The Victor's Heritage (The Jonah Trilogy Book 2)

by Anthony Caplan

  The Victor's Heritage

  Book Two of The Jonah Trilogy

  The Victor's Heritage

  Copyright © 2015 by Anthony Caplan

  Published by Hope Mountain Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  And of six hundred thousand people on foot, they two were preserved to bring them in to the heritage, even unto the land that floweth with milk and honey.

  Ecclesiasticus

  To Ezar, Michael, Eve and Grace

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  One --The Augment

  Corrag smiled at the idea of Gurgie in her bedroom on Durkiev Drive across town and the shock of recognition when she realized her friend had signed off on MandolinMonkey rather than go in for the remnant. So characteristic of a truly dynamic soul, Gurgie would say, to quit nonchalantly on the verge. But for Corrag the reality was less comforting. She had ten minutes before her parents called for dinner. It was a more complex fear coming over her -- of facing Ricky and Alana, the stalwarts of St. Michael's Close, the exclusive, tree-lined enclave of Edmundstown where she had grown and lived her entire sixteen years. Her parents, the Drs. Lyons as they were titled in the annual consensus, had implied that this talk would be “important to her future.” Whatever that could mean. Something about the boring infinitude of possibilities always just around the corner. Like signing off on the game rather than face the interior of the obelisk, it was easier for Corrag to be present and accounted for -- ride the tide of her parent’s displeasure -- than to make a stand by remaining in her bedroom, the private space she continued to carve out of the increasingly imperiled life she was about to leave behind.

  She observed numbly as the icon came up on the nanowall, the family crest with the towering crane and the stylized image of the transgalactic, so twenty-thirties, and wished again she’d had other siblings, that Ricky and Alana had been more compelled by the recommendations of the Commission on Demography and less concerned with their augmented careers. But so be it. There were also advantages to being the basket in which were placed all the eggs of the Lyons family name. If only the crest design were more compelling. She hit the kill button before the music could end. It was the theme of HG Wells's acclaimed classic The Shape of Things to Come, which she had performed during her sixth grade drama season in a stellar role as Hillary Perron, the Council leader responsible for the withering away of the former state of California, the sclerotic, corrupt vestiges of what had once been democratic governance. Now it just reminded her of her parent’s unfulfilled expectations for her development as a young woman about to assume the mantle of augmentation.

  She descended the stairs covered in royal blue carpeting and sat at the dining room table of molybdenum while her father, white beard trimmed neatly and his cardigan in the colors of the University of the Upper West, maroon with cream pockets, beamed at her. Her mother Alana continued to talk in that subtle, alluring monotone with hints of New Albion that had entranced uncounted faculty parties on the shores of Mono Lake.

  “And I’ve always maintained that tennis induces a better oxygen wash of the skin than yoga, Ricky. Well. Here she is. Corrag? Where is your file?” asked Alana.

  “Can I get my food before the interrogation?”

  “Of course you can. Don’t be silly,” said her father, trying hard to keep the sound of despair out of his voice. Alana sighed. Corrag hated hurting their feelings, but there was nothing else to be done. This would have to be endured. Not even Alana was going to come out of this smelling of roses. There was probably a word in another language for the moment when a young woman declared her independence from her family without a pre-approved plan in place. Corrag felt herself destined for a new form of singular existence that depended on taking this risk.

  “Have you taken a stab at the essay yet? When is it due?" asked her father, once she had served herself from the tray offered by the housebot of the lasagna and truffles.

  “In two days,” said Alana. “It’s getting late.”

  “I’m having thoughts about it,” said Corrag. “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure. Thoughts. That’s Corrag for you,” said Alana. “What is sure for you? Nothing is ever sure in your world. You are the classic case of choice overload. We never should have let her have a PlayCube of her own.”

  “Let her speak,” said Ricky.

  They waited breathlessly, the two anxious parents, while Corrag forked some lasagna and chewed without looking at them.

  “Didn’t you always tell me to follow my desires, Dad? Well, that’s what I’m trying to decipher. I don’t really know what my desires are. I don’t know what I really want. That’s my problem. I want to know. I can’t just plunge ahead into fine-tuning until I do. It wouldn’t be right for me.”

  “Right for me.” Alana repeated. She dropped her fork. It clattered on her plate. Ricky grabbed his head helplessly with both hands. The bot, sensing some urgency, circled the table speedily. Corrag waved it away with her hand and looked at it with a hard stare that sent it back into the kitchen through the energy panel.

  “This uncertainty of yours is in total defiance of your education and privilege,” said Alana.

  “I know,” said Corrag. “But it’s what I want. Until we reach augmentation, we can choose what we want, right?”

  “Within reason, Corrag. The parents still have the final say,” said Alana darkly.

