The Disconnectionist
By James S. Hudson
Copyright 2011 James S. Hudson
Smashwords Edition
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Chapter 1
Cade did not reach enlightenment in the usual way, through meditation or chanting. Instead, he found that most profound insight in a hail of bullets. His Masters had killed men that day.
While leading some of their students to the nearest village, the Masters had surprised some marauding Hedonan troops, then butchered them. Cade had felt the same terror as the dying men, watching the Masters weave from the path of bullets before the triggers were pulled. From that day, his life had been haunted by the beauty and power of the Masters’ death-dance.
Cade fingered the scar at the base of his skull, remembering the grating of the drill against his bone. His exposed brain was just below the skin, waiting to receive the metal sliver which would make him a Master. One day, Cade thought, one day, I’ll be one of them.
Chapter 2
Cade crouched on top of the orchard wall. The air was dense with the perfume of fruit blossoms. The hooting of a night bird echoed up and down the valley. He shivered, but not just because of the icy mountain air. He knew how hard a thrashing could be for stealing. Yet, the riskier the mission, the more delicious the fruit.
Spread out below him, his Monastery home was a rambling fortress wedged into a ravine. In the gloom, the buildings looked like a cluster of rafts, with two enormous mountains looming like tidal waves on each side, frozen at the moment of breaking.
Further down the valley he could see the firelight of the village Safekeep, and far beyond, the bottom of the valley flattened out into the Plains, which stretched to the horizon. In the middle of the Plains, electric lights glittered like a pile of fallen stars: the city of Hedona. To the right of it was the moon-silvered ocean, and to the left, true to their name, the uninhabitable Darklands were like a pool of black ink spilled over the Plain.
Down there, Lendora’s stories of Hedona were being played out. For as long as Cade could remember, her lessons had heaped fuel on the fires of his nightmares. He could sense thousands of bloodthirsty Hedonan soldiers out there, lurking just beyond the shadows.
Cade trusted his weight to the creaking limb of a peach tree. The tree drooped under an obscene weight of fruit. The Novices hardly ever got fruit, but so much was dissolving into a worm-eaten mush beneath the trees! It was a worse crime not to take it. He jumped down and began plucking fruit and dropping it into a fold of his cloak.
Something whistled past Cade’s ear, striking a peach from his grasp and stinging his fingers. He dropped the hem of his cloak and the fruit bounced around him. A hard wooden staff pressed across his chest, stopping his breathing. He looked from its glinting metal tip to the hooded figure who held it. Only one person could swing a heavy battle staff with such precision.
“Malcott?” Cade said, his voice failing.
“What you are doing here? I was about to knock your brains out.” He pushed the hood from his face. His expression was a glowering battle-mask that would have sent Hedonan troops into a panic. Cade felt the heat rising to his face. He would have preferred a beating from any other Master to being caught by Malcott.
“I’m sorry Master, the food is so bad here...”
“You are stealing fruit? What am I supposed to do with you? I should thrash you until you bleed.”
“I didn’t think anybody would care,” Cade said, fighting back tears that made his eyes swim.
“You should care! Masters must trust each other. Masters are not thieves. At this rate you will never become one!” he said, the staff quivering with barely-controlled anger. “Your rations will be halved for a week. Maybe you will appreciate Monastery food better on an empty stomach!”
“Yes Master,” Cade mumbled. He found it impossible to lift his head and meet the man’s eyes. He wished he’d stayed warm in bed – stealing fruit seemed like a stupid, childish prank now.
“Believe me, I hate dealing punishment more than you hate receiving it.”
Master Malcott reached behind his head as if scratching the nape of his neck, then dropped his hand. So that was how he caught me, Cade thought. He had his brain-pin Activated!
As if he was still Connected and reading Cade’s thoughts, Malcott continued. “I was on sentry duty. You were pumping out nervous energy like a murderer. Animal emotions betrayed you: hunger and fear. You would do well to control both.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Now get back to bed. And drop the rest of the fruit you’re hiding!”
Guilty to the end, Cade threw down the fruit and fled through the silent Monastery to the barracks. He eased the door open and peered inside. The other Novices were inert and the sounds of their breathing filled the warm, stale air. Cade tiptoed between the beds and crawled between his chilly blankets.
”How did it go?” came a whisper from the next bed. His friend Nathan’s eyes glittered with expectation in the moonlight.
”I got caught,” whispered Cade.
Nathan huffed. ”I told you so! If you’d let me go instead, we’d be eating peaches right now.”
”I’d like to see you get past Malcott with his brain-pin Activated.”
Nathan sucked air through his teeth. ”He just happened to be Activated in the middle of the night? I don’t believe you! He must have heard you - you make more noise than a drunken horse in a field of bottles.”
“But Malcott Connects all the time - a lot more than any of the other Masters.”
“At least it was Malcott who caught you. Everyone knows you’re his favourite.”
”He can like me as much as he wants, as long as I keep getting off lightly,” As soon as he said them, Cade wished he could take back his traitorous words. He valued Malcott’s friendship more than anything else. “Anyway, I bet that ten years ago, Malcott would have been the one caught with a cloak full of fruit. Now shut up - we’ll get in trouble for talking!”
Cade gathered the thin blanket about him and buried his head in the pillow. He lay awake, listening to the reassuring whisper of breathing around him. What Malcott had said was worse than any beating. What if Malcott was right, that he wasn’t good enough to be a Master? After all, he had been rejected by the priesthood at first. He had been found one spring morning, abandoned outside the main gates, most likely by a whore or young farm girl. Nobody knew who his parents were; his bornware was likely to be diluted beyond usefulness. It had been Malcott who had noticed his potential, who had taken him to the barracks to wash the dirt from his face and exchanged his threadbare work clothes for the brown robes of a Novice.
