Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5)

by Dean C. Moore

  Merek said, “King Arthur was preparing to go out on an expedition and would be away from Camelot for an indefinite period of time. King Arthur was worried about leaving Queen Guinevere alone with all those Knights of the Round Table. So he went to Merlin for some advice.

  “After explaining his predicament to Merlin, the wizard looked thoughtful, and said that he’d see if he could come up with something, and asked him to come back in a week.

  “A week later, King Arthur was back in Merlin’s laboratory where the good wizard was showing him his latest invention. It was a chastity belt, except that it had a rather large hole in the most obvious place. ‘This is no good, Merlin!’ the king exclaimed, ‘Look at this opening. How is this supposed to protect m’lady, the queen?’

  “‘Ah, sire, just observe,’ said Merlin, as he searched his cluttered work bench until he found what he was looking for. He then selected his most worn-out wand, one that he was going to discard, anyway. He then inserted it in the gaping aperture of the chastity belt whereupon a small guillotine blade came down and cut it neatly in two.

  “‘Merlin, you are a genius!’ said the grateful monarch. ‘Now I can leave, knowing that my queen is fully protected.’

  “After putting Guinevere in the device, King Arthur then set out upon his quest. Several years passed until he returned to Camelot.

  “Immediately, he assembled all his knights in the courtyard and had them drop their trousers for an informal inspection. Sure enough! Each and every one of them was either amputated or damaged in some way. All of them except Sir Galahad.

  “‘Sir Galahad, exclaimed King Arthur, the one and only true knight! Only you among all the nobles have been true to me. What is it in my power to grant you? Name it and it is yours!’

  “But Sir Galahad was speechless…”

  Carac howled his loudest yet.

  Merek had to admit, he felt better than usual, lighter, as if having drunk some magical rejuvenating liquid. The bringer of truth was right; he couldn’t be all he wanted to be with remorse alone as a teacher; he couldn’t get where he wanted to go. Suddenly, he felt he could endure another two weeks in this accursed heat searching for her.

  As he settled into his bedroll by the fire that night and closed his eyes, he felt even more determined to address his spiritual unfolding to make himself, ironically, more a man of the world; more effective in it.

  ***

  The next morning, they awoke to find no Duero River, no burnt out campfire; just more of the same unforgiving terrain.

  “I see you’ve been up to your old tricks, witch.”

  “Settle down, Carac.” Merek started coiling his bed roll. “You’re alive to complain another day. You can thank her for that.”

  “Tell that to someone who isn’t praying for death.” Carac twisted his back and listened to it pop as if only too happy to break his own spine.

  “You sure that’s what you’re praying for?” Merek asked, his eyes suddenly locked on the vista before him. Carac followed his sight-line to see what had caught his fancy.

  “The bringer of truth!” Carac exclaimed. “How…?”

  “When Merek softened his nature, it gave me the psychic energy I needed to escape my captors. I thank you for that,” she said, shaking Merek’s hand.

  “No, thank you.”

  “So, you are a witch?” Carac said, stepping closer to her. “How else…?”

  “No.” The bringer of truth said, “I surrendered the tools of witchcraft many lifetimes ago, as they were no longer necessary to steady my mind and focus my powers. But enough talk; you’ve earned more than mere words for all your efforts.”

  They blinked and found themselves in the dungeons of a castle, surrounded by the wails of the damned, and no small number or guards. “This is your reward for our forty days and forty nights in the desert?” Carac shouted. He drew his sword, and felled one of the guards.

  The bringer of truth explained, “I figured, after having the sun suck the life out of you with so many mirages, it might benefit you to have an enemy you could get your hands around.” Gloriana just smiled.

  Merek drew his sword. “I miss you, already, fair lady,” he said, felling another of the guards.

  He was preoccupied with staying alive for some time. The next chance he got to glance over his shoulder, the bringer of truth was gone.

