The Bringer of Light (3 page)

Cutwater coughed on a mouthful of food. “You mean militarily? I don’t doubt you could do it. Your disciple here nearly brought the whole mountain down thanks to her raygun stunt.”

“She did save your life from the ferals.”

“She attracted the ferals in the first place. Anyway. Tegrit. What’s your angle?”

Mazimdas stood stiffly, hands behind his back. “I’m somewhat frustrated by this little corner of the world, Mr Cutwater. I’ve had my eye on your progress for a while. Ever since Joon made you her viddie project, before you set off.”

“Really? I wonder why. I didn’t think it was possible to get bored in synchronisation.”

Mazimdas laughed, incredulous. “She loves you, Mr Cutwater. I expect that’d be difficult for you to process.”

Cutwater laughed. “She loves me? Don’t you mean ‘she wants bumpage’ or something similar?”

“’Love’ is word she has never properly used in her life, Mr Cutwater. But she understands it.”

Cutwater glanced at her pacific face, the softly billowing hair. She looked as if she was underwater, serene. Robbed of gravity, she was a slight thing, with painfully thin legs. Although there was no need to do so, he had a sudden urge to cover an exposed patch of her shin, just to keep it warm.

Mazimdas went on: “I saw your pilgrimage as an opportunity to find out about this place. One of the few locations on earth our sensors cannot penetrate. And one of the few places on earth which can cut out the sensors and operating capability of a 461 Unix.”

“Ah. You sense there’s something sinister going on? Up here in the mountains?”

“Not for the reasons you think. I’m curious, Mr Cutwater. In a world where everyone knows every fact, every secret, every desire and impulse and dream, there are still strongholds, places that satellites cannot focus in on, where sensors cannot penetrate.”

“What do you want me to do? Spread the word of Mazimdas?”

“I want you to help Joon capture what’s in there. If her pedestal cuts out again, then her Unix implant will now render her unconscious, to spare her the trauma. But she’ll still be able to viddie the place using older tech – analogue stuff. Ancient history. If you bring me back the results, or you help Joon to record them, I will promise you what you most desire.”

“Aren’t you supposed to offer me three wishes?”

“Just the one.” Mazimdas pointed towards the cavern wall. One of his fingernails flashed red for a second. Then a square of light blinked into existence. It was a hologram, vivid as life. On it was a farmhouse, surrounded by waving cornfields, honey yellow in a sinking sun. In the foreground of this image was a signpost, which read “Haygrove”. The image was so clear and sharp, Cutwater had the illusion of a breath of wind stirring his hair.

Cutwater whispered the name. “No-one knows about Haygrove but me.”

“You were synched at one time, Mr Cutwater. You might be physically gone from synchronisation, but your dreams remain. Everyone knows about Haygrove. The place you desire. A simple wish – charming in its way. House. Home. Wife. Children. Trees and green fields. Peace. But I can make that dream a reality. You can have the dog, too. You can even choose the wife, if you wish.” The image changed, to take in a border collie dog, its chin resting on its paws. In the doorway was a woman, long-legged and curvy, with golden hair. With a sudden shock, Cutwater saw that she had Joon’s face – an older Joon, but no less beautiful, with obvious signs of incipient motherhood in her body and face.

“There are havens, as you may know,” Mazimdas said. “Places where the Disconnected go. We don’t drive them out, Mr Cutwater. They drive themselves out. They flee from comfort to the harsh places, the wild places… The ends of the earth. But even these heretics are welcome back in the world of synchronisation, living apart, living comfortably. They pose no threat, and we do not pose any to them, in turn. All we require is their information. That could be you. My price for your dream is information. Tell me about who lives in Tegrit. Find out what their business plan is. Pure and simple.”

Cutwater blinked. In the time it took his eyelids to rise and fall, the image on the wall was gone.

“Look,” he said. “I’m going to Tegrit. They don’t have business plans, there. Not ones you’d understand, anyway. I’m going to meet the people of the monastery. If Joon wants to come with me, she can. I can’t answer for her safety once she gets there. You’re not welcome there, Mazimdas. Neither you, nor your products. Maybe you should just accept there are people and places that you’ll never control. Benignly or not.”

“It’s not about control. It’s about sharing.”

Cutwater laughed hard at this. At last, a frown creased Mazimdas’ brow. “
Sharing
. Another one of the great lies. Share this. Like that. Spread the word. Any thought, any time, anywhere, anyhow. Sharing is just another way of surrendering control. Deep down, you know this.”

Mazimdas became sanguine again, and smiled. “I wonder why you do this? When perfect health and a life of leisure are within your grasp, you make it hard for yourself. Why? Do you need something to strive for? Some goal to work towards? Why can’t you understand we’re already here? Utopia has arrived, Mr Cutwater.”

“I do it… If I’m being honest… Because it pisses people like you off.”

Mazimdas nodded. “Quite. There’s always that. Well. I’ll be off, Mr Cutwater. But I’ll be around. The offer stands. You can accept it at any time. Use Joon if you wish to get in contact with me. And the world.”

As his pedestal floated off towards the cave entrance, Cutwater got to his feet. “You know, there’s a part of me that will always regret not trying to kill you.”

