Games & Players — Manna Francis

It's all fun and games until somebody loses... Socioanalysts can read minds and motives at a glance, predict the future, manipulate the smallest actions of their unwitting puppets, and crush careers with a single word...or so the popular rumors say. Their arrival is dreaded everywhere in the European Administration, even the Investigation and Interrogation Division. Para-investigator Val Toreth, accustomed to being feared himself, is about to discover the truth of the rumors at first hand, when he is assigned as personal liaison to Carnac, the socioanalyst seconded to I&I to root out anti-Administration sentiments among its staff. And to make matters worse, it seems that his admin Sara is smitten with Carnac and Warrick has a history with him. With his closest allies straddling the line of Carnac's camp, Toreth must rethink the rules of engagement. The third book in the Administration series contains the novella Game, Set, as well as nine short stories in which virtual-reality corporate genius Warrick and Toreth must face new players in the game, and discover whether their association can survive both the tensions between the unlikely pair and the pressures of life in the near future dystopia of New London.