Absolute Knowledge Box Set (Books 1-3)

by Drew Cordell

  “I trust you found your father’s case,” he said.

  “Yes,” I answered carefully.

  “I suppose there is a high chance you weren’t able to read the letter with the day you’ve had today.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I took caution in my answer. “I haven’t had time to read it yet. I was going to when I got back to my flat.”

  “Very well, we’ll speak soon. We can find some time to talk once you’ve read it. I can provide you with some answers.”

  “Thank you,” I replied. The fear that this man was dangerous continued to creep into my mind, but I had to have answers. Whoever he was, this man could offer me information about my father that I couldn’t ignore. There was a jolt of realization as I thought about his words. How had he known about my day?

  “Take your leave. It’s 8:58 PM,” he said.

  I rounded the corner walking, then ran to my flat when I got past the alleyway. After unlocking the door, I rushed inside and saw the door light turn red a few seconds later. I just made curfew without being trapped outside for the night. With an emotion-filled heart and mind, I sat down to open the letter that had been in my jacket all day. The white color of the paper had faded to a dull brown with time, but the seal remained intact. I carefully broke the envelope open and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper.

  Jake,

  This will be hard to read, and it’s even more difficult for me to write. When you’re done reading this, you need to destroy the letter. If you are reading this, I am dead and you have inevitably found your way to The Champions of Liberty. First and foremost, you can trust Edgar Barton. He is a very close friend and has promised me he would look after you if I’ve passed. If you took after your mother and me, then you’ve undoubtedly learned a little bit about what your mind is capable of.

  Life in the Guild is dangerous and it’s probably what got me killed. You need to know what you learn with your time in the Guild is truth and most of what you’ve discovered on the surface are lies. You become a danger to yourself and those around you as you learn more about the truth of things, so you need to do your best to avoid relationships with those on the surface as they only lead to pain. The equipment I’ve left you in the Guild should be able to help you get a head start in whatever path you choose, though I suspect you’ll be selected as an Unbound candidate in a short amount of time as others learn what you can do.

  I lied to you when I said you had to get out of the Slums. The simple fact remains: if you’re born in the Slums, you don’t leave the Slums. I wanted you to learn as much as possible to prepare you for the life you had ahead. I’m sorry I wasn’t truthful with you. We don’t even know if anyone is living on the Upper level. Son, I want you to know I love you and I’m proud of you, of everything you will become and everything you will do. Serve the Champions well, and they will take care of you. You must continue to fight for liberty and freedom of the people. Fight to end the injustice so wrongly inflicted on all of humanity. Stay strong and know you can trust the Guild. I anxiously await the day we meet again.

  With immense love and regret,

  Your father, Wesley Ashton

  I sobbed, tears cascading down my face, pooling on the sheet of paper below.

  17 TRUTHS, LIES, AND SOMETHING IN BETWEEN

  ∆∆∆

  It wasn’t a good night. I struggled to fall asleep, and what little sleep I did get was plagued with nightmares. My mind decided it wasn’t ready to wind down from the previous day. How could it? Someone with the job I was training for had been killed in a death that must have been horrendous. Worse yet, I had frozen up in shock and endangered both my life and Caeldra’s. I reread my father’s letter until I had the words etched in my memory. His words were a painful relic that gave me cause to continue, not just give up and succumb to the fact I had ruined my normal life.

  Who was the huge man or machine in the metal mask with the gray coat? How did he know who I was or what happened to me during my first day as a Runner? I became anxious about Mary. If he knew so much about me, maybe she was in danger too. I had to push the thought out of my head as I realized I would probably be dead if that’s what he wanted. Besides, he had only been helping me recover my father’s unknown past. More than anything else, I needed the truth about my dad’s life. He wasn’t just a Thinker since his letter indicated he had relations with the Guild with which I was now aligned.

  I decided to attempt to layer my mind and push all the negative and emotionally tolling thoughts behind a barrier. I was surprised I was successful at pushing it away after several deep breaths. I managed to fall asleep, but nightmares crept into my subconscious as I slept.

  I awoke in the morning and groaned as I felt how stiff my whole body was. I couldn’t remember the last time I ran more than a couple of blocks. I cursed as I answered the question by recalling my valiant attempt to stop the thief who had stolen Mary’s bag. Yesterday had been physically demanding, and I had pushed my body to its limit. I tried stretching my sore arms and legs which complained as I attempted to get out of bed. Everything hurt to move, though I suspected it wasn’t anything to worry about.

  I got up and started to boil some water for a cup of tea. I ate some of the leftover bread from the previous night, as well as some of the canned fruit. I sat and sipped my tea with an absent mind before hopping into the shower and getting dressed for the day. At seven AM I placed my bandana on my face, loaded up my street backpack, and walked over to Edgar’s flat. I was glad I had brought my warm coat. It was near thirty degrees, and the air was damp. Edgar exited his flat when he saw me walking over.

