Adaptation - Part 1 by Jeremy Tyrrell - HTML preview

Afterword

Thank you for reading Adaptation – Part I. I truly hope that you enjoyed reading, as much as I have enjoyed writing it, but, really, the story is only just getting started. The stage has been set, and both Ottavio and Ryan will need to face the consequences of their choices. Things certainly cannot be left up in the air, as it were.

Join me in the rest of Adaptation. As a taste, here is the start of the next leg of Ryan's path:

“We have two paths that we may choose:

Struggle up the mountain to join the stars,

Or slide back down to the jagged rocks.”

- Father Abraham

Grow and decay. A paradox, each must precede the other for life to continue. Given any point in time, there will be equal amounts of each, growth and decay, as a carnivore feeds off the carcass of an herbivore, or as bacteria thrive on the rotting remains of an eagle, long since fallen from grace.

Ryan wondered, as he stared at the ceiling, whether the amount of life in the universe was a constant. Energy, he reasoned, could not be created, nor destroyed, merely manifest itself in various forms. Momentum, too, could be shown to be constant in a system.

Life, that surging, rippling, bubbling stuff, could behave the same way, surely.

It never stopped moving about and rearranging itself, giving the illusion of limitlessness. But Ryan knew better. He could see behind the shroud. With life came death to make way for yet more life. Grow and decay. Grow and decay.

Humanity, then, was an attempt at monopolizing the share of this thing called Life over other species. That sounded trivial. Perhaps it was.

Perhaps the virtues of humanity, its society and art, were merely tools developed to further its advance, in just the same way as tigers had claws and bulls had horns. Growth.

But horns only grew because of the need to defend a beast from a foe with teeth. Now that the foe had been vanquished, humanity would certainly lose that which it had fought so hard to develop.

The arts would atrophy, religion would wane, society would crumble, and man would recline into a technologically induced slumber, content that it had won its battle in this small pocket of the universe. Decay.

Life was unfair. It had to be. He looked down and found that he was clenching his fist.

Ryan got off the bed, shaved and washed his face, daring to look in the mirror. His eyes stared back, steeled and ready. No longer did he care for the lives that he had slaughtered.

Brother Marcus was right. Brother Holland was right. Father Abraham was right. To be as strong as he needed to be, to be the man to change history, he had to do away with his conscience. What was it, anyway? Yet another tool to aid people to get along with other people, to stop societies from imploding.

He was better than that, stronger than that. His conscience did not rule him. In the society he would build, there would be no place for such absurdities.

So long ago he had thrust it to the bottom of his stomach, covered in gastric juices and other biological stuff, where it belonged. He could do it again. Father Abraham would be proud to call him his own.

He would be a Director, he would be brave enough to save humanity, and he would show the Vigils the error of their ancient, outdated ideologies.

It was time to grow up, he decided, it was time to leave the child behind and experience life as an adult. Puberty was not all that great, anyway, what with the hormones and emotions and strange ideas.

If there was some kind of definitive moment defining when he began walking as a man, he had not experienced it yet. He did not feel that age was a true guide. What were years, anyway?

Nor could it be some cataclysmic moment, otherwise every child would need to experience it.

It was his birthday today, not that anyone knew, and he had always thought that when he reached his twentieth milestone, he would feel magically different, transformed, like a moth from a caterpillar.

Only he did not feel that way. He felt like he did yesterday, which was pretty much how he felt the day before that.

He slumped. It was, then, merely a gradual transition from one to the other. Like a pot slowly warming, there was no exact point when it left warm and reached a simmer. He wondered if it was possible that he might never grow up, that, due to circumstances or lack thereof, he would remain in his adolescence forever, waiting for the chance to prove his mettle.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he got dressed and walked to the door of his dormitory. Enough time had been wasted wondering about things that could not be answered.

The door hissed and blew cold plumes of mist about him as the humidity in his room touched the chilly air outside. Thermally camouflaged, the main areas of the Directors' stronghold were kept cold with respect to ambient temperatures making it appear like an innocent subterranean waterway to any nosey satellites or geoscanners.

He marched along, chest out, feeling the icy chill against his neck. He resisted the urge to tighten his jumper, preferring instead to let the cold remind him that he was not subject to fearing the elements. He was above such base concerns.