  “It’s unbelievable, Corrag,” said her father. “There are no more exemptions. Look at the Calder boy. He wanted to take a year and read the books in his grandfather’s library because he said he 'valued the experience' of holding the words in his head instead of instant upload. He tried to argue in the consensus -- you don’t remember, do you? -- that the year of reading was worthwhile. But there were no more exemptions. Do you understand? He was effectively exiled. The only thing left to him was the HumInt Corps. Is that what you want? Hundred mile marches in the swamps where not even the bots can go? Certain premature death? No augmentation means no physical corrections.”

  “That’s not true. There are other things,” said Corrag, the color rising in her face.

  “Like what?” asked Alana.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Uugh,” grimaced Alana, her face wrinkling like a prune despite the botulin implants.

  “Look,” said Ricky. Corrag could see the glint in his eye that told her he was probably in the Cloud. “It’s a common condition of human childhood to seek individuation. We try to condition it away, but the vestiges of the trait are stronger in some and may require remedial conditioning. Or else you can choose the VocAg. There are some interesting possibilities. If you like manual work.”

  “Okay,” said Corrag. She’d heard it all before. The path of the conversation had taken a familiar tack that apparently was not remembered by her father. But Alana would not have it.

  “Do you know what that is? It’s not exactly gravy, is it? Give them run of the gree
nhouses. How ... utterly tacky,” said Alana.

  “So? Somebody has to grow the food. I thought we were all in this together. Hail the Federation. Smile all the while."

  “Corrag,” said Alana sharply.

  “What?”

  “I can accept that you need time," said Ricky. "You’ve always been ... different."

  "What are you talking about, Dad? I'm just like you. Have you forgotten? You told me about refusing to play football. How your dad took it hard. How you had to find your own way."

  "I know. You're different. Yes, like I was once. That’s why I love you. We’ll continue to support you in your choices no matter what.”

  “But she doesn’t know what she wants.”

  “Give her a year. What if we send her to New Albion to stay with Geoff and Joan? She can work with them, I don't know, help with the cows and the vegetable garden and get a real taste of life in the Republic. How does that sound, Corrag? It’s a world away from here. You haven’t seen your cousins since you were oh, two years old.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I agree,” said Alana, with the glint in her eye. “At first I thought it was a bad idea. After all, the Republic’s ideas on education and adulthood are very different than ours. I just don’t know how it will sit with the Council.”

  “I’ll run it by Mitchell Culpepper. There is the youth emissary program. It’s usually staffed by graduates of fine-tuning, but they may make an exception for me."

  “And I’ll get in touch with Joan. There’s the risk of course.”

  “Of course. But paradoxically there are fewer opportunities for young people in the Repho. The reliance on market forces will always prove inefficient as a mechanism to harness the singularity.”

  “Do call Mitchell.”

  “I will dear. Tonight.”

  Ricky and Alana finished their dinner with occasional glances Corrag’s way. The matter was closed as far as they were concerned. Corrag watched her parents, wondering at their ability to turn on a dime conversationally once all the options had been thoroughly considered. For her though, a year abroad loomed mysterious and menacing. She hadn’t heard them talk about the New Albion family in a very long time, and why that would be the best option for her was not clear. Corrag had, in the back of her mind, figured they would find a way to get her private tutors to prepare for augmentation with some kind of mental health dispensation. Certainly it would have channeled her into the arts, but that was where she felt at home, without the responsibility for determining the way forward for the entire civilization. Just entertain us. That was the mandate for the ArtSmile corps coming out of the Federation system. Most of their recent mindscapes and challenges were pretty bland. The occasional bootleg memes from Sandelsky, the main branding of the Republic that teenaged hackers sometimes spread around the play spheres, far outstripped Democravian productions in technical flair; and they just seemed deeper, somehow more important.

  She advanced around the dark corner. The street was empty except for a parked vintage Bundeswehr quadcopter on the right. She passed it and lifted her head. In her hand she hefted the laser pistol and aimed it at the bonfire about three blocks away. The Mandolin headquarters was a square, black obelisk, modeled on a classic Anish Kapoor sculpture. The fire, smelling of gasoline, raged around its doors, and she had to shoot her way through a crowd of ripper monkeys.

  They were easy. They always aimed right for your head and all you had to do was duck several inches and fire back at the same time in their general vicinity. The game makers had been recently faulted at a consensus for setting the adversarial level purposefully down market in order to secure continued funding. For Corrag, the subtext was clear. Life was a popularity contest. No matter how efficiently the council liked to think it was doing its work you couldn’t do away with the basic human flaws of wanting, desiring and seeking what was out there. Greater RAM speeds and advanced neural networks had never gotten to grips with the pattern-making propensity of the human brain and the magnetic allure of pleasure which threw up the energy-matter continuum all around. MandolinMonkey did a good job of smoothing the jolts of scenic transition and stimulating the pituitary with each new level attained. Still, she found herself impatiently bypassing the obvious level trap with a joystick function and flying down the hallways unmindful of lesser adventures and parallel opportunities.

