Cracked Dagger
Book One of Allies and Adversaries
By
Kevin Gordon
Copyright 2011 by Kevin Gordon
All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
CAS -year (10 dcas) DCAS - month (5 troa) TROA - week (10 roas) ROA - day (10 droa) DROA - hour (100 mroa)
MROA - minute (100 til) til - second
Cast: the method of communication between the inhabitants of the planet Novan. Facilitated by implants received when a Novan reached ten cas of age which enabled thought to be transmitted between people on the cast-net. Colvition, or the act of casting, replaced speech among those ten and older by the cas 2296. To “nest” meant to receive a cast, while to “glean” meant to eavesdrop on a cast, and to be “null” meant to end one’s casts or to have an inactive mind. To “cesct” meant to converse with someone through cast. To “slam” is to forcefully throw one’s thoughts on another, to punctuate a point. Speech was primarily only used by children before they were able to get an implant.
Cast-net: The ultimate vehicle for information. The cast-net not only provided limitless information, but instant communication anywhere on the globe, access to interactive games, interactive programming. Created in the 22nd century PD, it evolved over the millennia in response to various attempts of sabotage, both from Rell and Novans. Access to the various levels of the cast-net was dependent upon one’s MPR, or Mental Power Rating, and on the lottment one possessed. The higher the MPR rating, the more content one could enjoy without strain, and the more lottment one possessed, the better the content one could access. More and more parents genetically enhanced their children to facilitate a higher MPR. The more one could access the cast-net, the better one’s future was.
Kolob stepped off the trans into a sea of faces silent and closed, moving as atoms in an endless ocean. Some laughter could be heard from the fleeting faces—some sighs, some grunts and moans. Under his feet was concrete that a trillion others had walked on before, also silent and closed. Kolob felt as the eternal outsider; only able to visit their world in small pieces, merely taste, but never to ingest the content they lived on, that they were satiated on. There were times he could accept it, this barrier, this impenetrable wall. Other times, when he would pass by several people linked on the same cast-net game or in a virt-life, bonding in the unseen, noiseless way they did, he would feel a part of himself die and struggle to cry out. Often he would walk aimlessly, purposefully colliding with those around him just so they would notice and acknowledge him. So much of life happened on the cast-net, that he felt as a fish that learned to walk on land, a thousand cas before others would follow. Children were the only ones he could talk to, the only ones not linked by the cast-net. But they didn’t like him for they knew he was different. They called him stupid or slow, laughed at him and teased him. So he kept his mouth shut. He could cast to others and nest their responses but that was all unless he wanted to endure the pain.
The world stood eternally above him, absolutely aloof, a testament to the millennia that preceded him—the defeat of an enemy, the pacification of a people. The buildings leaned in over him; stretching so high in the sky their ends could not be seen. They housed more people on the cast-net, playing games on an alien landscape, torturing heathens in a primitive playground. There were times they seemed to conspire in his mind—the people on the ground, the buildings around him. They all stood, silently looking down at him, making him feel insignificant and worthless. Sometimes Kolob wished he had a mother or a father, someone who cared whether he was alive or dead, someone who cared if he was sick or sad to be happy for him, take joy in his words and deeds. He saw some of that on what little he could nest from the cast-net—mothers and fathers, with sons and daughters. Not that it ever looked like that in real life. Whenever he saw children they ran unattended, their parents sitting nearby, their minds so far away. The children would come back and look on their distant faces and couldn’t wait until they would get their own implant, so they could sit, see, and feel what their parents were so completely obsessed with. Those were the times Kolob felt positively lucky. And those times were few and far between.
Kolob muddled his way through the streets, pushing his way through people that seemed to want to go in any direction but where he was going. He stumbled along, his feet dragging on the concrete, his pants wrinkled and unkempt. His shirt was tucked in though — the one thing he always made sure to do. He kept some dream, some delusion that someone would notice him, some woman, and grab onto him, and never let him go. Pretty women would pass by, and he would shyly look at them, try to catch their attention. But their eyes were always glazed over, their mouths soundlessly mouthing words and sounds. The walk from the trans station to his doctor’s office was short, but Kolob always took a long time to walk it. He had been on this walk countless times in his life—Ikthon had been his doctor since he was a child. But this time, whether it was the position of the sun, or the mood of the crowd around him, or the slight chill in the air, whatever it was, something made him feel like he had made this walk before, seen this pattern of people around him before, thought those thoughts before. A tune began to creep into Kolob’s mind; a few notes that filled into a melody, and after a while Kolob could even make out some words.
“Give me a little time, and I’ll turn teardrops into wine
sad times into bounteous joy
Look into my heart and see hope made from despair
grace born from misery.”
Then a man stopped before him, his face filled with clarity and calm.
“Hello,” said the man, using voice.
“Hello,” answered Kolob, clearing his throat, responding in kind.
“It’s a nice roa, this roa,” said the man, glancing at the sky.
Kolob looked around before replying. “I guess it is.”
“But then, you always liked the rain, didn’t you?”
Kolob still wasn’t fully out of his stupor, the depression that consumed him whole, so he registered some surprise, but it was delayed, and wouldn’t fully hit him until later on. The tune he had just heard began to fade away, the words sinking into the oblivion of forgetfulness.
“Yes, I do,” Kolob replied, feeling at once nostalgic.
The man smiled. Kolob saw he was older, with some grey hair—a true rarity on Novan. His skin was wrinkled, this teeth, though white and straight, looked brittle, and near their end. His shoulders were strong, and thick, but just a little bent over, his body making some concession to gravity’s insistent demands. The feeling of déjà-vu Kolob felt earlier was completely wiped away. This man, this conversation, these moments, was unique and different.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” asked the man, his face like a literal question mark.
“No,” replied Kolob, confused.
The old man paused before he replied, looking at Kolob with an attention almost rude on a planet devoid of face-to-face conversation, smiling a genial smile that seemed analytical in nature.
“Good.”
The old man moved on, quickly, still with the slight smile on his face. Kolob turned around, shrugging, and continued on to his doctor’s office, not knowing just how much had changed.
Chapter 2
Lleldin: colloquial name for a drug created in the cas 9943. Lleldin dulled the user’s casting ability and suppressed neural activity in the memory centers of the brain. Overdoses resulted in the user ‘forgetting’ how to drink, swallow, or even breathe, resulting in death. Critics felt lleldin’s popularity grew in direct proportion to the disenchantment Novans felt to their decadent lifes
tyle, and their perceived oppression by the TELREC.