Cade promised himself he would never steal again, and the night’s events became nothing more than an unpleasant dream before a profound and peaceful sleep.
Chapter 3
Within the bowels of the Nearside district of Hedona, Nadina was preparing to go out.
Like most of Hedona, the Nearside apartments were concrete ruins, slowly disintegrating into rubble and rusty iron skeletons. The structures reached upwards from the horizon like the fingers of drowning men.
In Nadina’s apartment, a single light-bulb glowed with a seamy, brownish light. A large bed took up most of the space in the middle of the room: she’d had to move it away from the walls after the neighbours complained about the noise.
She swished her hair into a tail and applied a smear of lipstick. She smacked her lips and checked her teeth in the full-length mirror for red stains. The second, diminutive row of teeth behind the first was a reminder of her family heritage. Her parents were Feeders, who ate uncontrollably.
She stooped to pull on her leather boots - the most expensive and cherished items in her wardrobe. She wore a tight green shirt and faded jeans. She didn’t spend too much time on her appearance – she was almost pretty, definitely attractive, but far from beautiful. And besides, everyone knew that the most pristine beauties were usually the worst in bed: they were too lazy, too confident that others would rush to please them.
She picked up the folded note that had been jammed under the door while she was napping. Not a noise complaint, but a date, time, and two addresses. The first address was a bar where she would find her target for the night; the second would be the hotel room where he would meet his end.
She would try to find the target, swell his pride with drinks and flattery, then coax him to the second address with unspoken promises. If she succeeded, she would find a few hundred dollars in an envelope under her door the next day. Would he open the hotel door to be perforated with bullets, or be abducted and taken elsewhere? She didn’t care, as long as she got paid – it was good to benefit from her habit of always managing to pick up the wrong sort of men.
She shouldered her handbag and removed a large, snub-nosed revolver from it. She broke it open, checked that it was loaded, snapped it shut and dropped it into the bag. She paused at the open door and ran her eyes over the den.
Her allowance was so meagre that she couldn’t afford a proper apartment, even with her irregular work. It wasn’t her fault that she was in this situation, that she was different from her family. The specialists called it “recessive bornware”, an unlucky toss of the genetic dice. Nadina didn’t think it unlucky – she was glad she was bred for something that made her fit and popular instead.
The lift button failed to respond to her hammering so she took the stairs. Her brisk steps clattered as she hurried down. A bassline womped from somewhere below - either from the club next door, or a neighbour’s party. She stepped into the dark street and almost gagged at the chemical stench of burning rubbish. It was always worse on warm summer nights, when the fumes hung over the city like a putrid blanket, without any breeze to clear it away. It felt like the insides of her lungs were peeling.
Nearside had once been a rich area. A neighbour had told her that a previous mayor had skimmed so much money from security payments that the area’s security forces had abandoned the contract. The gangs had moved in and turned the area into a battleground, doing great services for low-income housing availability and eventually imposing their own order. The drug users, music addicts, and other outcasts whose natural and unnatural desires drove them to find others of their kind, all found their home in Nearside. Nadina strode into the night, joining the bustle of the city’s footpaths.
The bar was several blocks away from the heart of the city. It was in a wealthier area, where the piles of rubbish were removed more regularly and the graffiti was less explicit and more pleasing to the eye. Nadina acknowledged the bar’s door guard with a nod. When the door closed, cutting off the clamour of the street, the contrast was immediate. The odour of alcohol fought with that of expensive perfume. Nadina hated these places. She knew the naked insecurities that hid behind the fashionable clothes and façades of power. These people were scared, vulnerable children, playing dress-ups to try and fool the world into thinking they were adults.
Nadina was so good at her job that her contacts didn’t need to supply a name or description of her targets. His air of hunched brutishness betrayed his profession. A soldier, definitely, and high-ranking. Her gaze flitted over the other patrons. One man talked rapidly and gestured enthusiastically to a woman. He might have been an old casual lover, but absorbed in his current conquest, he was oblivious to her. Nadina approached the officer and slipped into her familiar role.
Chapter 4
At breakfast, Cade stared at the tiny ladleful of gruel in his bowl. It seemed too small to even reach his stomach.
The great dining hall was built from immense logs, cracked with age and blackened by generations of candle-soot. The hall was large enough for the hundred or so Novices and Masters, who sat at tables which stretched the length of the hall. Chatter and the scraping of spoons in bowls filled the air.
Cade was sullen at the thought of facing the day with a growling belly. He was tough in every other respect. Every day, his body was smashed with wooden training weapons and hardened to insensitivity by Monastery life. But Master Malcott knew him well enough to punish him where he was weakest.
Cade had picked every fleck of grain from his bowl long before the other Novices started clearing the tables. When the clattering and conversation faded to silence, the Novices settled on their bench seats in preparation for the morning’s meditation. A reverential silence descended upon the hall.
Great Master, the head priest of the Monastery, perched at the head of the table like a bony vulture in Master’s robes. He cleared his throat and his slow, precise words reverberated in the hall. ”Today we will cast away our individual thoughts and bathe in the great spring of life which Connects every being.” He pressed the tips of his fingers together in an arch.
Cade shut his eyes and sunk into the state of meditation, which came as naturally as sleep. The words of Great Master dropped one by one beneath the surface of his mind, like stones into a deep pool. The distinctions between the edges of his own being and the rest of the world blurred, like an ink drawing dipped into water.
“Connection is the empty space between the notes of a song,” the droning voice continued. “It is the dancer’s pause as they contemplate their next step.“ Throughout his life, Cade had found meditation easier and easier to slip into, until it had become a reflexive shield against the ignorance that ruled life outside the Monastery. Still, he often found himself straying from the path, often realising that for hours he’d done nothing but daydream of fruit or honey. Or girl Novices. Stop! Those fantasies were dangerous and could not be exposed to the Connection with so many Masters around.
