The Lightbringers by H. C. H. Ritz

Author:H. C. H. Ritz [Ritz, H. C. H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781938821325
Publisher: Grey Gecko Press
Published: 2016-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Wayne Webster Watts, from his underground book, 9 Lives:

Everything’s really about power. That’s the whole deal. Martha is a control freak. She’s got all the power, and she’ll never let it go. She preaches about taking responsibility, but did you ever notice that the actual instructions she gives you just make you more passive and more under her control? The day I broke out of that B.S. was the day I got some power of my own.

John Oldman got to his feet as soon as he could after the meditation ended and headed outside, trying to be quick and at the same time not draw attention to himself. He barely made it into the moonlit back yard before he fell apart.

He leaned against the wall and cried, his eyes squeezed shut but leaking tears anyway. The “stepping into the light” meditation had done a number on him. He had experienced peace of mind for perhaps the first time in his life.

The group he’d infiltrated previously, FPU, had had a charismatic leader full of surprising and impactful words, too—cults and terrorist cells always did—but this was different. Drew’s truth was truer, somehow.

Wiping away the tears, he tried to pull himself together. He was such a mess, he feared that if Drew or Chloe stepped outside, he would confess everything.

He pressed his hands to his temples. “All is good and right with the world,” he recited. “All is good and right with the world. All is good…” He stopped. The words made him nauseated.

He sat down on a nearby bench and tried to complete his daily visualization. Something in him rebelled, and the images fell into fragments, leaving him even more lost than when he’d started.

He struggled to gather his thoughts.

In the moments surrounding the DAA attack, he’d figured out that Nick was leaving with the cloaking device and wasn’t planning on handing it over. John had managed to trail behind the Lightbringers just long enough to give a few quick commands to the DAA agents: catch Nick and confiscate the device. But that might be a challenge, with Nick going invisible at will.

But Nick’s theft was a tangential issue. The main thing was that John had underestimated the revolutionaries, the sting had failed, and Drew had gotten away. But his cover was intact, so he had another chance.

It was another chance that, at this precise moment, he didn’t even want.

He had never liked his job, truth be told. A hundred times he had asked himself why he hadn’t become a taxi driver or opened a bakery instead. He was a feeler, after all.

He paced the yard and tried to calm down before someone came outside and found him in this state. He still had a job to do. This one experience didn’t—couldn’t—change anything, not really.

He used his subvocal communications implant to call his office. A weary-sounding agent answered. John had forgotten that it was four in the morning. Trying to sound casual, he asked about their efforts to find Nick. There were no results yet.

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