The Last Mayor Box Set 3

by Michael John Grist

  I can't complain. I'm alive. My family are here. Every second that passes the disbelief only mounts.

  Lara's eyes dance over the chart. "Delusions of grandeur," she reads, then gives me a look. "But we already knew that."

  "She's barely a nurse," I say, eliciting a snort. "She's hardly qualified. What else?"

  "A serious case of the heebie jeebies. Deep spine tingles. Extreme goosebumps."

  I laugh. "Get over here."

  She comes. It's tight, as she climbs onto the bed. There's a lot of pain getting appropriately entangled around my traction and my cast, and her bandaged feet are no pretty picture either, and it's weird doing it with the kids right there, but it makes me feel human again to try. This is what I survived for. The guilt seems to be gone, maybe driven away by shock, maybe just gone.

  We're tender with each other. It feels like years since I've touched my wife. Held her. Her hot skin against mine makes us both tremble. Only halfway through do I remember what the bulge of her belly means.

  It draws tears from my eyes. I can't believe it. How can this even be real?

  "What is it?" she asks, worried. I can hardly speak, so I just curl the flat of my palm on her swelling tummy. She places her hand on mine, and holds it there, and keeps on moving while we both cry.

  Afterward we hug tightly, her nestled around the cast and the traction, and she tells me stories about what she's done, about Witzgenstein and Crow and the long trek. I listen. I'd like to tell her about my voyages, about the bunkers and Anna in Istanbul, about Olan and Rachel Heron, but I can't do it, not yet.

  But I will.

  We're different now, lying like this. I feel like there's some barrier crossed that we never knew was there before. We've always been separate people at the same time as we were a unit, a family, but now we're more than that. She crossed the world with our children to save me. That's a sense of belonging like nothing New LA or Sacramento could ever provide.

  I kiss her head.

  "What was that for?" she asks sleepily.

  "For saving me again."

  She smiles and snuggles in. "You better be worth it this time."

  It's good.

  Still, I can't sleep. There are so many things to think about. Wonderful things, terrible things. I heard that the bunkers have been checking in. They're working on a cure, something Anna initiated. I didn't get a chance to talk to Lucas or Sulman, but the reports sound exciting.

  I can't kill bunkers anymore. It's obvious now. Olan Harrison did this to us, and he's gone, and now we have to do something better. We have to be better, and I'm ready to play whatever role I can. I'm just a comic book artist, but for some reason people listen to me. Lara makes me better. My children give me value. It's the people around me that make me real, that raise me up, and I owe my life to them.

  I think back on my cairn trail across the world, the crimes balanced against the good deeds, and hope that the scales will come out in the positive. I'll do what I can. I'll try to be a better man.

  Some time in my late ruminations there's a clatter in the hall outside. Lights flash on, then in runs Alan; his face is red, his eyes wide, and in his hands he's holding a satellite phone. He comes to me and holds it out.

  "You have to hear this, Amo," he says, grinning like a madman. "It's Peters in Brezno."

  He's grinning and he's crying at the same time, and I don't get it. More people rush in after him, like there's a party in my room and now they're all invited; Cynthia and Lin and George and Marjory, rubbing sleep out of their eyes. Lara wakes by my side, and I take the phone and hold it tentatively to my ear.

  "Peters?" I ask.

  "Amo!" he answers, his voice very far away, then there's a sob, and a laugh, and what the hell is happening?

  "What is it?"

  "Lucas told me it was Anna's cure," he begins, babbling, "her DNA, but I do not care, I just know what I can see. I saw him, Amo! I saw his eyes!"

  A shiver runs through me. I don't know what he's talking about, but somehow this feels important, maybe immense.

  "Whose eyes?"

  "Our leper shield went down," he says, calming himself slightly, so his singsong Swedish accent lilts along like a lullaby. "I went to the leper but he wasn't a leper any more, Amo. He didn't have glowing eyes. He looked at me, Amo." He laughs a little. "He looked right at me!"

