Written in Darkness

by Mark Samuels

  This was his third day of employment at the company, and he felt just as stunned as he had been on the first. He had moved out of his old flat less than a week ago and relocated to the residential complex provided for employees. It was only a short distance from the sprawling industrial estate in which were located the head offices of the corporation, Deregand Computer Systems, that had headhunted him a month previously. Their apartment flats were luxurious, situated in grounds with a gated entrance, swimming pool, gym and sauna. It was a far cry from the cramped studio flat he’d previously occupied in a dismal quarter of North London, where the rumble of traffic and the noise of drunken club-goers had kept him awake at night. Moreover, his salary was three times that provided by his previous employers.

  But still he could not shake his sense of unreality. Everything seemed to have turned around for him so unexpectedly. Doubtless it was the sudden change from his former routine that had brought on the bout of migraines he’d been experiencing ever since the start of this stage of his life.

  It didn’t help that the man who had offered him the job, his new boss, departed the day after Drax’s arrival. As a consequence Drax felt as if he had been left hanging without guidance in the unfamiliar environment.

  As if conjured by the very thought, a communication from his boss appeared in Drax’s Outlook Express folder.

  Drax re-read the email a third time. He still couldn’t quite take in its contents. Gholraqy Division? He drummed his fingers on the edge of his keyboard, and made snorting noises through his nose. Then he looked at the time at the bottom right-hand corner of the computer screen. It was now 4.15 p.m. And the flight he’d been booked onto was scheduled to depart at 7.30 p.m. He would have to hurry home, pack a suitcase, dig out his passport (wherever that was) and then be at the airport by 5.30 p.m. at the latest.

  His boss had been on a business trip in the Far East when the problem had arisen. Normally it was an affair he would attend to personally, but, as he explained in the email, it was at this point impossible for him to do so. His own full attention and presence were required at his current location: the Hong Kong Division of Deregand Computer Systems.

  He had, though, already arranged for the flights and accommodation, and it would only be a matter of Drax having to drop everything for a few days in order to reconfigure the mainframe.

  “I need hardly emphasise,” his boss had written in italics, “that your readiness and enthusiasm in this matter will prove decisive during your initial probationary period with our corporation.”

  In other words, do it, or you’ll be out on your ear as soon as your first three months are up.

  And where the hell was Gholraqy anyway? Drax had never heard of the place until now.

  “You will need to fly from Heathrow to Ulaanbaatar, and from there it’s another hour’s flight by chartered aircraft to Gholraqy,” the email stated.

  Ulaanbaatar was in Mongolia, he quickly gleaned after a Google search, but of Gholraqy he could find no trace. Still, perhaps its rendering in English was widely variant from the original Asian language.

  “One of our representatives will be there to meet you when you arrive at Ulaanbaatar,” the email concluded.

  *

  Drax made the flight out of Heathrow with only minutes to spare. His passport had initially eluded him, being buried in the depths of one of the boxes he’d not yet unpacked since his hasty move from North London, but he finally located it, just as the taxi drew up outside the apartment block.

  Within a couple of hours he was on board a plane flying at thirty thousand feet across the gigantic expanse of Eurasia. He lent towards the small window at his side and watched the snow-covered wastes of Russia passing below. In his hand was a tumbler containing an excellent single malt whisky, and he rolled the ice cubes around the liquid, relishing the tinkling they made as they danced against the glass. His eyes occasionally roved towards the very small and pretty Asian stewardess who lingered in the background of the business class cabin, waiting to attend to his comfort. He had the whole cabin to himself.

  Despite the comfortable surroundings, the lull of the background jet-engine drone and the effect of the whisky, he could not manage to drift off into a doze.

  *

  “How was your flight?” the little Mongolian asked, as he took Drax’s suitcase from his hand.

  “Very tiring,” Drax replied with a yawn. “I didn’t get a wink of sleep during the whole time. I’m quite exhausted.”

  The Mongolian nodded sympathetically.

  Chinggis Khaan International Airport was a chaos of the senses; a mass of milling folk in a desperate hurry to get somewhere other than Mongolia. They charged one another with baggage trolleys, shouted at anyone in their way, and leapt to attention from their seats at the first chime prefacing a loudspeaker flight announcement.

  “My name is Chang Qomul,” the little Mongolian said. “I will fly us into Gholraqy.”

  “How . . . ” Drax replied. “So you’re a pilot?”

  “No choice, someone has to do it. I am the only link.”

  “Will it be a long flight?”

  “I calculate an hour, with the wind direction.”

  Drax was trying hard to avoid bumping into any Mongolians as they weaved their way through the corridors of the airport. People turned to look at him curiously as he passed them by. Perhaps, he thought, he was the first westerner they’d seen in the flesh. Or perhaps his imagination was playing tricks on him; for he fancied there were incipient smiles upon their faces.

  Their destination was located at the extreme end of the terminal, away from the main flights to China and the rest of the Far East, and the two men exited the building directly onto a small runway where there sat a twin-engine Cessna aircraft. Qomul stowed the baggage in the hold, and then climbed on board with Drax following suit. He made some standard pre-flight checks and then radioed the control tower for take-off clearance.

