Din Eidyn Corpus (Book 2): dEaDINBURGH (Alliances)

dEaDINBURGH:

Alliances

by

Mark Wilson

Edinburgh, Scotland

 
2051

Jack

Noticing light breaking through the gap in his curtains, Jack squinted at his Holo-Screen, blinking the fog from his eyes. Seven a.m.

He’d been playing the
dEaDINBURGH: Lair of The Ringed
video game since midnight, when the feed had been cut from the live show. He flicked his finger across the air in front of him, causing the UKBC screen to pop up. The countdown until the feed re-connected sat at 00:15. Just fifteen more minutes until they had the show back in full High-Def Holo-Image. Jack saved his progress and kicked at the desk in front of him, sending his ergonomic chair scooting backwards through the pile of empty energy drink cans and takeaway boxes littered across the carpet of his living room.

Scratching at his crotch with his right hand, he lifted his left arm and sniffed at his arm-pit, screwing his face up at the sourness.
Should have time for a shower if I get a move on.

Jack stood with a groan in protest at the crack of his knees. It’d been a while since he’d had quite so long a session on the game. Scooping a handful of Cheesy-Puffs off the desk and into his mouth, he headed to the apartment’s little shower cube.

As he sang from the shower, the dEaDINBURGH theme began blasting from the surround-sound speakers, eliciting a whoop of delight from him as he barrelled from the bathroom, not bothering to dry himself, body wobbling back into his still-warm chair.

Leaning forward he made a little gesture to enlarge the screen and scanned the info-bar along the bottom of the page to catch any updates. There were too many to read so Jack flicked a finger at the Holo-Screen, bringing up a highlights reel on a smaller screen within the main one. Whilst the main screen flickered into life, he jerked his eyes to the highlights feed, gleaning everything he could about what had happened to his favourite
Survivors
during the feed-loss.

Suzy Wheels, Danny McGhee and Jennifer Shephard, his main characters, were all more or less where they’d been when the feed had cut twelve hours earlier. Jack flicked at the screen a few more times, bringing up images of one of the less popular and least-covered
Survivors
he’d been following.

Joey MacLeod’s face filled the frame. Jack liked this kid. He’d begun to get a little more airtime recently, mostly because he’d been in a few scraps with Zoms of late. Jack remembered him fondly from the episodes where he’d left The Brotherhood a few years back, with the old Padre. Those were amongst some of the most unexpected and emotional scenes he’d ever watched and he’d replayed them many times in his mind’s eye, lying in bed.

Padre Jock had been a favourite of Jack’s as a kid. As a Zom-Hunter and one of the most colourful characters on the show. He’d had a huge chunk of airtime over the years and had consistently been in the
Survivors’
top ten chart for over twenty years. When he’d been killed by Bracha, Jack had shed a few tears for the old man. For Jack’s generation, who’d grown up watching him, Padre Jock was as intricately tied to the show as its theme tune.

Three years later, Jack still felt grief whenever he looked at one of the many images of Jock on mugs, posters, T-shirts and other merchandise around his home. Jack had a massive poster of Jock over his bed. It depicted a scene from the show with a young Jock, blades flashing, silencing five Zombies. It bore the legend:
Running rings around The Ringed.

One of Jack’s online friends had a tattoo on his cheek in the shape of the characteristic Ring o’ Roses rash of The Ringed. Despite being into its third decade of transmission, dEaDINBURGH showed no signs of losing popularity, and if anything it had gained more viewers than ever. In part this was because of Jock’s protégé Joey and his best friend, Alys Shephard. Quite simply she was the most skilled combatant the dead city had.

Many of Jock’s fans had now latched onto the eighteen year old he’d trained out of the need for a connection to the familiarity of the Padre. Aside from that, they’d grown to know and love Joey during his time with Padre Jock. Many more had chosen Alys as their new prime
Survivor
because of her attachment to Joey and her own considerable talents. The pair were fast becoming the definitive
Survivors
of their generation.

The screen Jack scanned showed Joey and Alys, from behind, in a large open field. Joey had his bow over his back and was following along behind Jennifer’s daughter. Their body language suggested they were tired and they were both covered in grey dust. Jack watched as the cameras zoomed out, revealing a mass of Zoms spilling out into the field from a cycle path and a little clearing in a woodland. From the trail in the long grass, it was obvious that the teens had come from the Zom-infested area.

It was a beautiful shot, so much so that it moved Jack to click the little
thumbs-up
icon at the corner of the screen. He was only the hundredth to do so. It made him feel a part of something special that he was amongst the first to see the beauty in the photography.

Wondering how the teens had survived the massive congregation of Zoms and why the infected weren’t pursuing them, he whirled the highlights footage over to the main screen and began searching through it, hoping that he hadn’t missed something special. He looked at the view counter at the edge of the highlights screen.

One view.

A single viewer besides him.

Jack felt a thrill surge through him and clicked the
thumbs-up
icon, making himself the second person to have done so. He watched amazed as Joey and Alys moved like crowd-surfers along a mass of the dead. They seemed completely calm, so at ease as they slipped through and over a swarm of The Ringed. Jack had never seen anything like it.

