The Central Series
The Academy
The Anathema
The Far Shores
The Outer Dark (TBA)
The Church of Sleep (TBA)
Other Books by the Same Author
The Night Market
Unknown Kadath Estates, Volume One:
Paranoid Magical Thinking
For John and Kelly Perry, on the birth of their daughter, Johannah.
Copyright © 2014 by Zachary Rawlins
Cover photographs copyright © Nejron Photo and Dudarev Mikhael
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Published by ROUS Industries.
Oakland, California
[email protected]
978-0-9837501-4-7
Cover design by ROUS Industries
First Edition
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
Twenty-One.
Twenty-Two.
Twenty-Three.
Epilogue.
Prologue
“I will not ask if you are certain that you wish to go through with this.”
“Thank you.”
“I will, however, offer this warning – you will regret this decision. Assuming that you live long enough.”
Michael’s easy grin was belied by the tension in his posture, lying on the aluminum examination table in Vladimir’s cluttered laboratory, surrounded by arcane machinery and alarming surgical equipment. In truth, he was trying very hard not to think about Mary Shelley, mad doctors, and doomed monsters.
“Thank you for your vote of confidence, Gaul.”
The Director blinked uncertainly. He was never very good with sarcasm.
“Confidence? Far from it. Under normal circumstances, I would have rejected your request out of hand.”
“But these circumstances,” Michael said, glancing significantly about him, “are far from normal, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” Gaul allowed curtly, his eyes a watery pink behind his glasses. “That much we agree on.”
“Alice is desperately short of Auditors,” Michael reminded him. “We have no idea what John Parson and the Anathema intended with their raid on Central, or what he did with the nanites he took, but it is safe to assume we won’t like it. Not to mention that Alistair is still out there…”
Michael was startled by the clatter as Gaul set an ominous surgical instrument down on a nearby metal tray with a bit too much force.
“That is not a name I want to hear.” Gaul’s words were unexpectedly bitter, confirming Michael’s suspicion that the Director continued to blame himself for his former Chief Auditor’s defection. “Excepting, of course, when the Auditors close the file on him.”
“Another reason that I need to do this,” Michael reminded him gently. “You and I both know that Alice can’t take them all on by herself. Three Auditors is far from enough to face the Anathema…”
Gaul paused in the act of aligning various syringes on the table beside him.
“I have plans for that. The Auditors will have a number of new recruits shortly. All that remains is to convince the Committee-at-Large. I have already taken steps to assure that they will comply.”
Michael put one arm gently on Gaul’s shoulder, forcing him to pay attention.
“You mean to recruit from the students, right? I assumed as much – I think most of Central is making that same assumption. Wait, wait. I’m not disagreeing,” Michael said, waving Gaul off as he opened his mouth to object. “I understand the necessity. But that is yet another reason why I need to do this…”
Gaul shrugged out of his grip.
“I can see that you will not be dissuaded, so I do not intend to try, Michael. I only wished to warn you, to help you avoid my own regrets. If you are truly sure that this is what you want, then I am prepared to continue.”
Michael glanced at the perfectly arranged syringes and felt a surge of raw, cold fear. He smiled again to cover for it.
“Times like this, I sort of wish you hadn’t banned further experiments,” Michael joked, not sure whose tension he wanted to dissipate. “Not that you were wrong. I’d just feel a bit safer if there had been an opportunity to study…”
Michael trailed off when he realized that Vladimir was laughing at him from the other side of the room, where he hobbled from console to console on his antique cane, glaring at the data on the monitors as if it were a personal affront to him.
“The embargo on further experimentation with nanotech implants was not as complete as you might believe,” Vladimir said with a chuckle that became a cough. “We have made a great deal of progress since the unfortunate incidents of decades past…”
Michael would have sat straight up, but he didn’t want to tear the IV from his arm. Instead, he tried vainly to catch Gaul’s suddenly elusive gaze.
“What do you mean?” Michael demanded, stunned. “You kept experimenting on people, Gaul? But I thought you decided…”
Gaul nodded, clearly distracted.
“Yes, yes. Too many deaths, too dangerous. This is all true. We have not placed an implant in a human being since the disaster with Mitsuru Aoki. All the work carried out here has been indirect research and data modeling. Until today.”
“Simulated procedures and animal experimentation can only take you so far,” Vladimir said gleefully, throwing switches on a large, humming piece of machinery. “Personally, I’m eager to see the theoretical advances we have made in the lab applied to a human subject. My only regret is that I must use a good friend as a guinea pig.”
“I don’t mind as long as you don’t kill me,” Michael said, trying to sound as if he were joking. “What has changed since you took the plunge, Gaul?”
“Upgrades,” Gaul said dispassionately, purging one of the syringes of air bubbles. “I believe that I have improved the safety of the procedure. Assuming you survive, I fully expect that you will be impressed with the capabilities of the implant, as its capabilities have been designed and personalized to enhance your abilities.”