  Above and behind her sprung two Greckels, stoat-like creatures capable of quick dimensional extensions and sharp tears at limbs and throats. She felt a blatantly obvious turbo lift from their move that gave them away. Of course they were Gurgie and Mathew.

  “Come with us,” said a high-pitched voice.

  She had five seconds. She knew she should check the table for power surges at least, but she felt compelled to follow. If they were leading her astray, so be it. She would find a way to dodge an ill end, as the game makers called it. Her avatar, an Elfin, had the power over water and fire and so was a logical complement to the Greckels’ slippery land capabilities. What the game lacked was diversity of power source, the ability to shape shift and entertain various outcomes at the same time. But for now it would do. In the end, win or lose, the only thing that mattered was displaying the innovative spirit that the Founders wanted in the future leader corps. Once you had that figured out, everything else was an easy trick. The person that had helped her to climb the ranks Federation-wide was Ben Calder. Where was he now? Was he still alive? Or had the stint in the HumInt Corps in the Basin wars possibly killed him, as her father had suggested? A stab of fear hit Corrag at the thought of Ben dead.

  They were in the obelisk. Corrag wondered how they had gotten in. Down the hall the two Greckels paused and stood on their hind feet at a nanowall display. There in a neon gothic font flashed the message:

  Be a Vence with us at the Spring Fest.

  She had their songs posted all over the soundscape in school. The Vences had painted their faces in ghoulish camouflage colors and had flouted the ideals of physical perfection and the singularity long enough to gain for themselves a diehard following. Gurgie’s parents had been fans and so had Ricky, in his youth. But he hated their music now and cringed whenever Gurgie came over for a visit trailing Blast Me Down Andromeda out of her loose earpiece.

  “Very smooth, Gurgie,” said Corrag, pressing the joystick dialogue button beneath the thumb hold. The Elfin jumped and clapped, signifying acceptance of a strange, land-based phenomenon. Corrag smiled at the clever algorithm that had allowed her avatar to anticipate her feelings. Then the Greckels faded into the ether and she was alone. A blank look on the Elfin’s severe, drawn face was intriguing, as if she were pondering the significance of life.

  Corrag saved and hit the power off with her index finger, before any other competitors could appear to threaten her, and lay down on her bed. Sometimes the Elfin almost seemed to come alive and read her mind. That was the most frustrating thing, the apparent gap between her capabilities and actual human feelings. There were some who believed that bots had already made the transition, but Corrag was not one of them. For a while she had believed, and her parents and teachers still fostered the foundational concept that humans and bots would soon be equals in thought and feeling. But for Corrag the issue was now moot. In the last year, she would guess, she had come down thoroughly on the side that this equality was neither necessary nor desirable. Not that she dared to voice the opinion. It would place her beyond the sphere of Democravian influence and deem her “inconvenient” for continued leadership training. Because the ideal of the Democravian way, ever since the initial founding of the institutional state in 2022, was to raise a cadre of youth who would merge with the bots in order to undergo the transgalactic mission -- colonize the most desirable Earth-like habitable planets, 23 of them, that had been so far identified as potential targets in the Milky Way. And in the intervening two decades since the first councils and consensus meetings, the notion of youth had of course expanded so that almost all citizens with the appropriate
formation could potentially qualify for merger. It was this very accessibility to the highest ideals of the state that gave Democravia its missionary fervor, its self-styled exceptionalism, and made it all the harder for Corrag to accept that she was swimming against the stream. Though she knew, in the darkness, under the sheets, about to fall asleep in the silence of the Edmundstown night that she was not really alone.

  Edmundstown Senior School was divided into two floors, the Upper Deck and the Lower Hall. On the Upper Deck, Corrag took most of her classes except gym. Miss Schilling taught the humanities block for advanced seniors. They were touching on the literature of the transgressives, in the context of the decline of the West and the rise of the plural. Miss Schilling was a bright-eyed thirty-year old. Mathew and Gurgie sat in the front row and laughed at her references to James Joyce as “that old man in the trench coat hiding in the sand dunes.” Corrag sat in the back row between Julian Alvarenga and Prualyse Kopeckwitz. She wondered what was that funny about Joyce. Was it his notion of the circularity of time, so maligned and disparaged? Miss Schilling, with her bright smile and sharp hairstyle, looked at her as if reading her thoughts.

  “And of course you have had the night to reflect on the links to our core curriculum factor nine, and that is what? Corrag?”

  “Factor nine?”

  It had been flashing on the wall at the beginning of the class along with a soundscape by SwiftBoat.

  “Oh yes. The need to transcend individuation and internalize utility,” said Corrag.

  “And how does our study of Joyce tie in?”

  “Well, I don’t quite know. I mean, yes, there were a lot of voices, but isn’t it admirable for a man to try and capture the essence of his reality like that?”