First Light: Book one of the Torus Saga

by Berg, Michael

  “I doubt that,” Jake said. “Agent Eight did not seem to think that for Raynie and myself. I bet he really wanted to kill us when he found us. It was just process holding him back.”

  “And me. Agent Eight failed to do his duty with the efficiency the authorities espouse to and so he is now being punished.”

  “About time,” Raynie replied thinking of when she was shot in the leg.

  “The authorities do not want people dead, unless they are of no use in the pursuit of efficiency. In fact, people are seen as valuable, so long as they comply with the objectives defined as efficient.”

  “Do you always just regurgitate that?” Raynie asked. “Is it your way? Do you even breathe efficiently?”

  “Um…” it was the first time Superior Office One had faltered. “No, I do not ‘breathe’ efficiently.”

  “Are we of use?” Lyle asked.

  “It depends if you object or agree with the new way of life being brought in around the world, and if you can contribute to the authorities’ goals through compliance.”

  “What are these goals?” Chan asked.

  “To rid people of in-efficiency they experience with non-compliance.”

  “To what?”

  “To…” she was suddenly at a loss for a coherent answer. For a few moments she wondered precisely what the authorities wanted. “Um…compliance to the machine.” The answer seemed a bit dumb to her as she said, but she was too late.

  “What machine?” Jenna asked this time

  “The machine of economy, of working, and of status,” her answers continued to falter.

  “So why is this machine so important?”

  “In order to control people and make them see reason for compliance. After all, the authorities will soon provide absolutely everything anyone requires.”

  “Does that include feeling as a human? Does that include love? Does that include spontaneous happiness?”

  “Those will be attended to…”

  “You cannot attend to such things using a machine,” Chan said. “They come as natural ways of being, in life, as feelings and responses to feelings.”

  Chan’s words reminded her of her own internal conflict and she thought this man had a type of wisdom she could not describe, further adding to her confusion.

  “Do you love anything?” he asked her.

  “Um, yes. My job.”

  “You love your job, but that job seems to be something that takes love away from people if these issues of compliance are brought into effect. Do you want to do such things?”

  “I cannot see why not.”

  “Can you see why though?”

  “Yes, for the efficiency of society. Everyone will be happy with better lives through technology and through elevated status.”

  “But that does not answer the question. Why would a woman like you want to take love out of the world?”

  “It is not a question of want anyway,” Superior Officer One was getting a little frustrated. “It is only an issue of compliance. When the authorities control every aspect of people’s lives, then people will see that status is the most important.”

  “Do you actually believe that?” Raynie said in a cynical way.

  “Um…I have to, it is my job.”

  “Again your job,” Chan said. “It does seem to be your highest priority.

  “It is.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, there are other things. There are times where I want to listen to music. The authorities still permit this.”

  “But soon they won’t. Am I right?”

  “Yes...in a way. Some entertainment will be provided.”

  “So you will virtually lose this one sense of love you have too.” This sentence struck deep inside Superior Officer One. It was her most inner turmoil - her separation between work and the sanctity music gave her at the end of each day.

  “How does music make you feel?” Chan asked.

  “Um…good…look! I am not going to answer any more questions from you.” She looked at Chan both studying his face, and feeling a little afraid. She fell silent for a few moments and considered what to do next.

  “I am going to have to report you to my superior – I have no choice. But…lucky for you, I am just going to report a sighting as soon as I return to the United States, so you had better get out of Germany. I can understand a little why you are doing this, but realize that your efforts will be in vain. When the authorities unleash their lifestyles they have in store for people, you will soon see the futility in your resistance.”

  She had decided on this, as a sighting would stand here in good stead for retaining her status level. “I am cutting short my assignment and returning to the United States the day after tomorrow.” The look of relief was apparent on everyone’s face, except for Chan who showed no reaction to this news. Without further words, Superior Officer One then left them alone in the restaurant.

  **********

  John tentatively stepped into the elevator car that would take Lorraine and him up to Chris’s apartment on the seventy sixth floor. He was not concerned over any issues of identity and the threat of being caught by the authorities, he just felt uncomfortable being in such places. But more so, he had been experiencing a great deal of inner turmoil since his son had told them where he lived. He watched as Chris led them in, a slight hint of pride again on his face as he anticipated the impression he would give his dad. Chris had no knowledge of his father’s outright objection to these places, more he thought that his father merely preferred the remote life of wild places such as Alaska.

  Up and up they traveled and as each floor passed by in a flash, John felt a growing sense of dismay. He was trying to deal with how his only son had become a part of the machine of the high rise and he wondered, a little scared, of how much Chris had taken to trans-human values in life.

  “I think you will like it dad,” Chris said as they stood outside his front door. He was thinking of his father’s interests in technology and was sure he would be impressed with the inside of his apartment. When they went inside, John felt exactly the opposite.

