Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1 (31 page)

Some people think the Universe is just the name for everything. They think it is just a label which covers all of space-time and everything within it, including planets, stars, galaxies, the contents of intergalactic space and, not to forget, all the energy that has ever existed. These people are wrong; very wrong.

The Universe is in fact a sentient, thinking super-being. She doesn’t see everything, but very little escapes her gaze. She doesn’t know everything, but she understands most of the important things. She doesn’t control everything, but she can bend most things to her will.

The good news for mankind is that she loves the Planet Earth more than any other planet and human beings are her favourite creatures in the whole, ahmmm, universe.

Today, the Universe was happy.

“Not bad,” she said to no one in particular. “A decent guy is going to take over those two evil, grubby organisations and a spell which makes people do good deeds is spreading across the whole planet. Could things get any better?”

The Good Will Spell raced virally across the Internet like a wildfire. It was unbelievable how quickly the view count racked up… hundreds of thousands in the first few hours, millions within a day. There had never been anything like it. Not even Justin Beiber, the fat kid with the Numa-Numa song, the dancing crocodiles, Lady Gaga or Kung Fu Killer cats had spread with anything like the speed of the Good Will words.

It may have surprised the world, but Michael had known it would colonise the Internet faster than the speed of light. These extraordinary words compelled readers to do good deeds and the best deed of all was to pass the Words on to everyone they knew.

Tung, Madrick and Michael basked in anonymous glory. These unlikeliest of heroes were making the world a better place by spreading this supernatural set of magically fashioned words; mystical words which forced people to become wonderful human beings. It wasn’t going to be a super-power government or a global religion or vegetarianism which was destined to change mankind forever; it was this unique, paranormal combination of the ancient and modern… magic meets the Internet.

Over the next few days, they watched the unfolding story on the news channels and admired the impact of their gift to humanity. Settled in front of the giant plasma TV, they constantly patted each other on the back as their gift spread across the earth and made the planet an infinitely better place. They were the ultimate Miss World… ‘I want to help all the poor people in Africa and I want every human being to be as happy and as well-educated as I am. Oh yes, and world peace’.

At first, the gift was portrayed as the most virulent and pathetic chain-letter ever. The sheer volume of messages had slowed down many of the main email services, indeed some had even ground to a halt. People were receiving hundreds of copies of the good-word emails because all their friends and acquaintances were sending them. Interestingly, no one seemed to be getting annoyed by it.

Soon isolated random-acts-of-kindness stories started to filter through… like the Boston billionaire who donated his entire fortune to a well-known, third world charity. There was the London 5-Star hotel owner who threw open every one of his four hundred rooms, free of charge, to the homeless. There was the South American crime boss who gave himself up to the authorities, along with hundreds of his subordinates, associates and partners. And so it went on.

One or two daft occurrences popped up. Kids giving away their games consoles… to adults. Old ladies giving up their seats on buses… and breaking legs when they couldn’t keep their balance. All trivial stuff.

“Remember, being good doesn’t mean being smart,” said Michael. “Some folk will do some really stupid stuff, albeit with the best of intentions.”

He was thinking of Miss World when he said this.

After a while, things gradually started to change. There was the chief executive of a Fortune 500 company who gave every single employee a massive bonus… but the sudden cash drain caused an immediate drop in the share price and the company fell out of the top 500. There was definitely trouble brewing on the global stock markets.

Airports in every first world country were chock-a-block as thousands rushed to travel to underdeveloped countries where they thought they could make a difference. People doing this had always been known as SUVs… spontaneous uninvited volunteers. Now there was SUV overload. These poor, unfortunate countries were being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of do-gooders. However the surge quickly slowed because so many pilots refused to take their polluting flying machines into the air.

As time went on, every kind-act story seemed to have a ‘but’ at the end of it. Each good deed seemed to have some negative consequences. Newton had more or less summed it up with his third law… ‘For every [good] action there is an equal and opposite [bad] reaction.’

Things were deteriorating extremely quickly and then the whole phenomenon was dramatically accelerated when one of the TV channels actually broadcast the Words. Unbelievable, there they were on the screen, seen by millions… ‘
Spero vestri dies est bonus. Vos es exspectata.’
Soon every channel, every newspaper was showing the Words. Soon there was hardly a human being on the planet who hadn’t read them. The effect was devastating.

People lost their competitiveness and drive. More and more people became totally selfless and thoughtful which resulted in less and less of anything constructive getting done anywhere. The stock markets crashed (and no one cared), workers stopped working, businesses closed, shops gave away their produce (and weren’t restocked), farmers released their animals into the wild; and so it went on.

The first total traffic grid-lock came shortly afterwards; it happened in Paris. The city ground to a halt as drivers became over courteous; who’d have thought that an over preponderance of non-aggressive drivers would bring everything to a total stand-still? The problem was compounded by stuck cars running out of fuel and being abandoned. Very few people got angry about it and nobody had any inclination to sort the problem out. Jams spread. Soon Mumbai, Seoul, Tokyo, New York and London all followed the pattern. The world’s great cities were grinding to a halt. The world was grinding to a halt.

As the three watched the unfolding disaster they knew they were totally responsible for this epic catastrophe.

“Oh, this is not good,” said Michael. “This is not good at all. We need to fix this.”

“A world full of people doing good things, how can that end up bad? Think about it. Let’s leave it alone, it’ll be fine.”

“Maybe,” said Michael, “but I doubt it.”

The end…

Do you want to laugh while the world comes to an end?

The Black Conspiracy
is the spellbinding sequel to Dark Tidings.

Ancient magic has infected the Internet… is this the end for civilisation?

The ancient magic which transported Tung and Madrick across a millennium has now infected the Internet, and civilisation simply can’t handle the consequences.

To make matters even worse, evil wizards have followed the pair through time. They’re determined to hunt them down, steal the great magic scroll and use its power to destroy our modern way of life.

Saving the world just got a whole lot harder.

Author’s Final Note

Thank you for giving me a chance and reading Dark Tidings.

If you enjoyed the adventure, please tell your friends about it… word of mouth is such an important way for a new author to get noticed. Also, if you can spare the time, please consider popping a short review on Amazon. Reviews are like gold dust, so even the shortest one is greatly appreciated.

Best regards, Ken