The Book of Eadie, Volume One of the Seventeen Trilogy Read online

  THE

  Book of Eadie

  SEVENTEEN

  VOLUME ONE

  Mark D. Diehl

  THE BOOK OF EADIE

  SEVENTEEN: VOLUME ONE

  Second Edition

  Copyright © 2018 by Mark D. Diehl

  PUBLISHER’S CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  (Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

  Diehl, Mark D., author.

  The Book of Eadie / Mark D. Diehl.

  Second edition. | [Cape Elizabeth, Maine] : [Fencetree Press], [2018] | Series: Seventeen ; v. 1

  ISBN: 978-1-7328199-0-0

  LCSH: Corporate power--Fiction. | Corporate state--Fiction. | Waitresses--Fiction. | Prophets--Fiction. | LCGFT: Science fiction. | Dystopian fiction.

  LCC PS3604.I3455 B66 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6--dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events, or places are purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people, or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.

  Author’s Note

  Institutions grow ever larger. Generation by generation, the compliant edge out the wild, and conformity and obedience to hierarchy are now our most important survival skills.

  To be integrated as components of the larger whole, we surrender our uniqueness, our compassion, and our willingness to stand for what is right. The most human among us become outcasts, because humanity is being cast out.

  As organizations conquer nature and expand, they leave nothing behind upon which individuals might live. In a world with depleted resources and increasingly concentrated political and economic power, the choice is clear: Surrender or die.

  We are evolving into a corporate species.

  “Mutation is the hand of God.”

  —The Prophet

  “Sometimes nature switches the order a little; that’s called a mutation.”

  —Dok Murray, Herbalist

  XVII

  VIXI

  (Latin)

  “I have lived”

  PART I

  1

  Zone IA1.16, formerly part of the Des Moines metropolitan area, now referred to colloquially as the Zone

  No matter what time you set, drug deals always go down late.

  Brian Fouts hid in the dark alley doorway, watching the reflection in the remaining sheet of glass in the building across Tsingtao Street. The long stream of ruddy-faced, drunken office workers stumbled along the gravel sidewalk before it, propositioned by hookers and hoods in the electric glow of bars and casinos. Unthinkingly, he patted his pocket where three gold coins pressed tightly against his thigh.

  They make you wait to do the deal because they think you risk more, being out here for a long time. Bullshit. It’s the waiting, the sweating, the watching your own back until you practically twist your damned head off; that’s what can keep you alive. Let it sink in, let it make you so twitchy and paranoid nobody can slip anything past you.

  He winced. The diner’s synthetic toast and Synapsate still churned in his stomach from two hours ago. Why had he stopped at that damned corporate feeding station? The food was terrible, the atmosphere was oppressively bland and the people were even worse.

  What was it about that waitress he’d seen through the diner window that had made him want to endure suburbanite stares just to get closer?

  Nothing, you brainless fuck. There was no magic about her, beyond youth and that way she moved, cautious and aggressive at the same time, like she couldn’t decide whether to wait for a fight to start or start one herself. That was sexy. But you went in there to pretend you were suburban again. It was stupid, simple nostalgia.

  The window that provided Brian his reflected view of the street belonged to a bar called Three Diamonds, or so claimed a flickering sign above it. A whore with long purple ringlets came running out of the place and a large man—no doubt one of the bar’s handlers, charged with keeping the girls in line—caught her easily within a few steps and slammed her to the ground as another man—the customer—emerged from the bar. The girl crawled backwards, shaking her head, but her handler yanked her forward by her hair and slapped her until she no longer resisted. When the customer approached, the handler guided her head to his crotch and forced her to kiss it.

  Not the kind of thing one sees in suburbia. But at least it’s real, this place, these people. No illusions. They are exactly what they seem to be.

  Suburbia isn’t real. The whole concept is a lie and a trap, a holding tank for those who don’t see everything falling apart.

  His own parents had been victims. Growing up, he had watched them working longer and longer hours, surrendering more of themselves to the company every day. They disappeared into their office roles until there was nothing left at home. It was a drawn-out spiritual suicide, trading away their souls in installments as they paid down the mortgage. When the last of the toxic plants failed and the expanding Great Midwestern Desert swallowed their little shitbox house, it left behind only a legacy of grit. By the time Brian had dropped out of school and walked away from his parents’ silent blank stares ten years ago, the chorus of whispers from grains against the glass had become a screaming crescendo: “They’re already dead and you’re next.”

  The end of the alley leading away from Tsingtao Street was obscured by purple shadows and a dank, shifting mist. There were still a few hours left before the sun crawled up and turned the city’s vapors to their daytime concrete gray. Brian rolled his shoulders and tried to pop some of the tension out of his neck, still breathing shallowly. The air in the Zone was always fuzzy with the stench of sewage.

  “Wait!” a younger salaryman slurred, laughing as he turned into the alley from Tsingtao. “Waitwaitwait, you guys. Can’t hold it anymore.” He was a typical Zone tourist: a Gold, of course, descended from the old races but genetically tweaked for easier diagnostics, better health and corporate compatibility. This one probably had a slight green tint to his pinkish-gold complexion from alcohol toxicity. Golds always turned green in the Zone.

