August grimaced at the problems on display before him, specifically the screw up in PNG. Someone had been asleep at the wheel here with this ecoversion and he knew who it was.
With a thought he materialised in Duoshi’s office, or rather in Duoshi’s office as it existed in the idiot’s brain. Too clean, especially for someone whose responsibilities so clearly exceeded the hapless salary man’s capability. It would have given August pleasure for the shock of his unannounced entrance to throw at least the wall hangings into disarray, but the Mirtopik Head of East Asian Integration responded with the well-practiced placidity that never failed to infuriate August.
He spent a fruitless hour of grilling Duoshi over his failure, which was inevitable given the decay of relations with the Nets over the usual complaints on local control over ecological benefits. August left the meeting with a frustrated sense of his increasing irrelevance. In the old days he would have handed Duoshi his ass. He stopped short sensing that it would might look like he was lashing out, which might be perceived as a sign of weakness to the Board. Too much had happened today anyway, and he didn’t have the energy.
As August strode back across the Pacific towards California, one of the Rev alerts, impatiently swooping up and down over Fiji caught August’s attention - a display window containing a stylized chalk outline of a body. When he looked at it the summary indicated an assassination attempt at Mirtopik Com headquarters in Los Angeles. August clutched his hair. All his nightmares and paranoia came at once to the fore.
Who was it? Many of August’s key allies were based out of LA and a loss of any of them could have a critical impact on the outcome of the Annual General Meeting. The thought sent August into a rage. Why the hell hadn’t ComSec briefed him? Did they think that because the boss was locked away on the Moon that they didn’t have to do their jobs? Someone was going to pay for this screw up. His angry stare told the alert box to swoosh over to meet him out near the coast of Hawaii.
He read the summary with trepidation and, as he did, his hair bristled. The lack of information was ridiculous. To begin with there was no name, just the fact that the victim was a member of the Com executive. Not even his position was included. For all August knew it was just some assistant vice president, but it could be bad. Dmitri? It couldn’t be Dmitri. Dmitri was here. What was going on with his memory? Frustrated, August was about to discard the alert box and head over to ComSec when he noticed the location and date details of the death. The date was in the future, a few days’ time, and the place was . . . the Moon? An icon near the location details offered pictures. August ordered them up.
A single photo appeared containing a dimly lit tall figure with a prominent thatch of hair that August recognized instantly. The face in the picture was his.
The caption read “AUGUST BRIDGES. Struck down in the prime of his time.”
What the hell?
A wall pressing against his back stopped August from backing away and contained his urge to run and hide. This was the realisation of every fear that had chased him to the Moon, which had left him cowering in the most remote of exiles, and which, at the arrival of a ship purportedly carrying his trusted deputy, had driven him out to almost certain death.
But, for some reason, this validation of the threat that had driven him to the edge of madness and death had a calming effect. Phantoms could not be fought, but a flesh and blood adversary? August had a long history of overcoming many of these. August’s mind, stimulated by a real challenge, became clearer as he considered the possibilities.
Apparently, he wasn’t dead, so what was this? Some Hax prank? “In the prime of his time?” For pity's sake. But of course, August knew who it was.
“Calvin30,” August commanded, but the neurolink rang through to a message bank. “Pick up, damn you.”
Whatever shit Calvin30 got up to on his behalf August was sure he didn’t want to know, but he was always off line at the worst time, even on the most urgent channels. Times like this he’d love to fire the little bastard. The problem with owning people was that you simply couldn’t get rid of them.
August thought through the situation. Classic Calvin30 to leave things out in the breeze, trailing breadcrumbs leading through mazes within mazes. Smart-ass.
Although it pissed him off, August had to accept the logic. Following the tracks as Calvin30 left them made August sniff the wind and touch the soil in which they were embedded. And far more critical, in these days of exile, this engaged August instead of isolating him.
So, what was going on here?
August’s attention moved to the green Campaign lines creeping out from the Alert to the Four Corners.
“Pull links to Alert 827E.” August thought.
A mad mob of images flapped down, perching in green branches sprouting up underneath the named Alert. August followed the thickest branch down to a report detailing a few small Alignment account transfers from the Directors’ discretionary funds to several Pacific Island Orgs having something to do with reef stabilization and humanitarian services for Islanders displaced by rising sea levels due to the greenhouse effect.
Nothing was out of the ordinary there. It was standard practice for Coms to ‘donate’ Alignments, documented improvements of ecological performance, to the Orgs. It was by this ‘donation’ process that the Alignments could be converted into Ecos to be paid out to those working for the Orgs and the Hubs they serviced. The Coms routinely made these payments to strengthen strategic relationships or for public relations reasons.
The next branch sideways up from the Alignment account transfers made more of an impact on August.
The Orgs involved in most of these transfers had possible links with Kaliyuga Rev. Just reading the name gave August an involuntary urge to look over his shoulder, as would be the case with most Com executives. Most Revs were steadfastly committed to the non-violent ideals of the Ecolution and the gradual capture of target Coms, as they had done to BiLongMeCom, through relentless globally coordinated and targeted Campaigns. Kaliyuga was not one of these. They were extremists, lethal terrorists who went straight for the top so-to-speak. They considered space travel to be the principal heresy of humanity. Mirtopik, and August Bridges especially, were not high on their love list.