  “Good morning, Jake,” he said as he adjusted his hat on his head. He was wearing a warm looking gray scarf and what looked to be a red cotton jacket.

  “Good morning, Edgar,” I replied as pleasantly as I could manage.

  “I imagine Caeldra will train you in archival methods today rather than running. She’s probably sore as hell.” A cold blast of wind gusted over us, and Edgar pulled his scarf tighter to block the frosty air.

  While it didn’t rain down in the Slums, the excess moisture caused surfaces to freeze over in a thin layer of frost which made roads and sidewalks dangerous. If it got horrendous, Government trucks would spread a specialized salt on the sidewalks and roads to help melt the ice. In the cold, the steam spewing from the vents on the ground lingered in the air and congregated in thick grayish yellow clouds above the street. Fall was fading and giving way to winter, a particularly hard time for the Slums. Heating was expensive, and a lot of residents had the choice of running the heaters in their flats or paying rent.

  Edgar and I walked up onto the sidewalk as a large Government truck drove down the street. It wasn’t like the regular vehicles; it seemed to be covered in heavy armor and was driven by a human rather than the standard delivery robots that stocked the stores.

  “What do you think that was about?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know; they’re getting antsy about something. We’re monitoring the situation,” he replied in a low voice.

  We were silent the rest of the way down to the Guild Hall. I think he must have had some sort of idea I knew something, but he didn’t want to bring it up. Maybe he was just giving me space so I could take the information and decide what to do with it. At the very least, he knew I had received a crate full of old gear from a mysterious benefactor. Whether Edgar knew of my unknown accomplice was beyond me.

  Caeldra was waiting over at the pub and chatting with the bartender when we entered. From what I saw she seemed to be feeling a lot better.

  “I’ll leave you and Caeldra to talk. I’ve got some Council business to take care of,” Edgar said to me as he abruptly walked away.

  Caeldra spotted me and flashed me a warm smile. I walked over to her.

  “Ah, my young prodigy returns,” she said as she swiveled her barstool around so she could face me. She was wearing a green tank top and khaki pants. Though her shirt covered it, I could se
e the outline of thick bandages underneath.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked as I sat next to her.

  “How do you think I’m feeling?”

  “Sorry,” I responded awkwardly.

  “I’m messing with you, Jake. You saved my life, and that’s not something I’ll forget anytime soon.” She turned to the bartender. “Two beers please, Jeff.”

  “I’m sorry I froze up yesterday. I didn’t mean to put us in more danger, I …”

  “Jake, stop. If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I shouldn’t have brought you with me since you haven’t had any training. I’m also sorry for bashing you against a wall.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It helped me cope with the shock,” I said with a halfhearted grin.

  The bartender pulled two glass mugs from below the dark wooden counter and began filling them at the tap.

  “So, did you have a chance to talk with Edgar about your father?” she asked as we waited for the drinks.

  “No. This was the letter that was in the crate,” I said as I handed her the folded letter from my pocket. “The huge man in gray visited me again last night; he told me he would be there when I was ready for answers.” She took a couple minutes to read it over then looked up at me.

  “It looks like Edgar has some explaining to do. Again, you’ve got to go about this the right way, as there are truths, lies, and something in between. From everything I’ve heard from Edgar, he seems to really like you. This letter would indicate he has only been protecting you. Why he hasn’t made that known by now, I’m not sure.”

  Jeff brought over our beers and laid them on the table. Caeldra sipped deeply and let out a relaxed sigh.

  “What reason could he possibly have to lie to me now, though? I’ve already found my way into the Guild. Why all the secrecy?”

  “Again, I’m not sure and that’s something you’ll need to discuss with him yourself,” she said as she wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “Have a couple drinks with me. We’ll go do some archival work, and I’ll show you around the library. Then we can go see if we can get you an appointment with Edgar—or you can wait to talk with him on the way back.” She took her arm off me and drank another swallow of beer. “Regardless, you need to get this resolved, so it’s not tearing you up inside.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, Caeldra,” I replied as I took a drink. “Will we be working with Master Aarlen today?”

  “Most likely not. I need to train you on the basics of archiving as well as give you some homework to work on.”

  “Wait. So I’m allowed to take stuff up to the Slums?”

  “Yes and no. We’ll get to that later,” she replied.

  We finished two mugs of beer each and decided to head to the library so I could begin my archival training. Caeldra paid for the drinks and gave me a small plastic bag full of fifty-credit chips.

  “One unit from yesterday’s earnings after the portion for your debt was subtracted,” she said with a smile.

  It was unbelievable how much I had earned; it was the equivalent of five days’ work as a Thinker. “Thanks, Caeldra.”

  She led me through the hall into the massive library where the tidy bookshelves towered alongside one another. She walked over to the desk where a woman in her forties was working behind a computer. Caeldra grabbed a steel cart from behind the desk and wheeled it to me.

  “Hi, Tracy. I’m going to be training Jake on adding new stock and other archival duties,” Caeldra said to the woman.

