Mindwarp Read online

  Five minutes later he was examining the door set into the side of the low, circular building of the master zargon light battery. He had noticed during his daylight observation of the door that it did not have a medallion reader to release the lock. Close to, he realised why: the door was old. At first its mechanics puzzled him until he realised that it was manually-operated and opened on hinges. It was stiff from lack of use - a testament to the reliability of the ring of ten mighty light batteries that provided the campus with daylight. He closed the door behind him, and pulled an inspection lamp from his pocket. The musty, ancient interior was filled with a bright light from the tiny discharge tube.

  The layout of the control room came as no surprise because Ewen had spent most of the morning studying the system. What information he hadn’t been able to glean from his datapad had been dredged from the library. The zargon gas that provided the light when energized was pumped to all the batteries on a ring circuit that started and terminated in this room. Looming in front of Ewen was the main gas pump, now silent, and the complex tangle of pipework of the cooling system. Largest of all was the huge zargon gas reservoir that kept the entire system topped-up and pressurised to compensate for the inevitable gas losses. The whole set-up was controlled by a surprisingly old-fashioned time-switch. Clearly no-one had seen fit to incorporate the latest designs which flowed from the GoD Revelation Centre. Even the picture of the emperor was old and faded. Strange to think that the work, relaxation and sleep patterns of a 1000 people was controlled by such an antiquated piece of junk. The thought was blasphemous but it didn’t much worry him.

  It was the gas reservoir that concerned him. He found its recharging valve without difficulty and connected it to a length of high-pressure tubing that was coiled in his bag. Also in the bag was a small cylinder filled with blue phosgene gas which he had purloined from the test laboratory. He quickly attached the other end of the tube to the cylinder and tried to open the charging valve. It was awkwardly placed and stiff so he removed a glove. His fingers found the lever and twisted. There was a soft hissing. Two minutes later the zargon gas in the entire daylight system of Dome 16 was contaminated with one part in one million of phosgene gas. Very little, but more than enough for his purpose. He quickly stowed his gear and left. As a final touch, he sprayed fast-setting super adhesive around the door frame before pulling the door closed. A few more squirts around the hinges and catch, and the job was done.

  He returned to his room the way he had come, hid the bag, got undressed, and climbed into bed, feeling very pleased with himself.

  He hoped that Jenine would also be pleased although it was doubtful. Jenine was conservative and would probably be shocked. But maybe the results of his little enterprise would help her understand.

  And maybe not.

  He suddenly remembered that he had taken a glove off when tampering with the valve and had forgotten to wipe the area clean of fingerprints. He cursed his foolhardiness, but it was too late to do anything about it - he would never get the door open now having bonded it closed, and it would soon be dawn. He worried for some minutes and decided that it was unlikely that Tarant would think to check for fingerprints.

  Ho hum. Try to sleep.

  4.

  Chief Technician Dom Aster Tarant, Head of the Communications and Transport Faculty at the GoD Centre, was a man who liked to express his points of view with great candour; who admired in others the ability to see his views with a minimum of debate and explanation; and who gave generously of his time in acquainting others of his academic achievements. Put another way, Dom Aster Tarant was an arrogant, boastful, overbearing bully.

  It was a few minutes before dawn when he threw open the windows of his penthouse and office on top of Senate House, and stepped naked onto his 7th floor balcony - the highest in Dome 16 - to check that all was well with his empire. It was the first step on the worn path of his daily routine. Dom Tarant was addicted to his routine. If anything interfered with it, his demeanour went from difficult to impossible, and the lives of those around him did likewise.

  He breathed deeply, sucking clean air into his stocky body. This was his favourite time of the day. When all was quiet. When the students were shut away in their rooms with their appalling smells, and not kicking up a racket on the glass pyramid in front of Senate House.

  A couple of joggers caught his approving eye. Students were a lazy lot. He reflected on how much more efficiently his faculty could be run without them.

  A faint glow sprang from the zargon lights. This was the only time of day when it was possible to look directly at the batteries. The glow brightened and infused the glass pyramid with a curious milky light. Tarant blinked and shook his head. It was time to visit those frauds in the Health and Hygiene Faculty in Dome 10 and get his vision checked. Of course, one should not look at zargon lights, even when they were warming up.

  He looked up at the inside of dome and blinked again. He leaned over the balcony and stared down at Senate House’s glass facade. Something decidedly odd was happening. The joggers had stopped and were looking up. His head snapped up. The dome was the wrong colour! The lights waxed to a tenth of their midday intensity and continued to brighten.

  If it hadn’t been for windows being opened on the residential block and curious heads and shoulders leaning out, Tarant might have doubted his sanity.

  The whole campus was turning blue!

  No - that was wrong; it wasn’t turning blue - it was BLUE! The lights were blue, the dome was blue, the buildings were blue, the glass pyramid was blue, the grass and flowerbeds were blue, even his belly and other bits were blue; everything as far as the eye could see was suffused with a hideous, nausea-inducing deep blue light.

  “Zenna!” he roared for his secretary, and plunged back into the penthouse - a far from happy man whose routine for that day was going through Phase 1 of being well and truly buggered.

