friend...Victoria Kessel, Kyle's right-hand woman who has found in power the ultimate aphrodisiac...and the Inquisitor, a mysterious, sadistic collector of secrets who represents a powerful and shadowy consortium with a common interest: to shut down Cyber World before it opens.
All too soon Dan realizes that he and his family are caught in a terrifying trap - a trap in which their worst dreams can all too literally come true and the only way to wake up from the nightmare...is dead.