  The businessman shuffled close. Brian slipped his hand behind his back, gripping the revolver tucked under his belt and retreating farther into the shadows of the doorway. The man’s friends continued up the street until their drunken voices faded into the Zone’s background clamor. They disappeared from the reflection as this one undid his pants. The piss hitting the wall just a few meters from Brian sounded like static, clearly audible over the jumble of music and voices.

  Two hoods came up fast from the crowd on the street, knocking the businessman to the ground. The sound of several hard kicks to his stomach, like bags of wet sand dropping on pavement, was followed by the victim’s pitiful, gasping moan. They rolled him around, reaching into his pockets. “One chip?” one hood said. “What kinda asshole comes to the Zone with one fucking chip?”

  “I got a ring,” the other hood said, yanking hard on the salaryman’s finger.

  “Ahh! No!” the pisser begged. He groaned as they kicked him again.

  They hoisted him up to his feet, pants sagging around his knees. “What else you got, shithead?”

  “That’s all,” the man said. “Been losing tonight.”

  One of them punched him in the gut. “You fucks always hide your chips. But I’m not gonna feel around your nutsack and up your asshole to get ’em, got it? You’re gonna give ’em to me, now.”

  “That’s all I have. No more. That’s all.”

  They grabbed his head, pointing it down the alley. “Know what’s that way? About three blocks more, that’s Fiend territory. You give us the chips now, maybe we won’t beat your ass an’
drag you down there. How long you think you gonna live in Fiend territory, shithead?”

  “No! All right. In my shoe. The sides of my left shoe. Six more chips. Please! Take them! Just let me go.”

  They punched him in the face and yanked at his feet, flipping him onto his shoulders and ripping both shoes off. “Six more, like shithead said. How ’bout that? Awright, shithead, get outta here ’fore we change our minds.”

  The businessman scrambled away, half-crawling, half-running back toward the lights, heaving back into the milling crowd shoeless and with his pants around his ankles. The hoods laughed and watched him go, then slipped back out onto Tsingtao. It was the only way to go. The other direction actually did lead to Fiend territory.

  The reflection showed three men moving through the crowd now, somber and sneering, the two on the sides pushing drunks out of the way for the mustachioed figure in the middle. Brian took a deep, fuzzy breath.

  They left one posted at the end of the alley, back far enough to stay unseen if not for the reflection in the glass across the street. The other two came straight down the middle of the alley.

  “Where you at, Spooky?” the one with the mustache called. The hulking, neckless one next to him pivoted his cylindrical head, searching the dark alley.

  Brian slipped toward them, silent.

  “Oh, Spoooky! This shit’s gettin’ old. We know you’re here. Where you at?” He lowered his voice, speaking to Cylinder Head. “Careful with this one. Watch him close, you got it?”

  “How’s this, Alfred?” Brian said from a few centimeters behind the two. “Is this close enough?” Both spun to face him. The man next to Alfred growled slightly, reflexively reaching under his jacket.

  “Heh,” Alfred said, glancing at Cylinder Head. “See? Spooky’s always like that. Sneakin’ around in the dark, real quiet. Nobody can follow this kid. He’s like a Fiend. That it, Spooky? You a Fiend?”

  Brian rolled his shoulders. “Let’s just do this, all right?”

  “Ooh. Spooky’s all about business. You got the coin, fuckstick?”

  Brian turned his palm over, revealing three gold coins. Alfred pinched one of the transparent discs, holding it up to the light from Tsingtao to peer at the tiny flakes sealed inside. He dropped it into a fist-sized specific gravity meter.

  “Let’s see what we got here,” Alfred said, making adjustments on a hologram instrument panel the machine projected “Gotta be careful, ’specially with Spooky. He’s got all the angles, this one.” He flipped his wrist, which made the hologram appear to knock Brian in the forehead. “Like his new game with his little playmate, Mister B.” Alfred glanced up at Brian. “Right?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, that’s cute. See, you know I can’t keep my eye on you, the way you go slipping around like a goddamn centipede an’ all that. But I been watching that pussy fuck, B, an’ I know he got himself a strain. And I know you been dealin’ with him.”

  Brian tightened his back and stomach muscles, hiding a shiver. “So?”

  “So I told you before. Market’s closed. It’s closed by the Feds, an’ it’s closed by me.” Alfred leaned closer, lowering his voice. “I can’t let you get a strain and start filtering your own junk. Pretty soon all seventeen billion people on the planet’d be doin’ that. Why you think there’s a street price when anybody could grow his own happy germs? I thought you were smart enough to know you can’t get away with that, Spooky.”

  Brian dropped his right hand slightly behind him. “Look, I—”

  “It’s all right,” Alfred said. “You ignored my warning, tried to set up your own little thing, cut me out … I get it. It’s all right, ’cause you’re gonna make it all right.”

  Brian’s fingers stretched cautiously toward his gun, the action hidden by the darkness and the angle of his body. “Oh?”

  Alfred’s grin was too toothy for a sneer. “Got a new strain of bac, makes somethin’ different. Suspension turns pink. Powder’s white but the crystals are tiny … Gonna take over the streets, I’m sure. Problem is, I don’t know what it does, exactly.”

