The Violent Society

by M C Rooney

Grant sat outside the jail looking at the ground and wiped the tears from his eyes. Justice was served, but he still missed his grandfather.

  “Did I do well, Pop?” he asked the heavens. “Is Mum proud of me?”

  The heavens didn’t answer, but someone else he loved did.

  “You did well,” his brother Gregor said, standing over him as he ruffled his hair.

  “Yeah, I would have stabbed him, not arrested him,” his other brother, Gary, said.

  “Then I would have had to put you in jail as well,” Grant replied, looking up at his brothers. “It all stops now.”

  His brothers nodded back in understanding. The west had been living in chaos for nearly fifty years. It had to end, and a part of a ranger’s job was to stop that chaos. The reign of the Martins and Roberts was over. The reign of the mayors and the people had just begun.

  10 Years Later, The Hobart Hospital

  “It shouldn’t be too long now,” Lily Dayton said as she watched the Professor lying on his hospital bed. Her son Locke, a solemn boy of nine with auburn hair just like his mother, stood next to her and he was now looking at the Professor in absolute fascination.

  “Good,” the Professor replied as he tried to flatten his wiry hair. “I have missed my showers so much. Look at how old and lame I have become.”

  Yes, you are lame, the voice sniggered in his head.

  “You must be eighty now, at least,” the mayor replied. “You need to rest; there is still much to do.”

  “Yes, but look at these girls running around,” the Professor replied. “I used to run like that.”

  You ran like a girl? Really?

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” the Professor replied to the mayor and himself.

  “Molly’s girls are only eight,” Lily replied as she watched her great-nieces giggle and disappear down the corridor. “You are an old man now, whether you like it or not. Just be patient.”

  For ten years, the Professor and his apprentice, Jeremy, had hundreds of the southern population building a tower miles to the west of Hobart and miles southeast of the town of Grovetown. If this project proved successful they should be able to move on to help Mayor Roberts complete his tower to the west. With Mayor Abercrombie becoming efficient at keeping the midlands tower working, this left only the north-west and north-east of the island powerless, but nobody really knew what was going on up there. A cult was the word that was often used to describe the north.

  “I need this to work,” the Professor said desperately. “Before I die, I need to make amends for what I did.”

  “But you told me it wasn’t just you,” Lily replied. “There were others involved, including Molly’s grandfather.”

  Molly was devastated to learn that the man she vaguely remembered as a kindly old grandfather had in fact been part of the world’s destruction.

  “Yes, but having billions of lives on your conscience does weigh heavily,” the Professor replied sadly.

  Yes, it would, the mayor thought, but she needed to keep him in a positive state of mind. “Well, done is done,” she replied. “So long as nobody knows how the tower worked on people’s brains, I think we are safe from McKay now.”

  “Oh yes,” the Professor replied. “Only McShane the Insane knew how that worked, and she is long dead.” McLaren did admit in later years that one of the council did kill McShane; he also mentioned a little about an inner circle of McKay, where they referred to themselves as lords, but when McNamara pressed the matter further, McLaren would chuck one of his very special temper tantrums.

  Rude prick, the voice said.

  “Yes, he was sometimes,” McNamara mumbled in reply.

  How is it possible that Molly is related to him?

  “She took after her father, James, who took after his own mother, Molly, thank God,” the Professor replied.

  And how did McLaren seduce her grandmother like that?

  “She was scared of the dead,” the Professor replied, “and clung to McLaren for safety.”

  Only once.

  “Yes.”

  Then she clung to you a lot more, as I remember, the voice laughed.

  “Shut up,” the Professor replied. “Yes, McLaren didn’t care that I could be James’s father, but he looked after him much better than I could. I was going insane, remember?”

  But she has your eyes, and so did James.

  “It doesn’t matter. She must not know that I could be her grandfather.”

  Why?

  “Because I am an old fool who was part of the destruction of the world, that is why.”

  So was McLaren.

  “Exactly.”

  You’re not like him. You must forgive yourself.

  “I am not her grandfather, and that is that. I will never tell her.”

  Well, she will know if you keep speaking out loud like that.

  “Oh yes,” the Professor said sheepishly.

  Lily’s son was looking at the Professor with wide-eyed astonishment. “Mum,” Locke said.

  “Yes, I heard, dear,” Lily said. “We will keep that news to ourselves, all right?”

  “Yes, Mum,” Locke replied. But the boy was still looking at the Professor in surprise.

  “There you are, Professor,” Molly said brightly as she walked into the room with her twin daughters, Rachael and Lillian, in tow. “Sorry, Lily,” Molly said as she arrived at the Professor’s bedside. “I have just been chasing down my girls. They shouldn’t run in a hospital. Doctor Pertwee was just growling at them.”

  “That’s all right,” Lily replied as she looked again at her son, who was still staring at the Professor and, fortunately, had not mentioned anything concerning who Molly’s real grandfather was. “There are not many patients in here, thank the Unknowable.”

  “I’m so nervous, Molly,” the Professor now said “What if it doesn’t work?”

  Granddaughter!

  “Shut up.”