  Gloriana, her powers taxed to their limits by their ordeal in Extremadora, was barely holding her own with blinding balls of light fired from the palms of her hands at her attackers. The flashes nonetheless gave Merek and Carac time to drop them with a slicing motion of their broad swords. Each time they did so, they released another prisoner.

  ***

  Santini awoke in the middle of a field of battling knights. It took him a while to recall this was the Renaissance Faire.

  As he peeled his armaments off him, tired of baking inside them like canned tuna thrown on an open fire, he wondered if he was on a similar quest in this life to find and save the bringer of truth. Namely, Robin Wakefield, who they had encountered in The Shambles.

  Even if she had access to more truth than most, Santini reminded himself, this was a leaderless age, where each man must be a light unto himself. Who was to say their reclaiming the parts of themselves scattered in time, in order to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, wasn’t just as valid a road to self-realization?

  Gretchen and Mort found him. “Don’t look so glum,” Mort said by way of a greeting. “You’re gonna love the new you.”

  “That’ll be a first,” Santini replied.

  “Learning greater self-love seems to be the point of this lifetime for me, too,” Gretchen said. She surveyed the battle ensuing all around her. “It’s as if to let go of who we were, we first have to love ourselves fully and without restraint. It’s a paradox.”

  “And we have to understand all the reasons we came to be where we are today,” Santini said.

  Mort snorted his impatience. He must not be in a philosophical mood, Santini thought.

  NINETEEN

  Frumpley tugged at both sides of his lapel as if it were the only way to balance his oversized head. At his age, nervous tics had joined the repertoire of rituals necessary to send the sparks of life from one end of his brain to the other, far less to his mouth. He addressed the crowded room, the kitchen packed with key staff to the point of standing room only. “We’re gathered here today because all attempts to save Robin Wakefield from herself have failed miserably.” The comment caused a stir. A ripple of discontent and disbelief both from one side of the room met up with a ripple of anger and impatience from the other.

  Aggie raised her hand tentatively.

  Frumpley sighed. “Yes, Aggie, what is it?”

  “You do realize we’re not really qualified to help anyone get over themselves, just to be who they are with a bit more style.”

  Frumpley cleared his throat and averted his eyes. “Yes, well, be that as it may—”

  ***

  Minerva tossed Robin’s room like a thief in the night. Forget that it was eight in the morning. She hardly needed to wait for Robin to be out of the room. Robin stood at the window ostensibly overlooking the garden. She was in fact in the middle of one of her catatonic states, a deviously clever method she’d devised for visiting other timelines while protecting her body in this timeline from falling under a bus. She could stand like that all day and night. Minerva shuddered at the thought. Her heart just didn’t have the cardio conditioning for such extremes of mental meltdown. Pity.

  She’d be jealous were it not for her workaround: the vortex. The vortex could empower anyone to be anything they wanted with a little training. Thank God the Hardings had had the good sense or the sheer dumb luck to site their property on the biggest energy vortex in England, surpassing even that which underlay Stonehenge.

  Ready to give up, she decided to check the shallow desk drawer, not really thinking it was big enough to hold anything of importance. To her surprise, she sli
pped out a notebook. “Bingo.” Robin’s journal. She was expecting more of a bible-sized book considering this woman’s penchant for going off the deep end.

  She thumbed the pages, delirious with hope, until she found what she was looking for. She snapped the diary shut.

  “Bingo.”

  ***

  Thornton pushed his way to the front of the throng surrounding Frumpley in the kitchen, nearly applying the Heimlich maneuver to himself in the process against the edge of the table.

  “Maybe I should take point on this one.” Thornton spoke loud enough to carry over the din of the crowd. “Demonstrate the awesome pull of political intrigue to draw her out of her retreat from life.”

  Frumpley pursed his lips, scoffing at the idea, but held back from actually verbalizing his objections. In truth, he was desperate enough to try anything.

  Minerva entered the room, saving him. “I have her journal.”

  “Saints be praised. I think this calls for a celebration.” Irene, the head cook, dipped into her chocolate stash and stuffed a bonbon in her mouth, averting her eyes from the judgmental looks she was getting.

