Tag - A Technothriller

by Simon Royle

  A clear piercing thought from Gabriel, “My gift to you, my brother.” An image of my mother smiling down at me came to my mind. The image was sharp and came with the emotion of the love she felt.

  I thought, “Thank you my brother, this is a wonderful gift.”

  I realized that the gong hadn’t sounded for a while and the monks had stopped chanting. Thirty-five minutes had passed. A gong for each year since my parents had been taken from us. The head monk stood and another monk picked up the wooden bowl with the water and the wax from candle in it. We waied as he dipped a brush made from small twigs into the bowl and, saying a prayer, flicked the water over us three times. He moved away and walked over to the aborigines, blessing them in a similar fashion. Once he had covered the entire crowd of people, he returned to the carpet and sat down again.

  Smoke wafted around me. Gabriel shuffled off the carpet, and waiing at the monks once more stood up. I did the same. We stood together and faced the path of white stones.

  ***

  Mariko, Marty and Sharon stood just inside the clearfilm doors which were open to the deck. They looked out to the sea across the white sails partially covering the beach in front of them. Mariko walked forward across the deck with Marty on her left and Sharon on her right. The baby in her arms was dressed in a long, flowing white gown.

  As Mariko went down the steps to the beach, Sharon held her arm just above her elbow. She turned and smiled at Sharon. “You’re probably wondering why I asked you to get the gown for the naming ceremony,” and she cocked an eyebrow.

  Sharon flicked her eyebrows up in the affirmative, but didn’t say anything. Her eyes scanned the seated crowd, head calmly turning left and right. She hadn’t been in any crowds since she’d been blinded and it made her a little nervous.

  “Well, the reason is that it’s tradition that the child’s godmother buys the gown.” Mariko turned to face straight again, walking on the white flat stones to where Mark was standing. Sharon was shocked.

  “Why me?” she asked as they walked.

  “Because there’s only one other woman who’s maybe tougher, and perhaps smarter, in the entire world,” and nodding her head sideways at Marty. “And she’s pregnant with your other godchild. So you’re my best choice.”

  Sharon looked at Marty around Mariko’s shoulder. Marty smiled at her and nodded and held out her hand which Sharon took in hers. Tears in her eyes, she understood that Mark and Mariko had given her what Sir Thomas had taken away. A family.

  ***

  I walked around the fire until my back was to the ocean. Taking off my black jacket, I laid it on the sand next to me. Maloo and the elders began chanting in Waalpiri, their tribal language. Mariko walked up to Gabriel and held out our son. Gabriel took the boy and carefully unwrapped the gown until the baby was naked. He turned to Sharon and held out the child.

  “As the boy’s godmother I ask you to carry him to his godfather,” Gabriel said, and nodded at Maloo chanting in the wafting smoke.

  Sharon reached out, and with a glance at Mark who nodded and smiled, took the baby in her arms. She sat down in the sand next to Maloo who was waving the smoke towards them.

  The chanting by the elders increased in volume. There was not another sound on the beach. Maloo gestured to Marty and she sat down next to him, gracefully folding her knees below her. Maloo gestured then to Mariko to sit by Sharon. Gabriel and I were next, Gabriel sitting alongside Marty and I next to Mariko. The chanting reached an even higher level and suddenly I felt it again. This time the Elders and Maloo came into my mind.

  Maloo picked up the naked baby and held him high above the smoke. The smoke swirled around and I felt Mariko’s uneasy thought. It was smoothed with thoughts from Gabriel and Maloo. “It’s OK. The baby will not be harmed. This is to cleanse the evil passed to him through us and protect him from sickness.”

  I saw Gabriel nod to Maloo who handed the baby back to Sharon and showed her how to lay the baby’s head with the top against Marty’s stomach. Marty got Sharon to take one of the baby’s hands and Mariko the other. Then Maloo took Marty’s hand and Sharon’s in his, and nodding to us, I picked up Mariko’s hand and Gabriel’s. Now we were all physically connected.

  The chanting of the Warlpiri elders was suddenly joined by that of the Tibetan monks and I felt all of our minds connecting.

  I breathed out slowly and let my mind float free. And there we were. All of us joined as a golden orb of feeling. Within the orb I could feel my son’s mind and then, a surprise, the mind of another, almost indistinct, but there in Marty’s stomach. Gabriel squeezed my hand.

  Maloo’s clear, loud thought came through as a feeling more than words, and the feeling was the path to the absolute present, reaching from the past to the future through the moment of now.