  “You made the first tower,” Molly said as she held his hand, “and that is still working perfectly after so many years.”

  “Yes, but my brain is not what it used to be.”

  You can say that again!

  “Shut up,” the Professor mumbled again.

  Lily and Molly shared a look. They knew he wasn’t telling them to shut up, but sometimes the way he talked to himself could really make a conversation with him quite difficult.

  “It’s close to midday,” Lily said, and a deathly hush soon came over the hospital ward.

  This was the time when Jeremy to the west and Tom to the south were to use the Holophone to see if the power was working through the air and ground. Tom had gone south for a few days with both of his young sons, James, who was nine, and Jack, who was five, to help his father oversee the project. But, of course, James and Jack would be looked after by their grandmother, Rachael, who spoiled them both rotten. Sometimes Molly would have trouble getting them to come back home, as they loved their grandmother so much.

  Doctor Pertwee and another doctor called Troughton walked into the room; they knew what was about to happen. If it failed, everybody would know that they would be stuck in darkness for the foreseeable future.

  “How do we know exactly when they will call, though?” Molly asked.

  “Look out the window,” replied the Professor.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you see lightning in the distance to the west then it has started.”

  And sure enough, after another ten minutes, flashes of light could be seen in clouds miles and miles off to the west. It looked so strange, though, as above them was nothing but blue sky.

  “It should be soon,” Lily said quietly and held her son tightly to try to calm her nerves.

  If this failed they would have to try to restart the dams and all the electrical wirings that covered the land. That would take another decade of studying and work. This would definitely be the end of her time as mayor from the next election. The people would see this failure as hers and hers alon
e. They had put so much faith in the Professor’s plan. Nobody really considered that it would fail, as the midlands tower worked so well. But as is the case with human nature, doubt always crossed your mind.

  The Professor’s Holophone rang.

  “It’s working!” Molly cried out. “Quick, quick, Professor, answer it!” Molly was almost jumping up and down with excitement.

  Her two blonde-haired daughters were looking at their mother in amazement, no doubt wondering what all the fuss was about.

  “All right, Molly dear,” the Professor said with a smile. But his hands shook as he clicked the button for a connection.

  His apprentice, Jeremy, appeared on the Holophone. Everybody, apart from the children, broke into cries of joy. “Professor,” Jeremy said, “it’s nice to see your face.”

  “And you, my boy, and you,” the Professor replied with relief. “We can almost see the lightning from here.”

  “Yes, it’s bloody loud too,” Jeremy replied with a grin.

  “And are you going to have a shower?” said the Professor.

  “Oh, I am not too sure about that. Maybe later.”

  “Well, I am travelling over there right now,” the Professor said with laughter. “I should be naked and bathing in electricity by tomorrow.”

  “Um, well … that’s great, Professor.” Jeremy didn’t seem to be smiling as much anymore.

  Lily and Molly, though, did share a smile. The Professor didn’t seem as frail anymore, and Jeremy’s reaction to his nakedness was quite priceless.

  “Have you checked the lights?” Jeremy asked.

  “Quickly, quickly,” Molly called out to her kids, who were quite happy to run around and hit all the buttons they could find. The doctors were only a step behind them, but Locke stayed at his mother’s side, as usual.

  One of the twins hit the light switch. Lily then smiled in pure elation as the lights in the room came awake after over fifty years of dormancy. Soon everybody was hugging each other and laughing and crying at this special day.

  “You’ve done it, Professor,” Molly said as she hugged her oldest friend.

  “Would you like to call your husband?” the Professor replied with tears in his eyes at seeing her look so happy.

  “Of course, of course,” Molly replied excitedly. “What buttons do I push?”

  And after a quick lesson on how to use a phone, Molly was animatedly talking to her husband, who was about one hundred kilometres to the south.

  “Well done, Professor,” Lily Dayton said to him quietly after he had disconnected his call with Jeremy. “We are forever in your debt.”

  “We can study now,” the Professor said, smiling. “Free education, and no restrictions placed on free energy. The sky is the limit with new inventions.”

  “My father was in an argument with a politician at Grovetown just before he died,” the mayor said thoughtfully. “The politician argued that money drove more inventions to be made, but my father said that inventions were driven by more money to be made.”

  “Oh, he sounds like a good man, your father,” the Professor replied. “I wish I could have met him.”

  “Me too,” Lily replied quietly.

  “But there is one last matter I need to check before we can really celebrate.” Soon he was plugging in electrical wires and using his old computer to check up on his past.

  “You’re still worried about McKay?” Lily said. She really didn’t like the old man worrying like he did. Sure, it took her a long time to forgive him for what he had taken part in, but over the years, she had realised that he had been used by others and was not entirely to blame for the Collapse.

  “Yes, I am; they were very powerful people, and I have always worried about a plan within a plan so to speak,” the Professor replied. “But … where is that disk?”

  Not ‘the’ disk?

  “Yes, ‘the’ disk.”

  The mayor watched as the Professor reached over to his bedside table and collected his toolbox, which he kept with him at all times. He suddenly gave a cry of happiness and held up an orange disk.

  “What is that?” the mayor asked.