  The aircraft taxied along the runway and then picked up speed, the rapid acceleration pressing Drax back into his seat. Within seconds they were airborne, and heading south towards the immensity of the Gobi Desert.

  Drax looked down through the window at the desolate landscape below and then across to Qomul on his left. He had not flown in such a small aircraft before now, and the experience was beginning to unnerve him. It seemed a fragile and insignificant machine when compared to a commercial airliner where one was cocooned within the superstructure, almost impervious to the effects of the skies, save for occasional turbulence and the drama of take-off and landing. But in a Cessna it was as if one hung in the sky by a single thread and one could not help but be reminded of the precarious nature of flight at every stage. The plane bobbed, tipped, dropped and ascended nearly continuously in the fierce desert winds that surrounded it. Drax’s stomach seemed to take on a life of its own, rising and falling in tandem with the motion of the Cessna. For the first time in his life he experienced air-sickness and tapped Qomul on the shoulder, indicating that he was going to vomit. The Mongolian grinned and produced a bag from a pouch above his head.

  For the remainder of the journey Drax struggled against recurring waves of nausea, and tried to keep his eyes closed and the contents of his stomach down.

  The Mongolian had been accurate when he estimated the flight time at around an hour. A few minutes shy of that period, the Cessna touched down on a barren airstrip located alongside a series of single-storey white-washed buildings.

  Once it had come to a halt, Drax clambered out of the plane and, though his legs wobbled on terra firma, he remained upright. His head was swimming. The heat and light outside were incredible. The sky was a glass dome to contain heat piped up from the depths of hell. And on the desert’s arid wind there were carried tonnes of sand, in endless grains, over thousands upon thousands of square miles. The particles rapidly clustered at his nose, at his eyes and at his mouth, forming a thin crust. He rubbed his eyes clean and put on a pair of sunglasses, turning the world fro
m a brilliant intensity to a manageable vividness.

  Qomul already had Drax’s suitcase in his hand and was crossing the short distance from the landing strip to the nearest of the small buildings. Drax trailed after him, forcing his legs to work properly through an effort of will. He wondered how it was possible for anyone to be outside in the open in the incredible heat and felt a surge of fear at the alien landscape of the desert—and towards its hostility for human life.

  Mercifully the interior of the structure they entered was air-conditioned. Drax had anticipated the abrupt drop in temperature, but still shivered at the transition. In the centre of the room space was the entrance to a lift. They were at the ground floor level of a deep excavation, and it seemed that the divisional offices of Gholraqy were entirely subterranean. The lift doors opened once Qomul had keyed in a security code onto a wall panel and the two men entered a small chamber, mirrored and carpeted, with “soothing” muzak as background ambience.

  Presumably the other buildings he’d seen provided cover for further shafts, large enough to accommodate the transfer of equipment from the surface to the excavations below. But it all made no sense. Why, Drax thought, go to the massive expense of creating a business complex in the middle of a wasteland, with no transport links, and the additional requirement that it would have to be housed deep underground? Most corporations were inordinately proud of their offices and made great play about advertising such architectural totems. But then they tended to be above ground, and notable either for their height or their unusual designs. This form of construction seemed to have more in common with the secrecy required by a military rather than a business organisation. Drax hadn’t even seen the Deregand logo blazoned anywhere. He began to frame a question to Qomul as they hurtled down the shaft in the lift cage.

  “Why build so deep underground . . . ” Drax began.

  “Were you not informed? Herein was recently discovered what was reputed to be the ancient library of Gholraqy. Housed within a decaying vault are scrolls of inconceivable antiquity that foretell of the devolution of gods to men, contrary to the laws of Darwinism, and the so-called secret knowledge of elder wisdom mankind has supposedly lost. All mystical rubbish of course. Of interest only to cranks and dusty academics. And to think we found it by accident!”

  “Yes, but . . . ”

  “The location was all that was important to us. It is perfect. The competition is ruthless! Our greatest product requires the level of greatest secrecy. It will make us market leaders for the foreseeable future and guarantee our shareholders enormous dividends! We will go to any lengths to succeed.”

  The lift reached its destination and the doors opened. Standing outside them was a westerner in a black pin-striped business suit.

  “My name is Krul,” he said, clamping Drax’s palm in a vice-like grip.

  He was a middle-aged man with an untidy tangle of white hair and horn-rimmed eyeglasses. His face was a network of lines etched into his skin, doubtless the consequence of a lifetime of intense concentration—a type of premature ageing often denoting a mathematician or an obsessive chess devotee.

  “I’m the director of this division. Have you been briefed by Qomul?” he said.

  “He told me—”

  “Good. I’ll take you to your quarters—you can freshen up after your journey and we’ll talk again in half an hour.”

  *

  Perhaps the travelling had affected Drax more than he realised. Of course there had been that episode in the heat, where he’d almost succumbed to dizziness, but this other sensation was even more alarming. Once he’d showered, he shaved, but as he gazed at this reflection in the bathroom mirror Drax was overwhelmed by the fact that his reflection appeared nearly alien to him, like the face of a stranger. Could jet-lag and anxiety do that to a person?

