by Stefan Bolz
The Fourth Sage
Stefan Bolz
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Fourth Sage
© Copyright 2014 by Stefan Bolz
All rights reserved. No portion of this
book may be reproduced in any form,
except for brief quotations in reviews,
without the written permission of the author.
First Edition
Cover design by Jason Gurley
http://www.jasongurley.com
Editing by David Antrobus
http://www.bewritethere.com
Map drawing by Lawrence Mann
http://www.LawrenceMann.co.uk
Hawk Photographs by Ann Brokelman and Guy Anthony
http://www.naturephotosbyann.blogspot.com
Drawings by Judy Rosenberg Krongard
and Chloe Mosbacher
This book is for the children: For the rebellious ones
and for the ones who dare to ask questions;
for the forgotten ones and the ones who remember.
One
From Now On
Like the wind o'er forgotten plains
When the storm clouds whisper names
Like the girl that came from light
Like the bird ’twas born of night
That your promise is our fate
That your fight was our gate
Freedom's voices never cease
Your sacrifice became our peace
Like the wind o'er forgotten plains
And the breaking of our chains
At the ending of their reigns
From now on
Just your memory remains
- kiire understaad
Chapter 0 — Ninety Seconds
The backlight of her wristwatch begins to glow, casting a green hue on her hand. She glances at it even though she knows what it will say: nine zero. One second later the micro fluid changes to eighty-nine. At eighty-eight she closes the book, holds it in her hands for a few seconds longer. Her fingers trace the slight indentation of the almost indecipherable title. The stamped feathers in the center have lost their coloring decades ago. Long before she was born. Even before the ban.
She gets up. A touch on the screen of the watch changes the walls of her room from an image of a forest to a regular room with a large window, showing the darkened skyline of a city in the distance. Eighty-three. In truth, there are no windows in her room. She crouches on the ground next to her futon, removes the thin cover in front of a rectangular opening and crawls inside. More frequently, now, Aries has begun to wonder how long she will still fit into the tight space. She's slim for a fifteen-year-old, but knows that one day the ducts will no longer allow her to roam the building.
Sixty seconds. The high-resolution display of her watch begins to pulsate in one-second increments. Eight feet into the air duct she turns on her back and looks up. The secondary channel, perpendicular to this one, disappears into its self-reflecting mirror image far up into the building. Thirty-six seconds. Aries pries open the panel in front of her. Behind it sits a conductor, generating the power to periodically sterilize this section of the air duct system. As a side effect, the high-density ray kills any other life forms that are present in the ducts. It’s been rumored that the primary function of the sterilizers is to prevent the inhabitants of the building from escaping to the outside world.
Twenty-eight seconds. She pushes the book behind the conductor and closes the panel. By her estimate, there are six hours and thirty-two minutes before the next duct cleaning. But the one-hour video loop feeding the cameras to her room will only hold for eighteen more seconds. When she had hacked into the mainframe a few years back she didn't want to risk more than an hour for herself. There would be serious repercussions should she be caught. The Law of the Corporation demands house arrest for first time offenders. But she isn't a first time offender. She isn't even a second time offender. For her, it would be the third time. She would be in prison for up to a month.
She turns on her stomach, slides backward while pushing off with her hands. The green screen of her watch pulsates in the semidarkness of the duct. Her feet reach the opening. Seven seconds. Her knees come out. She lifts her stomach to avoid getting caught on her belt lock. Three seconds and her head is out. She closes the panel, slumps onto her futon and pulls the blanket over her head. Zero seconds. Her wristwatch goes dark and she's live. Her heart rate is still higher than she wants it to be. It can't be helped. Let them figure it out.
Her thoughts drift back to the book. After she read it for the first time, she’d felt something she had not allowed herself to feel before. The artificial intelligence software analyses each frame of video surveillance and decides what steps need to be taken. Strength and pride are the main pillars of the Corporate Education System and weakness, especially in her age group, is not tolerated. Aries decided a while back to give them what they want. For twenty-three hours a day she's strong for them. But for one hour a day she allows herself to feel. And sometimes—mostly after reading—she cries. She cries for her mother and her father and she cries for her freedom and she cries for all the other children with her who are Wards of the State and who landed on the outskirts of a society that has gone too far in the wrong direction.
How can the human spirit be captured? How can it be diminished almost to extinction? How can it be made so small and almost insignificant that the thought of fighting for it is nothing but an idea and easily dismissed as foolish? She's asked herself these questions many times over. She knows the answer. She knows that whoever, whatever, stands behind the Corporation has perfected it and has made it their goal—pursuing it by any means necessary—to break the human spirit, to hold it prisoner and eventually to extinguish it completely. And suddenly she knows she needs to do something about it.
Chapter 1 — Seth
“You will first dream of freedom.”
[The Book of Croix, Vol.1]
Aries opens her eyes. The clear night sky reflects the light in a myriad of stars. The trace of a dream lingers, not quite ready to disappear. In it, she found herself soaring high above the desert plains, dropping in and out of the clouds, while traveling toward a cluster of structures in the distance—mirages in the glimmering heat.