After what seemed only a moment, Great Master roused them. ”Now, you will remember the state you are in. Whenever the world threatens to disrupt your Reason with its petty demands, you will feel as you do now.”
Cade swam up from the depths of meditation and burst into the world of sensation, as though he had just surfaced from a mountain stream.
”As you return to the world, you will find your body full of vitality, ready to serve a clear mind.”
Cade flexed his fingers and breathed in deeply. He looked up and caught the eyes of Nathan and saw his own feelings mirrored in them. They both smiled. In the moments after meditation, their rivalry was quenched by their friendship and shared wisdom.
Outside the Monastery, other people had families, sweethearts, food, gossip, dances and every other competing diversion from the deeper mysteries. Despite the harsh life within the Monastery, none of these could give him as much contentment and happiness as he felt now.
The grass between the Monastery buildings was a luminous green and tiny white flowers hid within it, radiant and clean, as if they had just pushed up from the earth. When he reached the musty old wooden teaching hut, his eyes needed a few moments to adjust to the gloom inside.
After a few minutes of sitting in the stuffy room, the euphoria of the meditation faded. The air was sticky with the scent of unwashed bodies and the uneven floorboards ground at the knobs of his ankle bones.
Malcott gave no sign that their encounter in the orchard had occurred. He sat cross-legged before the dozen brown-robed Novices. Today they were discussing the history of biology. Malcott made the old evolution stories come alive. Cade could almost see the slimy creatures squirming out of the sea, growing legs, and conquering the land. As Malcott spoke, the Novices’ shaved heads nodded diligently. Occasionally, a Novice would interrupt with whatever sprung to their mind and Malcott would pause, then provide a response. The functioning of the Monastery required many minds working in unison, and this was reflected in this teaching style. Malcott spoke in a monotone - part story, part chant.
”Contemplate for long enough and one realises that others are as important as oneself. This leads to good actions and the flourishing of the world.”
”However, if you turn your back on Reason you are playing by the cruel old rules of nature - that only the fittest survive. Your awareness of your impending death will grow. You will hurt and reject everything around you as you flee from imaginary fears. Once you have drifted away from the great convoy of life, you will be adrift, alone, lost at sea.”
It was true - many people did drift as if they were boats with broken rudders. That was it. Like boats drifting towards a waterfall. Cade took a breath and waited for a gap in Malcott’s story, then spoke these thoughts clearly and slowly. Malcott paused and nodded, a look of approval in his eyes.
“Thank you, Cade. Indeed, the Monastery, if nothing else, shows us a clear path through life” Malcott settled himself more comfortably on his legs, preparing for the long tale. ”Long before the Nuclear War, there was a single species of human. This was an animal part-evolved, ruled by the conflicting laws of nature and reason, yet unable to abide by either. A stranger amongst the other animals, humans were driven to create their own world. Technology was the air, water, and earth of this new land.”
Cade spoke again. This was his favourite subject and his words flowed freely. ”And then Man became Man of Man’s own creation. The artefacts and machines of his world, he twisted into his own double-spiral bornware, absorbing the metal children of his Reason into his own flesh and blood.”
“And where once all men were created equal, the one human race became many.”
Cade glanced at Nathan, straight-backed and attentive in the row in front of him. Once the lesson turned to the different races, Nathan would be bursting to list the most spectacular categories of human. As expected, he initiated the recital.
“The Batteries, who drained lightning and drank the sun. The Enforcers, with skin stronger than iron, who tore evildoers apart with their bare hands and summoned death from the skies!”
Cade interrupted. “You make them sound like the old gods – smiting and vindictive! What use is a powerful body without a mind to go with it?”
“Well, if you are such an expert, Cade,” said Malcott, annoyed by the interruption, but glad that his lesson was stoking some lively discussion. “Why don’t you finish?”
Nathan stole a look at him and mouthed Malcott’s last words mockingly. Cade spoke, undistracted. “The Memorist, who could recite every word of every book ever written, who bound his triumphs, failures, and discoveries into his bornware, to be passed through the generations.”
Nathan said loudly, as if reading, ”The Connectionist, who shared the thoughts of all as one mind and shared the wisdom of all. The creators of the same brain-pins that we have today.”
Malcott cleared his throat. “There were many branches of the human race. The lesser races below the Connectionists quarrelled. Their greater power only gave greater expression to their destructive animal natures, and the Nuclear War destroyed their civilisations.”
“Cade,” he said, warning the boy that his knowledge was about to be tested - he wasn’t going to let either of them commandeer his lesson without putting them in their place. “The old races are natural history. What of the new? The one that rules our world?”
“The Connection priests,” said Cade. “The brain-pin gives us the greatest power.” It was a safe answer.
“Well,” Malcott said, “if we are so mighty, why are we hiding up in the mountains? Who keeps us up here?”
”The Hedonans?” Cade cast around for an answer. “But they are just animals!”
“Why do you call your fellow humans animals?”
Cade stayed silent. He should never have spoken up before – the whole class would be laughing inside now. Malcott continued. “The Hedonans have no drive towards self-improvement and progress. But the Hedonans carry on the bulk of the lineage of the great races, and although repulsive and crude, they can never be called animals.”
Malcott talked about all the human species: how the priesthood knew of their powers, and which mutated forms could still be found. His voice blurred. These formal lessons didn’t allow Malcott to bring much of his natural enthusiasm to the teachings. Cade took a deep breath and tried to sit straighter. There would be no food until midday and that ration would probably be halved too.
