Quantum

Quantum

Copyright 2017 David Petrey

Published by David Petrey at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

About David Petrey

Other books by David Petrey

Connect with David Petrey

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Kay Jones for reading my material and offering thoughtful critique.

Chapter One

#

Søren felt himself fall. He flung out his arms, his hands clawing desperately in an attempt to reach out for anything in the complete darkness surrounding him to help stop his descent. He gave a short cry before heavily breathing inwards as if having just surfaced from beneath water. He wasn’t falling; that had been confined to his dream which was now merging with reality in his half sleeping state.

Taking back his flailing arms he quickly pulled himself upright. Thick streaks of burgundy trickled their way down his vision. Blood. His heart was thumping in rapid succession against its ribbed prison as if trying to escape the horror from within him. A cool glistening of sweat enveloped his skin and he gave an involuntary shiver. The bloody vision before his eyes melted away as he fully awoke from his disturbed slumber. Still he slowly rubbed his hands down his face and checked his palms just to make sure it had indeed been a dream. Only then did he try and breathe more steadily to help calm his heightened anxiety. He swallowed with laboured effort, his heavy tongue rasping against the dryness of his palate.

Sensing that Søren was awake, the dorm-capsule he lay cocooned within gradually increased the light intensity, along with an adjustment to the ambient temperature and humidity in an effort to bring his physical state back to a homeostatic norm. It proved a wasted effort though. Søren couldn’t detach his thoughts from what had transpired yesterday. Additionally he had recorded the entire thing. So now with a whole day’s vacation to fill because of the events at work he was left to stew over the same repeating thoughts that had haunted his dreams, but each time with subtle changes so that he now wasn’t sure exactly what had transpired. Some perverse impulse overcame him and accessing yesterday’s file through his ocular implant he began replaying the day over again.

#

Søren left his apartment. A mixed sense of excitement alongside anticipation coursed through him at the prospect of the first day in his first job. Stepping into the clinically white corridor a call came through to his OculoWave Comms implant. Søren scanned the prelim-message; the beaming smile of a company representative was offering to act as his personal guide. He declined the offer with a pre-programmed ‘thanks, but no thanks’. The guy at the other end looked genuinely hurt, near suicidal, as if having failed at the one and only responsibility entrusted to him. It was enough to make Søren reconsider. He was too soft, and reasoned to himself that his would-be guide probably wasn’t even real anyway, just an algorithm of over-friendly helpfulness, designed to respond to any topic of conversation Søren could spout. He hesitated, this new thought almost making him change his mind yet again, just to see how difficult it would actually be to get round the programming. But after second thoughts he decided to leave the caller to snooze in digital limbo. He wanted to make his own way to work and could hardly get lost with his implant guiding his every step anyway. In the past his life had been contained within the School. Now with an apartment and a new job every recent experience seemed like a bit of an adventure.

Making his way to the Magvac shuttle terminal at the end of his sterile corridor he stood and awaited an available ride. A sign informing of the current Sector he was standing within was the only decoration along the entire corridor. He considered augmenting his view, giving the place some personal character each time he made his way to and from his apartment, visible to his eyes alone. Scanning through some options he chose a woodland scene. Trees immediately sprung up along the corridor. The occasional bird was programmed to flit in and out of view. And even an animal appeared from behind a tree. His Comms identified it as a deer and asked whether he would like more info on the animal. He declined.

Behind him a sound chimed. His Comms informed him that a one-person capsule had arrived, to take him on his way through the maze of tubes that twisted their way through the very fabric of society. The shuttle’s doorway opened with a recompressed hiss. Søren reset his vision and the corridor melted back to white. Turning to the shuttle, the surroundings he entered appeared as equally bare to those which he was leaving. The shuttle immediately requested permission to access his Comms implant, or failing that a non-implanted Personal Electronic Device. The alternative was the manual display in front of him, the only form of decoration to be found within the shuttle. Søren granted the capsule access to his implant and it synced with his own navigation system. He had already decided his route, wanting to be taken up and over the Sector. Having never held the privilege to access all these upper levels before he planned to make full use of the view before becoming desensitised to it all.