Nobody had.

As the scene progressed, it was suddenly cut with footage from earlier in the day. The pair had battled hundreds of the dead in that same clearing, Joey with an injured foot in a tree firing arrows, and Alys a whirling, kicking and stabbing demon with her twin Sai. The images were astounding and contrasted so sharply with the serenity of the previous footage that Jack felt a prickle all over his skin.

He watched Joey and Alys’
Survivor
ratings rocket from around ten thousand straight to positions two and one, respectively. Realisation suddenly made him jerk in his seat. He motioned at the screen and watched as his viewer rating appeared. Last night he’d been somewhere close to the ten-million region. A respectable position for someone in Brimingham. The total viewing figures worldwide for dEaDINBURGH were at around four billion.

Due to his early support for Joey, and lifelong support of Jock, whom he’d voted for and thumbed-up hundreds of times, maybe thousands, Jack’s viewer rating would receive a boost. Factor in his support of Alys by proxy of being a Jennifer Shephard supporter, and combined with this morning’s early acknowledgement of both the live-feed and the highlights package, and Jack’s viewer rating should be at an all-time high, perhaps in the top one million.

Jack blinked in disbelief as he looked at the numbers.

His rating had been propelled into the Top 500, worldwide. Number 1 in Europe.

His Holo-Screen suddenly lit up with emails, messages and invitations regarding interviews, expert analysis and insights he might be happy to offer. He was being lined up for a series of appearances across some of the biggest shows on the network and a clutch of major blogs and newsfeeds. Hell, a news-crew were on their way to his apartment at that very moment.

Messages of congratulations from his network-family scrolled across his screen. In an instant he’d gone from being another nobody – an above-average fan who spent a little too much time watching the most-watched Holo-Programme on the planet and one of those guys who haunted the thousands of fan sites and pages looking for insights and extra-footage – to the hottest viewer-consultant in Europe.

Jack’s eyes glazed as he considered the possibilities. He’d always known that he was someone special. Always felt that he was destined for something better than his current station in life. Something more important. His great-grandmother had been an exceptional woman, the first woman to become a true world leader. His own father, Mark, was a world-famous author. Sure, Dad had ridden the coat-tails of his own mother too, but his books continued to sell well years since the old lady’s death.

Jack conjured up an image of his father, Mark, with his arm around him, congratulating his son, expressing his pride. He watched his fiction-writing father and himself plan interviews and write opinion pieces together. He teared-up as an image of himself spoke to an audience of billions whilst his father stood at his side, beaming with admiration.

 
This was it. Finally.

Jack glanced down quickly at his mostly-naked wet body, edges of the towel barely meeting around and under his belly. He gave a curt, decisive nod to himself.
Time to get sorted. The first thing I’ll do is get that liposuction and skin removal. And my teeth. Get my teeth fixed. Pectoral implants. The UKBC will pay for everything, they always do for their correspondents.

With the kudos and the money that’d be coming his way, it was time to get himself together.

Rising from his seat, Jack strode purposefully to his bedroom. Drying off, he pulled on a pair of clean sweatpants, figuring that he’d aim the Holo-Camera from the waist up.
Best to be comfortable.

Jack then pulled on an old dEaDINBURGH T-shirt his dad had given him on his thirtieth birthday, with an image of Jock in full Plague-doctor outfit on the front. It felt a little tight, but also felt familiar.

Striding back through to take his seat, he flicked open the Comm for his first interview with an American news network, allowing himself to enjoy a moment of satisfaction at finding his rightful place.

Jack Thatcher smiled warmly and connected his call.

Interlude

This is how it feels to be Stephanie

 
I close my eye, the only one I have left. It leaks tears constantly, as though weeping at the loss of its twin. The empty socket itches, especially when I move the muscles. It’s startling, the number of wee mannerisms, tics and idiosyncrasies we have in different parts of our bodies. Fidgeting fingers, flicking eyebrows, blinking patterns and tapping toes. They’re just there. Unproductive and unnoticed, until the part that needs to scratch that habitual itch is gone.

My eyelids, with nothing beneath them to shield, still try to blink in reflex. They narrow in bright light and widen in the dark.

I wear a patch.

The strap tugs at my hair and is causing friction burns at my cheek. I concentrate on those discomforts. I can’t stop the subconscious habits of a lifetime and I can’t prevent myself from feeling the attempted movement of the missing eye, but I sure as hell don’t need to watch the muscles and lids around the gaping emptiness in action.

I feel alone and scared and vulnerable. My body shakes for no reason. I startle at sounds that have been regular, commonplace, my whole life. I’ve been training with Aunt Jen and I feel the limits of my soft body and bruised soul much more acutely under the regime she has chosen to torture me with. No… I chose the path.

I’m in control.

I detest myself for being so weak, so helpless at the hands of a monster. I’m beginning to feel hard muscle under the youthful fat. My archery strengthens as my arms do likewise. I hit eight moving targets out of ten. I can see an escape from the fear. A way to stop being the cowering, stupid little girl and become better. I won’t ever be vulnerable again.