She takes a deep breath, as if to ready herself for the day. Her right hand finds her wristwatch; her fingers trace the invisible line on its screen. The night sky disappears and the default room design comes on. This one is free. It’s a plain room with a nice window looking out over the skyline of a city. Of course, one of the buildings has the SELKom logo on it, but Aries doesn’t mind. She'll be out of here in five minutes.
She checks her pad, wondering why she hasn't had a message from C.J. this morning, but decides that she can ask her later. At the touch of a sensor in the wall, a door slides open and she steps into the shower stall where she undresses and folds her clothes onto a small shelf. A blue horizontal laser line appears at her feet and from there travels upward. When it reaches her head, she opens her mouth. The laser moves through, scanning her gums and teeth, then her eyes.
The impulse to close her lids during this is always very strong. She thinks that in looking into her eyes the software can detect her thoughts and somehow see into her soul. All she can do is attempt not to think about anything at that moment. Most of the time she tries to solve a math problem—like a transcendental function involving sine, cosine, and tangent. She finds comfort in geometrical patterns and fascinati
on in the fact that the inside angles of every triangle, independent of its shape, total one hundred eighty degrees.
The laser turns off and a low humming sound comes on, a sign that the UVL shower has been activated. Eleven seconds. For a few moments afterward the stall smells like iron until the air has been exchanged and a door on the opposite side opens. Aries steps into a small closet where she dresses in a dark blue jumpsuit and heavy-duty working boots. She ties her hair into a ponytail and steps through another door that spills her out into a hallway. The corridor stretches in both directions in a slight curve with doors on either side, all leading into units similar to the one she currently occupies.
Before she can see it, she can hear the noises coming from the wide opening in the corridor that leads into the dining hall. Aries collects herself. The knot in her stomach appears like clockwork each time she enters. There are usually about two hundred kids spread out over twenty tables. Aries scans the room then goes to the large wall of narrow glass panels, each of which contains ten square compartments containing a variety of food. She stops before a screen and generates a smile. Her picture appears. Good morning, Egan, Aries, D. ID#: 4746-POC-201-0017485. Two of the small compartments open. She takes two bottles from one and a piece of bread from the other.
One of the tables has only one kid sitting at it so far. The boy is about her age, maybe a year older. She thinks Kiire Understaad is his name, but she could be wrong. She remembers he's been here for at least as long as her. As a girl, not belonging to any of the groups here is bad. As a boy, it must be nearly unbearable. And for a boy with that name and his stout stature, it’s impossible. She heads for the table, seeing in her periphery three older kids get up from two other tables and nonchalantly make their way toward this one. By her estimate, they will arrive at the same time. It’s a game—every morning, every midday break, and during free time in the evenings. They remind her of vultures waiting for the slightest sign of weakness, anything they can use to create trouble without it being recognized as such. The monitoring system does not allow for any social misconduct. But there are ways to cheat the system and some of the kids excel at it.
Aries slumps down at the bench, diagonally across from Kiire. Simultaneously, the three other boys sit down at the same table, two across from her and one to her right and across from Kiire. They are a year or so older than her. Maybe sixteen. Their jumpsuits are orange. Rodent Control.
“Hey, Scarlip, can I kiss you?” the boy across from her whispers, his hand covering his mouth so the monitors can’t see what he says. His hair is dark with gelled spikes sticking up in all directions. “Scarlip, O Scarlip, just one little kiss. Scarlip, my Scarlip, I beg of you, please!”
The other two try to contain their laughter. His name tag says SETH. He’s easily a foot taller than her, his eyes and demeanor telling her that he is going to push it today, push it to the limit of what the software considers appropriate social conduct. She's been called names before. Many times. Her father had made enough money to pay for the four operations to join her upper lip and close the cleft. As a result, the tip of her nose is now slightly pushed inward and there's a small scar below it in the space between her nose and her upper lip. She doesn’t see it when she looks at herself. She never did. It was always normal for her. She remembers her mom telling her that she was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. And Aries believed her. She doesn’t really feel hurt when someone says something about it. She did in the beginning. Now it’s just annoying.
She glances over at Kiire. He is involved in his own battle with the boy across from him. The boy stares at him relentlessly while repeating, “I will crush you,” without moving his lips. She can’t read his name tag except the first four letters. TERR. For a second she thinks about what could possibly drive someone to perfect the art of belittling someone to that extent. What inner demons he must be fighting each night when he lays in his two-foot-wide bunk bed in the darkness. Does he think about his parents? Does he think about his future and that he will probably never get anywhere, never see the sun, never stand in the rain or smell the earth under him? That he'll most likely die fifty or sixty years from now within two hundred meters of where he sits? That he'll work in Rodent Control for the rest of his life? She pities him. Until Kiire lets out a gasp. His hand goes to his knee under the table. He tries to swallow the pain. The tears come out of sheer reflex.
