Layers (book)

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Layers is a German-language youth thriller by the Austrian writer Ursula Poznanski . The book was first published in 2015 by Loewe-Verlag .

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The book is about the homeless Dorian, whose mother died a few years ago and whose father became violent as a result. He's been living on the streets since he left home. He tries not to attract attention. For example, he occasionally feeds on free samples in supermarkets , but then makes sure not to enter this supermarket for the next few weeks in order not to be recognized as a homeless person. In addition, he does not steal and even when another homeless man named Emil steals five euros from him , he initially remains calm. Even when he has the opportunity to steal Emil's money, he only gets his own money back.

The next morning he suddenly wakes up next to Emil's corpse . Next to him lies his bloodied penknife ; but he can't remember anything. A stranger named Nicolas Korte approaches him and offers to come with him. Fearing the police , he trusts Nicolas, who lets him get into a black van and drives him to a remote villa . Dorian learns that the villa belongs to a man named Raoul Bornheim, who has made it his business to help young people in need. He meets Stella and Melvin, who welcome him in a friendly manner and with whom he feels very comfortable. Stella in particular grew more and more dear to his heart over the next few days. Dorian learns that as a "consideration" for accommodation in Bornheim's villa, lessons in various subjects have to be taken. In addition to two adult teachers , the young people teach themselves. Bornheim's goal is to enable the young people to have a good future with a school leaving certificate.

His next task is to distribute flyers around town. These flyers advertise Bornheim's charitable organizations and call for donations . He notices that some passers-by stop and just stare at him without saying anything, but he thinks nothing of it.

A little later he was assigned a new task by Bornheim: From now on he was to deliver promotional gifts instead of distributing flyers. Bornheim emphasizes that he is very proud of Dorian and expects a lot from him. He proudly begins his new job. The next morning, the driver Bertold explains to him exactly what he has to do: Dorian is supposed to deliver a small package to a wealthy businessman. To do this, he has to get to his office complex, find his office and then stop in front of him for at least five minutes after delivery. He is only allowed to say one sentence, which is: "This is the second shipment". The whole thing seems very strange to Dorian, but to impress Bornheim, he fulfills the order exactly as he should do it and Bertold picks him up again on time.

Dorian does this type of job over and over again over the next few days, but the recipients react very differently to the "second delivery": An editor-in-chief of a newspaper is happy about the delivery and asks Dorian: "If it keeps what it promises?" Another is completely horrified and does not accept the delivery, even talking about someone wanting to kill Dorian. He offers Dorian to go to the police with him, but Dorian refuses for fear of the dead Emil, even if he is not sure whether he killed him.

He leaves the building with his giveaway and walks to the agreed meeting point with Bertold, but Bertold is not there this time. He waits some time, but Bertold doesn't come, so he goes to the river, where he still knows some ventilation shafts from his time as a homeless man, through which he could survive the night. Despite the clear instruction not to open the package under any circumstances, he opens it and finds glasses inside. When he puts it on, he is frightened: On a house wall it says, large and green: "MURDERER". With his eyes he can open a menu in which he turns off the GPS.

The same evening he goes back to the meeting point, but nobody is there. Only when he leaves again does a black van approach, from which Bertold, his sports teacher and a few others get out. But they don't look like they want to find him, more like they want to catch him.

In the meantime, he has found out that those who wear glasses can receive a wide variety of additional information about their surroundings, for example profiles about people, warnings about doctors who have already committed malpractice several times or a mysterious countdown that counts down with the days. He finds out that distributing the flyers really only serves to carry around a virtual profile. For example, he unexpectedly receives information about the life of Stella, which he misses very much.

Although he keeps receiving messages through his glasses that nobody wants to harm him and that people are waiting for him to take him home, he does not trust these messages and is now getting by on the street again. Again and again Bertold and others find out his whereabouts and he has to get to safety from them. His trust in Bornheim is waning more and more, for example because of an animation that Stella hangs from a bridge.