  I felt my father and my mother. I felt them in our collective mind. They passed through us all and touched the mind of our son, Philip Gabriel Zumar.

  ~~~~

  About The Author

  Simon Royle was born in Manchester, England in 1963. He has been variously a yachtsman, advertising executive, and a senior management executive in software companies. A futurist and a technologist, he lives near Bangkok, with his wife and two children. TAG is his first novel.

  ***

  http://simon-royle.blogspot.com/ for updates on the next in the series, and other stories and upcoming novels by Simon Royle

  If you’d like to leave a review, and I really do appreciate and read your feedback, please go here: Amazon Reviews for Tag. Or you can send me an email: simon@simon-royle.com, either way I’d like to know what you thought of, Tag.

  If you use twitter and would like to follow my tweets @sgroyle

  My facebook page is here.

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Simon-Royle/105903372799067

  TAG

  Book One: The Zumar Chronicles

  By Simon Royle

  Published by I&I Press

  249/17 Lat Phrao 122,

  Lat Phrao Road,

  Wang Thonglang,

  Bangkok 10310

  Kindle Edition

  www.simon-royle.com

  All rights reserved

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

  Copyright © 2010 Simon Royle

  Afterword copyright © 2010 Simon Royle

  Cover copyright © 2010 Simon Royle

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to people or places, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from Simon Royle.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  First published in Thailandby I&I Press 2010

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Thailand.

  ISBN 978-616-90769-1-9

  Cover designed by Ned Hoste of 2h Design

  Cover photograph by Markus Summerer of Markus Summerer Photography

  eBook formatting by Stanislav from Slovakia

  Dedicated to Pim

  The luckiest day when I met you,

  Hurtling through the Stars,

  Not revolving around the sun, I am,

  Dawn, dusk, and night, your Moon.

  My Earth is you.

  ***WARNING***

  This sample chapter contains spoilers to Tag - only read if you have read Tag first...

  ***WARNING***

  Chapter 1

  A Death in the Morning

  Mark and Mariko's Beach House, Sisik Beach, Malaysian Geographic

  Friday 5 December 2110 5:05
am

  My devstick buzzed, rippling the hot coffee in the mug it had chummed up to on my desk.

  I had to speak softly. My baby was sleeping in the room next door.

  “Dev?”

  “Yes, Mark?”

  I wondered if the Dev would wonder why I was whispering.

  “Don’t transmit my image. Who is it?”

  “It’s Sammie, Mark. Shall I connect?”

  A flash of annoyance - my quiet morning disrupted. I sighed. Coffee. I reached over to pick up the mug, took a long gulp, and put it back down. I rubbed my face getting the sleep out of my eyes. OK. Deal with Sammie.

  “Connect.”

  Sammie’s image came up. The Devscreen was distorted by the coffee cup. I reached over and moved it out the way of the square light projecting from the Dev. The light shivered, particles adjusting around my wrist, as it pulled out of the projected screen and turned into Sammie. She was sitting at a small Clearfilm-topped table, on the balcony of her apartment in Sao Paulo. I’d hired Sammie two days ago.

  ‘Personal Assistant to Mr. Mark Zumar,’ in blue neon script, occupied the top third of the projected Devscreen. That’s new, I thought, shows initiative. It looked remarkably like the sign you might see above a seedy Relax Lounge. She smiled. I reached for the coffee, her image separating around my hand.

  “Good evening, Sammie. How’s the weather in Sao Paulo?”

  The image zoomed in. I wasn’t expecting that. Sammie’s round face filling the Devscreen. The zoom stopped at the edge of her eyes. A wide-eyed panicked look filled them. Her mouth open, lips beginning to tremble. A disturbing sight. I wondered how to get the Dev to zoom back out.

  “I’m, sorry Mr. Zumar but I haven’t researched the weather for you, um...” The trembling lips turned to wobbly lips. I was amazed. One sentence and my morning was spinning out of control.

  “Sammie, I was just asking. Small talk. OK? I don’t need research on the weather in Sao Paulo. It’s like saying ‘hello’. The Chinese ask if you have eaten yet, the Thai’s, where you have you been, American’s how you are doing, and the British, where I was brought up, ask you about the weather.”

  I thought about projecting my image and giving her a smile of assurance but decided against it. Being naked, it wasn’t a good idea.

  “And please, Sammie, as I said in our chat a couple of days ago, don’t call me Mr. Zumar. Please, call me Mark.”

  Sammie’s lips stopped wobbling, moved up and down, and said, “Yes Mr. Mark.”

  I sighed, quietly, and reached for the coffee. My mind tripping on that curious point of wanting to drink more because it is good, and not wanting to because it will be finished.

  “So, what’s happening, Sammie?” I tried for ‘conversationally friendly’ as a tone and went with a non-geo-specific cultural minefield opening. It was a tense two sec wait until she spoke.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you this early, Mr. Mark, but a message arrived. It’s marked ‘Confidential - For Your Eyes Only’ and ‘Urgent’. I thought you should know.” The zoom went in closer, her nostrils flared out, she looked very nervous. I needed to end this as soon as possible, for my sake, if not Sammie’s.

  “OK. Send it through.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Mark, but I can’t. It’s in a paper envelope.”

  “You mean it’s a letter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  I’d never had a letter before, and didn’t know anybody who had. I picked up the Devstick, looking for a button or something to zoom out. It was a brand new Devstick and I hadn’t read the manual yet.