  The meeting with Krul was becoming psychologically nebulous. It seemed as if recent events were already receding from his memory, like fragments of a dream only recalled months later. He remembered little of its content, save the explanation he had been brought over from London in order to oversee the first test of a new type of mainframe device, of the utmost secrecy. It had the potential, Drax gathered, to render all other currently existing forms of such technology redundant.

  “Only you, and you alone, Drax, are competent to manage the vitally important first process,” Krul had said.

  *

  The disorientation rapidly intensified to the point where Drax almost felt incapable of sequential thought. That he was on the verge of a serious migraine seemed likely. But when Krul accompanied him along the black corridor to the chamber that housed the secret mainframe, he evinced no sign whatsoever of noticing Drax’s confused state of mind. Drax could not shake off the foreboding in his mind that some impossible combination of death row and maternity ward was their destination.

  They entered the chamber. There were dozens of supporting pillars sustaining the low vaulted ceiling. Housed in hundreds of niches in crumbling red-brick walls of clay were innumerable ancient scrolls, undeciphered and ignored.

  And at the heart of this fantastic survival from immemorial antiquity was a stark symbol of modernity, vividly shocking in its contrast. Half-a-dozen technicians were situated at various monitors, forming a semi-circle around the central object: the mainframe itself, an oblong of wires and circuit boards seven feet high by two feet across, housed in a metal casing. Strip lighting on the ceiling glared down, bathing the chamber in a static lightning flash—an instant captured by eternity.

  As if from a vast distance Drax heard Krul whispering into his ear.

  “The most powerful super-processor in creation has been placed at the core of the device. All that we require is for you, Drax, to begin the networking sequence of instructions whereby it will connect with the global cloud array and thus access every single source of information in the electronic world; to access and then correlate it all into a new mode of efficiency. Up to now we have only begun preliminary sub-routines in the device. Only you can bring the device to full consciousness.”

  Drax stumbled forward, his head spinning, and he fairly lurched onto the machine.

  Beneath the coiled mass of wires he uncovered the biological core of the machine, contained within a clear plastic bowl, the human organ floating in an endlessly replenished supply of fresh blood. It was pierced by hundreds of needles, like those employed by acupuncturists, with wiring leading off from the attachments into the depths of the machine.

  Primary commands flickered across his thoughts: “Interface Ethernet 0/0 No Shutdown.”

  And then Drax was looking back at the memory of himself, as if through a glass darkly.

  The procedure had failed, the machine rebooted for the hundred-millionth time and Drax found himself again staring out of an office window, looking at an alternating series of English sunshine and showers typical for the season. His memory had been deleted and once more he saw heavy drops of rain blossoming on the glass pane, a backdrop of leaden grey skies, before they gave way to watery sunlight and a brilliant thin blue haze on the horizon.

  The Ruins of Reality

  Once the economic decline really began to take hold and it seemed as if the final collapse of the edifice of Western civilisation could not be far away, signs for the N Factory began to appear.

  These tatty, garish posters were pasted on the northern city’s interminable series of boarded-up shop-fronts, and were accompanied by crumpled, grotty flyers that clung like barnacles to streetlamps, post-boxes and traffic light poles.

  It was a desperate time, mass unemployment was a universal feature, and no one could doubt that the current order was in serious decay, with its potential demise not just another in a cycle of depressions from which recovery was possible. Society had become terminally diseased and all of the economic and socio-political solutions that had been proposed before were no longer advocated.

  Men had lost all confidence in remedies and had abandoned hope entirely. Mass suicides were
commonplace, and the usual means of pacifying or distracting the populace were sharply reduced or ceased to be available altogether as both power and money supplies began to dry up—television, video games, the internet, drugs, alcohol, sport, all were now curtailed.

  Doubtless the posters and flyers for the N Factory would have been less noted in previous times amongst the plethora of the earlier opportunities for work that had been available to the populace. As it was, this bizarre and unexpected intrusion into the general sense of doom, this startling exception to the prevailing mental climate, was readily seized upon.

  “Freedom through labour. Your country needs YOU.” This slogan was emblazoned across every N Factory advertisement.

  People thus anticipated the recruitment scheme with a feverish intensity. Speculation as to the nature of the labour involved was a part of everyday discourse; there were hushed whispers in private, and where people gathered together their talk centred on the rumours that were unavoidable. How well paid would its workers be? How long would the contracts last for? What were the hours? And so on, all in a similar vein.

  The information given in the promotional material as to the type of regeneration on offer fuelled the speculation, given that it consisted only of a series of small, indistinct black and white photographs with captions underneath. It was considered that these examples delineated the types of degeneration into which the populace had fallen.

  Representative of the examples were the following—

  (i) The pockmarked face of a woman ravaged by syphilis, her lips twisted and ruined, her mouth a series of black gaps, followed by the caption “Beauty Dept”.

  (ii) A man whose face has been half-destroyed—presumably by a self-inflicted gunshot wound—superimposed over a dollar-bill sign, followed by the caption “Success Dept”.