At some point one of the people who want to catch him, called "Mambas", catches him, but it is Melvin who joins him and informs him about the Mambas: Mambas are a kind of Bornheim secret service that recapture young people who have been cut off or are opponents of glasses , actually called "visionary", eliminate. Melvin himself had run away from the villa some time before Dorian's disappearance, but actually only switched to the mambas.

The next few days they spend the night in a hut in an allotment garden. Dorian learns that the countdown is counting down to a show in which, among other things, Stella is said to be a "showgirl". He also learns, albeit somewhat puzzled, that Bornheim is planning to set fire to the show venue or to let it explode. Dorian suspects that Bornheim invited all of his enemies there in order to destroy them all at once. In order to save Stella, he plans to prevent this explosion.

When Dorian was briefly distracted by the visionary, Melvin suddenly disappeared and even after a long search he can no longer find him. So he waits alone for the countdown and plans his approach. He decides to let go of the visionary, even if that undoubtedly gives the Bornheim people the opportunity to locate him. He can only find the location of the show through layers, i.e. through these overlays that can only be seen with the visionary. With a bad conscience he searches Melvin's backpack and finds a taser and a pistol in it, both of which he takes with him.

In fact, a number of gruesome layers lead him to the show: Giant Dragons, A Snake, Melvin Carrying His Head Under His Arm, and so on. In the end he finds two villas, both of which look very similar to Bornheim's. He decides to come back on the day of the show.

A golden zero, visibly hovering over one of the villas through the visionary, assures him that this is the right place. He waits until evening and can see some black limousines pull up. In the evening he climbs over the fence and, by a happy coincidence, slips through an open delivery entrance. A series of terrible layers, like dozens of maggots in front of a door, show him the way. Finally he ends up in an office that looks very similar to Bornheim's. In fact, Bornheim comes out from behind a wall shortly afterwards, but instead of holding him or, as previously announced by some layers, getting him out of the way, he is completely surprised by Dorian's appearance. He offers to come back to the villa. Dorian only upsets this hypocritical manner, and he picks up Melvin's pistol and demands that Stella be brought here immediately. Bornheim complies with this request, but a layer makes Bornheim's phone look like a remote control. When Bornheim picks up this cell phone - actually to ask Stella to come - Dorian thinks he is reaching for a remote control that can trigger the explosion and in a short-circuit reaction he shoots Bornheim.

Shortly afterwards, Nicolas Korte, the man who brought him into the villa, and Emil, the homeless man who was supposed to be dead, come into the room and are visibly satisfied: Dorian did exactly what they wanted. Bornheim invented a product with the visionary that could make him one of the richest and most powerful people in the world; but instead of enriching himself with technology, he used it to improve the world, for example to force charitable acts by force. As Bornheim's successor, Nikolas wanted to accelerate Bornheim's death and also wanted to use Dorian as a kind of demonstration of the visionary's abilities, as he could poach some of Bornheim's customers for his own interests. So he designed layers that portrayed Bornheim as terrible people. These were designed by Nicolas, but were only visible to Dorian. All along, Bornheim had only tried to bring Dorian back to the villa and to give him a good future. Melvin is also an accomplice of Nicolas and was not caught, but simply cut off by Dorian.

Completely shocked, Dorian flees the house and runs to the neighboring villa, where the show (a harmless performance by the visionary) takes place. He finds a doctor to whom he once delivered a visionary and leads him to Bornheim. He later learns that he survived the shot.

He tells the whole story to the police and later in court, but is still put in custody. He stays in prison for a week before Bornheim pays bail and takes Bertold with him to the villa. During various conversations with Bornheim, Dorian tells his story and Bornheim is visibly shocked by Nicolas' actions. He also meets Stella again and they decide to start a new life together.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Layers - The Truth is Far-Sighted. Loewe-Verlag, accessed on July 22, 2020 .