“And this concludes today’s lesson,” Malcott said, uncrossing his legs and arching his back as he stood.
The Novices stirred and stretched, eager to escape the room. Cade couldn’t get out into the sunshine fast enough. Nathan was trying to start a conversation with him, something about steel skin and thunderbolts, but Cade wasn’t in the mood for talk. Maybe I could swap an hour’s cleaning duty for a bag of raisins or dried fruit? he thought. Nathan always has food hidden.
The Novices gathered in the central square for combat training, in the shadow of the great fort. The square was paved with stone, whose uneven surface had caught the toes and scarred the knees of generations of fighters. Lance was their tutor. They found the scarred veteran waiting for them, leaning on his blunt training sword.
”Disciples!” Lance spoke in his gravely voice, silencing the Novices’ chatter. ”As you all know, we destroyed a band of Hedonans recently, a reminder of the very real dangers right outside our walls. Looking at you, I don’t see warriors who would bury their blade in the skull of a Hedonan. I see children. Today I would like you to spar as if you are fighting real enemies, because in a year or so, that’s what you will be doing.” He rapped the tip of his sword against the stones to emphasise the sentence. ”So, fight hard today, but fight with restraint and respect for your opponent.”
Like most of the Novices, Cade trained with the staff. The metal-tipped wooden rod lacked the offensive capabilities of a sword, but it was formidable if wielded with skill - Malcott was so adept with it that it was his weapon of choice. Also, Cade’s hands were not steady enough for him to receive firearms training - good weapons and ammunition were expensive. More importantly, a large army of modern fighters was a threat that the Hedonans would not tolerate for long. It was crucial that the Monastery appeared weak enough to escape the notice of their infinitely more powerful Hedonan neighbours.
Cade stretched, grasping his hands behind his back and straining upwards. He whirled his staff around his body, transferring the momentum smoothly from hand to hand, winding its deadly arc all about his body until the air hummed.
Lance called out pairs of Novices one by one, matching boys with girls, young with older, fast with slow, according to some unfathomable scheme of his own. Each pair sought a clear space in the training arena.
“Cade and Nathan!” the veteran called.
Cade’s skin prickled at the thought of the ensuing battle. Nathan’s reach, speed, and aggression made him a perfectly matched opponent. Cade set his feet apart in a fighting stance and resettled his grip on his staff, crossing it with Nathan’s. The other boy’s dark eyes sought to unsettle him, but Cade was invincible today. Now that his heart was pounding in his ears, the lack of food sharpened his awareness and his feet felt light. Perhaps eating less before weapons training could improve his skills? It would be tough, but he knew that his appetite was a weakness that he should hammer out.
His awareness snapped to the present as Nathan shoved him roughly with his staff. Cade circled his opponent, just within striking range, keeping his staff lowered. Nathan swayed in a low crouch, coiled like a spring. Where would the first blow land - with a skull-cracking downwards swipe, or a bruising lunge into his guts? Cade’s staff trembled as he anticipated a dozen possible attacks. Nathan was biding his time and forcing him to make the first reckless move. Well, he would. Malcott had showed him the ”Striking Snake” attack yesterday and Cade was aching to use it. With a snap of his wrists he shot the staff through his hands towards his opponent and caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder. It startled Nathan so much that he stumbled backwards. He lashed out, infuriated. Cade found himself holding the staff by one metal end like a barge pole and he used the added range to keep the other boy at bay. Still, Nathan wove in close to him, striking blow after blow, forcing him to retreat. He made a few jarring strikes to Cade’s arms. Cade quickly matched his flow and soon every swing and stab of Nathan’s staff met resistance. Cade yielded step by step, like a heavy rock being pushed up a hill. Within a few heartbeats, Nathan was putting all his weight into driving Cade backwards. Instantly collapsing his guard, Cade whirled and was behind his opponent. Nathan stumbled to the ground, propelled into the dust by Cade’s staff across his shoulders.
“A small force applied in the right place can divert a much larger one!” Cade smiled, but realised as he spoke that it sounded like gloating.
Nathan accepted the hand that Cade offered. He rose shakily to his feet and glanced furtively towards the instructor. Blinding pain exploded in the centre of Cade’s face. It took him a heartbeat to realise that he’d received a vicious head-butt to the nose. The maliciousness of the attack stunned him more than the blow. Nathan followed on instantly, repeatedly smashing him about the ribs. Choking on blood and spit, Cade gave ground and held him back, pushing aside the pain until it was something that he was aware of, without it dominating his mind. His mind floated free, as if he had been flung into the depths of meditation.
The blow must have stunned him, because his thoughts seemed confused with his vision. He saw the intention of every blow as a stream of force, like ribbons floating in a breeze. He twisted about to avoid them, marvelling at the sensation. He summoned his own force and drove it spiralling into the centre of Nathan’s flowing ribbons. They exploded into fragments and he was standing over Nathan, with his staff hanging loosely from his grip. The other boy was curled on the ground, a trickle of his bloody saliva pooling in the dirt as he groaned. Cade looked up at the stunned circle of Novices surrounding him.
“Stop!” Lance yelled behind him.
The pain from the battering he’d received was almost pleasant, like warm waves rippling through his body. His sight wavered and blurred as if he was underwater, and he leaned on his staff as the world rolled about him. Lance helped Nathan hobble to a wooden bench by the side of the square, before giving him a reassuring slap on the back. He approached Cade and the Novices who encircled them melted away under his stern glare.
“Are you alright?” he asked gruffly, his grizzled face filling Cade’s vision.
“I don’t know. He hit me in the face and then, I don’t know...”
“You might not be such a great sop as I thought. Try not to get so carried away next time. And visit the infirmary. You’re going to have a fine pair of black eyes tomorrow!”
