Are we ready?”
T. G. walked into the crowded chamber and found himself before a complex arrangement of polished crystalline forms as beautiful as they were intricate. Sparkling swords of emerald and ruby lanced toward him, glowing with an odd iridescence that splashed shifting rainbows upon his face. The precise collector matrix would gather the myriad patterns of information necessary for T. G.’s image to be broadcast as a true, fully dimensional representation. A crowded tangle of glowing conduits led from machinery bank to machinery bank, linking the varied components of the simulight system by a method that, to T. G.’s mind, could most kindly be referred to as jury-rigged.
“In just moments now,” Josan replied, making adjustments to a similar array nearby. “It is almost ready. I apologize for the delay, but to assure worldwide transmission without detection, we have had to integrate several systems that were not designed to be used together. I have never known these varied components to be joined in such a fashion, but they should give us both the reach and the secrecy we need. The signal will constantly remodulate at a precise, random rate, allowing the simulight units out there to switch automatically as the signal does, yet prevent a trace from being carried out. As long as we do not transmit for more than six minutes per broadcast, our position will remain secret.”
“Great,” T. G. said, studying the array. “This is incredible. A whole different technological path from the one I know.”
The prophet watched as Josan labored over the controls, his brow knitting repeatedly as he glanced again and again at small readouts and a simulight dome to his right. He seemed perplexed, possibly getting a response from his machinery other than that which he expected.
“Something wrong?” T. G. asked, rising to go to his side.
Josan made another adjustment and watched as some of the crystals jutting from his board changed color. “Nothing, really, I suppose. Nothing that will prevent what we are trying to do.”
Pretsal walked into the room, taking large bites from a huge apple. “What is it?” he asked as he chewed, having picked up the last few words of the conversation. “Something wrong?”
Josan indicated a pattern on the display. “I am picking up an unusual effect as I skirt the upper fringes of the electromagnetic spectrum.” He pointed to several indistinct anomalies in the energy patterns being read. “Do you see this?”
T. G. studied the display, unsure of what he was seeing. “What is it?”
Josan spoke deliberately, choosing his words. “It would appear that what we have stumbled upon is not a signal itself, but the effect of something upon the extreme upper limit of the EM spectrum … like a shadow.”
“The shadow of what?” Pretsal asked.
“I do not know.”
“Whatever is casting it lies far outside of any frequency range used for communications or industry anywhere in the world. I doubt it is natural. Odd how it seems to just barely whisper into the known spectrum, as if it lies primarily elsewhere. It is just a fluke that we found it at all.”
“Elsewhere … where?” T. G. asked. Josan shrugged.
“Beyond the EM spectrum?” Pretsal asked, offering a bite of fruit to T. G., who declined. “Is that possible?”
“I’ve learned that there’s very little that isn’t,” the prophet commented.
“What lies out there? What kind of energy?” Pretsal asked.
“Thought itself, maybe,” T. G. speculated. “Consciousness. The intangible link between minds.” He turned to Josan. “I mean, we know our thoughts are open to the Creator as well as to the Dark.”
“Fascinating,” Josan uttered. “You may be right.”
“Where’s it coming from? Any particular direction?”
“No way to know. Even though it is subtle, it is bathing the whole world, I would say. It may be coming from deep space, from outside. To lie where it does, above the upper threshold like that, I doubt the canopy would even slow it down.” Josan scrutinized the erratic pulse more closely, frustrated that he could not discern its purpose. “It almost acts like some form of interference, the way its shadow lies upon the spectrum. I know that makes little sense.”
A light bulb flared in T. G.’s mind. “Can you block it?”
“I do not know how we could,” Josan replied. “I am beginning to doubt it is even part of the physical universe. It would take massive amounts of power to neutralize it, provided we could even construct the equipment necessary to do so, and that is not likely. But why jam it? It seems harmless enough, and since it is well beyond the frequencies we will be using, it is not in our way.”
“Well, I’ll be,” the prophet smiled. “I think it’s in everyone’s way. Almost everyone’s, anyway, except for those at the top. And I’d bet it’s being generated right here on Noron, probably in the pyramid.”
“What?” Pretsal asked, tossing his apple core into a nearby receptacle.
“At least now we know.” He pointed to the display. “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts this little squiggle is the reason you’ve all been losing your memories … and why your people can no longer reach their full mental potential.”
Josan and Pretsal looked at each other. Was it really possible?
T. G. tapped his temple. “You’re being jammed.”
It had been two weeks since the disappearance of the Voice.
And it had been almost that long since anyone had seen Kira Shass. Her last known act had been a puzzling visit to Elesh in her prison cell, after which she had departed alone. Mere hours later, the prisoner had also vanished without a trace. There was a connection there somehow. There had to be.
Cordan Barthos knew that the Voice had been behind the freeing of Elesh. No one else could have done it. Afterward, while trying to keep the loss of the prisoner quiet, Barthos had sent his agents worldwide, searching for any evidence of the vanished prophet or the two women. There had been no sign at all, and that worried him incessantly.
