The Far Shores (The Central Series)
Read The Far Shores (The Central Series) Online
Authors: Zachary Rawlins
The Central Series
The Academy
The Anathema
The Far Shores
The Outer Dark (TBA)
The Church of Sleep (TBA)
Other Books by the Same Author
The Night Market
Unknown Kadath Estates, Volume One:
Paranoid Magical Thinking
For John and Kelly Perry, on the birth of their daughter,
Johannah.
Copyright © 2014 by Zachary Rawlins
Cover photographs copyright © Nejron Photo and Dudarev Mikhael
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any
manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and
incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a
fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual
events is purely coincidental.
Published by ROUS Industries.
Oakland, California
[email protected]
978-0-9837501-4-7
Cover design by ROUS Industries
First Edition
TABLE OF CONTENTS
“I will not ask if you are certain
that you wish to go through with this.”
“Thank you.”
“I will, however, offer
this warning – you will regret this decision. Assuming that you live long
enough.”
Michael’s easy grin was
belied by the tension in his posture, lying on the aluminum examination table
in Vladimir’s cluttered laboratory, surrounded by arcane machinery and alarming
surgical equipment. In truth, he was trying very hard not to think about Mary
Shelley, mad doctors, and doomed monsters.
“Thank you for your vote
of confidence, Gaul.”
The Director blinked
uncertainly. He was never very good with sarcasm.
“Confidence? Far from
it. Under normal circumstances, I would have rejected your request out of
hand.”
“But these
circumstances,” Michael said, glancing significantly about him, “are far from
normal, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” Gaul allowed
curtly, his eyes a watery pink behind his glasses. “That much we agree on.”
“Alice is desperately
short of Auditors,” Michael reminded him. “We have no idea what John Parson and
the Anathema intended with their raid on Central, or what he did with the
nanites he took, but it is safe to assume we won’t like it. Not to mention that
Alistair is still out there…”
Michael was startled by
the clatter as Gaul set an ominous surgical instrument down on a nearby metal
tray with a bit too much force.
“That is not a name I
want to hear.” Gaul’s words were unexpectedly bitter, confirming Michael’s
suspicion that the Director continued to blame himself for his former Chief
Auditor’s defection. “Excepting, of course, when the Auditors close the file on
him.”
“Another reason that I
need to do this,” Michael reminded him gently. “You and I both know that Alice
can’t take them all on by herself. Three Auditors is far from enough to face
the Anathema…”
Gaul paused in the act
of aligning various syringes on the table beside him.
“I have plans for that.
The Auditors will have a number of new recruits shortly. All that remains is to
convince the Committee-at-Large. I have already taken steps to assure that they
will comply.”
Michael put one arm
gently on Gaul’s shoulder, forcing him to pay attention.
“You mean to recruit
from the students, right? I assumed as much – I think most of Central is making
that same assumption. Wait, wait. I’m not disagreeing,” Michael said, waving
Gaul off as he opened his mouth to object. “I understand the necessity. But
that is yet another reason why I need to do this…”
Gaul shrugged out of his
grip.
“I can see that you will
not be dissuaded, so I do not intend to try, Michael. I only wished to warn
you, to help you avoid my own regrets. If you are truly sure that this is what
you want, then I am prepared to continue.”
Michael glanced at the
perfectly arranged syringes and felt a surge of raw, cold fear. He smiled again
to cover for it.
“Times like this, I sort
of wish you hadn’t banned further experiments,” Michael joked, not sure whose
tension he wanted to dissipate. “Not that you were wrong. I’d just feel a bit
safer if there had been an opportunity to study…”
Michael trailed off when
he realized that Vladimir was laughing at him from the other side of the room,
where he hobbled from console to console on his antique cane, glaring at the
data on the monitors as if it were a personal affront to him.
“The embargo on further
experimentation with nanotech implants was not as complete as you might
believe,” Vladimir said with a chuckle that became a cough. “We have made a
great deal of progress since the unfortunate incidents of decades past…”
Michael would have sat
straight up, but he didn’t want to tear the IV from his arm. Instead, he tried
vainly to catch Gaul’s suddenly elusive gaze.