  5.

  Few of the technician-students crowding around the windows of the residential block were so institutionalised that they didn’t secretly welcome the diversion that the strangely-coloured daylight provided. But Jenine, as Ewen suspected might happen, was an exception.

  “This is your doing!” she hissed, pulling on a dressing gown and joining Ewen at the window.

  “Now why do you think that?”

  She stared at the campus bathed in the eerie blue light. “It’s a stupid, irresponsible stunt to recreate a childhood dream!” she snapped.

  “This is a much deeper blue than my dream,” said Ewen regretfully.

  He was spared a squirt of verbal paraquat from Jenine by Deg Calen, the third student that Ewen and Jenine roomed with. He wandered in, spooning breakfast into his mouth from its container. The foil cover bearing his name and photograph was pulled half off. He was tall and lean, with an acerbic sense of humour. The product of a rich family that ran the biggest law practice in Arama, whose good fortune to produce a son like Calen with brains, was completed negated by his sense of honesty. He was one of the few students at the Centre who could afford a personal car. His breeding was reflected in his general demeanour; he somehow managed to make his shapeless regulation-issue dressing gown look elegant.

  “Well. Well. Well,” he remarked. “Our well-ordered routine does seem to be falling apart somewhat this morning. Bit embarrassing, don’t you think? All those homilies from our worthy faculty head about the need for constant maintenance, and this happens right on his patch. We’ll have the place full of birds next.”

  “Any idea what might’ve caused it?” Ewen asked.

  Jenine shot him a withering look but remained silent.

  Calen shrugged. “Lighting is not my sphere. But one suspects contamination of the zargon gas. All the batteries are splatting blue light, so I daresay they’re on a common circuit.” He spooned more food past his thin, bloodless lips, and peered through the window.

  A levi-car was hurtling around the perimeter road, ignoring the speed limit. To Ewen’s discomfort
, it crossed the grass and rocked to a standstill near the residential block. Three technician-lecturers piled out. One was clutching a sheaf of plans which he waved about angrily as they hurried to the master battery.

  “I do believe that’s our erstwhile chief,” Calen murmured. “In a somewhat bad humour, I fancy.”

  It was a remarkable understatement; Dom Tarant’s foul temper went from bad to worse when it was discovered that no amount of pushing, heaving and kicking could open the door. A lecturer hurried back to the car and returned with a portable laser cutter. He sliced a hole in the door through which the three men disappeared.

  An audience of students in night attire gathered a respectful distance from the master battery, anxious not to miss anything. Their numbers even included a few students equipped with power suckers on their elbows and knees who had decided that what was happening was more interesting than an early morning training session on the glass pyramid. The bolder ones who ventured near the door reported that profane language could be heard issuing from the hole.

  A minute passed and suddenly the campus was plunged into darkness.

  “A short but happy day,” Calen observed dryly. “Am I right in thinking that the GoD power to zargon tubes the size of those should be reduced gradually and not just turned off?”

  “You’re right,” Jenine agreed.

  The lights blazed into life a minute later, burning at maximum midday intensity, even bluer than before, and causing the glass pyramid to shine like an emerald. A few of the more courageous students near the door risked a cheer.

  “And am I also right in thinking that the GoD power should be restored gradually for the same reason?” Calen inquired.

  Jenine nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Calen.”

  As if to underline the point, one of the more distant zargon batteries near the laboratory complex suddenly expired with a loud, expensive report. The light output from the remaining nine batteries intensified. And when one of their number gave up the struggle, the knock-on effect caused the eight functioning batteries to brighten even more.

  “It’s all going to end in tears,” Calen commented somberly.

  And then all the remaining light batteries burned out one after the other in rapid succession.

  “Well,” said Calen laconically as he moved off. “Looking at that ghastly light has made me feel as sick as a seized-up travelator. Two dawns in one day must be a record. I’m going to check the meal dispenser to see if there’s an extra breakfast awaiting me.”

  Jenine stared at Ewen for some moments when they were alone. “Why? Why do such a crazy thing?”

  Ewen shrugged and tried to keep a straight face. “You were right. I wanted you to see what a blue dome looked like.”

  “I’ll have to report you.”

  “Oh?” Ewen made a strange noise through his nose.

  “It’s no laughing matter!”

  And then he was chanting under his breath. A silly kids’ rhyme that snatched her back ten years to the selection centre when she had first met him.

  Outdoors! Outdoors!

  Where flies and birds do dwell,

  Outdoors! Outdoors!

  Another name for hell!

  There was that same mischievous gleam in his impossibly blue eyes that had endeared him to her all those years ago; an impish look that cut through ten years of conditioning and the relentless instilling of conformity.

  She fought the twitch that tugged persistently at the corners of her mouth. But the twitch triumphed, and her face broke into a reluctant smile.

  Ewen smiled back.

  And they both burst out laughing.

  6.