  Minerva read from the journal: “‘I’ve detected in my nature a need to rescue others from themselves that I’ve been powerless to resist. The best I can hope for is to turn negatives into positives, pray for some way to make this coping mechanism make a positive difference in the world. My greatest fear is, as my abilities to rescue others increases, so will my lust for the power that gives me over them. A fear that seems all the more warranted by the fact that power over others is a poor man’s substitute for the exchange of love, which alone can truly set any of us free. What makes me feel so unworthy of love that I must continually resort to these tactics?” She snapped the book shut.

  Frumpley judged, from the rising unrest in the room and shifty glances, a lot of folks in this crowd felt that could have been an entry in their journals. “Settle down, everyone.” He waited until quiet reclaimed the room. “Minerva, that’s all well and good, I just don’t see how it helps us.”

  Allowing for no lag in which to think, Minerva fired back at him: “I do.”

  ***

  Perdue took aim with the scope of his rifle. “God, it seems a shame to kill this guy just once. He’s fun, isn’t he?”

  “Be careful what you wish for.” Purnell eyed the same scene with the aid of his binoculars, noting Radon’s uncanny ability to slip past house defenses, including one kickass electronic monitoring system.

  “What’s that? Another Chinese curse?”

  “Yep. I’m full of them. Comes in handy, shadowing you.”

  Perdue fired. The bullet, instead of lodging at the base of Radon’s skull, took up roost in the chest of one of the robo-dogs, which detected the bullet in-flight, and lunged in time to shield his master. “Damn it!”

  Witnessing the same drama through his binoculars, Purnell smiled, ashamed at how much satisfaction he was taking in seeing Perdue get his comeuppance. “You really should learn to deal with frustration better.”

  “Why you think I keep you around?” Perdue ejected the shell from the sniper rifle, loaded another. “A man can take so much medicine.” This time he went looking for Radon in his scope, he came up empty. So did Purnell. “What’s he up to now?” Perdue pondered aloud.

  Purnell ran his eyes over the Harding estate, the castle, and the grounds, which he had a good vantage point on thanks to Perdue not wanting to make it too easy on himself taking this guy down, and so, situated his kill shot from a good half mile off. “Probably just pausing to enjoy the eye candy. The rich do seem to have more of life’s secrets figured out than the rest of us.”

  Perdue emitted an “Ah!” like the caw of a crow, and lowered the rifle. “It’s just a fancy bird house. You know any bird that’d rather be in one than flying around free?”

  “Yeah, me. I’ve tasted the price of your freedom.” He gestured for Perdue to take the binoculars, see if they gave him a better vantage point on things.

  “That’s a tool for someone content to sit on the sidelines.” He drew his knife. “Come on. Let’s get up close and personal.”

  ***

  “God, I love this place. Makes up for all those frustrated Easter egg hunts as a kid. How many safes is this now? Three?”

  Robo Rave yapped at him.

  Radon thought he detected a disapproving tone in Robo Rave’s bark. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. This is number four.”

  There was no telling this German shepherd apart from the real one, except, of course, this one was programmable. Courtesy of Zip, the Asian kid with a penchant for designing robo-pets way ahead of the rest of the planet’s learning curve. It was sheer dumb luck he’d stumbled onto him before embarking on this heist. A real game changer that was. Gotta love how things come together in this world. Just when he thought everything was getting away from him… Shazaam! Everything pops into order better than a cosmic alignment of planets.

  Radon turned at the sound of something moving behind him. The dog’s response was faster. He gazed over in time to see the animal leap for the hand with the knife that glistened in the darkness.

  The hand wielding the knife was even swifter than the dog. It cut off the animal’s head before it could get out a yelp of pain. Radon had never seen the point in long blade Bowie knives until now; the thing was nearly as effective as a machete in the jungle.

  “Didn’t anyone teach you, crime doesn’t pay?” came the voice in the darkness.

  “Didn’t anyone teach you cruelty to animals tops a little thieving for lowdown skunky moves?” Radon threw his voice from another point in the darkness than the one he was at when Piss on his Parade put the move on him.