“What do you mean?” Michael
demanded, stunned. “You kept experimenting on people, Gaul? But I thought you
decided…”
Gaul nodded, clearly
distracted.
“Yes, yes. Too many
deaths, too dangerous. This is all true. We have not placed an implant in a
human being since the disaster with Mitsuru Aoki. All the work carried out here
has been indirect research and data modeling. Until today.”
“Simulated procedures
and animal experimentation can only take you so far,” Vladimir said gleefully,
throwing switches on a large, humming piece of machinery. “Personally, I’m
eager to see the theoretical advances we have made in the lab applied to a
human subject. My only regret is that I must use a good friend as a guinea
pig.”
“I don’t mind as long as
you don’t kill me,” Michael said, trying to sound as if he were joking. “What
has changed since you took the plunge, Gaul?”
“Upgrades,” Gaul said
dispassionately, purging one of the syringes of air bubbles. “I believe that I
have improved the safety of the procedure. Assuming you survive, I fully expect
that you will be impressed with the capabilities of the implant, as its
capabilities have been designed and personalized to enhance your abilities.”
Vladimir cackled as he
limped over to the examination table.
“Survival is a bold
assumption.”
Gaul shook his head,
then finally met Michael’s eyes.
“If you are certain…”
“You have terrible
bedside manner,” Michael said softly, forcing his eyes shut. “Both of you.
Let’s do this.”
Gaul nodded gravely, put
a hand briefly on Michael’s shoulder, and for a moment, looked as if he were going
to speak. Instead he merely cleared his throat and took one of the syringes
from the table nearby, then readied the IV. He waited until Michael gave him a
shallow nod and closed his eyes before he inserted the needle into the shunt
and pressed down on the plunger. The silence during their long wait was broken
only by the repetitive chiming of the heart monitor. Michael’s breathing
gradually settled from shallow and nervous to the mechanical respiration of
narcotic sleep.
Vladimir leaned over and
placed a mask over Michael’s face, oxygen hissing through rubber tubes, then
fussed over the readings on a number of different instruments. Gaul held
perfectly still until the prematurely old man grunted with satisfaction.
“It is well,” Vladimir
allowed. “Michael is under and stable. Introduce the nanites.”
Gaul didn’t believe in
God. His precognitive abilities had soured him on metaphysical possibilities.
But before he began the series of injections, he caught himself pleading mutely
to nothing; concerned for the safety of his friend, fearful of a repeat of previous
errors. In an obscure way, he was annoyed with himself for failing to trust the
validity of his own calculations.
Vladimir waited until
Gaul had completed all five injections. The process took less than fifteen minutes.
The monitors continued to beep and buzz with a comforting regularity.
“There is no immediate
reaction,” Vladimir said quietly. “We can only wait. The nanites will do what
they will.”
Gaul nodded and waited.
He knew, of course, what was coming next.
“This gives us time to
discuss the other subject,” Vladimir said, his voice already warming to their
continuous argument. “Your pet abomination.”
“Vlad…”
“You realize that the
contents of this lab alone would have you declared Anathema, were they ever
made public? That even friends would turn on you if they knew what you were
doing here?”
Gaul shrugged. There was
very little, after all, that could surprise him.
“Certainly.”
“Yet you wish to
continue?”
“Of course.”
“And why? Out of
perversity? Curiosity? Or merely to have more tools at your disposal,
Director?”
Gaul kept his tone
patient, even if he didn’t feel much patience himself. He was tired of arguing
with people who couldn’t see the terrible risks that lay ahead for Central in
so many of the potential futures. It was like explaining color to a man born
blind.
“The Anathema are an
existential threat to the Academy – to all of Central. Their last attack violated
the sanctity of Central, and inflicted casualties that will take years to
replace. Were it not for Rebecca Levy and Alexander Warner, there is every
likelihood that the attack would have been the end of Central. I cannot allow
that to happen again,” Gaul said firmly, looking straight into Vladimir’s
watery eyes, “and I have no plans to do so. We have only one option if we wish
to survive, Vladimir – we have to take the fight to the Outer Dark.”
“The graveyard is full
enough as it is,” Vladimir groused. “Are you so eager to bury the rest of us?”