  Chief Technician Dom Aster Tarant was in no mood for excuses. He thumped his desk angrily. “I don’t care how long it takes, or how much an investigation will cost. Someone sabotaged the lights and I want him or her brought to book. It can’t be a student therefore it must be one of the civilian workers. Maybe a former student we employ. Someone with a grudge about being mindwarped.”

  The campus’s chief security officer was a civilian with more than his fair share of grudges, most of them directed at chief technicians who had him dragged out of bed just after dawn in order to rave at him. “It will be difficult, sir…” he began.

  “Why?” Tarant demanded.

  “Employees don’t always carry their headbands so we can’t check on all their movements. And with respect, sir, it could be a student - they’re a high-spirited lot, and they’re the ones with the technical knowledge.”

  “Rubbish! No student would ever do such a thing!”

  “With respect, sir. If you recall, it was students who presented you with that birthday present.”

  Tarant scowled. There were certain things he did not like to reminded of. Naked girls jumping out of gift-wrapped birthday presents was one of them. “Destroying GoD-powered equipment amounts to desecration! No student would do such a thing.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, sir. But if you want a proper investigation, I need your permission to check everyone.”

  “Even me?”

  “Even you, sir. A process of elimination, you understand. So where were you when the lights went out?”

  “They didn’t go out, you idiot! They went on!”

  7.

  Ewen skirted the glass pyramid that was free of students for once, and paused outside the faculty library to allow the open top cushion-car to glide past. In the rear passenger seats were two wide-eyed children. It was selection day. The two boys were being taken on their preliminary orientation tour. They stared at Ewen, too over-awed to return his friendly smile and wave.

  “A 10th year student,” Ewen heard the guide telling his charges. “You can tell by the colour and size of his GoD medallion. Wave back to him. Everyone in the Centre is friendly.”

  The darker of the two boys twisted in his seat and returned Ewen’s gesture.

  The guide’s assurance to the youngsters was not wholly true. The duty librarian was far from friendly when Ewen outlined his request. Like most civilian employees in the Centre, she was a failed student. She had been mindwarped to erase all memories of what she had learned. The residual bitterness was in her tone of voice and unfriendly eyes.

  “The Centre’s archives? Can’t you access them on your datapad?”

  Ewen’s cheery smile never faltered. He had had dealings with the woman before. Perhaps she liked to be obstructive as a chance to exercise her meagre morsel of authority. Either that or she considered the library’s records her personal property, whose information was corrupted each time they were examined.”

  “My datapad is limited to around a million data sheets of storage,” he explained. “I agree with you - hopeless. I’d be most grateful if you’d exercise your considerable authority and have a word with the Revelation Centre, and get them to come up with an improved model. I don’t suppose for a minute that they’d listen to me.”

  The librarian treated Ewen to a look that could have liquified oxygen. As far as she was concerned, students were around the same social level as flies. She waved her identity reader wand in front of his medallion and touched her data screen. “I’ve opened Study Booth six and four,” she said huffily.

  Ewen thanked her with exaggerated warmth, and threaded his way past shelves laden with discs, tapes and ordinary-looking books. He closed the door to his assigned booth and sat at the desk. The data screen was extra large for the examination of complex plans and circuit diagrams.

  The menus that gave access to the archive databases were unfamiliar to Ewen, who was more used to using the study booths to look-up repair and maintenance procedures for the vast numbers of machines and systems that made up the technological infrastructure of Arama. Headings about student intakes, examination pass percentages, and suchlike, were wholly unfamiliar to him. He stared at the usual wall picture of emperor for a moment, hoping for inspiration. He did a little experimental exploring and quickly discovered that the database’s structure la
cked the rigid discipline of the engineering databases. Loosely related topics were filed together under unusual headings. When he searched “Sport’, he came across pages from a now defunct student newspaper that included the results of long-forgotten matches and tournaments that could not be of interest to anyone. Some of the cuttings went back over 300-years. One page even showed a 200-year-old map of Arama. The huge sprawl of domes, galleries and chord-metro tunnels was exactly the same then as it was today. There were daily wars being fought against Diablo then as they were today.

  After a few minutes he felt more at ease with the database therefore it was time to get down to the serious business of why he was here.

  He cleared the data screen, picked up his stylus and spelled out on the screen the name Father Dadley had given him - the gifted student who had had similar dreams to his about vast, blue domes. He formed each letter of the student’s name on the screen with care so that there would be no ambiguity:

  SIMO BELAN.

  Serendipity played a dubious hand in the shaping of the momentous events that would soon imperil Ewen’s life.

  First Secretary Caudo Inman was rarely in his office at the Revelation Centre, and would not have found out about Ewen’s delving for weeks, perhaps even months. But today was selection day therefore he was sitting at his desk in his penthouse office, sifting through the reports coming in from the selection centre. Any citizen of Arama seeing the office would have been astonished by the absence of a picture of the emperor. All senior officials had particularly large portraits of the emperor on their walls, and Caudo Inman was the most senior official of them all. The reason was simple: there was no Emperor of Arama and never had been. The ruling family did not exist. Because no citizen of Arama ever entered Inman’s office, or ever would, he saw no reason why the pretence should be extended to his inner sanctum.