  “You’re throwing your voice like a ventriloquist to try misdirecting me. Nice.”

  Scurrying stealthily to another point in the darkness, Radon fought to keep his breathing every bit as silent. “Save your praise. Sometimes a good idea takes on a life of its own. Who’s to say who owns it exactly? Or where it might crop up next? Sometimes I think our bright ideas are the things living inside us, and these meat suits are just along for the ride. What do you think?”

  Silence.

  So much for Plan A.

  Time to invoke Plan B. Radon blew on his dog whistle.

  Seconds later, they made their presence felt in the room with their customarily indomitable style. One poked its head through the floor, landing on its feet to bare its fangs with a threatening growl. Honest to God, they may as well have been werewolves with moves like that. The next one came through the wall, lunging through it as if it were a sheet of tissue paper. The third one tunneled through the roof, using its body like a drill bit.

  They had Piss on His Parade surrounded now. Let’s see how his smooth moves did against robo-reflexes.

  Though Radon was hardly waiting around to gloat; he ducked out of the room, not sure how much of a head-start he had on that guy, who he wasn’t about to underestimate again.

  ***

  Robin Wakefield psychically entered Perdue’s mind-space to find him surrounded by three robotic attack dogs.

  This was the second time Robin had reached out to Perdue and his SWAT team now, and the second time she’d gotten bumped into an alternate timeline for her efforts. Something was preventing her from interacting with him in her timeline. Perhaps, in that one, he was still mentally too strong for her to pierce his defenses. That, or just too incorrigible. Maybe he was wearying of his own methods sooner in these companion timelines, giving her an opening. Affect enough versions of Perdue in these companion timelines, she might soften the one up that existed back in her timeline, if her theory on ripple effects across timelines held merit.

  She detected the smirk on Perdue’s face; he was just itching for the dogs to advance so he could pit his training against them. Instead she sent them bolting out the door.

  Perdue emitted a primal scream. He sheathed his knife. Look on the bright side, Perdue. You’re worked up enoug
h now to snap their little necks with your bear hands. To hell with the knife.

  Robin had aggravated Perdue’s frustration in order to drive the pertinent revelation into what was driving his behavior. She already regretted the approach. Perdue was clearly not the type to take time outs in order to reflect on the meaning of life. Still, maybe he would reflect on what to do to circumvent his mounting irritation.

  She ghosted him as he made his way through the double doors in search of Radon. No more than a presence. One he might sense if he eased up on his behavioral programming just a tad.

  The instant Perdue stuck his head into the hall, a robo-gorilla grabbed him, used him as a rag doll, thrashing him about.

  Robin searched her mind for a reason for the questionable presence of these advanced robo-animals, considering where they were in the timeline. Their designer: a UC Berkeley student going by the name of Zip. One more Renaissance man to keep her eyes on. Great. Maybe she was being pushed to the point of overload so her higher self could stress a point: Get over it already. Not her job to rescue those who are beyond saving. Before she could expect others to heed her sage advice, she’d have to learn to heed her own.

  Perdue’s vital signs must have served as a distress beacon to the others. The rest of his team materialized out of nowhere.

  Chew Toy, a member of Perdue’s team, hurtled a Native American battle ax at the gorilla, wedging it in his back.

  When it drew zero response from the robo-gorilla, Perdue yanked it out of the creature’s back, and went to work on his head with it, while in the midst of the creature’s steely grip; a crushing bear hug.

  From the far end of the hall, Go Long, another member of Perdue’s team, hurtled a steel boomerang at the beast, slicing it open to reveal electronic gutting.

  As he ran towards the robo-gorilla, he kept catching the rebounding boomerang by leaping into the air, using one of the walls as a catapult, and diving to the floor in an equally gymnastic forward roll. In the middle of the maneuver, he let the boomerang fly to slice another wedge out of the robo-gorilla. So far, despite all the theatrics, Robin noted not the least slowing of the beast.