January 5, 2073:
It is night, and there are stars falling throughout the sky. The fires of the tower have exploded into consciousness and blanked out all thought. Everywhere in David’s city there is pandemonIum and chaos. What I have just witnessed in the dining hall tonight will be seared forever in my memory. I will try to recreate it and so get rid of its horrifying impact.
Major Cholnochez, the rest of the officer corps and General Montiel were talking calmly in the corner, their coffee cups clinking pleasantly on the tiled table tops as the ladies, myself among them, sat at our table after our meal and compared our days like chickens scratching at the dirt, trying to find the smallest speck of entertainment in the details of our sequestered existence. Then suddenly, Cholnochez stood and glared at the room. His face, normally so bloated and red, was ashen and grimacing. Without a hat, his black hair lay plastered to his skull with paste, only highlighting the shocked expression he wore. The rest of the officers glanced nervously between Cholnochez and Montiel, who reclined back in his seat with his top buttons unbuttoned, his hands behind his head and his large boots atop one another in the passage between tables.
“You’ve betrayed the ideals, my man. The ideals will live on,” said Montiel, looking firmly at Cholnochez as if he was a deer and he, Montiel, was the hunter. The atmosphere was electric. The charges he was leveling were enough to bring the building down upon itself.
“What ideals? They weigh nothing in the balance. It is life I care about,” said Cholnochez, defending himself. A stunned whispering began at all the tables. So Cholnochez was the traitor, the Judas who had sold the Saint to the Repho, betraying our tower. “This charade of Liberty. What use if we all die? If the planet, our home, is reduced to rubble? What good are your ideals, General? Where will you hang yourself to save your honor even? There will be no trees, no high places left. Only death.” Then Cholnochez ripped off his armored vest. “Shoot me. Shoot me now, General. Then let the world know I was no traitor to a worthy cause. I am willing to die. But we can still save ourselves, save our children if we want. The noosphere can repel all if we cooperate, instead of this useless and vile resistance.”
“Arrest him. His name is forbidden from now on,” said Montiel, waving the officers ahead. Several of them, pistols in hand, advanced on Cholnochez, who backed up against the wall and shouted: “Save yourselves, people. There is no home under the …” A silent laser stream vibrated like a snake in the air. He was shot before any more words could be uttered and lay there, collapsed. Montiel had fired the killing ray himself.
“In David’s name we will leave at once for the submarine parks. We pack and load as soon as possible,” said Montiel, after placing the pistol back in its holster and tucking in his shirt.
Now I am alone with my mochila on the floor and my poncho draped across my lap. Mrs. Cholnochez is catatonic and sits in the hall tearing up pieces of paper and scattering them on the floor. I am trying very much to be brave, but it is hard. The world seems to be burning up. Even breathing is difficult. Goodbye to David’s dream city, goodbye to the celestial blue sky. I wonder if I will see another morning before the flames reach Heaven. Or will I burn for David’s cause and for all the saints whose lives are quenched by fire. Why? I will rest now before we go.
2. 529th Intelligence Wing
AIR NATIONAL GUARD
“Many missions. One outcome.”
[Series 00573]
Prisoner Intake Clearance Review
01/05/2073
Pocopatepetl, Mexico -- Airbase Big Papi
Subject David Shavelson is in good physical condition with minor skin lacerations on lips and skull. Subject, captured on the field of battle, is the self-titled Saint of the Tower, the city of unaugmented rural-global pre-moderns along with elements of urban unaugmented survivors that pose an important information globule blocking the further uptake of new energy flows to the IntraNeural Network.
Age 59.
Resting pulse: 58.
Arterial pressure: 120/80.
Retinal Scan: Discreet epileptic triggers.
Metabolic function: Normal range.
Electroencephalogram: Obfuscation of the prefrontal cortex and the region of the medulla oblongata, typical of late middleage unaugments.
Subject was advised of his rights as a prisoner of the Republican Homeland under article 82.5 of the New Security Doctrine and prepared for immediate interrogation by Dr. Samuel Chagnon of the INN Advisory Council, along with accompanying security personnel: Sergeant Tyler Lompadick of the Kansas Air National Guard and Doctor Raul Juanez of the Zacatecas National Radiologic Laboratories.
[Transcription service begins. 02:42 EST.]
Chagnon: Mr. Shavelson have a seat, please. My name is Samael Chagnon. Have you heard of me, sir?
Shavelson: Of course.
Chagnon: Can you tell me what you know of me, please?
Shavelson: Everyone knows you are the inventor of the INN, the father of the modern global Augment.
Chagnon: It is a reality. But haven’t you made it your mission in life to resist it?
Shavelson: Yes, you know that. Stop this charade. What do you want from me?
Chagnon: You must know. We’ve been signaling for almost five years now. We just wanted your cooperation. The situation is terminal now for us and for you. If we can’t get your voluntary cooperation, we will have to force the Augment. You will then go to your followers and advise them to join us on the neural network.
Shavelson: It’s not the only neural network.
Chagnon: Don’t interrupt me again. It’s the only one that has ever mattered. But never mind. You will work with us. Together we will save the planet. Separately we will perish. There is not much time. The first outer arms of the Oort cloud are approaching with very great speed. According to the International Lunar Space Station’s observations we have a matter of days to power up the repellant panels. If we fail, the meteor strikes will set off a reaction in the upper atmosphere. The incoming rain of molten metal will proceed to spread chemical fires across the earth, land and sea, vaporizing all water and carbon-based organisms. Not a pleasant picture. As you must know, this is not a question of academic theory. This is a reality we will not and cannot evade unless we take immediate action. You cannot refuse. We have been enemies, but I must tell you, you are the lynchpin of our salvation. All of life depends on you making the right decision.
