Five Deadly Rebels: A Kung Fu Sci-Fi Novel by Ian Tuason

Author:Ian Tuason [Tuason, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DimensionGate Inc.
Published: 2023-07-18T04:00:00+00:00

An End to Omniscience

Mickey jolts up from the bed, sweating, waking from a dream of crashing through a windshield, and immediately slaps his palm on the top of his head, feeling for a wound. He looks at his hand—clean. The mattress springs creak as he spins around, eyeing the tiny bedroom with pinkish walls, his mask, newsboy cap and clothes hanging from a chair beside the bed.

He wonders for a moment if he’s dead, and if this is heaven, but then he hears Buck snoring through the walls and decides he’s either alive, or maybe in hell.

The hardwood is cold at his feet as he sets off to explore outside the room. He notices that the boxers and tank top he’s wearing have been washed, smelling of lemon-scented fabric softener.

“Oi?” Mickey peaks out into the dark hallway ending in a tiny washroom one way, and a kitchen the other way.

Mickey wobbles towards the kitchen, still drowsy, and sees Mrs. Nakamoto, her back turned to him. She’s staring out a window facing the side of another house, and Mickey recognizes her short, plump frame under her kimono and her gray hair tied tight in a bun.

“Mrs. Nakamoto?” Mickey says under the archway into the kitchen, but she doesn’t respond. Mickey moseys over to her side, glad to see her, wondering if the Master is in the house, too.

“Mrs. Nakamoto,” Mickey smiles at her side, but she still doesn’t respond. Her eyes are locked on something outside the window, a slight grin on her lips.

“I can calculate the destiny of every civilization and individual in this world,” the Master says from the carpeted living room beyond another archway leading out of the kitchen. He’s sitting in a cushioned armchair facing away from Mickey. The worn-out chair looks as if it was bought from a thrift store. Mickey eyes the back of the Master’s bald, turquois head, his cat lying snuggled between his shoulder and the back cushion of the chair. Buck is snoring like a woodchipper on a sofa beside him. “I can calculate that my cat will jump from my shoulder in twenty seconds from now, stretch, then jump onto the windowsill to lick her right paw and brush it over her right ear, doing this three times. I can calculate the result of every action and reaction in this world to the exact second, yet I can’t remember my own wife’s face.”

And then the cat jumps from his shoulder, arches her back in a big stretch, and hops onto the windowsill at the front of the living room to groom herself.

Mickey ambles into the living room, the carpet warm at his feet, and stands just over the Master’s shoulder.

“I’ve tried many times to code Akiko perfectly, installing all her memories from her childhood to our wedding, her genetic design, her complete psychological profile, but I could never design her face perfectly. Something was always slightly off, like the curl of her smile, or the squint in her eyes, even the tilt of her head when she looked at me.

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