And the World Changes, A M Kirk [best feel good books TXT] 📗

– “ Mark put the MR image on the desk and stood up. “ -right now I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.” Mark’s voice lost his warmth. Janette frowned. Mark had a way of communicating his bad feelings to others. She rose and went to the window, without knowing why.

**********

The beam weapon charged up in seconds. Nordik IV was absolute state of the art in particle beam technology. The “Grandson of Star Wars” had been given fresh impetus in the early twenty-first century and its development moved into high gear with the arrival of the Soros. Every possibility had to be explored to ensure Earth was not about to fall victim to an alien invasion. No fewer than seven beam weapons existed, three of them in perpetual geo-stationary orbit above McIntyre’s Field. Nordik IV was one of these. Electronic lenses aligned and focused and verified target.
In Cheyenne Mountain control monitors remained blank. Phones were ringing now as back-up staff became alert to the condition. The red phone patched not to the President but to Allied Command in Stirling.
“Get me General Miller,” said Jack Bruce, speaking words he had never wished to say. There was a three second delay and a voice five thousand miles away said, “Miller. What’s the problem?”

**********

Early Sunday morning in her surgery. Janette Daniels looked out at the world from the white painted Georgian style surgery windows for the last time. Their house was just twenty metres away. The neighbourhood was invariably quiet at this time. She saw Mr Jarvis a couple of doors down moving to his garage to fetch his lawnmower, to continue his summer Sunday morning ritual. He was a decent sort, had been kind to Janette when she first moved here, and remained a good neighbour. Not the nosy sort.
“My feelings,” said Mark, “have been getting … I don’t know how to describe it, Mum – sharper, clearer, but more varied. I don’t see things, like your usual clairvoyant might, I just sense them. I know them.”
Dr Daniels had complete faith in her son.
She looked out of the window at the quiet street. Images of John Daniels leapt unbidden to her mind – his flappy old overcoat, his disarming gee-shucks-folks smile, and she recalled, too, the unstructured, interminable debates which in the last year of his life had made Janette doubt her husband’s sanity.
Mark went on: “This latest thing started – I mean, really started - when I went to the Soros Museum a couple of weeks ago.”
Janette tensed. She looked sharply at her son. “The Museum? You went there?”
She moved from the window. Mark met his mother’s concerned eyes. “I think I know now,” said Mark, “why the Museum makes you nervous. It has to do with dad, doesn’t it? Dad is connected to the Museum in some way.”
Janette sighed. “Your father’s been dead for fifteen years, Mark.”
“Yes, I know, but there is some connection. You felt it just then and I feel it too. He knew about the Soros! “ As he said the words he became convinced of their truth. “That’s it! He knew about the Soros before they came here. Before they even landed! But how could that be? How was that possible?”
“The Soros,” sighed his mother, sitting down beside Mark. “Yes. I wondered if…”
Mark stood abruptly, his hands holding his temples. His mother watched his blue eyes lose all focus, like they were staring into a different universe. Mark groaned and when he looked up his expression chilled her. “Mum - that bad feeling just got worse,” he said. “We have to leave here. Get out of this house. Right now!”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure yet. Something bad’s about to happen. Here. Very soon.”
Without further debate they left the examining room and quickly crossed the reception area. Mark paused long enough to hand his mother her wallet that contained not just her money and credit cards, but also her car and door keys. She had left it on the reception desk earlier. Puzzled by his action, she slipped the wallet into a pocket and they moved outside.
All was quiet.
Mr Jarvis down the road was wheeling his electric lawnmower out of his garage. He gave them a cheery wave. Somewhere else a dog was barking. Little Lucy Greenwood was dangling a dolly from an upstairs window across the road. A calm, bright summer day.
“Into the car, mum,” said Mark. “We have to get away from here. Something terrible is about to happen. We’ve only got a few minutes.”
Real fear, the kind that dries your mouth and makes mush of your insides, now meant that Janette was not disposed to argue or question. Their four year-old silver Hyundai estate was still parked at the kerb. They ran now towards it. Quickly they got in. Janette hurriedly keyed the ignition.
Janette, never a slow driver, pushed up to thirty in second gear, swung round the corner towards the dual carriageway, accelerated through the turn, then into third, holding it there until fifty registered on the speedo and then a more relaxed fourth gear to cruise down Stirling Boulevard at sixty.
Scotland’s Central Belt, that largely flat plain that cuts the country in two, spread out around them. They headed east along the Boulevard that would eventually take them to Stirling itself. Stirling Castle rose up out of its volcanic rock to dominate the landscape ahead of them.

