by Tony Moyle
Then they’d need someone who was under thirty.
That subgroup of humanity haven’t developed their capabilities with technology over an extended time because the internet was always there. As familiar in everyday of life as the air that flows through lungs. And it’s not just what they had available to them that changed. The way they used it changed, too. Take instruction manuals, for example. Not the online videos you see of some hairy-arsed electrician from Hartlepool showing you the correct method for wiring a plug. I mean the paper instructions. When was the last time anyone saw a millennial reading one of those?
Never.
They didn’t do it that way. They didn’t need to because they learnt in a way that appeared to involve magic, intuition and a heavy dose of self-confidence. At least that’s how it looked if you were someone of Ally Oldfield’s age. They can’t explain how this is possible, and will only gawp at you insultingly if you even mentioned it. They just can, and everyone born before nineteen-ninety needs to get over it. End of. It’s no wonder the rest of society looked at them like aliens. Imagine what it’ll be like when their children grow up.
While the rest of us struggled to remember a simple eight-digit password that we only set last Wednesday, they attacked an online problem with the same ease that a football player attacks an open goal. And all they needed was WI-FI, a smartphone and a power source. Take those away from them and they were about as useful as a plastic saucepan.
Over the last hour, Gabriel’s attention seemed unbreakable. Quite unlike the attitude they’d witnessed over the rest of the day, when the smallest stimulus would distract her into daydreams, now you could set a grenade off and she wouldn’t have flinched. The other two sat quietly drinking cups of tea, having received plenty of scalding from the computer expert when they’d casually enquired what exactly she was doing. This wasn’t their world. They just had to wait and hope that behind all the furious finger-tapping, Gabriel was in fact searching for Mario and not playing Angry Birds.
“Got him!” she said with a little bounce in the air and a fist pump with the invisible man.
“Excellent,” said Antoine. “Well done. How did you do it?”
“Do you really want me to explain it?” replied Gabriel in a horribly disdainful tone that indicated she could but he probably wouldn’t understand.
“Yes, I’m big on learning, even if I am this old.”
“Right,” she sighed. “Well, I started off by accessing the dark web, then I angulated the peer-to-peer networks, datamined a few server directories, thunked and phished for a while to extrapolate some of the Linux interfaces…”
“You’re right,” replied Antoine, struggling to understand even a single word of it. “I don’t really need to know.”
“Thought not.”
“So who is Mario?” asked Ally.
“He’s a genius,” replied Gabriel, “but as I found him that makes me one, too.”
“I’m sure you are, and modest, too. Why is he a genius?”
“You said he was a ghost, right, and I said he was trying not to be found,” reminded Gabriel slowly. “Well, they’re both true. Mario Peruzzi is responsible for the most secretive organisation in the world. Mario is the Oblivion Doctrine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Definitely. Once I’d made the link, and fought through about twenty encrypted firewalls, by the way, I tracked his IP address and they connect the two of them together.”
“IP address…Immediate Postal Address?” said Antoine naïvely.
“Internet Protocol. But in effect it works the same way as your house address for your online presence.”
“Do you know where he is, then?”
“Yes and no.”
“How does that work?” said Ally.
“The IP address doesn’t tell me exactly where he is because you can move around with a phone and your IP address moves with you. I can use it to narrow Mario to one place, though.”
“Where?”
“Marseille.”
“Jesus. Only five million people across a massive city, then. Shall we just pop down there now and start a door-to-door search, if we can avoid the ram-raiders, burning cars and squeeze past the police cordons of course? I can’t think of a more efficient way of catching N1G13, can you, Antoine?”
“I never suggested we did that,” replied Gabriel, looking a little hurt at the accusation after all the hard work she’d put in.
“What do you suggest, then? Something technological no doubt.”
“Duh, of course. I thought you were smart,” replied Gabriel, accentuating every word in a childish manner.
“What a good idea,” said Antoine, immediately making the connection. “Now we know Mario is the Oblivion Doctrine we use his own platform to draw him out.”
“This will be the same man who’s trying to have you killed, is it? I’m not sure I want to tell him where we are, actually,” replied Ally.
There was undoubtedly an element of risk involved in making contact with the Oblivion Doctrine, but there wasn’t another obvious way of getting to him. Gabriel had done all she could, and that was more than anyone had expected. If they wanted to know what Mario knew it seemed the only option.
“We have to,” said Antoine more forcefully than normal. “Don’t you see? All the dots are being connected together and they all point in one direction. The Oblivion Doctrine started all this panic and it looks clear to me why. Mario is doing what Nostradamus never could. Trying to prove how powerful his predecessor was. This is the last step to discovering the answer, Ally. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I just want to go home. I’m actually tired of all of this nonsense. I want my own bed, new clothes and a nice, easy life,” she replied, her normal granite persona showing the first sign of cracking.
“What sort of attitude is that?” said Gabriel unexpectedly. “Nothing is free and easy in this life, you know.”