Which brought August down the next branch, the subsequent arrival from Fiji to L.A., a few days prior, of a suspected high-level Kaliyuga operative. The branch back from here traced to Moscow, the last known location of this woman, where, as the next branch revealed, a scan of her apartment had revealed the presence of tracer nanoids released during an earlier criminal investigation by Euro Gov authorities. A web of dun lines emanated from this last Alert like roots disappearing into disparate ends of the Earth, containing odd facts from seemingly disconnected events. He followed each root as far as he could before they disappeared into the ground. Money transfers, travel itineraries, names and faces, histories and relationships.
It was a grind working through this morass of data; hours passed as August’s interest waned. He stopped several times to rest his eyes and attempt to tame the static building up in his hair. During one of these breaks he became aware of the time and resolved to abandon the search after one last attempt.
It was then that a jumble of roots finally gathered again beneath a new, minor stem growing upward to a new thicket of Alerts. These involved a police report regarding a theft from a decommissioned military research institute that had once specialized in the development of nanoweapons. Invisible, invasive, intelligent and capable of unending combinations of lethal terrors.
Nanoweapons. August read the word several times as if questioning its meaning. The word related to every paranoid fantasy that had plagued him since the terrible events that had brought him into power. It was the circularity of fate implicit in the word that terrified him. A man must reap what he has sown.
August read the Alerts with renewed intensity but failed to uncover any description of the items that had been stolen. This was a surprising o
mission for a police report; although less surprising when one considered the potential political messiness involved for a Gov to admit possession of technology that had been illegal throughout Gaia for nearly a quarter century.
He tried Calvin30’s neurolink again. “Listen you insolent shit,” he left his message in a stony voice, “if I die today because of information you have failed to provide, I will not be the only one with a problem.” The threat only increased his feelings of impotence. Threatening Calvin30 was like threatening the dirt beneath his feet, because both were simultaneously inconsequential and irreplaceable.
An unseen and unexpected hand touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Sir?”
“Shit!”
The neuroview blinked out and August nearly lost his balance with the abrupt change of perspective. “Don’t ever do that again,” he gasped at the slight woman standing beside him, “Do you understand? Shit.”
Linda, his new admin assistant, bit her lip while smoothing the skirt of a smart, corporate cut sari. “Sir,” she pressed valiantly on, “Terribly sorry to startle you. We couldn’t reach you otherwise. The Director’s ferry has confirmed that they have left Earth’s orbit and are on their way.”
“Of course. Of course,” August recovered his breath. “That’s okay Linda.”
“Thank you, sir.”
August ran his fingers through his hair, preening it as he thought. He had to think quickly. In a short time, he would walk into a room containing the few people in the universe capable of determining his fate. One of them, perhaps several, could be holding an imperceptible loaded gun to his head. Of course, Calvin30’s trail of evidence was entirely circumstantial, the rough skeleton of a conspiracy theory. Still it wasn’t implausible, and Calvin30’s imprimatur on it made more than plausible.
Why? Perhaps it was Gudanko’s cold actuarial style of management. Certainly, the businessman would have dealt with other enemies this way, with as much passion as signing off on an annual return. But if that were the case, surely Gudanko would have many years ago eliminated the extreme outlier to the Com risk model that August represented. And besides, wasn’t time on the accountant’s side? Besides, the thought that Kaliyuga and Gudanko would conspire on anything was a theory that stretched the bounds of the believable. Their mutual contempt outweighed any animosity they harbored towards him, which was saying something. Besides, murder was a horrible way to do business. August’s tangential involvement in one still gave him nightmares such as the one this morning. It was possible that Calvin30 took care of such things on his behalf, but he didn’t want to know.
“Linda,” he spoke evenly, “this is absolutely critical. One. Transfer this mneme I’m sending to you by neurolink over to ComSec.” August switched back on his neurovisor to transfer the access codes. “Have them take care of it. I don’t want to be interrupted. Two. Prepare the kitchen for a full nanoid scan. We have a possible contamination that ComSec will be investigating. It doesn’t matter if the process delays greeting our visitors with food,” he added with a grin, “it’ll be good to keep Gudanko off balance, his blood sugar is a weak point. Three,” he paused, but there was nothing else she could do for him, “three, do whatever needs to be done.”
Linda turned on a delicate heel and vanished in a brisk and competent manner leaving August with racing thoughts. The faces of each participant of the upcoming Board meeting flashed before his eyes, challenging him to guess who might try to end his life. His immediate thoughts were on the unjust inconvenience of it all. This was just insane. He had more important things to be thinking about than staying alive.
What lunacy. August grinned despite himself. His life on the line and it was all just too much of a pain in the ass. When he thought about it there was some logic there. Who was he, after all, besides the greatness of his dream? Having recreated his self in its image, what would be left if the dream were subtracted?