“Make a sound and you’re dead,” Terr whispers. “Cry and you'll spend two weeks in medical and afterward you’ll eat what she’s drinking.” Kiire lowers his head, looks down at his food, tries to pretend he’s eating. A few tears drip down onto his plate.
“Hey, Scarlip, tell me, do you know this boy?” Seth says with a smile, as if Aries has just told a joke and he’s showing his amusement. “Is he a friend of yours? 'Cause if he is, if he’s a friend of yours, what're you gonna do to help him out? Or are you just going to sit there and do nothing? You have to ask yourself what kind of a friend you are if that’s the case, huh? If you don’t know him, that’s a different story. Then we’re all just sitting here, talking. Right?”
Aries registers that she is frozen. Her mind draws a complete blank, unable to form an answer, a response of any kind. That always seems to happen in situations like this. Afterward, she usually comes up with a long list of things that she could have said and done. But at this moment, right now, there is nothing. All she can think of is "Rodent Control" and how strange it is that the corners of his mouth move downward each time he smiles.
She looks above his head at one of the oversized flat screens mounted on each wall of the dining room. They usually have advertisements on them. Right now, it shows a blonde woman in a bathing suit talking about how, for only fifteen units a month, you could become a member of the beach club. This gives you access to an hour per day on fine sand, a milky pool, and a huge wall screen with an ocean view on it. It’s pixilated and the quality stinks, but many people in Tier One use it. Aries has been there only once.
“Are you listening to me?” Seth’s grin disappears.
“Yes,” is all she can muster. It comes out with a squeak, like a rusty faucet sputtering water.
“Are you?”
“Yes.” This time it’s clearer, albeit still with a hint of fear.
“Good. 'Cause if you don’t... if you don’t listen to me, this will not end well for you. I've been watching you, Scarlip Egan. For a while. There's something about you, you know. Something irritating. Like you’re proud of something. Like you’re better than the rest of us. Like you’ve got something the rest of us don’t have. But now that I look at you a little closer, I don’t know what it was I even saw in you. You’re just pathetic. You look pathetic.”
The other two boys nod reassuringly. Kiire eats, or better, moves tiny little portions of wheat paste to his mouth so he doesn’t have to do anything else. The knot in Aries's stomach is a small planet rotating around its own axis. She thinks she is going to be sick. Maybe if she said something, anything, he would be satisfied and leave her alone. Maybe she should apologize and tell him he's right and that she’d seriously consider the points he had made. She has no clue what to say, so she opens her mouth and starts talking.
“Did you know that cockroaches leave chemical trails in their feces, as well as emitting airborne pheromones for swarming and mating?” She has no idea where this is coming from but decides to go with it. “These chemical trails transmit bacteria on surfaces.” She lifts her hands off the table, wipes them on her jumpsuit and puts them in her lap. “Other cockroaches will follow these trails”—she looks at the other two boys who don’t quite get what’s going on yet—“to discover sources of food and water. They feed on scraps of human food and usually leave an offensive odor.”
All eyes are on Aries. She can see the anger well up in Seth, but there is no more backing down for her. She has to rise to meet his challenge or leave, leave right now only to come back tomorrow and do this all over again. When she continues, she pr
onounces each word clearly, as if talking to a child.
"Cockroaches are attracted to warm, moist environments. They spend the daylight hours in dark, secluded areas under refrigerators, stoves, and in crevices under the floors. The presence of cockroaches during the day may indicate a large population. They have been linked with allergic reactions in humans."
For a few moments, there is silence at the table. Then Kiire sneezes. “Sorry,” he says, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. Aries can’t help but let out a giggle. Without warning, Seth jumps up, grabs Aries across the table by the collar, pulls her toward him and screams at her from the bottom of his lungs, “I AM NOT A COCKROACH!”
He pushes her; she loses her balance and falls to the floor. Pain shoots through her elbow. She looks up, realizing first that everyone in the room is staring at her and second, that there are absolutely no sounds. The monitors behind Seth’s red face go dark. That’s not a good sign. She gets up holding her elbow and flexes it to see if it’s broken.
Then the screens simultaneously come back on. After a few seconds of flickering, the image of a room appears. There are several bunk beds, all empty. One of them has someone sitting on it, arms wrapped around the legs, head down. Over the speakers drifts the sound of soft weeping. The camera zooms closer toward the bowed head. The hair is dark with spikes standing in all directions. Then the head lifts up from the knees and Seth’s oversized face comes into frame. His eyes swollen with tears, he stares into space while sobbing. A single “Mommy” escapes his mouth. Then the sobbing continues.
There is not a sound in the dining hall except for a couple of low laughs here and there that are instantly swallowed up by the silence. Aries faces Seth. Their eyes meet. She realizes that she is as shocked as he is. Gone is the anger, gone the boy who wanted to stir trouble with a girl today. All that’s left is reality and the never-absent and far-reaching presence of the A.I. monitors behind the walls, behind the screens, and behind it all.