  I frown. I look at Lara, and she looks back at me. I can't remember that ever happening before. Sure, they always saw me, their eyes had to work, but really at me? Something bright starts to shine in my head, and I feel like I'm being pushed back in time, sinking into my coma bed. He looked at me? It's the first day after my date with Lara again, and she's lying here in bed, and everything is about to change.

  "What do you mean, he looked at you?"

  "I don't know!" he shouts gleefully. "But it is not only here! Everywhere. I go out, and it is becoming dawn here now, and I see them. They are in the mountains, there is a house here, and they are trying to talk to me through the glass. Talk, the ocean, Amo, with their mouths! They don't make sound but they are trying. The ocean!"

  Tears blur my vision. It's too big. I look at Alan and he nods.

  "In their millions," he says. "We've had reports in from half the bunkers; across Asia the mounds are spreading apart. We can see them on satellite. They're not flocking, they're helping each other." He grins hugely. "The world is coming back."

  The world is coming back?

  I can't think of anything better than that. It feels like a dream, a too-happy ending, but everything is unreal now. It's too big to really understand, so I just open wide and take the biggest bite I can.

  Finally, I think. It's what the ocean said as they flooded for Olan Harrison.

  Finally we'll be whole again, and in that moment I see that this will be my work going forward. I will be there at every place I can, with popcorn and movies to meet them and greet them and tell them, 'Welcome home.'

  "Welcome home," I mutter now. Lara kisses my face. I kiss her back.

  "Welcome home," she answers.

  The cheer goes up, then we're all saying it, to each other, to the air. Welcome home, welcome home. We hear from Lucas next, then a steady stream of bunkers from around the world check in and we welcome them all, and they welcome us. The line has leveled out, they say. There's no infection anymore, nothing to separate us from the bunkers, so we're all human together again. I look over at my children, and their eyes shine with pride, with hope, with a new inner light.

  Welcome home, I tell them. We are all home, now.

  END

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Thank you for reading The Light! I can't believe we've finished book 9 of this series. Wow. I'm so glad you've come on this journey with me. What a trip. I never knew all the twists and turns it would take, and have been thrilled to discover them. I didn't know Anna was going to die, or exactly what kind of man Olan Harrison would be. The one thing I always knew was the very end – the zombies come back.

  That always seemed beautiful to me. Amo's killed a lot of people, or been a party to a lot of killing, but this is a good step toward atonement.

  I'd love to hear what you think of this finale – could you please review it on the shop site where you bought it? Reviews from readers like you are the lifeblood of indie authors.

  Thank you!

  Shop links

  Goodreads

  So what's next? Will we ever return to Amo, Lara and the others for more adventures? The door is definitely open. The world is going to be in some serious disarray, as billions of people come back to life. There'll be psychos. New heroes. It's pretty exciting thinking about all the new adventures there. So, maybe…

  To be first to find out about that, and my other projects like the cyberpunk series, and the epic fantasy, and the upcoming thrillers, why not join my free newsletter? You'll get special offers, free books and discounts.

  Get me on the newsletter!

  Now, read on for the first chapter of The Sa
int's Rise, Book 1 of my epic fantasy series.

  THE LIGHT - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Sincere thanks as ever to the Ocean Elite: Pam Elmes for reading in less than a day and giving great comments, Debbie Middleton, Walter Scott for excellent suggestions and encouragement, Lee Atherton and Melissa Dykeman-Abourbih.

  - Michael

  EXTRAS

  Thank you for reading Books 7-9 of the Last Mayor series! I sincerely hope you enjoyed this series. Chapters 1-3 of my book Soul Jacker, a cyberpunk SF thriller, are a few page flips ahead, but first would you like to dig a little deeper into the Last Mayor world? Sign up for my free newsletter and you'll get:

  An exclusive short story featuring Robert 'Cerulean'

  An author interview with me, Michael John Grist, hinting at the underpinnings of the Last Mayor saga.

  Exclusive comic book artwork of the principal characters.