“You can’t kill me,” Mazimdas said, his voice fading. “That isn’t a boast, or anything. It’s just that you can’t, even if you actually did. I’m part of synchronisation. No-one dies. Only the body. That’s the goal of our next-gen tech: digital immortality. I’m working on it. That means it’ll be a reality soon.”

The heatshield moved off into the white.

And then it happened; a deluge of crackling light, purple thunderbolts tearing across the sky in jagged fingers from some hidden source on the mountainside. Cutwater winced as the light outside grew intense. The purple bolts concentrated on Mazimdas. Briefly, he was silhouetted against it, arms outstretched in alarm. He might have screamed, but it was lost in the noise.

Then Mazimdas’ shadow figure flew apart like ashes in the wind.

The air had barely stirred during this barrage, although the air carried a heavy scent of ozone.

On her pedestal, Joon stretched and stirred. Her face twitched, rilled and contorted as the synch took her. “Dreams,” she said. “Mazimdas came to save me! Wildwise, or what?”

Cutwater rubbed his eyes, blinking. The shade of Mazimdas was still burned into his field of vision in afterimage, arms outstretched.

“We have to go,” he said. “It’s not far now.”

                                              **************

Jaune is the new you. Synch with us. Be new.

                                              **************

The gates were not hard to spot if you knew a rough location, and Cutwater wondered how so many had missed them on their way through the valley. Set into a fissure opened up in the mountainside, dark and studded with brass, they opened with a crack like a giant stretching in the morning as Cutwater and Joon approached.

Cutwater wondered where the repulsor guns they’d used were stored.

“Still in synch,” Joon said, fingering her implant. “Score!”

“How’s things going? Any news?”

Joon frowned. “News? News all the time.
You and me
are news now. Reckoned in full. What news do you mean? News of what?”

“Oh, nothing special. Just wondered if you’d heard any big breaking stories. Hey, we’ve got company. Stay alert.”

A monk came towards them – not quite what Cutwater would have pictured, but fairly close. His yellow robes were surreally bright in the torchlight, with a scarlet sash over one shoulder. He was sleek and muscular, but his lined face hinted at great age. In the background was the monastery, an architectural mash-up of pagodas, spires, minarets and slate that only made sense in sum. Other monks glowered at them from watchtowers and sentryboxes; some of them carried spears which weren’t really spears.

“Welcome, traveller,” the monk said, raising his hand. “You have come far.”

“Hello,” Cutwater said, returning the gesture. “I’m Cutwater. This is Joon. She comes of her own free will, though she knows her apparatus is not welcome here.”

“Don’t worry, Cutwater. We know who you both are. Your companion is welcome. You have brought us a great victory. You have helped to deliver the world.”

Joon appeared to have gone into a trance. “Billions,” she said. “Viddies in billions, now.”

“Won’t you join us?” the monk said. “There are refreshments in the monastery.”

Cutwater bowed his head. “I require only your hospitality. I’ve finally found Tegrit. I want to stay, learn, and serve, completely free and untethered.”

“You will. You both will.” The monk gestured towards a central cobblestoned path, leading to a massive, central palace, hexagonal in structure with a domed roof. “We are Jaune.”

Cutwater frowned. There was a wire curled around the back of the monk’s ear, a transparent coil that was not immediately obvious, snaking in and out of his beard. Cutwater could now make out what was written across the sign which dominated the frontispiece of the nearest temple.

It read: JAUNE ELECTRONICS. A single image burned at its heart: a yellow sun perfectly centred among radial lines.

“Newcomers! The Newcomers! The Split! It’s true!” Joon began to scream. The monk touched a control on his belt, and her pedestal unit died. Cutwater caught her as she fell.

The analogue recording device Mazimdas had placed in the unit spat sparks, and died with a hollow pop.

Two monks ran towards them, both wired up, and grinning. In place of both men’s right eyes were glowing red orbs, solid as jewels.

“Your proposal is accepted,” the first monk told Cutwater. “Now you must join us.”

AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading my work. This story is one of many you can find in my forthcoming sci-fi anthology,
Sail The Starry Skies
. It’s available for pre-order now.

I’m currently on a mission to ping out all of my short stories. There are hundreds of the buggers. I’ve split them up into genres for now.

If you like horror, then you’ll SHIT YOURSELF in fear and excitement with this collection,
Shadow Plays
. Ghosts, maniacs, werewolves, vampires, general ghoulies and things that go bump in the night are the order of the day. Er, night. It’s creepy, rather than bloody, though a little drop of the red stuff does get spilled… a couple of pints’ worth, at least.

If that doesn’t do it for you, you can put on a battered hat and a grubby raincoat… wait, that doesn’t sound right… I mean, you can put on a police uniform and brandish a truncheon… Aw strewth, I mean, you can check out my crime stories collection,
Scream Blue Murder
.

If you’ve read this far without punching your device, then it’s possible you will like my general anthologies. Anything goes, here. The first is called
Suckerpunch
. Three others –
Flying Dreams, You Be A Pirate, I’ll Be A Cowboy
and
This Thing You Humans Call Love
will follow.

I also have a few collections of essays, criticism and literary reviews. The first one,
Paper Cuts
, is available now.

You can berate me here, on
Twitter
. But if you want to say hello, that’s absolutely fine. If you reviewed my stuff, that’d be even better. But we’ve only just met, I don’t want things to go too fast.

Thanks again. See you around.