‘Please take a seat,’ his ride politely instructed.

He did as told whereupon it locked him firmly into place before finally disengaging from the terminal and instantly whisking him on his way. A faint humming fell upon his ears as the shuttle proceeded on its friction-free way through the airless magnetic tube.

Søren set the recording of his journey to fast-forward, condensing the already rapid five hundred miles-per-hour journey to more like a five thousand miles-per hour one that vanished in seconds. The route he had purposefully chosen carried him through a part of the network that ran outside; up and above the urban sprawl which moved by below him in a blur of uniformity, except for the sight of the quoQuantum tower, the headquarters of his new employer, a rising sentinel that stood above everything else. As the capsule reached its destination Søren returned his view to normal speed.

Dismounting his ride he was presented with the huge transparent domed hub of quoQuantum’s grand entrance. It was designed to impress with its gargantuan dimensions that were filled with absolutely nothing; pure decadence when space was such a prized commodity. Edging forward the small mobiTile platform he stepped onto began to shift itself and with his head tilted skywards at the view he almost fell over. It traversed across the room to its centre. The openness of the surroundings overwhelmed and Søren instinctively reached out to grab the stool centred upon the moving platform to help steady his balance. A collective stream of others were also being moved progressively inwards upon their own tiles as if the tower was leisurely ingesting everyone for its breakfast. Relatively few people were escaping in the opposite direction.

Continuing his gawp at the expansive surroundings Søren gave a smile as he thought over his new life. He and his friends had joked about this day back at the School, when they would eventually sell their souls. But it was the reason they had all been chosen by such an esteemed educational establishment. All of them were to inevitably end up working in research for one of the big Corporations. Focusing his eyes upwards he was met with the sight of the qQ tower spiraling above him. Clouds greyed the sky above so rather than being the glistening beacon the tower was usually portrayed as in promo material, it looked more like a jagged tooth rising up menacingly to take a bite from the heavens.

Feeling light-headed he finally took some weight off his legs by propping himself against the stool he had been clasped to like a barnacle. The action initiated a greeting from an attached transparent screen. It was Sumi, quoQuantum’s familiar digital representative. She appeared in most qQ ads and Søren, like most others, found her familiar appearance a comfort. He always wondered if she had ever actually been a real person rather than a fictional character dreamt up one day in a marketing meeting. He liked to think there was a two hundred-year-old Sumi sat within a darkened room, vocal chords perfectly preserved, still providing the voice recordings for her character even now.

‘Welcome to quoQuantum, bringing you the future today,’ Sumi began to beam her propaganda at him. ‘My name is Sumi and I offer my assistance in any way I can. For starters, please may I have your identification?’

He offered his digital signature.

‘A very warm welcome, Doctor Zalys,’ Sumi lit up.

Søren cringed. Just being accepted into the School gave him that title. He didn’t warrant being called Doctor though. He had yet to contribute what he considered significant research to the world. Sumi continued, unaware of his discomfort.

‘As this is your first visit to the quoQuantum HeadQuarters let me provide you with a plan showing your current location and where you will be personally received by the President. Please follow the route I have delineated. It’s easy to get lost here.’

Søren knew fine well that the current mobiTile he was riding upon would take him all the way to his destination so there was no chance of getting lost. And even if he tried to step off someone would be right there to guide him on course once more. Not that he had reason to veer off anywhere else. And there had been the promise of a breakfast at his destination which his stomach reminded him it was looking forward to with a gurgle. The map would come in handy in the future no doubt.

He scanned his route, marked in red like a major blood vessel snaking its way through the tower’s innards. It travelled some distance up. The journey would take a while. Sumi seemed attuned to a growing inner boredom.

‘Can I interest you in a variety of channels to browse? You may wish to purchase from our exclusive employee shopping channel, offering discounts unavailable elsewhere?’

For a nanosecond it sustained Søren’s interest, making him wonder what he could possibly buy that the Corporation hadn’t already supplied in his apartment. But with shopping being of no real interest he changed his mind and just shook his head, which his Comms interpreted for Sumi as a polite ‘No thanks.’