Kahira, her dark, smooth face contrasting against her white pullover, came up stealthily behind him and matched his stride easily. She had long legs, a tall frame, and she put it to use. Against her he looked and felt very much like a child.

“So, you've emerged at last. You had better not mistake this as a holiday resort, boy!” she scolded, “Time flows within these walls the same as it does on the outside.”

“I was lost in contemplation. Sorry, Kahira, I did not know that I was on a schedule otherwise I would have readied myself earlier.”

Kahira lit up a cigarette and directed Ryan along the corridor. A few strange faces here and there watched as they went.

“There is no schedule, at least not yet. Father Abraham has expressed his desire to meet with you again before you are formally introduced to the rest of the family. But that doesn't mean you can lie about all day until required,” she said.

“Of course. I keep my mind trim, and my body taught.”

She wheeled, “And you can keep your silly Vigil idioms to yourself!”

On the other side of the coin, Ottavio wakes up to his situation:

“A secret grows when its roots are covered.”

• Wisdom of the Vigils

Ottavio felt tired. Extraordinarily tired. His muscles and myoactuators protested painfully as he lowered himself onto his arms and crawled wearily into bed.

He thought back over the day, of Penelope and Cassandra and the escape, of Sister Hanifé, the assault at the house and the chase through the suburbs.

Out from the transport he had been put through some kind of decontamination area, allowed to wait in a holding cell, complete with an auto-turret for company. Finally he had been brought through a long hall, led to a small room and instructed to sleep.

He did not need to be told. Gladly he took to his cot, covered himself roughly with a blanket and closed his eyes. His optical display faded quietly as he lay back, trying not to think and yet thinking of everything at once. Within a few minutes he was in a fitful asleep.

His dreams were violent. They were full of faces and eyes looking back at him. Some he knew, some he did not. As he turned away from one, he was presented with another.

Ali's beetroot red cheeks were swallowed by Cassandra's own mournful eyes. Simon pushed her out of the way and clenched his fist in rage.

Simon! He dominated the scene, swearing and cursing as he flipped his blade this way and that, keen to take Ottavio on in a fight. He pranced about, advancing on Ottavio, pushing him further down a flight of stairs.

At the bottom was a basement, with Emily tied up, bloodied and beaten, hanging over a pile of rags. Emily's body was messily rendered to pieces by Simon as he danced this way and that, laughing at each lunge of his short sword.

Ottavio turned away in horror to see Lucas, far off, looking through the mass of faces, sporting his super sniper rifle. He frowned with disdain, fired and caught Ottavio square in the chest. He fell backwards in pain, thrashing about in the sea of people who were milling about him.

He turned back around to see Cassandra hanging in Emily's place, pleading for Simon to stop as he took his blade to her throat. Blood trickled from her side as everyone watched, some cheering, others howling, others crying.

One face did not scowl, or cry, or snarl. One face stood out from the throng.

One face, Miss Penelope's, watched him with a divine serenity, a beautiful calmness. She breathed, and as she did blew away all round him, until there was nothing left but herself.

“Trust in the Lady,” said a voice, distant but clear.

He awoke with a start. Sister Hanifé was standing before him, holding a tray. Her face did not betray anything of what she was thinking.

“You have slept enough, I think,” she said.

“How long?”

“Long enough. Now take this and eat it,” she said, handing the tray to him roughly, “You will feel refreshed.”

She was right. He ate a plate of warm stew, followed by a long drink of fresh water. It made a change from the calorie and protein controlled dietary supplements he was fed back at Houston. The taste, for one, and the presence of real vegetables for another.

His optical display noted the slow increase in available nutrients.

“Thank you,” he said, finishing off the bowl, “Really, Hanifé. Thank you. I know you risked your neck out there.”

“Reserve your thanks for the Lady Penelope if you are ever blessed to see her again,” she said, “For it was she who brought all this about. You are now safe, in my care. And now I will tell you what you wish to know. Here.”

You can get Adaptation in parts, 1 through to 6, or as the compendium with all six volumes. Visit your favorite bookstore, online platform or www.jtyrrell.com for more.