by Mark Lingane
Published 2013 by Insync Holdings Pty Ltd
Copyright © 2013 by Mark Lingane
All rights reserved.
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or the publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-9874786-1-0
Cover design by Insync Books
To Belinda and Sebastian.
What’s inside …
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
Epilogue
News and Updates
About the Author
Other Novels
PROLOGUE
LOCKED AWAY IN AN impenetrable safe sat a page ripped from an anonymous diary, filled with the hurried scrawl of the terrified:
They made me do it.
They came again and gave me some more ideas. But I’ve been thinking why they want me to do it. I don’t like where it’s going. If all the information is stored in one place about every single transaction that everyone does they’ll be able to tell where you are, where you’ve been and what you’ve done. Even though they say it’s for the benefit of everyone, I can’t understand why. It’s so far away from what I originally planned. All I wanted to do was make life a little easier for everyone; that was the idea. Now it’s out of control. What have I done? Will anyone ever be able to forgive me? I think not. They say I’m in no danger, but I think that once the final modules are in place and secured they won’t want me running around telling people about it.
A plethora of sheets fell through an insubstantial hand from millennia of history telling the same story. Ghostly outlines giving a hint, a prod, a shove then a lifetime of regret for the damage done and for what could never be repaired.
At this time deep within—for want of a better phrase, the heart of space—there was the faintest of glows. It was time to begin again, a time for choice.
Somewhere someone thought, computers calculated, a decision was made and something happened.
The sky was full of stars spinning their eternal dance, oblivious to all. One of the smaller stars at a distance of slightly less than ten light-minutes, somewhere that wasn’t hot enough to boil the water or cold enough to freeze the air, in what was called the Goldilocks Zone, had a small gray-blue-green planet.
The sky was full of stars but no one could ever see them through the misty clouds. The sky was a disillusioned gray, occasionally highlighted by angry flickers of hidden lightning, haunted by resentful thunder.
1
JOSHUA RICHARDS PULLED HIS formidable coat around him and his wide-brimmed hat down around his ears as he trudged down the road. His breath billowed out in clouds of frost, and the chill air made his ears ache. The wind bit into his clothes like a hungry animal, his coat supplying only a thin veneer of warmth. It was raining, but then it was always raining.
The street lamps reflected in the wet and empty streets. The torrential rain calmed to a mere constant onslaught, and the city life, such as it was, took the opportunity to enjoy the night life, such as there was. Steam rose from grates at street corners and was buffeted into eddies, keeping company with the homeless at their flaming bins fighting their own private war against the weather.
Silhouetted against the eerie glow of the night, which dulled the appearance of all others to ghostly outlines, Joshua walked away down the middle of the road, kicking a can. Somewhere close two cats started fighting.
Look at them all, he thought. Sitting around with nothing to do, with their sloping shoulders trying to offload the responsibilities for their own lives onto anyone or anything else. Draining the city of passion and giving nothing back. Allowing their lives to be run without their input, under computer control, or “computer dictatorship,” as some of them joked.
I’ve seen the graffiti, he thought. I’ve read the newspapers. Maybe life did run on automatic, but surely there was some human guidance somewhere. After all, what did the mayor do?
Sometime back he had read a diatribe by a media and communications professor, either looking for extra funding or compensating for a lack of parental affirmation missing through her youth: “The constant removal of human interaction, and the automation of general living, has made the world devoid of any decision making and, therefore, responsibility for living,” she had babbled. “It’s easy to sit back and say, ‘I don’t have a choice. I’m just following procedure. The web told me to do it.’ WHY BOTHER? was the life affirmation etched into the coffee mugs of their souls. Drilled into the unthinking cultural collective known as the New World was the dictum: “There were no further choices.”
It hadn’t made sense, but the adjectives made it sound good. It undoubtedly sounded better after three glasses of ABC. “Yes, dahling, ABC. Anything but Chardonnay. Run along to the bar, dahling.”
After he had read her self-satisfied affirmation ironically celebrating the kitsch, he had screwed up the piece and thrown it out the window. How about this: Fools, the lot of ya!
People craved familiarity, and they only seemed happy when one day was much like the next. That was our weakness, Joshua thought. It was as though we all wanted to be caught in a moment of time. Tomorrow was unknown, and needed a leap of faith. Today you were no older. Today you were no poorer. Today you were no fatter. Today you were no sadder. Today you were you, as you knew you. Today you could live forever. You could be young and beautiful forever. Wasn’t that the message all those advertising houses pushed? Today you could live forever—as long as tomorrow never came.