  “This, Lily Dayton,” the professor replied, “is a disk that drove the governments of my day crazy.”

  “The McKay Group?” she enquired.

  “Yes,” the Professor replied. “There are only twelve disks like this in the world, and it is an Internet all of its own.”

  “I’m sorry, Professor,” she replied, “but you need to talk in simpler terms to me.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m sorry, Mayor. I sometimes forget that I am from another time.”

  “That’s all right, Professor,” she replied. “Now, you were saying?” She had to keep him on track; talking to him for long periods of time could be exhausting.

  “Basically, once you enter the disk into the computer like this,” as he placed the disk into a small slot, “you can contact the other eleven anywhere around the world without the government looking over your shoulder.”

  Or needing an Internet provider.

  “And that is how you exchanged information?” she replied.

  “Yes, but sometimes we had face-to-face meetings.”

  Clown to clown you mean.

  “But mostly through the disks,” the Professor continued.

  “But McKay is long gone,” the mayor said. “Surely there would be no updates since the Collapse.”

  “That is what I hope to confirm.”

  You’re being paranoid again; you never checked that disk before.

  “I know. I had forgotten all about it,” he said as he entered his security code. “I had other things on my mind.”

  Like me.

  “Shut up,” the Professor whispered.

  A moving image suddenly came up on the computer. Lily now looked closer and saw that a man with brown skin, jet-black hair, and a black soldier suit seemed to be giving details on the unification of Australia. It all seemed to be about battles and the inadequacy of the current regime after someone named Fevola had died. The mayor looked at the bottom of the screen. “It can’t be,” she said in shock. “It says the year 2075.”

  The Professor groaned and began punching letters, numbers, and symbols on the computer keyboard.

  Your paranoia may have some merit, then.

  A ten-dollar note now came up on the screen.

  “That’s a new currency,” he mumbled to himself and continued to attack his keyboard.

  Whose face is on that dollar bill?

  “Very shiny, whoever he is.”

  Triumphant music then poured out from the screen, with photo images and videos of armies and battles across Australia, some with zombies and bandits, others with soldiers wearing green, all showing dates from the years 2047 to 2099.

  Who is updating this information?

  “A descendant, maybe?” the Professor replied, confused.

  In Australia, and only two years ago?

  “I should have kept an eye on this,” the Professor muttered.

  But we couldn’t do anything about it anyway, the voice said.

  “That is true,” the Professor said quietly.

  Images continued of victorious soldiers in black and men in white robes and funny pointed hats, all proclaiming that peace could only be achieved by might of the gun, a strong economy, and the people of Australia bowing down before God and the one true Lord, Cykam. In some of the images, the same brown-skinned man could be seen.

  Cykam!

  “I’m so sorry, Mayor,” the Professor said.

  “Cykam,” Lily said in despair at all of those horrible images. “I never heard of—oh …”

  “Yes, an anagram of McKay,” replied the Professor sadly, “and a pretty bad one at that.”

  So it’s most likely the council had a bigger plan than just reducing the population, the voice chimed in, but why not just say McKay instead of Cykam?

  “I’m not sure, but I think they wanted to introduce a new religion, new money. A ne
w set of laws,” the Professor said.

  One people. One Order.

  “I should have seen this coming.”

  You were young.

  “Young and stupid.”

  Young and inexperienced, the voice replied.

  “There must be more to this,” the Professor mumbled and continued to type away at the keyboard.

  There usually is.

  “Aha!” the Professor cried out. “Here are the secret files of Cykam, and oh, look! it has the coding of McLaren, McCredie, McGill, and McGrath, the so-called inner circle.”

  Secret files within a secret file.

  “It should provide us with the truth.”

  Secret files usually do.

  “I wonder if the other seven knew,” he said as he continued to type away.

  Probably not. Nobody could hack into files like you.

  “Oh, look, they are dead anyway.”

  Who killed them?

  “McGrath did, on the very next day. Explosions, poison, guns, and a knife.”

  Wow, and I thought his clown face was so friendly.

  “Interesting,” the Professor said, “these secret files have been recently opened.”

  Who by? McCredie, McGill, and McGrath are all dead, surely.

  “More descendants of those three and McLaren maybe?”

  Or it could be the same person who has updated the outer files.

  “Oh, here we are,” the Professor said. “This is what we know about this Lord Cykam …”

  So McKay may be an anagram of Cykam instead?

  “Could be.”

  Indeed.

  “You love that word, don’t you?” the Professor asked the voice.

  Oh, yes, it makes me sound all wise … and stuff.

  The Professor cleared his throat.

  “Here is the summary of the cult of Cykam, Mayor,” he finally said.

  “A cult!” the mayor said sharply.

  “I’m afraid that’s what it says,” the Professor replied. “A cult is a much smaller religion, but just as dangerous.”

  “Continue then.” The mayor said.

  “Six thousand years ago, the Lord Cykam crashed to earth in his … spacecraft.” The Professor began.

  Oh, no, not this sort of story again.

  “He travelled all the way from a distant galaxy on a twisting yellow beam of light which was connected to our sun and then upon his arrival he altered the DNA of the primitive monkeys of earth.”