Lance turned abruptly on his heel and addressed the class, who were pretending not to pay attention. “Combat training is concluded!”
Cade stood in the square long after the others had left. The strange feeling had retreated, leaving him confused and aching from Nathan’s blows. He had been almost knocked senseless while sparring several times before, but he had never felt such a strange inversion of reality. He had once seen a villager go into convulsions without warning, collapsing in the street. This would affect his chances of becoming a Master – he would keep quiet about what happened.
Chapter 5
The Monastery was unusually quiet and the training square was deserted. It was Free Day, an occasion which the Masters enjoyed as much as the Novices. Rather than getting away from the compound, Cade and Malcott were challenging their strength against the cliffs that towered above the Monastery.
Malcott had asked Cade to be his climbing partner. Perhaps it was to show that the orchard incident hadn’t damaged Malcott’s esteem for him, or to allow an opportunity for a private talking-to. Once they began clambering up the cliffs, however, the differences between Master and Novice were left in the bottom of the valley.
They had climbed since early morning, until the fields were a patchwork of brown and green beneath them, the Monastery a neat cluster of grey pebbles. The view of the valley was even more impressive from halfway up the mountain. The distant opposite wall glowed silver and grey in the sunshine, its crags biting at the cloudless blue sky. In several places, waterfalls tumbled from the peaks, launching themselves into the void and becoming lost in mist long before they reached the valley floor. The climbers’ skill and the pulsing of adrenaline in their blood were the only things that prevented them from plummeting to their death.
Cade’s body was stiff from the encounter with Nathan and his eyelids were swollen and burning, but the injuries had no effect on his climbing ability. There was no wind to pluck him away and the morning sun had warmed the rocks beneath his hands - it felt as if the cliff was enfolding him in a living embrace.
Cade reached the half-way ledge just as his arms started to tremble with exhaustion. He hauled half of his body over the lip and lay there, letting his legs dangle over the precipice and paused, panting. He rested his chin on the granite outcrop. Somebody had carved their initials into the rock right in front of his face. There was always a sign to tell him that he was never the first to discover anything new: a dried apple core, a scrap of paper, a melted candle stub.
He swung his right leg over the top of the ledge and squirmed around until he was pressed against the cliff. On the crags above, small temples clung to the peaks like wooden barnacles. There would be Novices inside; honing their skills away from the distractions of the Monastery and throwing their chants and Connections into the cold, silent mountain air. Looking upwards made him feel just as dizzy as looking down into the valley, so he nestled harder against the rock.
There was a grunt of exertion from below. Malcott’s arm appeared, the tendons in his hands sticking out like ropes. The rest of him followed in a great heave, beads of sweat standing out on his shaved head. He looked as formidable as the cliff he had climbed.
“Giving up already?” he huffed breathlessly, collapsing next to Cade.
Cade waited until his breathing became regular before he spoke.
“Did you hear about what happened with Nathan?”
“Me, along with the rest of the Monastery!” Malcott chuckled. “I’m sure he deserved it. Besides, the occasional humbling experience makes for a better life.”
”I’m sure he hates me now!”
Malcott gave him a crooked smile. ”People only hate vanity and pride. Let your abilities speak for themselves and you will earn respect instead of hate.”
“I couldn’t help doing what I did. It was as if something else took control of me,” Cade said. “I imagine it must be what Connection feels like.”
Malcott turned as if the words had prodded him. “Tell me what you felt.”
Cade described the dizziness, how the world had dissolved around him, and the injuries he had unknowingly inflicted on the other boy. When he’d finished, Malcott spoke softly. “But you have no brain-pin. I have never heard of such a thing.”
“So it was Connection combat?” Cade’s spine tingled. Novices could meditate and learn to fight like any other mountain tribe, but only a brain-pin could raise a Master far above the possibilities of natural ability. ”How did it happen – can I do it again?”
Malcott gazed over the valley and breathed out heavily. “Look out there - it just keeps going: the mountains, the sky, the sun, then stars and galaxies that we can’t even begin to imagine!” He tapped his forehead. ”But that’s nothing compared to the universe in here. Endless wonders, ancient powers; crammed into even the most ordinary of skulls. More than anyone could ever hope to understand.”
It seemed that only then did he hear Cade’s question. “I don’t know what happened to you that day. Maybe we will never know, but your training is all you need to worry about at the moment: all power stems from the discipline and training of the mind. Which brings me to something I have been thinking about for a while. Would you mind if I asked Great Master if I can take over the Connection and Memory aspects of your training? That is, if you wish.”
Malcott made the offer in such an offhand tone that Cade hardly believed what he had just heard. He froze, thrilled at the unexpected words as their full impact sunk in. Malcott had just acknowledged that Cade was next in line to become a Master.
”Now, my joints are starting to seize. You first.”
Cade took a breath and set his fingers to the rock face. He probed a long vertical crevice in the rock. It was sound, so he hauled himself up. Had he just heard Malcott correctly? He was going to be trained privately! He imagined himself in the square, sparring with Malcott while the rest of the Novices stood gaping, their weapons stilled. It would set him apart, as far above the other Novices as they were from the servants who skulked about the Monastery. He thought of Nathan and his other classmates and friends. He wondered how many of them would drop away from him if he took up Malcott’s offer.
Something caused his awareness to plummet from his body. There was a shout and a clattering of rocks from below. Cade clung to the rock in terror, as if the sky was trying to pluck him away and hurl him downwards. He twisted around, searching wildly for Malcott.
There was only a continuous wall of rock, yawning into infinity below. Malcott had fallen onto the ledge where they had rested. Cade’s path down the wall was a blur of scrambling and half-falls, his hands bleeding and raw. He reached the ledge where the Master lay. Malcott gasped for air as if he was drowning.