Shavelson: I can’t help you. You can force the Augment on me, but you know that won’t provide you with enough informational volume. What you can do is liberate your population. Shut down the Augment. You’ve been wrong all along. It’s not a hierarchical structure that provides the greatest throughput in the (unintelligible). The noosphere has evolved parallel processing, the same structure as the human brain. We are mirrors of the universe. You have tried to go one better in the image of your (unintelligible).
Juanez: (Unintelligible)
Chagnon: You fiddle while Rome burns. Do you realize how big a monster our children will deem you to be? All of your prophets have been the same. False shepherds. History will judge you accordingly. The man who would die for the sake of his principles and crackpot theories. So sad. So sad, really. And you don’t mind bringing us all down as long as your bubble of stubborn, perverse self-pride is never burst. But never mind. Watch this.
(Shavelson is shown film montage of tower from 01/04/73. There are folks jumping from the top deck as fires rise on the 26th through 73rd stories.)
Shavelson: Why don’t you stop this? Do you think I am entertained by your stupid little movie?
Chagnon: Those are your children. We all want to save them. You can make the right choice. This is not fake news. We have the implant ready to go. It is a painless procedure and only takes a minute. With your help we can jump-start the repellant panels.
Shavelson: I can’t. I won’t. (Unintelligible). Don’t ask me again.
Chagnon: Guards. Take this man and strap him down on the operatin
g gurney. I’m done with this.
Shavelson does nothing except cross his arms and lie back in the seat as the guards approach. Sergeant Lompadick crosses the room and switches on the overhead nanoscreen. There is a topographical display of the northern hemisphere between longitudes 90E and 135E. Lompadick magnifies to 750 percent on a quadrant in the vicinity of Lemsk. The crater is spewing rock and molten lava.
Lompadick: This is a recent strike. There are more coming in. Especially in Australia. Depending on whether methane levels are stabilizing we may be too late to salvage oxygen in the atmosphere. It might not be worth forcing the implant at this stage.
Chagnon: Do it anyway. We’ll use it when we transplant. Everyone, we live to grow. And grow we will from our space stations.
Lompadick: Look at this. Out the window. It’s Popo. She’s blowing.
(From monitors) This is Airbase Papi Commander Alexander Neville. All personnel are ordered to evacuation stations immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.
Lompadick: You can shut down the transcriber.
[Transcription service ended. 03:12 EST.]
3. Letter from an Exile
*Editor’s Note: This readout was discovered in a seamless vault of the matrix, placed there in a dimensional break, indicating an interruption in the ordinary deposition of material.
Dearest Ben,
I will address the all as Ben, my husband, who will stand in my mind unsevered. You didn’t know this but I was pregnant when we left. You’ve never seen your children and grandchildren. They are growing, and our way of life is expanding in this new place. We call it Parini.
It is that time of year when the birds drop their feathers, all multicolored, and the green rocks glow with the cold. The rivers will soon freeze over. The children are already sharpening their skates for the move to our winter base at the river’s mouth, the great Sea of Parini where we will fish for the serpents that feed us all year long. Life is good here.
Ben, you were my husband in the old universe that shaped human hearts: No-one can express the sadness I feel so far from my home, in exile from you, my brother. We gathered at the Earth rock, all of the chosen, with the transporters, and from there we left in five ships, traveling through seven time gates until we reached the planet that had been prepared ahead of our arrival, seeded with life forms, flows of water, and a protective blanket of gases. We cultivated it and gathered it. It is a hard life to be settlers again as our ancestors were. But we were born to it, and we are fulfilled.
I miss you and your light, your sense of humility, your sense of direction in the currents of that dying river we tried so hard to preserve. You were trying to retain your sanity and dignity as our house spun out of control. I know I wasn’t always the most helpful, and I’m sorry. I wish we had been able to make it work. You were my first love, and will probably be the one I remember most fondly. Shieng, my mate, is very wise and hard working, but he is not able to make me laugh like you did. We have developed a refinement and camaraderie after all we have been through together here on Parini. It is grim sometimes, as we look around and see all the work that has to be done to build back up to where we started to go wrong. Our principles, as we organize the new world, are to spread love and banish fear. There will never be individuals profiting from the need of another on Parini. There will never be more than one common language. Our children are taught from the earliest age in groups of mixed ages so as not to develop in isolation, so as to feel responsibility and respect for those that come before and after them. We will never stare too long at the work of our hands but seek constant refreshment and renewal in the play of elements and the song of the spheres. Our story is the same one, Ben. It goes on. What I want to tell you is you are still walking with us, Hera and I, down by the riverside, that black, slow moving, muddy water, and you are still saving my life. In my mind the past, present and future are all one and all the same. It has no beginning or end.
There are other survivors, other pods out there in the stars. Our paths will cross from time to time in the great unfolding. Perhaps they will be fed from different springs, perhaps their essential humanity and feelings of solidarity with life will have diverged. But our children will never seek the path of conquest. They will come in peace, with wisdom and understanding.
***
The Saints of David is Book Three of the Jonah Trilogy. Read the first two books of the trilogy:
Savior
The Victor's Heritage
Anthony Caplan is a former wire service journalist who has lived and worked on three continents. Currently he lives with his family in New Hampshire where he writes, keeps sheep and sometimes makes cider.
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The Saints of David (The Jonah Trilogy Book 3) Page 26