  The latest news on my releases, plus free and discount offers from myself and others.

  Get free extras

  Also - would you consider reviewing this boxset or its component books on the shop site where you bought it? Reviews are the lifeblood of indie authors, affording us visibility and social proof in a highly competitive market.

  Thank you!

  Shop links

  Finally, I'm always looking for advance readers to join my ARC (Advance Review Copy) Squad, who get free copies of all my books, a month before anyone else, forever, in exchange for reviews on launch day.

  If you'd like to join the ARC Squad, please send me an email at michaeljohngrist@hotmail.com and I'll happily make you a member.

  Now, read on for chapters 1-3 of Soul Jacker, Book 1 of the Soul Jacker series!

  - Michael

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Michael John Grist is a British/American writer who lived in Tokyo, Japan for 11 years and now lives in London, England. He writes science fiction and fantasy as Michael John Grist and real-world thrillers as Mike Grist.

  In his Japan days he explored and photographed abandoned places in Japan, such as ruined theme parks, military bases and underground bunkers (see pictures on michaeljohngrist.com). These explorations provide ample inspiration for his fiction.

  Christopher Wren (thrillers – as Mike Grist)

  1. Saint Justice

  2. Monsters

  Last Mayor (post-apocalypse)

  1. The Last (available in audio)

  2. The Lost

  3. The Least

  4. The Loss

  5. The List

  6. The Laws

  7. The Lash

  8. The Lies

  9. The Light

  Soul Jacker (cyberpunk)

  1. Soul Jacker

  2. Soul Breaker

  3. Soul Killer

  Ignifer Cycle (epic fantasy)

  1. The Saint's Rise (available in audio)

  2. The Rot's War (available in audio)

  Short fiction

  Cullsman #9 - 9 science fiction stories

  Death of East - 9 weird fantasy tales

  SOUL JACKER – Soul Jacker 1

  2364. A terrified girl flees a brutal slumlord.

  SOUL JACKER (EXCERPT)

  1. SOUL JACKER

  The needle enters Mei-An's eye socket smoothly, nestling beside her artificially whitened eyeball and passing back into her brain. She barely flinches, though I know it's uncomfortable as hell.

  If not for the hunted look on her face she'd be remarkably pretty; a late twenties meta-Asiat with deep black hair and face-framing bangs to die for. Dressed in a strawberry-red gho that clings to the curves of her body, she stands out against the jack-room's muted gray walls like an aneurysm.

  And she's terrified.

  I offer my best calming smile and steadily depress the syringe plunger, injecting the silvery engram fluid into her head; a bespoke memory patch of language and vocational skills, enough to build a new identity beyond the wall. I draw the needle gently out then lean back, giving her time to blink away the discomfort.

  "How do you feel?" I ask.

  "It hurts," she says, in the clipped tones of a Calico girl. As her mouth opens I see the black tattoo on her tongue: DZ, the brand-mark of Don Zachary, brutal mob boss of the Skulks. "Like there's an ice tsunami in my head."

  I nod and watch her, sitting there on the input tray of the EMR. She's too young to remember the big waves, when they carried the last dregs of Arctic ice crashing against Calico's tsunami wall. Late twenties and maybe ten years my junior, but clearly no innocent. You don't get Don Zachary's brand and stay innocent for long.

  A silvery tear beads from her darting eye and I dab it away with a surgical cloth. "Let them settle for a few moments," I say, "then we'll jack in."

  As I turn to go, she reaches out and takes my hand in her cold, hard fingers. "He may come looking for me."

  I smile. Of course I know that. By all accounts Don Zachary's a bastard. "Just try to be calm."

  I leave her, exiting the barren gray jack-room to stand in the polished steel corridor outside, alongside my assistant Carrolla. He's tall and shaven-headed, with features just shy of model-worthy. I think he must have had marine training, though he never fought in the Arctic War.