I should’ve been in advertising, he thought. Or maybe media and communications. Hmm.
Why was it always raining? Weren’t the gods happy? He mulled it over for a while and decided he was too tired to care. The gods could look after themselves.
A new thought entered his mind: A large drink is what I need right now. Oh god, I’m tired.
Surrounded by manicured lawns and framed by high, arched windows was The Walk. It was a long corridor that wound through the rich estate and sprouted elegant high-roofed offices. It was well used by those working in the building, but its main purpose was to distract from the other walk in another corridor used by a special few. The other corridor wasn’t as pretty as this one, which was colorful and had personality in a business-corridor kind of way. It had windows, plants, and paintings on the walls. A brown, two-tone checkered pattern covered the floor, and everyone laughed at how terrible it was.
The second corridor was merely one with doors in it. A person walking down it knew it was a corridor to somewhere, but precisely where was probably best left unknown. Unless, of course, they already knew, and then they could live with it for a short while before it drove them insane.
At the end of the corridor full of doors was an ill-lit meeting room that led into another room, a room that meant business and trouble, sometimes concurrently. Perhaps they were the same. And no one—no one—except for one person was allowed in.
Dark figures moved in the ill-lit room, a room that
was lifeless and cold, even with those people in it. Light fought its way through a large translucent letter “D” built into one wall and did little to puncture the thick blackness suffocating the room. In front of the glowing letter stood a silhouetted figure. In front of the figure and bolted to the floor was a dark, cold steel table, around which many other figures were seated. Floating above the table, glowing in the dark, hovered a unique hologram of the world. The hologram displayed not only cloud coverings, landmasses and oceans but also a network of multi-colored lines that lay just beneath the surface. Each cloud was depicted by a white line, each island by a light green line. Continents were tethered with brown lines, and mountains had dark green lines. Each city had a red line. A rainbow of life.
Viewed with half-closed eyes, the perspective narrowed and the surface of the planet appeared to be covered by billions and billions of dots, all moving. All the lines slithered their way along the surface and eventually ran alongside each other, representing a large multi-core of geography, meeting at one central point, a minute sphere, situated in an average city on an average continent. Possibly this one.
The standing figure raised a hand to his mouth and coughed. The room fell into expectant silence. Attention focused on him.
“Give me your thoughts on the situation,” he intoned.
“We didn’t get much warning, so some background intel would be great.”
It was easy to be disrespectful in the dark. But then the speaker remembered that good leaders had exceptional eyesight and knew everything and everyone, and quickly added a “sir.”
There was a general murmur of agreement.
The standing figure hesitated, feeling that he had lost the initiative. “As you should remember, as you must remember,” he said, pulling himself back together, “the old head was exiled after his breakdown and, in accordance with our verdict, must walk alone for the rest of his cycles among the … others. However, the engine seems to have had trouble adapting to the new head while the old one was still active.”
What he didn’t tell them was that the engine was broken and dying.
“Since he’s the only one we’ve exiled, rather than removed after they imploded, we had no way of knowing if the engine would adapt. It has always adapted every time it’s needed to, and it’s always adapting, so it may simply need a little more time. It could be as simple as that.”
But they all knew it couldn’t be as simple as that.
“However, the engine is causing disturbing anomalies, and if we don’t sort it out quickly, well, it could all go very wrong. It’s making decisions based on weak, if not completely unfounded, information. The engine operating without any rationale or reason is dangerous. This would put us in a precarious position. Something must be done to sever the connection between the engine and the old head. That’s why I ask for your ideas.”
“Jude, can’t we just kill him?” proffered one.
Jude had expected this. “It’s a little complicated. We don’t know the relationship between the engine and the old head. Killing him may not work as we might think.”
There was a pause. Then someone said, “Are you saying that if we kill him it could break the engine?”
“I’m not saying that at all,” Jude replied. “But we need to remember that if the engine believes it doesn’t have a head it may also believe it has no function. It would only take an instant between the death of the head and the engine realizing that it was no longer required for it to stop working and everything to end.”
Jude paused. Let that statement sink into their conceited little minds, he thought. “But I believe there’s a solution that will cause minimal damage. I’ve been researching, and I believe there’s a way to release the engine from the old head with both remaining intact. It’ll be difficult and complex, but it’s possible.”
“How do we know that the engine and the old head are breaking down?” asked one.
At first it seemed a pretty stupid question to the others, but then they noticed the sting in the tail.
It was time to lay the cards on the table. Jude started to wander around the outside of the table.