You’re out there somewhere … waiting …
An angry Shass, as Barthos expected, had taken his wife’s disappearance as an irritating distraction—aside from running the world, he now had to expend the time and energy necessary to appear as the concerned, grieving husband all of Noron expected him to be. He was far more worried that Elesh was free again, screaming repeatedly at Barthos that they should have killed her when they had the chance.
Barthos shrugged it off. He was concerned only with the Voice.
Somewhere out there, the contagion was increasing in power, spreading to others, biding its time. It had gone deep into the underground, where it was gathering its forces anew. The hunt for those sympathetic to the Twelve had not gone well—while some had been captured and executed, others had simply vanished, presumably to join in the swell of discontent that the Voice would soon fuel. But they would surface sooner or later.
And when they did, they would die. The Voice would be silenced.
Other things, however, were indeed going well. The public relations machine created by Barthos had moved at an incredible pace, bringing the whole world to the verge of Shass worship. Statues of the Prime Lord had been erected worldwide in every city center, in every Droshan temple. His handsome, caring face was everywhere. All of Noron loved him.
One more miracle, and Shass would become their god. And with the adoration the people felt for him, a card trick would do it.
Barthos stood watching as the Prime Lord addressed the world from the broadcast studio within the renamed World Capitol. The charismatic speaker stood behind an official government podium, reciting his well-rehearsed words with practiced vigor. The speech was carried via simulight and dealt with the new, combined information and economic system being instituted planetwide.
“I acted as I pledged to do, and you responded,” Shass stated. “You have chosen to do your part in bringing about the paradise Noron can be. Just as I swore to give you the world you deserved, you have sworn loyalty to me and to your world by accepting the crystalline data implant we have devised for your security. Never again can your assets be stolen from you. Never again will your loved ones vanish, victims of the crime that has plagued our streets, for now any missing person can be located within seconds, anywhere in the world. As one people, we can now, for the first time in our history, work together to bring an end to the burdens that have kept our society from achieving the greatness for which it is destined.
“The World has instituted the bold, new method of recordkeeping and trade I promised you. As of sunrise this morning, we have activated, for each citizen, a single, fully active account in the new, worldwide UniLink data system. All of you, whoever you may be, can rest secure in the knowledge that both your personal records and your hard-earned monies are being kept safe for you. The tiny implant you have received is now active and is the only access to your information and assets, and that implant, no one can steal.
“Through the implant, you have taken my name for yourselves, becoming my family, and I am sworn to protect you … and that I will do.”
Barthos listened as the highly charismatic man went on. Such fools! It was all too easy!
The crystalline implant the government had designed, encased within a pea-sized capsule of polished metal, had been planted within the skull of each recipient, under the left temple. The tiny scar that invariably remained following the procedure was covered by a small mark, a tattoo bearing the emblem of the office of the Prime Lord—an open hand, palm up, upon which a dove was about to alight. Such a grand symbol, depicting a world of tranquillity.
What the people who had taken the implant were not told was that the same numbering system that now guarded their records and finances also controlled them. Without the assigned numbers programmed into the cranial implants, they could be cut off from financial dealings of any kind—meaning no food, no medicine, no job.
And that assigned number also gave the World immediate access to the entirety of the populace, tracking their movements and their dealings. No man, woman, or child could hide from the forces of the government, for the transponder built into each implant would reveal that person’s location almost instantly. Every facet of the Noronian people’s individual existences had become an open book. Their lives were no longer their own.
Shass owned thirteen billion cattle, all of which now bore his brand.
More importantly, the data implant was something that the followers of the Truth would never take, Shass and Barthos knew, for doing so was tantamount to making a pledge of loyalty to Shass and the World. And without the financial resources, which were available only through the implant, they would be driven into the open, where they could be dealt with. No one on the planet could buy, trade, or sell without it. And if anyone who already carried the data implant decided to switch allegiances and follow the Voice, the traitor could be found and eradicated swiftly and easily—and might even lead the vigilant Watchers to the Twelve.
Simulight domes to one side of the sound stage bore the image of the Prime Lord, displaying the signal being beamed to all. Shass continued his oration as Barthos proudly looked on, occasionally cutting glances at the Watchers posted at every entrance to the room. All was going well.
Then, suddenly, it was not.
The three-dimensional image of Shass in each of the simulight domes began to distort and break up, disintegrating into more and more random sparkle with each passing moment. His voice, as well, became increasingly garbled and finally vanished altogether, replaced by the roar of static. A murmur began among the offstage technicians as they searched for the cause.
“What’s the problem?” Barthos called to the technical crew, keeping his voice as subdued as possible. “Do something! Fix it!”
Their hands flew over their control boards, trying adjustments and filters again and again, in various combinations.