Vladimir cackled as he limped over to the examination table.
“Survival is a bold assumption.”
Gaul shook his head, then finally met Michael’s eyes.
“If you are certain…”
“You have terrible bedside manner,” Michael said softly, forcing his eyes shut. “Both of you. Let’s do this.”
Gaul nodded gravely, put a hand briefly on Michael’s shoulder, and for a moment, looked as if he were going to speak. Instead he merely cleared his throat and took one of the syringes from the table nearby, then readied the IV. He waited until Michael gave him a shallow nod and closed his eyes before he inserted the needle into the shunt and pressed down on the plunger. The silence during their long wait was broken only by the repetitive chiming of
the heart monitor. Michael’s breathing gradually settled from shallow and nervous to the mechanical respiration of narcotic sleep.
Vladimir leaned over and placed a mask over Michael’s face, oxygen hissing through rubber tubes, then fussed over the readings on a number of different instruments. Gaul held perfectly still until the prematurely old man grunted with satisfaction.
“It is well,” Vladimir allowed. “Michael is under and stable. Introduce the nanites.”
Gaul didn’t believe in God. His precognitive abilities had soured him on metaphysical possibilities. But before he began the series of injections, he caught himself pleading mutely to nothing; concerned for the safety of his friend, fearful of a repeat of previous errors. In an obscure way, he was annoyed with himself for failing to trust the validity of his own calculations.
Vladimir waited until Gaul had completed all five injections. The process took less than fifteen minutes. The monitors continued to beep and buzz with a comforting regularity.
“There is no immediate reaction,” Vladimir said quietly. “We can only wait. The nanites will do what they will.”
Gaul nodded and waited. He knew, of course, what was coming next.
“This gives us time to discuss the other subject,” Vladimir said, his voice already warming to their continuous argument. “Your pet abomination.”
“Vlad…”
“You realize that the contents of this lab alone would have you declared Anathema, were they ever made public? That even friends would turn on you if they knew what you were doing here?”
Gaul shrugged. There was very little, after all, that could surprise him.
“Certainly.”
“Yet you wish to continue?”
“Of course.”
“And why? Out of perversity? Curiosity? Or merely to have more tools at your disposal, Director?”
Gaul kept his tone patient, even if he didn’t feel much patience himself. He was tired of arguing with people who couldn’t see the terrible risks that lay ahead for Central in so many of the potential futures. It was like explaining color to a man born blind.
“The Anathema are an existential threat to the Academy – to all of Central. Their last attack violated the sanctity of Central, and inflicted casualties that will take years to replace. Were it not for Rebecca Levy and Alexander Warner, there is every likelihood that the attack would have been the end of Central. I cannot allow that to happen again,” Gaul said firmly, looking straight into Vladimir’s watery eyes, “and I have no plans to do so. We have only one option if we wish to survive, Vladimir – we have to take the fight to the Outer Dark.”
“The graveyard is full enough as it is,” Vladimir groused. “Are you so eager to bury the rest of us?”
“I am not.” Gaul said it as gently as possible. There was no way for Vladimir to know how often he confronted that reality in his calculations. Even now, he could provide the probability of that very event with an exactitude that depressed him. “I need three things, Vladimir. Three things and I can kill John Parson and the Anathema, down to the very last one. I need my Auditors at fighting strength – or better, if possible – and Alice Gallow will soon control the most fearsome incarnation of the Auditors in a decade. I need a way to get at our enemies, a way to strike at the Outer Dark, and you know as well as I do that the Far Shores is only months away from providing us with that. The final requirement – perhaps the most important – I must be able to understand the Outer Dark. I need to know the Anathema; numbers, strengths, and weaknesses. I need access to their intelligence – and the capability to provide them with faulty counterintelligence. I need someone on the inside, Vlad. I need Yaga.”
Vladimir chuckled and patted the sealed cylinder he sat beside, large enough for a human being, humming with an unpleasantly dissonant vibration. The light that slid out of the cracks in the machine was lurid and troubling, the color amorphous and indescribable.
“You are still calling her that? That is compounding one bad idea with another.”
“She calls herself that. You gave her that Russian Folklore book.”
Vladimir snorted in contempt.
“And you allowed Alice Gallow to torture her until she turned against her own kind. Don’t moralize to me, Gaul. The high ground is mine, I’m afraid.”
Gaul didn’t argue. If Vlad wanted to see things that way, then he would. There was no fighting Vladimir, not on anything.
“I asked her, you know,” Vladimir admitted, sounding just a little guilty. “Before I put her under. If she wanted to do this. I told her that she could stay in my laboratory, that I would keep her safe as long as I was alive. I told her that we would find other options.”
“Compassion to one incapable of it. You’ll be declared a saint yet, Vlad. What did she say?”