“We expected the memory block to be total and enduring,” he said. “We now know this hasn’t happened. Remember, no one has ever wanted to, or been able to, walk away, so this is all new territory. We explore and test as we go. From our observations, memories are beginning to reassert themselves. More importantly, the head is beginning to influence others. He’s having ideas. We’ve driven long and hard to develop this into a place where we can live. We’re in a desperate situation. The old head is corrupting the engine, tearing it apart. If he causes any further corruption the engine can potentially collapse, and then that’s it for us. We must take steps to correct procedures or else there’ll be trouble.”
The unseen figures shuffled their feet and papers uneasily and tried to avoid one another’s eyes, which was proving more difficult than it ought to in such a dark room.
Another said, “What kind of trouble?”
Jude continued his way around the table and disappeared into the darkest part of the room so all they heard was his eerie, disembodied voice. “Dire consequences. We cannot allow current situations to degenerate into a succession of undetermined events.”
One said, “Is that bad?”
“Bad? Were you not listening? The whole structure of our society hinges upon it.”
Jude linked his fingers to demonstrate but as no one could see him he felt rather silly. He quickly shoved his hands behind his back and turned away to hide his embarrassment, which was also stupid as no one could see that either.
He let his voice carry the gravity of the situation. “We base our whole essence of civilization upon this. It’s the only constant in a chaotic universe.”
The standing figure emerged from the darkness and into the marginally less-dark glow of the hologram. “Time always has an impact, and I can see it’s allowing you to forget our past.”
Jude turned around to the table and raised his arm toward the center of the room, indicating the projection of the world suspended above the table.
“Life, our life, all life needs to be controlled. If events were not directed, history could go off in any random direction and who knows where that could take us. We’ve seen the other side, and all know of the consequences. My dear fellow, you ask if it’s bad: it’s the worst and last event that could ever happen.”
He closed his hand into a fist and let it hang outstretched in the air. He was deep in thought, and his face reflected his pensive anger.
One started, “But surely they’re allowed—”
Jude slammed his fist on the table. “No! We made the choice. Our final one. From that past moment on there’s no such thing. There is no choice. Chaos is dead.” He spoke firmly. His voice was devoid of emotion. “It’s not the reason we exist. We’re here to make sure cause and effect go as planned. We have a job to do and, now, a task to perform. I hope you never forget that, because in more ways than one it’s the only reason we exist. To change is to invite Armageddon.”
The room fell silent.
A voice spoke. “What can be done, sir?”
Jude breathed in deeply and attempted to compose himself. He paced slowly around the room until he was back at his starting point. He hated the fact that he had to appear like this in front of them. There it was again: another feeling. It was so … alien.
He turned to look at the large letter “D” and felt the warmth of the light fall on his face. It was the only warmth in the soulless building. The light reminded him of times long ago, of fond memories, of freedom, of friends and friendships, when everything seemed to have meaning. Now he was in charge of this place and thoughts like that didn’t belong. What had gone wrong? There must be a way, he thought, trying to decide what to do.
His imagination flicked through millions of possibilities that could provide a solution, or an end. He had watched the master but had never known what it was like. Then,
since the day he had to take over from the master, his thoughts on everything had changed. Now he knew or, more importantly, for the first time ever he felt what it was like, that feeling that had driven his predecessor away and many others mad with the dichotomy of life.
Rationale versus feeling. No feeling here, though. Goodness, no. With feeling came irrational behavior, unpredictability, and eventual demise. Can’t have that, can we? Not after such a long time.
Like a meteorite falling through an atmosphere, his mind burned with the weight of possibilities. Through an ever-lengthening list of eventualities that all ended the same, he searched until he found the one that was different. He paused in the darkness and smiled. He cocked his head toward the large letter “D” and the light fell across his eyes. There was possibly a sparkle or a glint of evil, depending on your viewpoint.
“Fellow members,” he said, turning toward the assembled group. He raised his hands and concluded with, “I have a plan.”
A dark figure leaned over to another dark figure. “Do you believe him?”
“No,” said the other.
“Me neither. It’s impossible to release the engine while there are two heads. We must kill him. He knows that. It’s the only way.”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll inform the watchers.” The dark figures leaned back and devised their own plan.
2
JOSHUA REACHED AN INTERSECTION as he did with everything in his life. Still a few blocks from home, hunger came knocking. He made his way to the small corner shop and opened the front door. A policeman immediately confronted him. He stepped back to allow the man to pass.
“Officer,” he said as one policeman exited the shop. Then, “Officer … officer … officer …” Good grief, he thought, this is ridiculous. It was like those clowns in the tiny car. “Officer,” he repeated to the last one.