  “Oh, how lovely. It will be nice to have another helper in the library.”

  Caeldra led me to the back of the library where large crates had been stacked. Some of the crates were wood, other were steel, and all of them looked timeworn.

  “Now, we are going to be evaluating everything we have in these crates to see what we want. Most of the scavengers and merchants we buy these from either knowingly smuggle these illegal books or are too stupid to realize what they’re hauling and how much it’s worth,” she said as she tossed me a small data tablet. “If you scan the book, that tablet will cross-reference the results with our library. It will let you know if we’re going to keep it or not, and if it needs to be electronically scanned. If we don’t have it in the electronic archives yet, you’ll need to bring it to Tracy.”

  “Got it. How do we get these crates open?” I asked.

  “The metal ones should have a latch. You’ll need to pry open the wooden ones.” She reached into the bottom of the cart she had pushed and tossed me a heavy iron crowbar. She then flipped open her odd-looking knife. “Oh and try not to mess up the wood. We’ll recycle it and that stuff is worth more than you would imagine.”

  “Why do they ship it in the wooden boxes then?”

  “If they don’t open the boxes, then they can claim they aren’t doing anything illegal if they’re caught, even though a simple scanner can evaluate the contents of a box like that. Sure we pay a little more for the wood, but it’s much cheaper than typical market rates.”

  We worked for a few hours, and I was relieved Caeldra wasn’t mad at me when I started to read books that piqued my interest. I was learning all sorts of new words and ideas: states, unalienable rights, freedom of speech. The newfound concepts raced through my head, and I was more excited to learn than I had ever been in my entire life.

  Caeldra and I worked until five PM before we decided to call it a day so I’d have time to talk with Edgar before we left. I declined her offer to go with me and told her to get some rest. After saying goodbye, I made my way to Edgar’s office where I saw him talking on a handheld radio through the open door. When he saw me, he waved me in and motioned for me to close the door and sit at the chair across from his desk.

  Like his house, Edgar kept the room tidy. Few things other than a space rocket toy, a crystal of some sort, and an ancient looking pistol that was made of a polished brown wood sat on the surface of his desk. Edgar’s wall held various paintings of strange places and pictures of a part of New York I had never seen.

  “Yes, please keep an eye out and let me know if anything changes. Yes, thank you,” Edgar said over the radio as he put it down on his desk and turned his attention to me. He folded his fingers together and leaned forward, taking in a deep breath and looking me in the eyes.

  “Jake … I don’t really know how to say this so I’m just going to tell you. The man you’ve been seeing up in the Slums, the one that gave you the requisition scrip. He’s … he is more or less your father.”

  18 LUMINESCENCE

  ∆∆∆

  It felt like the world was spinning around me and I felt a crushing weight in my chest. How could that person or thing be my father? I had watched him die in a hospital. Besides, my dad was nowhere close to that size. How did any of this make sense? How did Edgar know him?

  “H … How?” I managed.

  “It’s not going to be easy to understand, and I know you’re going to need time to process this. First off, your father did die in the hospital. I did know your dad, and I lied to you to protect you. When I learned his presence was still with us, I decided to try to put as much distance between him and us as possible.” Edgar raised a hand and wiped his face. “That machine has all of your father’s thoughts, all of his memories up until a month before your father’s death. It thinks like your father and acts like your father, but the important thing to know is it’s not actually him. It is the closest representation to your dad as a machine can get. However, your father coded it to seek you out and tell you things, things it declines to share with me. I don’t think it’s a danger to you or anyone else; I’m just not sure what kind of information it wants to share,” he paused. “I’m not sure if that information should be known by anyone.”

  “What are you talking about?” I yelled as I felt myself losing control. “If my father wanted to tell me something, why the hell wouldn’t I want to hear it?”

  “There are boundaries we have an ethical duty not to cross, boundaries set by powers beyon
d our control. You haven’t learned about religion yet, but regardless of that fact, your father did something that shouldn’t have been done. He thought he could transfer his soul to a machine, so when he left the physical world, he would continue to live through a machine perpetually.” Edgar paused and took a deep breath. “That machine thinks it is your father, and that’s what scares me.”

  “It can’t actually be him, though. Right?” I asked as I fought to piece things together and understand. So many questions rushed through my aching mind.

  “I don’t think so. Not even modern science has been able to quantify the soul. It’s intangible. But your father believed he had it figured out. We know transferring thoughts out of the brain is a very real thing, we just didn’t know they could also be transferred in. He claimed the technology would work on humans; that an entire life’s recollection of one individual could be absorbed by another mind without the need for implants.”

  “I thought he was just a Thinker. He never talked or worked on any of this stuff at home,” I said.

  “He was working on a secret project and decided to seek our help when he figured it out. He realized this was stuff he didn’t want to fall into the hands of the Government. Unfortunately, that’s also what got him and your mother killed.”

  “What else do you know?” I wasn’t mad at him. I wasn’t sure how I felt—other than confused and conflicted. I had so much to process.