‘Ok,’ she continued, undeterred by his disinterest. ‘How about an informative insight into quoQuantum’s past?’

Søren smiled. Sumi’s programming was better than that of the welcome he had received outside his apartment, which had given up at the first ‘no’. She had recognized he wasn’t interested in shopping, so the offer of light entertainment had already been by-passed. Instead she had skipped straight to the boring documentaries, something that might just interest a crusty researcher such as himself. He nodded, with his Comms accepting the offer. It would be good to get to know the Corporation a bit better.

‘Excellent choice,’ Sumi commended him. Would she have said the same about shopping? She vanished to be replaced by a video feed hailing, ‘quoQuantum: Bringing you the future today.’ Søren had a feeling he would quickly grow tired of hearing this.

#

‘Muck out the stables and then get to the milkin’, lad,’ rumbled the baritone command from indoors.

‘Yes father,’ came the obedient reply from Seth upon leaving the farmhouse for the first time that day.

Dawn was just breaking. The young man stepped out to greet a fresh summer morning. The smell of damp and wholesome, life-bearing earth hit his senses along with the tang of manure that he would swiftly grow accustomed to. Beside the entrance he knelt to pick up a well-worn boot from a pair left there overnight. Lifting it well above his head he then swung it down, hitting the ground heavily to help dislodge the clods of red mud caked upon it, the same action also being applied to the other of the pair. Yesterday’s work mending fences in the rain had been tough. It had certainly been a storm to remember. Seth was surprised the river banks had held; thankful that they had. A flood meant loss of crops, loss of animals, more damage and more hard work.

A cockerel crowed across the awakening farmyard. ‘Late as usual,’ Seth thought as he pulled on his weather-stained boots and proceeded to the stables. But spying his little sister Elisabeth at her bedroom window just below the thatched eaves of the cottage he stuck his tongue in good-humour. Seeing her giggle she then pulled her head back behind the curtains. He stopped and waited, their morning ritual as regular as the rain, knowing she would eventually peep her head back into view once again. She did, and he stuck his tongue out once more. Fits of unheard laughter came from behind the window pane, his imagination adding the peals of delight he had come to cherish over the years. He gave a small salute, which she dutifully returned, before crossing the yard to begin the regular pattern of a day’s work on the farm.

A couple of hours later, with the worst of the back-breaking behind him, a hot, summer morning was now in full control of the day, and Seth was feeling the heat. Beads of sweat lined his brow soaking his mouse-brown hair at the edges, which stuck to his temple like dampened moss. Thirstily he left the stable on the hunt for a drink and spied Elisabeth feeding the chickens with scraps of burnt bread. He paced over to the feeding frenzy and scratched the ground with a boot, making a clucking noise whilst folding his hands under his armpits. This encouraged laughter from his sister and she threw a morsel of bread in his direction. He bent forward pretending to peck at the offering but leaned that bit too far and lost his balance. Rolling forward into the feeding crowd he set in motion a chaotic flapping and squawking as the chickens scattered in all directions. Squeals of laughter burst from the little girl whilst also shielding her face from the flurry of feathers.

‘Silly chicken,’ she scolded playfully as the temporary act of excitement subsided.

Seth leapt to his feet and ran towards Elisabeth who shrieked at being scooped into the air and swung round and round and round, her legs dangling freely. Carefully placing Elisabeth back on her dizzy feet he looked up to notice Violet standing in the yard observing their play. Time froze for Seth and he could do nothing but gaze helplessly into Violet’s sparkling sapphire eyes; study her sweet, ruby lips and yearn to gently sweep back her crimson hair and kiss her long, slender neck…

‘Good morning Seth; morning Elisabeth,’ Violet greeted them, interrupting Seth’s fantasies. She gave a sly suggestive smile which only sent Seth even further into a fluster.

‘Morning Violet,’ Elisabeth chirped.

‘Er, mornin’ Miss Violet,’ Seth stammered, pulling himself free from her enchantment and patting down his dust covered overalls in a futile attempt to smarten his appearance. ‘What brings you here so early?’