“Apart from thirty thousand euros,” replied Ally, making reference to Gabriel’s earnings in the last twenty-four hours, which was almost as much as the pittance she earned at the university.
“I’ll give it back if it makes you happy. I want to see the end of this story, too, you know.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Antoine.
“You don’t really want the money back, do you?” she whispered a little too loudly for it to be officially defined as a whisper.
“Of course not,” replied Antoine. “You’ve earned it.”
“Ok. Fine,” huffed Ally. “Let’s make contact, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when we all end up with bullets in our heads. I don’t think Mario is going to roll over and let us tickle his belly, you know.”
“Maybe not, so we’ll need to be prepared for it. Good job we have one of the best preppers in the world with us,” he said, winking at Gabriel.
“Have we!? I didn’t know you were a prepper, Ms. Oldfield,” replied Gabriel gormlessly.
Antoine’s head sank. It was quite an impressive skill to flip-flop between genius and idiot as quickly as Gabriel did. He wondered whether she might have some undiagnosed attention deficit disorder, or whether in fact it was just because he didn’t spend a lot of time with her generation. If neither of these were true then it certainly proved that intelligent people were just as gullible as idiots.
“Let’s get on the line, then, and post something to him,” instructed Antoine, changing the subject to hide her embarrassment.
“What should I post? Smiley-faced emoji, a pair of eyes and a finger pointing out of the screen?”
“I think we’ve evolved enough as a species to demonstrate the use of actual words,” replied Ally.
“What about a prophecy, that will get his attention, don’t you think?” said Antoine.
“I’m not sure there’s an emoji for that,” replied Gabriel.
“No, but we do have one of the world’s leading medieval language experts with us.”
Gabriel didn’t have the fir
st idea who he was referring to and continued to download a new app for unusual emojis onto Ally’s phone without her knowledge.
“What do you say, Dr. Oldfield? Can you do it?”
“Of course I can do it. Pass me that notepad and a pen.”
Ally worked for several minutes crafting a passage that was accurate to the style of Nostradamus’s time, incisive enough for Mario to know what they meant while keeping within her own interpretation of Michel’s rules. When she was happy with it, Gabriel logged onto one of the Oblivion Doctrine’s message boards and started to type it into the phone with the hashtag Mario. She added a nice smiley face for good measure without telling the others. Some habits were hard to break.
Dark secrets will lie hidden under ancient oak
Withered branches on the tree of deceit point to ‘our lady’
And the sunrise will bring a doctrine to its knees
At the hands of angels and demons the hammer will fall.
“I don’t understand it,” said Gabriel, pausing before sending the message just in case Ally had made a mistake.
“Are you a professor of medieval languages?”
“No.”
“There’s your answer, then.”
“I understand most of it,” said Antoine. “But what’s the hammer about?”
“That’s actually the bit I got,” replied Gabriel. “Clearly we’re going in armed, then. Can’t we use something a bit sharper, though, like a flick knife or some nunchucks?”
“No, it’s not a video game. We can’t just respawn if it all goes wrong. The meaning of the name Mario comes from the word hammer, so it’s a metaphor for how we intend to bring him down.”
“Right,” replied Gabriel. “I still think we should have weapons.”
Once Ally had taken Gabriel through the whole quatrain in the simplest language and speed she could muster, finally the send button was pressed and the prophecy was fired off into cyberspace. All they could do now was charge their coffee mugs and wait.
*****
It didn’t take long for their message to get traffic. Dozens of anonymous weirdos had already commented on the meaning of their prophecy. One even asked them on a date. But worryingly Mario’s response to their prophecy didn’t come through the forums on the Oblivion Doctrine website, it came as a text message from an unknown number. Not even Gabriel had any plausible explanation as to how that was possible. They’d posted under a false name and they didn’t need to provide contact details to access the site. Unlike an IP address, a mobile phone was traceable, if you had the equipment to do it.
Something told them that the Oblivion Doctrine did. The text message read simply, ‘I’m sending the chopper. Bring the painting.’
They didn’t know when the chopper would arrive but they did know they had to come up with a plan, and fast. It seemed likely, given his potential use of cameras and other technology, that Mario knew about all three of them, so there was little point splitting up. As Ally suggested possible scenarios that might keep them safe, Antoine continued to show no anxiety whatsoever.
“It will be alright,” he repeated a number of times.
“You don’t know that, do you? They’ve already tried to kill you once. They might try again.”
“Not now that we know who they are.”
“Surely that makes it even more likely.”
“A chopper,” muttered Gabriel. “Is that a baddie with blades on his hands and feet. I think I saw him in a Bond film.”
“No,” said Ally. “Gabriel, let me know when you’re ready to rejoin the real world, the one with adults in it.”
“I think if they wanted us dead they would have already done it,” added Antoine passively.
“Then what do they want from us?”
“They want the painting, but more than that, I think.”
“I don’t get why they want the painting,” said Gabriel. “I mean it’s alright, nothing special. Do you think Mario is an art dealer?”
“No!” replied Ally and Antoine together.
“What else do they want, apart from opportunity to silence us?” replied Ally.