“Cade! The pin! I can feel it!”
The man was so broken, so far beyond any injury he could have imagined. It was Malcott, yet he got no flash of recognition of a friend from the shattered body. He had shaken loose from the world of feelings, as if he was dispassionately observing another’s nightmare.
“The pin!” Malcott’s panting words came faster. “It’s yours! Now!”
The dying man struggled in Cade’s grip, trembling as he tried to lift his head. A tiny silver rod protruded from the centre of a scar on the base of his neck. The sight jolted Cade with the certainty of Malcott’s fate. The pin would only leave a dying man. It was his last moments with his friend, yet he felt like a emotionless machine.
Malcott’s words rattled from deep within his chest. “Take it!”
One part of Cade knew what to do - they had rehearsed the procedure hundreds of times. Somehow, his body acted dumbly as his mind fell apart. He willed his trembling hands to stillness and gently drew out the metal splinter. He held the tiny needle before his glazed eyes. He breathed in. He held the pin behind his head with one hand and fingered the indented scar in the back of his head with the other. This would hurt, he knew, at least as much as the time when they had first drilled the hole in his skull during his initiation. He let his awareness seep away like water, dissolving into the rock, the air, into Malcott. Cade was nothing - one mote of awareness among billions. Malcott was a tiny, fading eddy in the majestic turmoil of the universe.
Cade bowed his head and held the pin to his scar. Firmly, he rammed it home with his thumb. The shock made him gasp. His gaze connected with that of the dying man one last time. Malcott smiled and closed his eyes. The tension bled from his body. The pain was gone, whisked away with the thoughts and sensations that had called themselves Malcott.
Chapter 6
Cade lay on the bed in his room, picking at the scabbed-over sore on the back of his head. The Masters had moved him to a cabin away from the other Novices. They said it was to let him rest after the insertion of the brain-pin. However, he knew he made everyone else uneasy and they wanted to hide any reminder of the accident.
Sunshine and warm breezes from the window did nothing to shift the chill that lay over him. He ate once a day to quell the gnawing in his guts, but food had lost what little taste it had. He kept telling himself that the disappearance of such a tiny fragment of the universe could never diminish it. It was more likely that a mountain could be lessened by the theft of a grain of sand. Malcott had told him that, but they were platitudes that did nothing to fill the hole in his chest. The Connections that had tied Malcott into the life of the Monastery were painfully absent - he saw it on the grim faces of everyone who passed by his window.
A rap at the door startled Cade and he reluctantly rose and opened it. Great Master was framed in the doorway. Cade instantly rose and muttered an official greeting. Great Master ducked his head under the lintel. “No, sit down - I’m not here as Master. May I?” He sat on Cade’s bed and Cade joined him. The bed creaked under the double weight.
“I understand how difficult this must be for you. I trust that you don’t lack for any care,” the Master said.
Cade hesitated before speaking. “No, Master.”
“And you feel fine after the insertion?”
“Yes, Master.”
Great Master paused like a doctor with troubling news. “Cade, I’m a hard old man. I Connect much more than I talk these days, so forgive me if I upset you. Let me tell you about my exchange.” The Master’s voice was soft and calm. “Longer ago than I care to remember, I was an orphan, like you. I loved my Master like a father.”
The Great Master never talked with such familiarity. Cade looked at the knots in the pine floor.
“He was frail. As he aged, it became harder for him to live in this world. We Novices did what we could to make his life easier and those with brain-pins supported his mind. Then, oblivion finally took him.”
Cade looked up at Great Master, searching for a glint in his eyes that would give away the joke. Instead, he saw an old man lost in past sorrows, trying to share the healing that time had brought him.
Great Master continued his story. “We had years to prepare for the exchange. I was chosen by vote to receive the brain-pin, and spent hours with the old man, preparing myself for the ways of Connection.” His voice dropped to a murmur. ”Finally, when the end was near, we held the proper ceremonies. As he slipped away peacefully, we performed the operation. That is the way an exchange should go.”
Cade spoke through gritted teeth. “I didn’t choose things to be this way!”
“Novice Cade! You acted bravely under pressure, and your academic record is exemplary. You would have been the first candidate for the exchange no matter what the circumstances. You are one of us, now.”
Why is he trying to justify this to me? Cade thought. Couldn’t he see that I’d had no choice on the mountain that day? Brain-pins were fragile - they died rapidly in the open air. It was a greater crime to allow a brain-pin to die than to transfer it to even the most unsuitable host.
Great Master took a breath and laid his hand heavily on Cade’s shoulder. “This drawn-out suffering is a drain on all of us. We have decided that the sooner you are Connected, the easier it will be for you to deal with the passing of Malcott and leave behind your crippling grief. The time has come, and the preparations for the ceremony are complete. May the death of our dear friend Malcott not be in vain. Come with me.”
After days in the gloom of the cabin, the sunshine was painfully bright. They walked towards the training square, past a row of white mountain birches with broad leaves that bobbed in a light summer breeze. Above them, a flock of small colourful finches chattered and wheeled. Behind everything, the ever-present mountains crowded around outside the Monastery wall. Cade’s heart shrunk in his chest, recoiling from the brightness.
So he was to have his first Activation. A month ago, this would have been the greatest moment of his life. That life was now over, its memories those of a stranger he no longer felt any link to. How could fate have given him all that he wanted by taking away what he treasured above anything?
The breeze grew stronger, sending leaves dancing over the grass. Small white clouds scudded across the sky, just above the tallest peaks. They rounded a corner. The entire Monastery population was assembled in the training square, silent and motionless. From the Masters in their flowing black robes, to the servants-in-training in their newest brown work clothes, they were all watching him. Nothing of his bearing was passing unnoticed and it took every shred of his willpower to avoid breaking his stride. The main tower hulked above the crowd like the stone fist of an ancient god, asserting its grip on the world.
