Sycamore (Near-Future Dystopia) (35 page)
Read Sycamore (Near-Future Dystopia) Online
Authors: Craig A. Falconer
“More than that. Now shut up and do mine.”
They repeated the process with the roles reversed and Minion was almost as efficient as Kurt. As soon as Kurt’s bandage was on, they both fell back against the sofa.
“This is it,” Minion said after a few minutes. “There’s literally no going back.”
“There never was.”
“No, but it’s different now. We can’t stay here. They’ll know what we’ve done and they’ll know that we’re going to run. Which we are. I know a place we can—
“No way,” Kurt interrupted. “I can’t do anything that puts Sabrina in danger. He said to stay here.”
“Listen, man: Amos promised that she would be fine if you stayed away. We
are
staying away. Hear me out. What I have in mind doesn’t put her at risk. By the time we’ve given Amos reason to act we’ll have taken away his ability to do so.”
Kurt sat up. “I’m listening.”
“I know somewhere where there are people who want to kill Sycamore almost as much as you do. You want to see Amos go down and I have to clear my name. What we need to do is steal a less conspicuous car — one that doesn’t need a Seed to activate it — and drive until it runs out of gas. Then we’ll steal another car and do the same. Amos knows some of what I know but not everything. The people we need to find have internet that we can use to mess things up. I wrote most of what Sycamore’s systems run on and you know The Seed better than anyone. Together we could pull the rug out from under his feet.”
“How?” asked Kurt. He liked the idea in theory, but that was all it was: a theoretical idea.
“Kurtonite is asking how? Come on, man, back in the day you could get into anything. You were better than me!”
“This isn’t like the games we used to play at college. Sycamore’s security must be the tightest in the world.”
“It is. But who do you think built it?”
“Yeah but you don’t have access anymore. You’re terminated like me and Rocco.”
Minion’s trademark snake-smile broke out on his face. Kurt didn’t hate it like he normally did. “You think I didn’t leave myself a few holes in his system like the one you left in his building? Kurt… I’m almost offended.”
Kurt’s heart quickened. Minion was serious.
“Once we get inside we can lock Amos and his puny security team out. Think about it: we could put whatever we want in the sky before they even realise something’s up. We could access and run footage from your old vista during the explosion and everyone would hear that Amos was behind it. We could show the Orwell Wall in The Treehouse—
“Orwall,” said Kurt.
“Right. We could show them The Orwall. We could show them everything. Or, if you
really
want to wake everyone up, we could just kill the servers — disable the Lenses and Seeds all at once. We can blow the lid off this thing. And when we do, people won’t just sit there and talk about it. Birds eat cats when they get the chance, man, and even sheep riot when the dog goes too far.”
Kurt was thinking about it. Minion could see that.
“Kurt... if these guys up north really do have internet then it would take us less than an hour to end this forever. We can do this. You can win.”
“People
definitely
have internet,” Kurt insisted. “Stacy said they were using mobile from foreign companies and paying with foreign credit cards. She knew a lot about the resistance.”
“That makes sense. Did she ever talk about having family up north? Her dad, maybe?”
“She said her brother moved north after her parents died. Why do you care?”
Minion walked to Kurt’s table and called him over with a wave of his bloody hand. He opened Stacy’s notebook. “When you two were in The Treehouse, her notebook was open at this page. How much do you know about this Ernesto guy?”
“Nothing. She never mentioned him.”
“And this number?”
Kurt re-examined the three digits after the ripped-out section of page beside Ernesto’s name. “It’s probably the end of his phone number,” he guessed.
Minion shook his head. “942 is 94.2. It’s an old radio frequency. I know she brought a radio here. Get it and put it on; you need to hear this. We need to find Ernesto.”
Kurt fetched Stacy’s radio from the shower and tuned it to 94.2. A young-sounding dissident was midway through a looping call for support.
