The Soul Consortium
Read The Soul Consortium Online
Authors: Simon West-Bulford
Tags: #Science Fiction, #General, #Fiction
My body will go on and on, but who lives within this flesh? Am I losing perspective to such a degree that I’m prepared to become a monster to find my answer? And perhaps it is even worse. Was it really the answer I was interested in, or was it the fascination of becoming a killer? This is why Qod warned me about being Orson Roth. Not because of who
he
was but because my choice might force me to face who I have become.
The hiss of hydraulic locks snaps me from my musings, and my hands and feet are freed. Cables lower me gently to the floor, and I’m grateful for the warm breeze against my face, as though somehow I had been aware of the stale atmosphere gradually building inside the WOOM through all the years of my immersion.
“Would you like to go to the Observation Sphere?” Qod asks. “Not much has changed in forty-six years, but I know how it helps you think.”
All I do is nod when the cables slide away. The metallic floor sticks to my feet as I head for the exit of the Aberration Sphere, and at last I’m me again, but I will never be able to forget the murders I committed inside that man’s life. Even without my enhanced synapses, those bloody memories will leave a permanent stain. Zachary Cox’s glassy gaze imprinting on my brain, Orson Roth’s syringe in my hand, the stench of formaldehyde burning my sinuses.
I stop, and my heart skips a beat. I can’t leave, not yet. I came into this new sphere for a reason, and Orson Roth had no answers for me. All around in every alcove, a tiny light glitters—each one a soul containing some sort of aberration. But what are these aberrations? I have my suspicions, and I have a lead, but the thought of where that investigation may take me brings a shudder of trepidation.
“Qod?”
“Yes?”
“I need you to locate another soul for me. His name is Keitus Vieta.”
For my wife, Ruth, whose comedy sabotage of my manuscript has kept my feet firmly on the ground on many occasions. I could not have written this without you.
Published 2012 by Medallion Press, Inc.
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is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment from this “stripped book.”
Copyright © 2012 by Simon West-Bulford
Cover design by James Tampa
Edited by Lorie Popp Jones
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN# 9781605423937
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
Thanks must go to all the fantastic members of Write Club, particularly Jason Heim for hosting it. Also to Mlaz Corbier, Mark Grover, Anthony Jacques, Nicholas Karpuk, Alex Martin, and Bob Pastorella, whose critiquing skills, encouragement, and humour were invaluable. But extra applause is directed at Gordon Highland and Caleb Ross who threw themselves into every last word. Without them this novel would have been twice as large but only half as good.
I also want to thank my friends and family who shared in my excitement and encouraged me, always believing in me.
High praise and thanks must also go to Medallion Media, especially Emily Steele and Lorie Popp Jones who have been a joy to work with.
Thank you!
Is this my first thought?
My first memory?
From evil dream to warm flesh, enfolding me.
From deepest darkness to rose light of womb.
Mother breathing,
Forever scorning,
ONEThe beckon of my tomb.
W
hen I was a boy my smiling schoolteacher asked my class a very simple question: “What is the one thing in this world that we can all know as an undeniable certainty?”
The students looked at each other, smirking as they whispered their sarcastic remarks, but the grins soon fell when she spoke again. Not because she had brought her palm down hard on her desk when she revealed the answer. It was the tears in her eyes.
“One day every last one of you will die.”
I was the only person still smiling after she said that. I used to worry that it was the sight of other students in shock that amused me, but now I think it was something else, as if I had some peculiarity in my soul, sensing that this simple statement about the irrefutability of death was not true for me.
Eighty-four quadrillion years on as the last existing human and I still need to decide if it is true.
In the same way I have done on a billion separate moments, I stand inside the Calibration Sphere, huddled within my long charcoal-colored robes, staring at nothing. I have seen more, learned more, felt more, known more than ought to be possible for any human being, and every lucid moment is a struggle with the decision whether to end it all. Why then do I concern myself with such trivial details as the fact that there is no chair in here? But this sphere was never intended for humans to visit. It’s a cold place of ash-gray walls, harsh white light, and silence. At any one time the slowly revolving surfaces hold a billion digitally compressed souls—individual specks of remembered life—flickering as they undergo routine scans and maintenance.
There is only one empty slot left in the entire Soul Consortium—a lonely hollow amongst a host of souls—patiently waiting for my existence to end so it can be replaced with a blink of luminous data and categorized for insertion into a sphere beyond this one.
I can’t do it.
I tell myself it’s because everything will be wasted if there is nobody left, there is still more to be done, and life is too precious to discard, but those aren’t the real reasons. I can’t do it because I’m terrified. The thought of death has always filled me with such terrible dread that I can’t bear to face it. Immortality is a curse—a wonderful curse—and I cannot stand to kiss the Reaper’s hollow eye.
“Salem.” A low female voice breaks the silence. “The stars await your pleasure.”
I pause before answering, thinking about how many times I have heard that incorporeal voice, reminding me of how many millennia have passed without genuine company. Real flesh and blood to embrace. “Thank you.”
“Would you like me to take you there?” Qod says.
“Because you think I’m lazy or because you think I’ll miss something if I don’t hurry?” She would never really see my smile. “No, I think I’ll walk. I haven’t taken a stroll for, oh, seventy-three years now.”
“As you wish, but please visit the genoplant before making your way to the Observation Sphere.”
“Something wrong?”
“Seventeen cells in your right lung have atrophied, and two cells in your cerebellum are showing early signs of degradation. Transplants have been prepared for you in the genoplant.”
“Joy.”
Several lifetimes ago during one of my more sullen moments I asked Qod what would happen if I didn’t comply, if I allowed my body to fail. It was a petulant question born from a naive desire to end my life without the burden of decision. But there has always been something about Qod that drives me on, and besides, I know exactly what would happen if I were to sit back and wait for my body to fail. Preconditioned survival genes would kick in, taking control of motor function and higher reasoning, forcing me to accept the necessary treatment to keep my mind and body alive. I could no more control that than I could will my heart to stop beating. Not that I couldn’t override it, you understand—it was decided a long time ago, when the misery of perpetual living afflicted the human race with suicidal craving, that a human being could choose to die. With the simplicity of flicking a switch, one could end it all. And eventually everyone did.