  He raises an eyebrow, and I know what he's thinking. It was a calm night until Mei-An came in: a couple of drunks asking for transient joy jacks, a freighterman looking to erase a bad trip, followed by the prospect of hitting the bars soon, and now this? We're tampering with Don Zachary's property, and that puts the crosshairs squarely on us.

  "She wants out," I say, "we can do that much."

  Carrolla grunts. "I heard the Don crucified the last guy who crossed him. Actually nailed him to the damn tsunami wall and left him to rot. Nobody came to help. Nobody took him down. Does that sound like a good time to you, Rit?"

  I shrug. There are no shortage of legends about the Don. "I'm not turning her away."

  "You damn well should."

  "Should I?" I look at him. "You saw the breaks. Her cheekbones are a work of art, how many times they've been surgically reset. We let her go now, she's dead. You may as well go drown her in the ocean yourself; it'd be a kinder way to die."

  "She made her bed," Carrolla protests, "let her lie in it alone."

  I just keep looking at him. He's a good guy, he has my back in a pinch, but he's not ruthless enough for this, though he thinks he is. Let one innocent die and it'll break him in ways he doesn't yet understand. The War made criminals of us all.

  "I can't," I say.

  Carrolla stares at me and I stare back, equally stubborn. So this is our impasse, where I always draw the line. I don't live for much, and I buckle to the Don when I have to, but I won't stand in the way of someone who just wants to survive.

  "Don-goddamned-Zachary," Carrolla mutters eventually under his breath, giving in. "He'll pull your face right off."

  I let that pass unremarked, and we stand quietly for a moment longer. In Mei-An's brain the engram will be spreading, making connections to her existing Soul; all the unique combinations of memory, experience, emotion and chemicals that make her who she is. The engram will rewrite portions of that architecture as it teaches language and skills to help her find work. It could be a passport to a new life away from the fleshpits of the Don.

  I'm helping her, I think.

  "I need you tight on me for this," I say into the quiet. "It's a deeper jack than usual."

  Carrolla nods sharply, like a marine. He's got discipline, I'll give him that.

  After a few minutes we head back into the jack-room together. Mei-An is sitting there like a dab of milk on the EMR machine's input tray, shivering slightly. The machine's old and blocky lines don't match her at all; this child of Calico's privilege, genetically designed within an inch of her life.

  Carrolla tosses her a lazy smile then takes up position at the control panel. I sit on the stool in front of Mei-An and look into her wide, hunted eyes. I offer my hand and she takes it. It's good to get the skins
hip started in small ways, to start our systems aligning.

  "There are serious risks to your Soul," I say, for the second time since she came in. I like to be certain. "Potential damage to your memory, to your wits, to your personality. I'm good at what I do but there's always a risk. I need to hear you say you're sure."

  She nods swiftly. "I'm sure. I don't have a choice."

  I nod. Who amongst us does? "Lie down on your side, facing me."

  She does. I climb onto the tray and lie beside her.

  "It'll be fine," I say. "Carrolla."

  Carrolla pushes the button to fire up the EMR; Electro-Magnetic Resonance imager. Once a piece of medical equipment designed for mapping the brain, to detect cancer, tumors and other abnormalities before they manifested outward, the EMR is now the primary tool of the Soul Jacker. Essentially an elephant-sized donut of metal and plastic tipped on its side, it contains powerful imaging electromagnets that whir within the ring, focused on the tray inside the donut hole, where the Soul Jacker and his patient lie together.

  I squeeze Mei-An's hand as the electromagnets start to rev and thump, building a soupy kind of static between us, like the thickness in the air before a storm.

  thump thump

  thump thump

  The sound grows louder and the input tray jerks into motion, drawing us into the machine's hollow heart. Like passing through the drumbeat curtain of a waterfall, the electrostatic pummels us as we slide in, until we are surrounded by the EMR's off-white bulk. The thumping of the magnets becomes thunderous and tides of electromagnetism wash out to fill the spaces between us with a cold, fluid medium. It takes years to learn how to navigate this flow, years more to jack a mind across it, but to actually jack and rewrite a Soul?