Violet cast a sideward glance at his words, with a slight frown creasing her near-perfect complexion.

‘Didn’t ya pa tell ye? I’m here to help with the milking.’ she replied.

‘Trust pa to embarrass me so,’ Seth thought, but mumbled, ‘It musta slipped my mind.’ He instantly regretted his words. How could he possibly forget something as important as a visit from Violet? So he added rather unconvincingly, ‘I mean, I knew you would be shortly arriving but I have been busily undertaking work all morning so unfortunately I temporarily forgot.’

Violet smiled, holding back a laugh. ‘With such big words filling your head I’m not surprised you be forgettin’, Mister Seth, Sir.’

Seth went red. He had overdone it, trying to sound important like his father at market. But Violet was only teasing.

‘Well then, let’s get to it,’ she announced.

‘Oh,’ Seth said somewhat downcast. ‘I just need to finish in the stables first.’

‘You mean you haven’t finished yet?’ Violet mocked light-heartedly. ‘Then you’d best hurry along or I’ll be ‘busily undertaking’ all the milkin’ alone.’

‘I’ll get to it right away,’ he replied with urgency, not wanting to miss out on Violet’s company. With a polite nod of his head he took his leave and dashed back to the stables to lay fresh hay, forgetting completely his earlier thirst.

Once Seth had rushed through his task he hastened his way to the cowshed, passing Elisabeth on the way.

‘Taking Moll and Sooty for a walk,’ Elisabeth told him. Moll was Elisabeth’s ragdoll; Sooty being a jet-black pup that she had acquired recently. Born the runt of the littler, and with a mild limp making it utterly worthless as a farm dog, there proved little doubt no-one would even buy it as a pet. So like the solution to the ever-expanding population of feral kittens the situation cried out for a tightly-knotted sack and the duck pond. But Elisabeth had taken to it and wouldn’t allow them to kill the poor wretch so she had adopted it on the spot. Not even their practical-minded father had the heart to deny his little girl.

‘Don’t go wandering too far,’ Seth called after his sister as she skipped down the dirt track swinging Moll in hand and Sooty bounding at her heels. Seth headed into the shelter and was greeted by a smile from Violet that could surely calm even the hardest of Winter storms. With a stupid grin upon his lucky face Seth felt himself lured towards his Siren.

The sun rode on all too quickly that morning for the pair, with less work and more chatter and laughter coming from the cowshed.

‘Those animals won’t milk themselves,’ a chastising voice came from the entrance-way.

‘Sorry father,’ Seth replied and lowered his head to continue the work.

‘Plenty of time for that nonsense at the Midsummer festival,’ Seth’s father added with an all too obvious wink before turning and heading off. Seth blushed a hue of bright scarlet. His father had managed to embarrass him in front of Violet for the second time today now. Violet just looked down into her milking bucket and chuckled silently. For Seth, his father’s words brought back a happy reminder of things to come. He was eagerly awaiting Midsummer. The food, the laughter, the dancing, chasing Violet through the fields of growing wheat. Could life get any better? Of course it could, because it was at the festival that Seth planned to ask Violet’s father for her hand in marriage.

Lunchtime came and Seth’s father returned, inviting Violet to dine with them. ‘Where’s that sister of yours skipped off to?’ he asked Seth.

‘Isn’t she back yet? She just went to take the pup for a walk. She can’t have gone too far. I’ll go find her,’ Seth said.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Violet suggested with a smile. ‘Two pairs of eyes are better than one.’

The couple set off strolling hand in hand down the track Elisabeth had trodden earlier.

‘I think she’ll have made her way around the woods,’ Seth told Violet. ‘She’d have been too scared to venture in.’

So they followed the river as they advanced around the trees, every so often calling Elisabeth’s name. The going was slow thanks to the recent heavy rain making the terrain muddy underfoot. Yet after almost an hour of searching along the river, trying not to think the worst as they stared into the muddy, high-flowing water, no trace of Elisabeth could be detected so they decided to double back along the other side