  Chris’s apartment was lined with technology. Several holographic displays provided readouts of various kinds, and there was what looked like a dentist chair in one corner making John feel very uneasy. Several cables led from a holographic bank to the chair, with some having what appeared to be housings to accommodate syringes at the end. He had heard of such things before, and now upon seeing one in his son’s apartment, he felt began to feel physically sick.

  “How do you like it dad?”

  “Um…impressive,” John replied feeling entirely the opposite.

  “I thought you might like it.”

  “What is it?” Lorraine asked.

  “Nano infusion chair,” Chris replied. “I use it to maintain my inner workings. It keeps my nano technology running at high efficiency, and for adding updates to the software the authorities provide.”

  John was feeling like had had drunk over a dozen beers rather than just two. The sight of the chair was making him giddy. How could his own son be so opposite to himself? His giddiness began to take hold, his head swimming.

  Chris noticed this, “Are you OK dad?”

  “Yeah. Just need to sit down a bit. Maybe all the travel lately is catching up with me.” Lorraine knew why John was feeling this way after Chris had explained what the chair was for, and so she sat beside him comforting him a little by holding his hand.

  “I’ll get some refreshments,” Chris said. “Maybe that will make you feel better dad.”

  “Yeah. Thanks son.”

  “John? What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know Lorraine. I just don’t know. I can talk to him, but with all this, he seems to be very committed to these nano tech…”

  “Here you go dad,” Chris had returned with three glasses of water. John drank the entire glass until it was finished.

  After Chris had taken a few mouthfuls he offered to s
how his father how the chair operated, “See those cables dad? They are used to run a spectral analysis of my present nano health. When it is operating, they move over and around my body to carry out scans as I sit. And the syringes that attach in the others…well, you probably guessed. They inject new technology and also add the software upgrades.”

  “Do they work? Does it make you feel better son?”

  “Oh yes. After the process I get a renewed sense of feeling. It is like I am stronger and clearer in my mind. They enable my body to operate efficiently.”

  Again, the word ‘efficiently’ played on his father’s mind. Whilst John knew the value of efficient technical operations, he thought of it only in the sense of the type of technology he worked on – mostly to avoid the authorities.

  “Do they help you to focus your attention…on your work?” Lorraine asked.

  “Oh yes, more than ever. I work at my best immediately after an infusion. This gradually tapers off a bit and when I notice that, I just get in the chair for more renewal. Would you like me to show you? I have scheduled a session in the chair for tomorrow, but I could do it today. It only takes about five minutes.”

  “Yeah, why not?” Lorraine replied looking at John. Every cell in John’s body and every feeling in his heart were rejecting the idea, but he understood why Lorraine had agreed. He would not know his son fully until he saw him go to such low depths.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah, go on show us.”

  Chris went over to the holographic bank beside the chair and entered a few sequences. “It does an automatic scan for any software updates, and if there are any newly available, it downloads them directly to my cell endings without me having to do a thing.” He then sat in the chair and waited about ten seconds. Suddenly the cables took on a life of their own as the process began. First the cables did a thorough scan of his body. The underside of the chair was a netting type material and so the scans were uninterrupted. The sight was again making John feel sick, and Lorraine also began to feel why.

  It was horrible to them both. Chris appeared to surrender himself to the machine as he sat there motionless. When the scans had finished, the other syringe cables moved to a store of new needles and automatically fitted one to each cable end – four in all. As they watched, they could both see the software upgrades appear as holographic images at first, which were then compressed into packets and passed into the electronic syringes. As each syringe moved into place over Chris’s body they could see the upgrades waiting in the vessel above each needle.

  John wanted to destroy them then, as he knew what was about to happen. He sickened further as each of them pushed through his son’s skin deep into the tissue. He hated the sight of the machine intruding into his son – the person he had helped bring into this world now being given over to the ugly device. Suddenly a message appeared on the holographic bank, ‘central systems now proceeding with software update,’ and they saw the packets of data move down the translucent needles into Chris’s body.

  At first, Chris’s face took on a slightly distorted appearance, something like a holographic image just out of focus. Then a few seconds later, it returned to a normal state, but his body didn’t. His body appeared as though it was in flux just beyond a solid state and whilst this occurred, a slight smile appeared on his face. He looked as though he was an injecting drug user – John had seen a few of these people in Seattle. The distortion of his body accompanied by a smile on his face did everything John feared. He was utterly repulsed and as Chris watched them, still motionless, John struggled with this internally. As the five minutes passed by, John wanted to get up and rip all of the syringes out and then take his son away from this, but he couldn’t. Any sudden disengagement of the needles could actually prove fatal. Also, he fought to retain composure through this so as to not show his son any hint of the disgust he felt.

  When at last the time was up and Chris’s appearance returned to normal, he felt slight relief, as did Lorraine who had been similarly horrified at the appearance Chris had taken on during the procedure. The needles then withdrew from Chris automatically and detached the syringes, disposing of them into a chute fixed into the wall beside the chair.