“The future may be Sycamore’s but only if we let them have it,” said the somehow familiar voice. “Right now, this moment… this is ours. All the lies in the world can’t take this away from us. Anyone with knowledge of The Seed and its operation will be especially welcomed and prior involvement with the company will be seen as an advantage rather than held against you. But whoever you are, if you are still listening, we need you. You aren’t happy. We aren’t scared. Revolution is not your enemy, she is your only friend. But revolution doesn’t happen by itself.”
Kurt stood up, moved by the dissident’s stirring address. His mind flowed like a river carrying romantic thoughts of revolution and justice for Stacy and the professor.
In that moment Kurt realised that Professor Walker had been right. The moral wasn’t “
don’t try.”
It wasn’t “
give up when the system seems unbreakable.”
The moral had always been the same: “
hate the system and find the flaw that can destroy it. Hijack the system and use it to kill itself.”
Suddenly it all made sense. The moral really was “
always try.”
It had to be.
Because from death came fury and from fury came passion — passion intoxicated by the promise of revolution. Deliciously attainable, man’s only friend was Kurt’s only option. Time alone stood between him and vengeance.
Kurt looked inside himself and decided he was in, even before the final line of the broadcast. He started towards his room to pack a bag while the message came through the speakers in an assured and empowered tone.
“I am Ernesto Palamino, and you are exactly what we need.”
Author’s Notes
Grab your
free
Sycamore
spin-off now at
craigafalconer.com
Thanks for reading
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for spending time with my debut novel. I know that there is a mind-boggling array of competition for your attention, so I really do mean this. Thank you.
Kurt's journey from idealistic graduate to would-be revolutionary touches on important issues of privacy, corporate power and societal distractions. The recent revelations of covert digital surveillance and the impending release of Augmented Reality eyewear means that these issues are only going to become more important as we move forward. I feel they are worthy of more attention than they receive.
If you enjoyed reading
Sycamore
, please pass it on! I would greatly appreciate it if you could spare a few moments to leave a helpful review on
Amazon
and, if you are a member,
Goodreads
. Reviews help readers find books they might otherwise have missed, and more readers ultimately means that more books of this type will be written. Sharing
Sycamore
with a friend or family member who might enjoy it is just as helpful.
Please don't underestimate the difference your reviews and recommendations can make. Word of mouth represents a young author's best chance of gaining any kind of traction in today's crowded marketplace, and each kind word makes a huge difference. Thank you.
New releases and a FREE
Sycamore
spin-off
Funscreen
, a short spin-off from
Sycamore
, is now available for free from
Amazon
and other major ebook retailers. The idea for
Funscreen
came to me while I was writing this novel so there are core thematic similarities and hence a strong chance that readers who enjoy one will enjoy the other.
The titular Funscreen is the ultimate smart TV, capable of tracking viewers' eye movements to deliver targeted advertising with military precision. The Funscreen is to a regular TV what The Seed is to a regular smartphone....
Like millions of others, Roger Birch's family depend on ad-viewing income for their survival.
Unlike millions of others, the events of one evening leave Roger aware of the government's real reason for investing in Funscreen.
With HD cameras hidden behind a 60-inch glass veil, the answer was staring him in the face all along.
Every family has a Funscreen. The question is... who's watching who?
Responses to reader questions
I've been asked if there will be a sequel to
Sycamore
, and the short answer is no. Kurt's decision to remove the Seed he worked so hard to create feels like the natural end-point of our story, bringing him full circle as it does.
This theme of a protagonist's cyclical development is common, in varying degrees, to several of the classic cautionary works that have influenced my writing. Dystopian novels don't typically make for happy endings, but I consciously sought to encourage the hope that Kurt and Minion will succeed in bringing Sycamore down.
Although there will be no sequel to
Sycamore
, I have several new works on the horizon. Look out for my sci-fi conspiracy novel
High Below
in early 2014 and my epic new series
Terradox
later in the year. The best way to stay informed of new and future releases is at
craigafalconer.com
and via twitter (
@craigafalconer
).
Thanks once more for reading
Sycamore
, and I hope to see you again soon!
Table of Contents