  “Um, OK, well just get CourierBot to send it over.” A slide on the side of the Devstick looked promising: a plus at one end, a minus at the other. I slid it towards the minus. Sammie’s voice faded to nothing. I slid it back up.

  “I don’t know your address,” Sammie’s voice boomed off the walls.

  I nearly fell off my chair, fumbled the Devstick, and pushed the little black button near the volume slider. Sammie’s shout cut off and so did the Devscreen. Damn. Now she’d really freak. I waited for a cry from Philip, my baby boy. Nothing.

  I let out a long breath. Think positively. The day can only get better from here. I pushed the little black button again. It turned white then jade green.

  “Dev - Don’t transmit my image and connect to Sammie. But before that, Dev, how do I control your zoom without a voice command?”

  “For zoom in, you push your palm towards me and to zoom out you pull your palm away from me. Shall I connect Sammie now?” A fractional pause, then, “Mark, you have an incoming call. It’s Annika Bardsdale. Shall I postpone the connect to Sammie?”

  I hadn’t spoken to Annika in a week or was it two.

  “Dev - Yes postpone Sammie and connect Annika, but don’t transmit.”

  “Yes, Mark, connecting now.”

  I sat back down, my coffee mug sadly empty.

  “Hi, Annika, how’s things?” I was shocked at her appearance. She looked drawn, haggard.

  “A bit rough. When can we meet face-to-face?”

  “Why, what’s happening? I haven’t been following the feeds. Too busy with Philip.”

  “How is the little man?”

  I smiled thinking of Philip latched onto Mariko’s breast, his eyes shut and little hands hanging on for dear life.

  “He’s great. So’s Mariko.”

  Annika smiled. She looked more than tired. She looked twenty years older. I remembered it was two weeks since we had spoken.

  “I must get over there and see you all soon but I have no time for anything personal these days.” She cocked her head to one side and frowned at me. “Why aren’t you doing visual?”

  “I’m naked. What was it you wanted to meet about?”

  “I can’t say over the feed. We need to meet. Can you make it over tomorrow morning, about 11 am?”

  Sisik Beach to UN Building New York. Beach house to Sisik, fifteen min. Vactube Sisik to Bangkok main concourse hub, twenty min with stops. Express Vac to London and on to New York. About two hours trav, maybe two and a half, if I had to wait for a Lev. Time difference, minus twelve hours. If I left at 8 pm, I’d arrive with time to spare for the meeting. Assuming we’d meet for an hour, I could be back in Sisik by one maybe one-thirty in the morning.

  “Sure, that won’t be a problem. Anything you need me to prepare?”

  “No, it’s more of a personal issue.” Annika looked conflicted, she glanced away, had trouble looking straight at the lens, unusual for her.“It’s about your future...” I expected her to continue, but she didn’t, just left it hanging there.

  “Annika, are you OK? You look tired.”

  “I’m alright, Mark.” She nodded. “Truth is I am tired. I’ve been running on five hours sleep since I started this contribution. That little stunt you and your brother pulled has kept us all pretty busy these last few months.” She sighed loudly. “I need a hol, go lie on a beach somewhere with a Greek god with strong hands to massage all this tension away.” She smiled, a remnant of the old Annika, beautiful, gracious, poised, the retired mega flick star - the role she played before her current contribution as Secretary-General of the United Nation.

  “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, 11 am.” Sensing that she really did not want to talk over the feed I decided to hold off asking her. It could wait until the end of the day. Her tomorrow. My today. I decided I’d extend my usual siesta by a couple of hours.

  “Thanks.” She smiled.“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” and with a little wave, she cut the connection.

  “Mark, would you like to connect to Sammie now?”

  “No. Give me a minute.”

  “Yes, Mark.”

  I shut my eyes to review Annika’s conversation without distraction. Getting nothing more than a general sense of unease, I opened them again. I had a class at ten. I’d made some notes late last night, put them down on the desk. Or somewhere. What was I going to talk about? Oh yes...
/>   “Mark.”

  “What, Dev?” I couldn’t keep the flash of annoyance out of my voice.

  “It’s been a minute, Mark. Shall I connect to Sammie?”

  I forgot what I was going to talk about again. Lost it. Everyone was taking me very literally this morning. Something to bear in mind. I let out a long slow breath.

  “Yes, please.”

  I’ve always been polite to my Devs. Well that’s not true. Not always. When they fail a simple task, meaning I’ve done something stupid, then I’m usually impolite. They are always polite: it’s hard- coded. I was trying to remember what I had done with my hand when the lens had zoomed in on Sammie’s face. That’s right, I had reached for my coffee cup. Palm in, palm out. I thought about that for a sec and grinned. I could produce some interesting visual effects if I combined my calls with my morning Tai Chi ritual.

  My Devstick emitted a pleasant ping, like a spoon tapped lightly against a glass made of crystal. The Devscreen simmered into position and Sammie’s balcony came into view. A pigeon on the table. I waited. The pigeon pecked at something on the table.

  “Hello.” I pushed my palm forward, the pigeon’s eye looked bloodshot. I pulled my palm backwards. I turned my palm sideways and made a slicing move towards the screen.

  “Hello.” The pigeon fell over onto the table and, angrily flapping itself upright, took off. Ah volume. I had sound but no Sammie.