  As he arose from the chair, Chris took a long deep breath just like the drug users John had seen did. “Well, that is it. Simple isn’t it? Gee I feel good.” John and Lorraine felt the opposite – they had never witnessed this procedure before and the thoughts of millions upon millions of people doing this regularly, made them both feel worse. Lorraine imagined great buildings full of people linked to these machine chairs and she realized some of her worst nightmares. John simply felt weakened by the entire thing.

  Chris however, appeared quite the opposite, with a broad smile on his face, and standing more than upright. He looked for all the world like one of those amphetamine drug fuelled soldiers John knew existed in some parts of the military – powerful and indestructible. Then he turned to face his father still smiling, “See here?” he pointed to a tiny spot on the underside of his forearm. “I have my ID chip now too. The authorities said that with this new chip I would be able to monitor my nano tech even more efficiently with a simple swipe over the holographic scanner, which means I don’t even have to feel any loss of nano integrity at all. I really did not like those times when I began to feel less than I do now. They also said that with the chip, I will soon be able get some updates without the inconvenience of going to the chair. How efficient is that!”

  John then felt worse than ever, worse than in his dream at the cabin, and worse because he was watching his son become machine and it seemed that Chris was slipping away from him. The smile on his son’s face was not one of happiness. It was a reaction to the infusion, and as such, was a smile devoid of any sense of emotion or feeling arising from his organic elemental self.

  “Where do you work son?” John asked. They had never really discussed this in recent months.

  “Central Systems here in London, for the six months now. I am in middle management, looking after status allocation for anyone who makes mistakes and cost the authorities wasted money and resources. Soon I hope to progress to upper management and then I can also move up higher in the tower, and…if lucky, I might get the north tower. It has the newest technology available and makes chairs like these look obsolete.”

  “Oh…good for you then,” John was resigning to losing his son to the machines and to the authorities, but he was not giving up yet. ‘I must do something,’ he thought looking at Lorraine who could tell what he was thinking by the expression on his face.

  **********

  The people Chan had referred to as ‘dark’ were gathered for a meeting in one of the few remaining freestanding old houses on the fringe of the Black Forest. They discussed the group whom one had watched walk through the forest and they sought more. It was their way. The setbacks they had encountered in China were behind them, and Chan’s attempt at disruption was ineffective to their overall cause. In their seemingly never ending quest to satiate their hunger for their own type of power, they were gathered to work on what they could do to obtain the Torus for their vortex amplifier.

  Knowledge of it was tantalizing but this was in no way satisfying. Steeped in the traditions of their particular sect, they needed it as a means to power. Far from the type of power the authorities sought to institute, this dark gathering wanted the Torus for their amplifier and as an object of worship. Study of the very few pieces of information they had found, had only enthused them to want it for themselves and to keep it secretly to themselves.

  Secrecy was their method of being lived through their rituals – guarded as they were in allowing knowledge of their motives to almost everyone. To obtain the Torus would mean they would become even more secretive, yet more powerful. They twisted the meaning of icons, of geometry, and of their role in life. The Torus was becoming their sole objective and they were preparing to do whatever it took to steal it from Chan and the others.

  With t
he concept of a technology-assisted life being welcome, they used electrical weapons based on their rituals of ages past. In addition, they practiced rituals on people where they would be so bold as to even make sacrifice to their deities, their makers of their dreams, and their dark realities. But they were victims, not far removed from the others in mainstream society they despised. They were victims to their egos and their own quest for power, which eventually would lead to nothing much more than their on-going quest, such as it is for lost souls. As victims do, being so involved with distractions as this group was, these realizations eluded them, and so they sought any devious means necessary to meet their blinded ends.

  Now as they gathered at the edge of the forest, it too steeped in myth and ritual, they congregated as a means to amplify their power and to direct it at the others. They chanted conjuring up in their own minds, a connection to their deities. They moved in erratic ways to further their sphere of influence, and also in reflection of each of their own personal erratic grips on life. And then as they all turned to face the centerpiece of their affections, they all bore forward, determined to evoke the spirits they sought.

  At the center of the room was a statue of a beast in representation of their actual quest – a beast of horns and a beast of hunger. Their energies were so ardently bestowed in the direction of the beast - their essence of intention would soon be born unto a life of service, not to the authorities, but to their master. Such as they were, their master would be one they saw with an affection of hate.

  Chan was sensing this as he sat with the others who were discussing what they should do now that Superior Officer One would be notifying the authorities. He could feel their ‘sphere’ of influence, so in touch with the subtleties of such energy he was. He knew they were close, but it did not scare him for he felt the strength of his intentions. He knew they must move and quickly for they were indeed very close. And he knew they knew the Torus was almost at their fingertips and he must ensure it always remained so – out of reach.