White Space Season 2

Author’s Note

    WhiteSpace: Season One came at an interesting time for us. We’d just followed up our breakout hit second season of Yesterday’s Gone with the young adult dark fantasy serial, ForNevermore , which failed miserably (at the time; it has since found a following).
    We were a bit gun shy, wondering — what if people don’t like WhiteSpace , either?
    WhiteSpace is different from our other stories.
    It’s a slow burn mystery.
    There’s lots of weird little things that we don’t explain for quite a while.
    There’s not a ton of action.
    And the focus is on the characters, perhaps more than anything else we’ve written.
    We were worried:
    Is this actiony enough?
    Scary enough?
    Are there enough WTF cliffhangers?
    The last thing in the world we wanted to do was release back-to-back books that readers didn’t like.
    But at the same time, we didn’t want to pad the story with action scenes just to hit a quota, or in attempt to make the story more like Yesterday’s Gone .
    We had to trust the story.
    And … we had to trust that YOU, the reader, would get what we were doing with WhiteSpace . And that you would have the patience to let us tell the story the way it was meant to be told.
    And we were thrilled to find that you did love WhiteSpace ! In fact, it’s become the series we get the most email about, aside from Yesterday’s Gone .
    Readers say that they love WhiteSpace for the very reasons we hoped — it’s a lot like a TV show (we wrote it with TV in mind more than any other project we’ve done), and they love the flawed, and very real, characters.
    Thank you — so do we!
    We’ve been eager to return to the world of WhiteSpace and to find out what happens next with Jon, Warren, Cassidy, Sarah, Emma, Alex, Liz, Milo, and Katie. And of course, my personal favorite, Brock Houser.
    These are characters we’ve grown to love over the past year, and we’re thrilled that you’re back to take another trip to Hamilton Island.
    Enjoy your stay, and whatever you do, be careful around TVs and radios, especially if the signal seems a bit … off .

    Thank you for reading,
    David Wright & Sean Platt

    * * * *

PREVIOUSLY…

    Here’s a quick re-cap for those wanting to catch up before starting Season Two . If you’ve not yet read Season One , you should probably do that first, rather than have the mystery spoiled.

    In the not too distant future…
    Hamilton Island, Washington

    Hamilton Island is the perfect bedroom community off the coast of Washington. It’s home to Conway Industries, one of the most powerful biotech companies on the planet, led by transhumanist icon, Blake Conway, who longs to help humans achieve better lives through technology and medicine.
    In addition to running Conway Industries, the Conway family also runs Conway Medical Center, a state-of-the-art hospital which employs many island residents, and provides free health care to all on the island.
    Conway Industries also supplements the local police force, led by Chief Kevin Brady, with a private police force called Paladin, (much to Brady’s chagrin, as he can’t compete with the staff or money behind the private force). Paladin has a huge staff and closed circuit cameras all over the island, and have managed to help quell crime on the island (which had been on the rise prior to Paladin’s formation).
    All is quiet and peaceful on Hamilton Island, on the surface anyway.

THE SHOOTINGS
    High school English teacher Roger Heller walked into his classroom one morning looking disoriented and crazed before opening his briefcase, taking out a gun, and shooting six people, including five of his students, before turning the gun on himself.
    The sixth victim of the massacre was an accidental victim, a teacher in the next classroom named Sarah Hughes.

JON CONWAY
    In the aftermath of the shooting, black sheep of the Conway family, Jon Conway, a 30-year-old Hollywood star, returned to Hamilton Island for the funeral of Sarah Hughes, his one and only true love whom he hasn’t seen in a decade.
    At Sarah’s funeral, he wound up meeting Sarah’s 9-year-old daughter, Emma, and Sarah’s twin sister, Cassidy, who still resents Jon for what he’d done to her sister. Jon, caught up in Hollywood excess, cheated on Sarah, who decided that she didn’t want to see him ever again. Heartbroken, and feeling guilty, Jon ceded and granted her wish, and stayed out of her life for the past decade.
    After Sarah’s funeral, Jon found out that