“I am not.” Gaul said it
as gently as possible. There was no way for Vladimir to know how often he
confronted that reality in his calculations. Even now, he could provide the
probability of that very event with an exactitude that depressed him. “I need
three things, Vladimir. Three things and I can kill John Parson and the
Anathema, down to the very last one. I need my Auditors at fighting strength – or
better, if possible – and Alice Gallow will soon control the most fearsome
incarnation of the Auditors in a decade. I need a way to get at our enemies, a
way to strike at the Outer Dark, and you know as well as I do that the Far
Shores is only months away from providing us with that. The final requirement –
perhaps the most important – I must be able to understand the Outer Dark. I
need to know the Anathema; numbers, strengths, and weaknesses. I need access to
their intelligence – and the capability to provide them with faulty
counterintelligence. I need someone on the inside, Vlad. I need Yaga.”
Vladimir chuckled and
patted the sealed cylinder he sat beside, large enough for a human being,
humming with an unpleasantly dissonant vibration. The light that slid out of
the cracks in the machine was lurid and troubling, the color amorphous and
indescribable.
“You are still calling
her that? That is compounding one bad idea with another.”
“She calls herself that.
You gave her that Russian Folklore book.”
Vladimir snorted in
contempt.
“And you allowed Alice
Gallow to torture her until she turned against her own kind. Don’t moralize to
me, Gaul. The high ground is mine, I’m afraid.”
Gaul didn’t argue. If
Vlad wanted to see things that way, then he would. There was no fighting
Vladimir, not on anything.
“I asked her, you know,”
Vladimir admitted, sounding just a little guilty. “Before I put her under. If
she wanted to do this. I told her that she could stay in my laboratory, that I
would keep her safe as long as I was alive. I told her that we would find other
options.”
“Compassion to one
incapable of it. You’ll be declared a saint yet, Vlad. What did she say?”
Gaul was genuinely
curious despite himself.
“She wants out, whatever
the cost, and who wouldn’t?” Vladimir snorted, turning to examine one of his
instruments. “Sometimes I envy her the option of leaving this place. What we do
here, Gaul, with or without permission...”
Gaul sighed, feeling the
beginning of one of his headaches coming on.
“I know. Believe me,
Vlad, I know.”
***
“Can’t sleep?”
Alex was so startled he
almost lost his footing on the slanted dormitory roof. Technically anyone with
an Academy keycard could come out and enjoy the view, one floor above his room,
assuming they felt like balancing on rounded ceramic roofing tiles, but Alex
had never had company on any of his previous nocturnal visits. Of course, if he
was going to find anyone up here at two o’clock in the morning, it would be
Katya, assassin for the Black Sun and his forcibly provided bodyguard.
“Are you sure you aren’t
some sort of stalker?” Alex asked with a sigh, treading carefully across the
roof toward the edge where she sat, almost directly above his window below.
“I’m flattered by the attention and all...”
Katya slurped from what
sounded like a milkshake with a fat red straw. Wearing a high ponytail, she reminded
Alex vaguely of a young samurai from a cartoon, slouched and grinning in baggy
shorts and a T-shirt printed with Chinese script.
“Don’t make me throw you
off the roof. Anastasia would be very cross if I did that.”
“I suppose it’s just a
coincidence that you are sitting on my roof? Even though your housing is on the
other side of campus. You’re probably just fond of the view from here, right?”
Katya stirred her shake
with the straw, ignoring Alex as he took a seat beside her, his legs dangling
over the edge of the building, the quad dimly lit four stories below. He
wondered briefly who had the room above his, and if they got tired of Katya
walking around on their roof at night. Probably not – the assassin didn’t make
a whole lot of noise, even on tile.
There wasn’t much a view
to be fond of, that late at night. The Academy sat on the highest of the hills
that clustered on the eastern edge of Central, above the blanket of perpetual
fog that smothered the rest of Central, so the city below them was invisible.
The endless horizon of clouds always reminded Alex of the view from the window
of an airplane – though he could not actually remember ever flying anywhere.
They could see the dark silhouettes of a few buildings, particularly the
multistory bulk of the Administration building, thanks to the occasional street
lamp and the rather paltry display of stars overhead. That was about it.