Prologue

Awakening

Walking up to the dilapidated house as instructed by the letter left with his families lawyer, the youth feels a tingling sensation at the base of his skull, and suddenly, the house no longer looks the ruin it appeared to be from the bottom of the driveway. Adding to his confusion was the fact that the door appeared to now have no means of opening, i.e. there was no handle or keyhole, yet it was definitely a door in front of him, and it was most definitely locked.

As soon as he pressed his hand against the door though, a voice broke the silence saying: "Please stand for identity verification."

The youth jumped back startled and shouted, "Hello, is anyone there? I was told to come here this morning by my lawyer."

Again the disembodied voice stated "Please stand for identity verification." this time followed by, "Voice pattern approved, biometric scan verified, DNA sampling matched, identity verified as Kevin Calder, biological son of John and Alicia Calder, adopted son of Charles and Irene Calder. Awakening protocol initiated, Please follow the lights and everything will be explained."

At this, the door silently opened and a string of lights along the top of the moulding on either side of an elegant entry hall came on. Kevin warily entered the house and looked around, trying to ascertain the location of the cameras which must have seen him outside. Not seeing anything, he approached one of the doors on the left hand side of the entry hall only to find it locked. He tried the same with various other doors to find them all locked.

Once again the voice broke the silence "Please sir, household services will not revert to manual control until Awakening protocol has been satisfied. Please follow the lights to the atrium and approach the lift."

Deciding that he didn't like how things were turning out, he turned around to leave, only to find out that the door was once again closed and even from the inside, had no visible means to open it. Now getting extremely annoyed, he took out his new cell phone and called his lawyer, who had tried to explain to him earlier this morning, that if anything about the house needed clarification, he was to call him first. Pressing the relevant speed dial option, Kevin was surprised when he heard his lawyers voice straight away, rather than the call being routed through his receptionist. Before he could utter a word though, Kevin heard, "Just do it son, you need to listen to the voice and do as it says, all will be made clear if you just do what it says. Call me as soon as you know."

"Know what Andy?" replied Kevin. "you send me up here to this madhouse and expect me to follow the instructions of a disembodied voice? What am I hear to learn?"

"The truth son, the truth, Listen to Veritas, do as he says and once it's all over, call me." With that And Jenkins, the Calder family lawyer for the past 29 years, and the one man alive in whom Kevin placed complete trust, hung up leaving the young man mire confused than ever.

Deciding that nothing was going to happen until he at least followed the lights as far as the atrium, Kevin turned and headed deeper into the strange house. Once at the atrium, Kevin was astounded to see what his eyes told him was a simply massive Oak tree, however, the image was broken by what appeared to be a door dead in the centre of the massive trunk. Kevin approached the tree and the door opened to reveal what Kevin could only describe as a Star Trek turbolift. Getting in, the doors closed and opened again 2 seconds later with no apparent feelings normally associated with lift travel, however, Kevin was most certainly no longer in the atrium. In front of him was a leather recliner facing what looked like the mother of all television screens, hell this thing must have been at least 300 inches. At this point, the voice said "Please be seated, and I shall begin,"

Kevin sat down and the chair immediately began to contort and conform to his body to provide maximum comfort. "Thank you," stated the voice. "On your left hand arm rest you will find a small circular aperture, please remove the data fleck from the envelope provided to you and insert it into the aperture."

Kevin removed the envelope from his inside pocket where it was positioned in order not to lose it, removed the circular piece of crystal and placed it into the appropriate aperture. Once this was complete, the voice returned, but this time there appeared to be a subtle difference to the quality.

"SOCI architecture engaged, personality matrix initialising, Veritas online. Thank you my lord, now that I have my full capabilities enabled, I now have access to the Slip Data Archives. Now it is time to learn who you are and where we came from. In the beginning..."

Chapter 1 »