There was a clear path between the assembled rows, from the gates to the foot of the tower. The Masters stood in a single row to the right of the gap, their black robes billowing. Behind them were the Novices, a sea of bald heads and brown cloth, punctuated by bright, fluttering banners which snapped in the breeze. The banners bore geometric patterns, intertwined with flowing organic forms. Life and Connection, Cade thought. The fusion of artificial reason and mindless, natural chaos.
Cade walked side-by-side with Great Master and every head turned to follow them. The small door in the foot of the tower was open. So this was the gauntlet he would have to run to escape from his old life. He walked steadily, looking only at the doorway and ignoring the wall of faces on each side. He tried not to consider the new life that fate had hurled at him: a life of black robes, no Malcott, and a metal pin in his head. He glanced up. A mistake. He met the eyes of Nathan and shrunk from the open hatred that burned there.
The stone passageway was so low that Cade had to duck and he shivered at the sudden dampness. A flight of stairs led downwards and a chain of electric bulbs threw their feeble light into the darkness. He descended with Great Master behind him. The final few stairs were hewn straight out of the rock, worn and slippery. At the bottom of the stairs, pooled in shadow, a heavy metal door stood ajar. A bright electric glow streamed through the gap.
”Behind this door,” whispered Great Master, the words reverberating in the corridor. ”You will find your answers.”
Cade’s lay his hand against the door and the hairs on his neck prickled instantly. The universe held its breath, as if it knew that one gentle push would change Cade’s world forever. He stroked the door gently. Its smooth joins and hinges fitted together perfectly - engineering from a more advanced age. He pushed and it swung open silently, gliding on oiled hinges. Light streamed around its edges and a wall of electric bulbs blinded him. The room’s walls were grey concrete, rust-stained by the gradual seepage of ground water. A plain wooden chair stood in the middle of the room. Cade stepped over the threshold.
“Sit,” Great Master commanded. Cade sat in the chair, squinting into the lights. A sizeable portion of the Monastery’s electricity supply was burning in front of him. Surrounded by the lights, a square curtain hung on the wall. The Master gripped one edge of the curtain, his eyes locked solemnly on Cade’s. Cade’s heart almost stopped in anticipation. He was acutely aware of an ache at the base of his skull. In a few moments, whatever lay behind the curtain would arouse the metal worm inside him. Its silver filaments would spread through his brain like mould through a loaf of bread.
Great Master pulled the curtain aside. Set into the wall was a square block of dark stone, with white marble inserts. The stone’s image was like a chequerboard made by a madman. Instead of alternating colours, it was covered with a random scattering of hundreds of black and white squares. Cade’s heart resumed, his blood pounding in his ears and in the scar, but he felt nothing. The Master paused for a moment then covered the picture, making sure that nothing of the stone’s surface was showing.
“You may stand, Master Cade.”
Cade ignored the command, confused by the title. Master already? He stared at the curtain. Was that it? Had it failed?
“That was the Activation Code,” Great Master said. ”Without seeing it, the brain-pin is useless. The brain-pins have this precaution built in - it helps to discourage anybody from gouging it out of your head. The stone has been here as long as the Monastery.”
“Is my brain-pin working?”
A faint smile creased Great Master’s mouth. “You need to turn it on. I think you know how.”
Cade reached behind his head, as he had seen the Masters do. “Like this?”
“Exactly. And brace yourself - the experience of the first Activation is intense, but usually not unpleasant.”
Cade’s head tingled beneath his hand. What was that music? A beautiful, half-heard melody tickled at the edge of his hearing. Just as he strained his awareness to its limit, there was an incredible crash, as if every instrument in the world hit a chord inside his head. As if this was a signal, his body sprung a million holes and he flowed away.
And then, a perfect, blissful nothingness. He became aware of a galaxy of pinpricks of light, wondrous against the emptiness. He marvelled at this new discovery, drawing the twinkling constellations closer to himself. It’s like the meditation, he thought. Yet uncontrollable and undeniable.
He was amongst the bustling river of silver orbs The sheer number of them was overwhelming. Shrinking from the magnitude, he fixed his attention on the individual orbs around him. They were like spherical glass balls filled with shifting rainbows. He directed his attention through one of them.
He was waist-deep in a sea of yellow wheat which rippled in the summer breeze. Above him, a flawless sweep of blue stretched from horizon to horizon and the sun burned high in the sky. A cool breeze rattled the stalks, tousling his long hair and cooling the sweat on his shoulders.
He swung the scythe in a hissing arc and wheat fell about him. The motion was an endless dance: step and swing, step and swing, step and swing. He rejoiced in the coiling and release of his taut muscles. He looked over his shoulder at the expanse of yellow stubble he had already felled, then turned to the endless sea of grain that he had yet to cut. It would be a good year for him and his family. He was dragged back into the blackness, into the glittering throng of orbs.
In a dizzying flip of perception, every orb became a window puncturing the wall of darkness, with the sensations of countless creatures streaming through them. He saw the world through a billion eyes, lived the suffering and joy of countless lives, died a million times and was born. He felt torrents of Connection pouring through the holes, from every life on the planet. Every orb was so alike, yet so unique and precious. Each reflected the light of countless others in a thick, clinging web of Connections. The instant that he comprehended the experience was the most beautiful, rapturous moment of his life.
But he had overlooked something important. He wasn’t everything and anything.
Somewhere there was Cade, a tiny, feeble life, jostled amongst all the others. With a shock he realised that the life he had held sacred above all else, was nothing but a label attached to just another squirming bag of flesh. What made it different from any other fragment of the universe?