“I suspect if they want the painting and us, they seek the same thing that we do. Answers.”
- Chapter 28 -
Fifteen-Sixty-Three
It was a big day for Jean de Cavigny. It always was when you got to meet a hero. He shuddered at the thought of being face to face with the man who’d inspired him. But what would he say when he got there? What if he said something stupid under the pressure of trying to impress him. After all, he had form. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d reverted to first-class gobbledygook after being star-struck. Last year after meeting the legendary poet, Pierre de Ronsard, he inexplicably broke into a monologue about gussets.
And what if his hero wasn’t the unblemished idol he’d built him up to be? The only impression of the man had come from his writing. The man behind those words might be an incredible bore who couldn’t hold down an intelligent conversation. Perhaps he had a horrible lisp that made him sound like a buffoon. Maybe he’d act like one of those people his father once told him about, locked up in that special place where patients were fed through funnels and wrapped in cushions for their own protection. The pressure was building uncontrollably. Nerves gave way to paranoia, and panic barged up behind them brandishing the next ticket. Jean sucked as much air into his body as possible, ran his free hand through his long, flowing hair and pushed the tavern doors open.
Rolls of papers clutched under one arm, he walked as confidently as his trembling knees allowed. The raucous noise he’d heard while standing out on the dark street was evacuated by utter silence. Eyes bore imaginary holes in the back of his head, dice stopped dead in mid-toss, and variety of criminal activities were speedily removed from view. Taverns were an alternative. A substitute for a place of worship, when God had decided not to listen, an oasis of light relief from the drudgery of everyday life, and a place that acted as an alternative to abiding by laws of the land.
If skulduggery was likely anywhere, it was likely here. Men gambled on the outcome of dice or card games, barmaids picked up a little extra income working in the world’s oldest profession, while thieves and rogues plotted their next score. The proprietor was no less culpable. If it happened within these walls he was certainly aware of it, and mostly likely in on the deal. It was impossible to keep the place afloat without embracing criminality. It was the only way of paying the extortionate level of tax duties the Crown levied on alcohol. At least that was the defence the landlord always gave to justify it. Anyone whose face looked unfamiliar might just be working for the state. Which made most taverns a locals-only sort of place and if you weren’t in the club, as Jean was discovering, the hospitality was less than cordial.
Undeterred, he scanned the occupants at each table. It was a busy evening and most of the tables were taken. Surely he’d recognise his hero, though, wouldn’t he? But what if he didn’t? After all, he’d only ever seen an oil painting of him and artists were almost as corruptible as tavern owners. If you paid them a few extra francs they’d often paint out certain flaws. It wasn’t unheard of for an artist to completely reconstruct someone’s face in the pursuit of a customer’s vanity. Jean recently saw a painting of Michelangelo that had a passing resemblance to Hercules. What if his hero wasn’t tall with a neatly trimmed, white beard and a slightly receding hairline. What if in reality he was a dumpy, disfigured muscle-man who wore an eyepatch, just like the man on his left stabbing a knife into the table and growling in his general direction.
Panic appeared at the front desk, pointing excitedly at its ticket number. Jean metaphorically ripped it up and refused admission.
There on the other side of the crowded bar, at a table by the fire, his hero scribbled furiously into a book. Physically at least he was exactly as he’d been depicted in his painting. To avoid the searing heat of the other patrons’ displeasure at his existence he hastened his pace to join him. Standin
g next to the free chair he waited patiently for the request to sit. None came. Even heroes can be rude.
“Monsieur Nostradamus,” Jean stated quietly, simultaneously attempting to both gain his attention and not disturb him at the same time.
“Finally!” replied Nostradamus joyously, immediately looking up. “I knew it would happen eventually.”
“Um…what would?” asked Jean.
“The general public recognising who I am. I’m guessing you wanted an autographed quatrain, didn’t you, you little scamp?”
“But sir, I’m not the general public. I’m meant to be here.”
“Rubbish. I don’t know who you are, so you must be common.”
“No, I’m here for the interview, you do remember, don’t you, sir?”
“Damn it!” cried Michel, immediately turning his attention back to his book and pointing at the seat opposite. “Sit.”
Complete silence followed. Was this some horrendous interview technique designed to disable him? If it was, it was working brilliantly. Jean fiddled with his papers as the inner disbelief of his very presence here inflated internally and destabilised his conscious attempts not to talk bullshit. It burst.
“Lovely weather we’re having. I mean, if you like torrential rain, that is. Good for ducks, I guess. I wonder if it’ll clear up by the weekend. Be a shame if the Sabbath is a wash-out. Although I guess you could tell me that,” he said, laughing nervously. “What with you being a great forecaster of the future. Maybe it’s already in one of your quatrains, let me have a look…”
“I think even the most opportunistic interpreter would struggle to find this weekend’s weather forecast in one of my prophecies,” replied Michel with a withering scowl.
“Suppose so. But what about Century three, Quatrain eighty-five: you predicted clouds in that one.”