Gaul was genuinely curious despite himself.
“She wants out, whatever the cost, and who wouldn’t?” Vladimir snorted, turning to examine one of his instruments. “Sometimes I envy her the option of leaving this place. What we do here, Gaul, with or without permission...”
Gaul sighed, feeling the beginning of one of his headaches coming on.
“I know. Believe me, Vlad, I know.”
***
“Can’t sleep?”
Alex was so startled he almost lost his footing on the slanted dormitory roof. Technically anyone with an Academy keycard could come out and enjoy the view, one floor above his room, assuming they felt like balancing on rounded ceramic roofing tiles, but Alex had never had company on any of his previous nocturnal visits. Of course, if he was going to find anyone up here at two o’clock in the morning, it would be Katya, assassin for the Black Sun and his forcibly provided bodyguard.
“Are you sure you aren’t some sort of stalker?” Alex asked with a sigh, treading carefully across the roof toward the edge where she sat, almost directly above his window below. “I’m flattered by the attention and all...”
Katya slurped from what sounded like a milkshake with a fat red straw. Wearing a high ponytail, she reminded Alex vaguely of a young samurai from a cartoon, slouched and grinning in baggy shorts and a T-shirt printed with Chinese script.
“Don’t make me throw you off the roof. Anastasia would be very cross if I did that.”
“I suppose it’s just a coincidence that you are sitting on my roof? Even though your housing is on the other side of campus. You’re probably just fond of the view from here, right?”
Katya stirred her shake with the straw, ignoring Alex as he took a seat beside her, his legs dangling over the edge of the building, the quad dimly lit four stories below. He wondered briefly who had the room above his, and if they got tired of Katya walking around on their roof at night. Probably not – the assassin didn’t make a whole lot of noise, even on tile.
There wasn’t much a view to be fond of, that late at night. The Academy sat on the highest of the hills that clustered on the eastern edge of Central, above the blanket of perpetual fog that smothered the rest of Central, so the city below them was invisible. The endless horizon of clouds always reminded Alex of the view from the window of an airplane – though he could not actually remember ever flying anywhere. They could see the dark silhouettes of a few buildings, particularly the multistory bulk of the Administration building, thanks to the occasional street lamp and the rather paltry display of stars overhead. That was about it.
“Nice night,” Alex offered, wishing he had bothered to change out of his flannel pajama bottoms and ratty T-shirt.
“Matter of opinion.”
Alex wondered how often she was up here, but didn’t really want to ask. He had no idea why Katya would choose to spend her time this way – or, more likely, why Anastasia Martynova had assigned one of her most talented assassins to such a random and menial task. Particularly since he was in the heart of the most secure part of Central. Arguably, if Alex wasn’t safe at the Academy, then he wasn’t safe anywhere. Which led to all sorts of unsettling implications.
“You seem grumpy.”
“Yeah? Sorry. I’m bored, and my butt hurts. There really is no comfortable way to sit up here.”
Of course it was uncomfortable – the roofing tile was rounded, sharp-edged, and uneven. The designers had never intended it as functional space, in contrast to many of the other buildings at the Academy, which had flat roofs.
“You mind company?”
“No. Like I said, I’m bored. Amuse me.”
“Easier said than done. I kinda figured I’d be alone up here, so I didn’t prepare any interesting topics for conversation.”
“As if you ever do,” Katya said, using the straw as a makeshift spoon to transport ice cream to her mouth. “You aren’t nearly as charming as you think.”
Alex smiled despite himself. He didn’t really mind Katya giving him shit. Actually, it felt weirdly familiar. Of course, he clamped down on any thoughts of that nature.
Because he kept getting headaches. Bad headaches, accompanied by a maddening sense of something almost remembered – something so close that he almost had a name for it, a shape on the horizon he could almost make out – but they never seemed to leave him anywhere except a dark room with a washcloth over his eyes, wondering why he kept remembering a huge Christmas tree in a hall large enough to make it look appropriate, among dark polished wood and massive antique furnishings. There was no context to the memory, and he couldn’t associate the place or the time with anything he had ever done.
But trying to remember gave him a headache. So Alex tried to avoid the nagging sense of déjà vu, even when it seemed like he heard Katya say certain things a hundred times before.
“Maybe you think that, but I’m actually quite popular.”
“True, but I don’t think it’s because of your engaging personality.”
There was no arguing it. Alex had been the center of a great deal of attention since he came to Central, but the intentions behind it had been unabashedly mercenary. One of the many perils of being an M-Class Operator of a Black Protocol, in addition to creating some sort of empowering catalyst effect that the majority of the cartels in Central seemed to covet. Still, he supposed that being popular for the wrong sort of reasons was still better than being completely despised for entirely rational reasons. He’d been both, and the former was much more interesting than the latter, if also more dangerous.
The Far Shores (The Central Series) Page 1
