A Division of Souls - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe

by Jon Chaisson

  *

  In his humble day job, Matthew Davison was a young and brilliant communications tech programmer for KJS Corporation, and part of the team that had created the now-ubiquitous vidmat technology. He was highly sought after for his stellar commtech skills and he had high-level contacts both in business and government, all of whom admired his work. He was intelligent and empathetic, ready to lend a hand to client and coworker alike. He was dedicated and driven. Many considered him a mirror-image of his father, the late, revered Provincial Senator Gregory Davison.

  Off the clock however, he was the most feared digital anarchist in the Sprawl.

  He was part of a movement of political-minded anarchy jackers and whistleblowers whose main goal was to tear apart the inner workings of the overly capitalistic Bridgetown corporations with the sole purpose of keeping the playing field even for all involved — including the consumer. His forte was the leakage of sensitive information, specifically the exposure of undocumented dealings and noncompliance. If they ignored Vigil’s attacks, Matthew and his team would pile it on all the more — they were relentless. The corporation would have no other choice but to realign. Matthew’s attacks were brilliant and bloodless. Never enough to cause mass economic damage…but just enough to keep analysts on their toes.

  The number of insiders and accomplices he had contact with was unbelievably large. Matthew was the leader of Vigil, and he was Poe’s most reliable street source. The only reason Poe had never turned him in was that he was more valuable to everyone behind the scenes than he was behind bars. And besides, Matthew had technically never broken an existing law.

  Vigil based their mainland operations in a nondescript former hotel remodeled into condominiums and offices. The four-story building, a few blocks from Branden Hill Park, was in good structural condition though the outside needed a lot of work…there were chips in the faded brick and the façade was in bad need of a fresh coat of paint. Many of the windows were grimy and covered by disheveled blinds. The lobby was poorly lit and held a strange pungent odor that no one could ever quite place. Still, the place looked livable and not entirely derelict. This was exactly how Vigil wanted it — unassuming and maybe even a bit off-putting, but not to the point of decrepitude. They also controlled the security systems of all the surrounding buildings and made no attempt at hiding those facts. Their territory could not be infiltrated without the group knowing.

  The foyer elevator appeared moments after their arrival, its scratched and dented doors opening with a low scrape against its runners, and they entered. The car gave with a loud and unsettling jolt as it started its ascension. Though they were only going up three floors, it took much longer than it should have, and when the doors opened, it deposited them in a dimly lit and musty hallway. No numbers or nameplates graced any of the doors. Only one door, far down the end, stood slightly ajar with light spilling out of it, the one inviting place in the entire building.

  Matthew stood in the doorway of that farthest apartment, waiting with arms crossed and staring lazily at the floor. There was no greeting, nor was there animosity. He just stood there with a strange calmness, as if he’d had a lifetime’s practice at it. Caren always felt a little uncomfortable around the kid, as she could not read any emotion from him, not even indifference. He rarely showed any when he was on Vigil time, and when he did it was usually a slow-burning impatience.

  “Must say I thought you'd come earlier,” he said, looking up. His voice was naturally hoarse, and it echoed against the empty walls around them. It sounded like he hadn't slept over the past few days. He certainly looked it. Loose clothes smelling of sweat hung off his shoulders and hips in typical jacker anti-fashion, dirty brown hair unkempt and capped by a dark blue bandanna. His face, however, betrayed his image; a youthful and freshly-shaven face with soft blue eyes behind thin-framed glasses.

  Poe cleared his throat, holding back his own moodiness. “Yeah, well...we got caught up.”

  Matthew smirked. “Of course.” Not a big flash of emotion, just tired amusement. He stepped back into the apartment and swung the door wide, casually waving them in.

  Vigil’s center of operations was disturbingly mundane. It looked no different than any other college student’s apartment in Branden Hill, with the mismatched secondhand furniture and the excessive wall coverings of vidmats and posters. Entering further into this apartment, though, one started noticing hints of something more high-tech. Cables and wires filled the nooks of nearly every doorframe and baseboard. There were at least two computers of varying sizes in every room, all of them running one thing or another. In the dining room on the left, a small laptop had been setup at an unfurnished plywood desk near the windows, and it looked to be playing its own game of solitaire. In the kitchen, a table model was folded away and leaning against an antique breadbox. The screen was black, but its cooling fan whizzed quietly. A third lay on the futon in a side bedroom, softly playing ambient dance music. Smaller, compact vidmats, phones and players lay everywhere. Caren took it all in, impressed by their ability to make the overabundance of techware seem normal. It was hard to imagine such a calm place housing the most feared jackers in Bridgetown. Completely wired and utterly domestic.

  A number of wires ran down the length of the high ceiling in the main hallway and met up in a large rear study which housed the main console — a massive workstation of five computers, twice as many screens, several dangling neural hookups, and countless other accessories and pieces of hardware. Most of the equipment had been secured to a steel frame arcing around its user like a cage, similar to an infotech engineer’s workstation. Four monitors were constantly scrolling data that could be anything from DuaLife's latest genetics research to the financial earnings of NullCom, to the communications of the Bridgetown Police, Fire, and ARU departments. Three processors in the corner of the room encrypted all the information and fed it to the servers out at Vigil’s other base on Sachers Island, south of the city proper.