  Brian made an exaggerated shrug, reaching up for the gun. “Then I guess you’d better get yourself a lab rat—”

  Cylinder Head leaned toward him, blowing hard into his palm. Brian gasped, sucking powder into his mouth and nose.

  “Grab him!” Alfred said.

  Brian coughed and tried to draw a breath but it only pulled the powder deeper into his lungs. There was no air in them to cough the stuff back out. He bent at the waist, reaching for his gun as Cylinder Head took a handful of his shirt at the shoulder and shoved an automatic under his face. Brian held his breath, brought his revolver up below the man’s chin and pulled the trigger twice, the double report of the blasts echoing around the alley as the head emptied skyward and rained down as a greasy, fine mist. There was no time to wipe his eyes, no time to breathe. The man they’d left on Tsingtao would be next because Alfred would have to drop the meter to reach for a weapon. The veins in Brian’s face and neck throbbed hot with need for oxygen but he steadied himself without a breath, zeroing in on this third man, who was already leveling his own gun. Brian was faster, his revolver erupting but missing, spider-webbing the window across the street, clicking on a dud shell, then firing another live one that connected with his target’s chest. Alfred aimed toward Brian’s head but Brian’s shot ripped into Alfred’s throat. Brian spun back toward Tsingtao in case the other man was still standing, but he wasn’t.

  Brian sputtered and coughed. He wiped his face on a sleeve and spat out as much of the bitter dust as he could. He plugged a nostril and blew. He switched sides and did it again, but the stuff had already entered his bloodstream.

  The world shifted. Brian stumbled, struggling to keep his feet under him. Sounds from Tsingtao were slow and twisted but the gunfire had cleared a space in the street. Whatever this shit did, he couldn’t stand around here waiting for it to work. He had to get off the streets, had to find help, right now. Still clutching the remaining two coins and the gun, Brian ran from the alley.

  Williams household, in the Pine Valley suburb

  Lawrence Williams, VII swept his dark hair back from his forehead, staring at the text that seemed projected in the air in front of him. He needed a haircut; it was past regulation length for his school.

  He rubbed his eyes and opened his mind, reaching out for the part of the web that served as his own personal computer, redirecting it away from the endless chatter of his many thousands of acquaintances. Even six years after he had earned his microscopic efficiency implant at thirteen, the EI remained his most prized possession. His parents had authorized it when it had become clear that Lawrence was talented and disciplined enough to eventually attend a corporate university and join the ranks of administrators.

  “Betty?” he said, out loud. It was easier to connect that way.

  “Yes, sir?” the EI’s female voice answered inside his mind, breathy and deep.

  “Display popular music, Betty. Ages fifteen to twenty, top twenty.” Music eased his withdrawal from the social interactions, lessening the pull from jokes, games, live fighting, sex, and the rest of the universe.

  “Sir, you set me to remind you that your homework is of paramount importance and that music is more distracting than helpful. Every year fifteen percent of your class will fail and be expelled from the institution, never to be offered professional commissions with McGuillian Corporation—”

  “I know, Betty. Music, now.”

  His homework blinked out, replaced by a list of top songs and the companies that had produced them.

  Lawrence sighed. “Just play number one,” he said.

  “Sir, you set me to remind you that selecting music is a waste—”

  “Yes, Betty. Proceed. And display personal file six seventy-three.”

  Though the room remained silent, his EI stimulated his brain, creating soft electronic sounds only his mind could hear.
A psychoholographic video Lawrence had secretly recorded for himself played: A waitress moved from table to table in the diner he frequented with his friends. She wore a pink uniform with a short flouncy skirt. A slow, folksy, synthetic-male-voice chant began:

  Go on, file your grievance

  and you’re gonna see hence

  it’s your mistreating

  that led to this evening …

  The waitress was maybe a year or two younger than Lawrence, though it was difficult to tell for sure. She was of medium height, with shoulder-length blonde hair and a distracted smile, and she moved with a vigilant, deliberate grace.

  He had barely spoken to her, yet he found himself strangely and increasingly obsessed with the girl and her simple little life. Where did she live? What did she do when she wasn’t at work? Did she remember him from the diner at all? He found his own preoccupation uncomfortable and almost annoying. It felt wrong to think of her. But McGuillian owned and operated the diner like it owned and operated Fisher University, making her his colleague, in a way. It was okay to wonder about coworkers’ lives, wasn’t it?

  “Betty,” Lawrence said. “Enhance visual. Filter full-spectrum recording through infrared night vision parameters.”

  The image became grainier and the colors faded to shades of black, white and grey, but the new heat-signature image traced her young body almost perfectly. He watched her defined limbs, her full breasts with wide areolas. When she turned just right he could even make out the soft folds between her legs.

  “Sir,” Betty said. “You set me to remind you that your homework file has been closed for fifteen minutes. ‘Fifteen minutes, fifteen percent,’ you instructed me to repeat.”

  “Okay, Betty,” Lawrence said. “Switch visual. Overlap a half-transparent copy of … Corporate Citizenship homework file. Mode: Outline. Letters and numbers.”