“It is not coming from here,” one of the technicians replied. “It seems to be some form of outside interference.”
Barthos whirled and watched as the random pulses within the domes began to settle once again into a clear image.
“It’s getting better,” he commented. “You must have done something.”
As the interference slowly faded away, a human figure became clearly visible once again, standing behind a red marble podium.
It was not Shass. Or rather, not the Shass they expected.
“Noron, I greet you,” the figure said. “I am the Voice in the Dark, sent to you by the one, true Creator … whom you have forgotten.”
A clock of a thousand days began to tick, counting down.
Right on schedule.
A time passed, and a new class of people emerged on Noron.
There were, as always, the wealthy and powerful. Then there were the masses, willingly existing more and more under the thumb of their Prime Lord with each passing day.
Then there were the living.
A father and his family sat huddled at the center of a small stone storage cellar that was not their own. The tiny room was lit by a single lamp, which hung low from the ceiling. In the warm light, as they sat upon the floor, the man read aloud to the fascination of his wife, small son, and two daughters.
For man is not a creature like the predators of the sea, or the winged things of the air, or the behemoth,” he read, “but was created in My image, with My life within him. His heart and mind still cry out for Me, for only I can give him the joy and the life for which he longs.
For apart from My love, there is nothing that can sustain him.
The man looked upon his family. Their lives had become a difficult daily struggle merely to remain alive, for they could no longer buy food or maintain any other means of survival. Only the pity of a few friends had kept them fed and housed, for the man had illegally left his forced job as a crystal worker, fearing discovery that he had not taken the implant. As a result, he and his family had been forced to flee their government-assigned home. They were fugitives, hiding from the authority intent on seeking them out and destroying them.
But they would not bow to Shass, even to save themselves. They had learned the Truth.
The father smiled despite their physical circumstances. He closed the book, and they bowed their heads.
“Beloved Creator, we thank You that You have brought Your Word back to us. Through your Voice in the Dark, we have seen that our ways were wrong, that they were not Your ways—”
They were surprised by a sudden explosion at the door. It burst open, showering them with splinters as the doorframe yielded to the force outside. Watchers in glossy black armor flooded into the room, cruelly shoving the man and his family to the hard, cold floor, pinning them there. One soldier reached down and violently pulled the woman’s hair back from her left temple, then lifted the heads of the others in turn, inspecting them all.
“No mark.”
Another Watcher held out a palm-sized device of sparkling metal and red jewels, pointing it in the direction of the victims on the floor. After studying a readout on the device for a few moments, he turned toward another Watcher and shook his head.
“No implants,” he said in a deadly monotone. The soldier then reached down and tore the Truth from the father’s grip, kicking him aside in the process.
“Here, sir,” the Watcher said, addressing another man, his voice augmented by the facial armor he wore. “Another one.” He handed the book to his superior, a huge man dressed in heavy protective regalia that left no doubt as to his rank.
Through tinted eyepieces the Deathlord quickly scanned the book’s cover, then tossed it to another soldier. He had seen the words printed there far too many times in far too many places. The soldier dropped the book into a large sack, one already heavy with confiscated Truth. Without a word being spoken, the Watchers began a procedure that had been performed repeatedly.
No warning. No trial. No mercy.
Ripsticks brutally forced against the necks of the crying children were discharged, filling the air with horror and ozone as their flameblades ignited.
“No!” the father cried out, pleading through tears as his wife screamed and began to sob hysterically. The small helpless bodies contorted, ruptured, and went still.
“They were only … children,” the father moaned.
“Where are the Twelve?” the Deathlord impatiently asked, gripping the man’s head, twisting it so he was forced to look upon the burned bodies of his three children. No answer came from the man’s lips—he did not have the information the soldier wanted and would not have revealed it if he did. Silently, he closed his eyes and prayed for strength.
Another crackle filled the air, and the woman’s frantic tears fell silent. The man did not have to open his eyes to know that she breathed no more, that he alone remained. Tears streamed from his tightly shut eyes. He prayed harder.
“One last time,” the cruel, impatient voice boomed. “Where are the Twelve? Where is the Voice in the Dark?”
He remained silent. The last things he felt were the cold tip of the ripstick against his throat and the intense heat of the discharge as it tore into his nervous system, igniting it, overloading and destroying every muscle and nerve in his body with white-hot violence.
They had uncovered so many traitors, so many misguided idiots who had refused the cranial implant and, as a result, had committed sedition against the Prime Lord. The Deathlord, disgusted, shook his head and pushed past the dozen soldiers of the Treason Squad, who then followed him out.
Why choose certain death over loyalty to the god-man whom Drosha herself chose to lead us? He simply could not understand how the false faith of the so-called Awakening could lead to such sacrifice. He had served first his State and then his Prime Lord for many decades—but never had he seen such dogged adherence to an ideal, a man, or a god.
“The fools,” he muttered in frustration, stomping from the house. “Will I have to kill them all?”