  Matthew silently led them into the room and sat himself down within the cage. He glanced at a few of the monitors, tapped something on a few keyboards, and then turned to another. At this second computer he hammered away at the keyboard for a full three minutes, without word. Caren opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it. Muscles aching, she found an empty chair and sat down to wait. She thought of Denni; by now she was heading off to school.

  Stay safe, Denni, she thought. I know you're smart. Just stay safe.

  “So...” Matthew said, still tapping away. “An awakening ritual. What do you have?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” Poe said. “Nothing you don’t already have, I’m sure. Short version…shockwave hits the city, bleedover appears above the Mirades Tower, and some witnesses feel the energy reading they recognize. That’s pretty much it. We have a few people doing field work right now.”

  Matthew nodded silently, and finished off what he was typing. “Okay,” he said, finally turning in his seat. “What do you need?”

  Poe laughed nervously. “Everything.”

  The corner of Matthew’s mouth lifted in a half-grin. “Starters?”

  “Names. Anyone from the Tower linked to adepts of the Mendaihu and the Shenaihu, however distant.”

  He let out a low whistle. “Tall order, Alec,” he shook his head. “Might take a while.”

  “Sooner the better, kid,” he said. “You know the playing fields better than I do.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “I did a bit of work already. Dug up some of the more obvious choices for you to look in on. I went for the easiest ones first.”

  Poe nodded. “Hard copy?”

  “Not yet,” he hedged.

  Poe sighed and shook his head. “Don’t push it, Matt. We’ve been up too long and you know I don’t have anything in return that you don’t already have.”

  “You have a theory. Both of you do.”

  Caren heard
Poe’s knuckles pop. “Bless it…I’m not in the fucking mood, kid.”

  “I just want to know what it is, is all. I can’t give out private information to just anyone, you know.” The kid cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head, temporarily looking away. “Let me put it this way. The two of you are some of the very few that I can trust in this town, don’t get me wrong. I know I can give you whatever you need and know that you’ll share it only with the necessary people, and no one else. But I need to know why you need this, before I can give it to you.”

  Poe gave him a deathly stare. “The One of All Sacred, Matthew. It’s that time again. No one sets off an awakening ritual that wide, not even the revivals at the ‘Drome. Something’s up and we’re looking at something potentially catastrophic here.”

  Matthew studied him for a few moments. He hadn’t flinched or grimaced; he merely nodded slightly and let it sink in. “I’m inclined to agree,” he finally responded. “I can’t promise everything, but I might be able to get someone to help. If that’s okay with you.”

  “Someone we can trust?” Caren asked. “No leaks?”

  “I completely trust her,” he said with conviction. “She’ll be able to do the tracking work if you end up being right.” He paused, looking away and tapping his knee. “Anything else?”

  Poe frowned, thinking before answering. “Yeah. We need as much information on Shenaihu uprisings in the local area over the last two Sacred Cycles. What caused them, how they were settled.”

  “The last fifty years?” Caren said, looking at him in surprise. “A bit far back, don't you think?”

  He shook his head. “The farther back we go, the better. I’m looking at cycles, patterns, events. The enlightened are notoriously patient when it comes to uprisings. They can wait years between one attack and another. Makes no difference to them, they've been around as long as the Meraladians have been in the Universes.”

  Caren had a sudden idea, despite her exhaustion. “See if you can create any cyclic calendars as well,” she said. “We can compare them with other events and people, what was going on at the time. Put it into perspective of what went on before, compare it to what’s going on now.”

  Matthew thought about it for a few moments. “Shouldn't be too much of a problem…I’ll see if I can get someone at the Data Research Library to lend me a hand. Give me a few days on it and I'll call you.”

  Poe relaxed, a soft, tired smile playing across his lips. “Much appreciated.”

  Matthew sat up and turned back to the monitors. “In the meantime...” he trailed off. He tapped at the keyboard again, much quicker this time, then abruptly stopped, hitting the last keystroke with a proud staccato finality. A few seconds later, he flipped open a drive, extracting a thin crystal rod. He placed the rod in a small plastic case and handed it over to him. “Your hard copy,” he said. “This is what I got this morning. Just a few names and links. I admit there isn't much, but I haven't read through all of it myself yet.”

  Poe took the data crystal and shoved it in his inside jacket pocket. “By the way…do you suspect the Shenaihu as the impetus behind the Mendaihu’s ritual?”

  He merely shrugged. “Just a guess, really. Nothing this intense happens in B-town without the either one involved somehow, even if the Mendaihu were behind it. Could just be a rogue adept, but I doubt it.”

  “Why is that?” Caren asked.

  Matthew's face brightened briefly. “I learned from my dad how to read politics. From politics I learned how to read people. Again, I’m no sociologist, but I know the seeds of an uprising when I see one.” He paused, glancing at his screen one last time, his expression fading as quickly as it had appeared. “And this is a spiritual one, no doubt.”

  Caren nodded…she hated the idea, but she understood. Both of them had avoided saying anything or admitting it to themselves, but Matthew was right. This was more than just a ritual or an uprising…it was an awakening, and one that would continue to affect Bridgetown — and eventually, possibly, the world — if it were not controlled.

  Matthew faced them again. “Go talk to Reverend Miriam if you need a spiritual explanation,” he said. “He’s over at Saint Patrick’s up near your neighborhood, Poe. He should be able to explain it better than I could.”