**********
The beam generated from Nordik IV could be widened to scorch an area the size of a county or narrowed to focus an intense beam of light onto a space a couple of centimetres square. In this mode it could punch a hole in the ground up to fifty metres deep. The iris narrowed.

**********

The car sped along Stirling Boulevard at seventy. Only three minutes had passed. Already Janette was starting to listen to doubts in her mind.
“What sort of danger? Are we - “ Janette started to say, but her words were cut off.
An eruption of light flashed in car’s rear-view mirror and seconds later a loud explosion blasted the landscape behind them.
Janette braked the car to a screeching halt and the car swerved over the centre line, trailing black skid marks. It stalled and all the dashboard warning lights flashed furiously. In the rear view mirror, and then through the back window when she turned round, she saw a column of smoke rising from the village they had just left. She could hardly breathe as she asked, “Is that what I think it is?”
Mark nodded. His eyes were wide with fear. “It’s not Mr Jarvis’s lawnmower, that’s for sure.” But no irony could hide the deep shock he felt. Both mother and son felt sick. “God, I hope he’s all right. I hope they’re all all right.”
“Our house!” Janette whispered.
“You need to drive now, mum.” Mark emphasised the word drive. “We’ve got to get out of here. Keep driving. But stay on the country roads. Not the motorway.”
“Why?” Janette asked, as she forced her trembling limbs to get the car going again.
“I don’t know why,” Mark replied. “I just know they’re better.”
The car headed east again. The thin column of smoke dwindled in the distance behind them.
“Ten minutes ago our lives were ordinary,” said Janette. “Now – what’s happening to us? What the hell’s going on?“
Mark’s eyes were glassy and there was a tremor in his voice as he said, “Our lives have never been ordinary.”
He wondered how he could let Carrie know about what was happening to them.
Janette’s hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles showing white.


7 Logan#1

He runs his fingers over the interface. The pathways, routes and avenues of the Supernet open before his impassive, unblinking gaze. He is a master here, in this cyber-world. He has bonded with this world spiritually, he has become it and it has defined him.
He finds the particular site.
The familiar imagery welcomes him. He keys in the complex passwords.
Welcome, Logan.
The words appear on the screen, and the computer’s synthvox sounds in his ears, but the voice has a deeper, third dimension quality: it sounds like a gentle reverb inside his head; almost a direct, telepathic communication. Logan vaguely wonders if the other League members who have visited this site feel the same effect. Or maybe this heightened perception – for that is undoubtedly what it is – arises out of the qualities that have made him the chosen leader for this sector.
Andrew Logan (31), Supernet banking clerk for the RBS Conglomerate, orphaned since early youth (his parents died in a car crash), single and unattached. All his life he has felt rootless, restless, impelled by a need to matter, to belong, to be embraced by something bigger than himself. Andrew Logan, in the lonely hours of his cyberspace searching finally came upon a site that offered him salvation from his own pointlessness. He has, over the last couple of years, found the cause that he can devote himself to, a mission worthy of his dedication. He is a Commander in the League in Britain. It is not an honour he can, as yet, openly show pride in, and his promotion through the organization was not marked by public ceremony. The League and its activities must remain secret. If his colleagues at the RBS heard of his out-of-hours commitment, he would be the target of sly jokes and sideways, suspicious, ironic glances. The League is not yet viewed by many as seriously as it deserves. No, no, the time is not yet ripe. But soon, very soon.
As if his thoughts are translated from mind to screen, similar ideas appear in the text:
The time we have been working for is soon to be upon us.
At last!
These years of secrecy, training and preparation… they have not been for nothing.
The Human Freedom League is about to strike such a blow against the accursed aliens…
Logan exults. His pulse quickens and the hollowness in his stomach returns. He keys in his questions and receives replies from a source he has never seen, but which identifies itself as the Chairman. Certain turns of phrase from the Chairman over the years have led Logan to believe the Chairman is from a military background, perhaps someone high up in the Army. Someone like Logan, who has no reason to like the alien intruders, and every reason to be suspicious.
Logan is no doubt that the aliens intend great evil. They are the advance party of an invasion force - of that he is sure. That is one of the primary beliefs of the League. But now the time is at hand…
Logan’s full concentration is bent upon the screen and the interface. Around him the shadows of the July day slowly shift, lengthen and deepen. The cappuccino in the cup to his left grows cold. Papers, junk mail, advertising flyers for shopping savers occupy much of his desk space.