Underappreciated and over-accumulated wealth, the unreliable vagaries of power, iconic hair on an aging body. No loves, few friendships, no enjoyment of time’s passage. Who was he indeed, if not for this all-consuming, all inspiring, all demanding master? His dream. Until now August had assumed his dream was something possessed by him, but now he could see that he was just as possessed by it. Or rather, that both he and the dream had arisen naturally together, from some primordial source.
Dmitri had it wrong. There was no speculation in August’s assurance that the message from the aliens would come. It was certain. It was as if he had sent it to himself, simple cause and effect, and in that reality, there was no other choice but to see his dream through. Consequently, what was there to fear?
“Destiny drives history, not the other way around,” August shouted at the crescent Earth hanging in his skylight.
The Earth did not answer, and August felt fatigue overtake him. He replaced the wad of bloody tissue from his nose and then lay down in his bed and tried to work through why he had almost died today. His memory of specific events was sketchy. Most of what was alive in his mind today were details from a strange dream, which had entranced him while he was in the process of dying. Like a ghost it had haunted his thoughts since.
Even now he could remember almost every detail, as he yawned and closed his eyes and surrendered back into it.
The Earth hanging in the skylight above faded, replaced by the full moon casting long shadows across a Russian winter and into a grey bar room with many mirrors, which reflected the moonlight and the gas flame in the fireplace. Both were a vain attempt to shut out the frost and the day long night. The deep brown of Anya’s eyes surreptitiously met his while Gregori, her husband and August’s most loyal friend, played the clown for the cheering locals.
The slumping black spruce forest outside the windows gave no hint of specific location - only a typical Siberian village, the local Hubs incredulous at the discovery of unclaimed ecos buried in the drab swamp that surrounded their home. August and his friends had been to this same place, bearing different names but populated with the same hopeful expressions, many times. Always the same bar.
All was as it had once been, a possibility only in dream. Laughter spilled freely, untainted by the betrayals yet to come. The future was still sensitive in its unfolding to the small events of life. The sense of sharing fate over a drink and a prayer was a particularly bittersweet emotion that held August’s attention most profoundly. The memory of what true friendship had felt like.
They toasted with the bar. “To warm friends and cold winters. To Mother Russia and God’s Earth. To the Generations!”
Gregori and August, locked arm in arm, spun to some hectic ballad as the sweat spun down off their flailing arms into the cheers of the crowd and under the spotlight of Anya’s admiring eyes. Even this flirtation, a first of many betrayals to find a home in August’s soul, was still innocent.
The waiter visiting their table, a passing detail in August and Gregori’s whirling rapture, was oddly attired - threadbare robes and an odd moon-shaped mitre perched atop a broad Mongolian face. The waiter refilled August’s glass and retreated into shadow.
Contrasting with the grey moon cast hues pervading the other players and props, the liquid in his glass glowed warmly. August again drank the nectar and relived it rolling back, sweet flavor encasing his tongue, pulling his awareness down his throat to his heart. For only an instant he felt completely at home in himself and in this place.
And then the dream betrayed him. Abruptly the longing in Anya’s eyes for his began to fade, to pass through him to Gregori, now the sole recipient of the crowd’s adulation, and beyond. This sudden departure of his substance was disconcerting. August called over to his friends, who reacted at first by turning slightly as if hearing their name mentioned in conversation, and then not at all.
August floated through the room and its inhabitants, his anxiety steadily mounting. This was not possible. He could forget them, but they were not allowed to forget him. After all, it was he who had betrayed them - how c
ould they ever forget? The music and singing continued unabated. Anya’s eyes engaged Gregori’s with a meaningful glance before roaming off to greet the patient stares of other men waiting their turn for acknowledgement. August waited with them, hungry to glimpse even a hint of memory remaining in her eyes.
Heedless of his agitation, the laughter continued, tormenting August as he circled the bar, straining for recognition from even the most obscure figures in the dream - shouting at them. A gust of wind slammed open the door and August slipped out the exit, pulled by a vacuum of moonlight that he was helpless to fight against.
Illya was there standing broad-legged at the edge of a slough, urinating. As the great bear-man hummed contentedly in his moody baritone, an immense wave of anxiety engulfed August. He could not abide this. August the wraith, the phantom, pleading to be seen by a dead man. Illya: his friend, his mentor, his father, his victim. Illya, whose ghost would haunt him forever.
Illya beamed beneficently as the swamp swelled and over spilled with his magnificent discharge. Opulently dyed with tannins and Earth, the deluge overcame August in a swirling rush. As the rising torrent drowned him, August reached out for the hand of a man who wasn’t there.
Chapter 3 – Aurora
Settle down. Just sit where you are girls. Now, I'm gonna tell you lot about the two beginnings. Not one but two of them. How is it there are two beginnings? You never had a dream inside another one? That's how it all started.
See those stars up there around? Those are my sisters. They are the sisters of all of us. Whitefellahs call them the Pleiades. And they're trying to get away from those brothers over there. You know the story, don't you?
Ten Directions Page 4