How could he find it amongst the billions of identical lives? The thought brought on a wave of panic. The spheres became aggressive and jostled and confused him. One of the orbs was different - stronger and familiar. He drew himself into it, feeling the confines of a body. Strange memories collided with those of his own. He found sight - it was dim and blurry. He felt the stiffness of an old body. He was watching a young boy slumped in a chair, drenched in sweat, his eyes rolled back in his head.
No! he thought, a stern rebuke to himself. Not here! Over there! This wasn’t his own thought. He was launched forwards from the body.
Cade gasped and jolted in his seat, his eyes bulging. Great Master was at his side holding his shoulder firmly.
“Come back now, Cade, the worst of it is over. That was the calibration of the Connection.” The sound of his own name anchored him in his body, like an insect being impaled on a pin, fixed and categorised. He took a deep breath and gazed around him as the real world asserted itself. The joy of arriving unscathed in his familiar body was almost as great as the revelations he had experienced.
“It takes a while for your brain to adjust to the extra stimuli, but the most extreme side-effects should disappear after the first few uses.”
Cade was too caught up in the experience to respond. He still felt the tendrils of Connection all around him, but the experience was receding rapidly, like waking from a barely remembered dream.
“Amazing!” he exclaimed breathlessly.
“Don’t try to think about it now. Relax, then make sense of it later.”
“Has it finished?” Cade asked.
“No – the brain-pin bears a double gift. The pin will give you Memory access, the calibration of which will start in a few minutes.”
Cade had the sense of having just completed a long journey of discovery. The philosophies he had learnt had always had the feeling of truth about them, but he never expected to see and experience them so intimately, right to the core of his being.
“Squeeze my hands,” commanded Great Master. “I need to make sure you haven’t suffered any permanent damage.”
Cade obeyed, still shaky after his ordeal, but managing to muster a firm grip.
“Now, what’s your name?”
“Cade.” He wouldn’t have understood the question five minutes before.
“While we are waiting for the next phase, I will explain what you have experienced. After the Nuclear War, the bornware responsible for the Connection ability was diluted by the process of interbreeding and natural selection. Part of the Connection ability is the bornware radio tags which attach themselves to the nervous system. These fragments contaminated many different species of animal and plants.”
“So I can feel the thoughts of living things?”
Great Master nodded. “You are now what every culture has prayed for: a prophet, a god among men. Congratulations. But there are limitations - the ability isn’t magical in any way, or even close to fully functioning.”
“And what about this Memory calibration?” Cade was anxious about the second onslaught. He’d already had enough revelations today to last a lifetime. ”What will happen?”
“Don’t worry, Cade.” he said. “You shouldn’t go into Activation with any expectations. Just absorb the experience.”
As if his words were a trigger, Cade’s fingers began to tingle. He realised that the outside world had been dimming and receding from his awareness for some time. Something artificial, hard-edged and coldly mechanical clawed at his mind, drawing him inwards and away from the world.
As if he was freezing solid, his fingers and toes ceased to exist, then his arms and legs.
He died from the outside in, his awareness shrinking and retreating to his core. Within his muffled awareness, his heart became a great drum in his chest. It boomed a steady rhythm. keeping time for the pulsing of blood that rushed in his ears.
“I think I feel it now,” he slurred. As he slipped deeper into the awareness of his internal processes, he felt each individual lump of gruel he’d had for breakfast, churning in his stomach.
Lower, worm-like waves of contraction rippled through his guts. He recoiled from contemplation of his intestines when the sensation became nauseous.
Every other part of his body joined the chorus - the squelching, squeezing, pulsing of his organs was an orchestra which kept time for his endless march through life, an ode to his blunt animal determination to stay alive. Although he had studied biology, he’d never considered how busy his insides were! The music became more intricate with every passing moment. Every cell in his body added its own unique rhythm to the chorus, layering harmony upon harmony. Soon, the cacophony of his physical body became overwhelming.
My cells are talking to each other! Somewhere in the real world, Cade giggled with the realisation. His cells jostled and exchanged signals with their neighbours like farmers bargaining frantically at the marketplace in Safekeep. No matter how attentively he listened to the whole, or one isolated part of the chorus, every part of his body resonated to the same song; an infinitely complex melody just beyond the edge of his understanding.
Gradually the music became a babble of speech. Millions of voices clamoured for his attention: some identifiably human, others mere animal croaks. As if he had just opened his eyes, he found himself floating above a procession of figures marching from the horizon towards him.
At the fore were humans: men and women, each chanting their own song and striding forwards.
Behind them were a menagerie of apes, rats and lizards, all waddling in time to the chanting and singing in their own strange languages. The absurdity of the vision broke its fragile spell and the people, animals, and music were gone. He still felt them inside him, mixed in with his pulsing guts, bloating him with their essence. As his mind fought away the stupefying effect of the brain-pin, he understood everything.
At that moment, Cade’s double-spiraled bornware was as comprehensible as a book opened before him. He saw the parts of himself that were gifts from his human ancestors. There were deeper fragments from an earlier swampy, fishy time. In the same way that an embryo developed in the womb from fish to lizard to monkey to human, he understood that his identity as Cade was the result of a similar process. His life was a spark that had successfully leapt forwards thousands of generations, right from the first primeval dot that had begun dividing. His thoughts and emotions still bore the marks of that journey; it was only a self-centred illusion that the mind was born as a freshly-scrubbed slate, waiting for rational thoughts to be written upon it. And deep within the tome of his existence, a single passage linked him with every other life: the original Word, a small fraction of bornware which was shared by all creatures. He was shocked by how closely he was related to every other living creature. As an orphan, he always wondered about the identity of his family. Now he knew – every living thing was his brother or sister.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-30 show above.)