Considering the stupendous scale of the Alternates’ crime against humanity in the name of environmental progress, Luckman considered their response nothing short of remarkable even though this was precisely how Mel had predicted they would react. Neither side had ever harboured any real appetite for war.
She kept her composure and watched quietly in satisfaction as the process of rapprochement began to unfold. After a minute or so she stepped back from the podium to where Luckman was waiting for her. She was different now, one step removed, as if she no longer regarded him as her equal. He could see the power in her awakened by the white gold. He knew now she had been the keystone to the whole misadventure from the moment Perrurle led him to her door. It was she who had been their salvation all along.
“What happens when their relief is replaced by fear and anger?” he asked her.
She smiled at him in a way that belittled the value of the question. “The Others offer hope when no-one else can.”
The residents of Altern had long known white gold was the bridge between the two worlds, but they had required an Earthly mind, with the power to cross the consciousness gap unaffected, to be a vessel of collective memory. They had placed their hopes in Clarence Paulson, who had been consuming the gold for decades, using it as his own fountain of youth. No-one realised that in so doing his mind had become impervious to external influence. His view of the Others was guided by the views of his church and its opposition to the political and spiritual hegemony they sought to impose upon all within their sphere of influence.
For Mel, however, Altern was a blessed relief, a light at the end of a lonely tunnel. She had welcomed their fellowship as an oasis in her personal desert. She had become their proselyte. She had channelled their unanimous intent and a war had been postponed. Doubts and questions would soon arise, but she would deal with each of these in turn.
“Then I suppose you did it,” he told her.
She smiled without bothering to demur. She reached out for his hand and began toying with his fingers, running her nails along his skin, almost like she might slice him open at any moment.
“Time we put these to good use,” she said. “There are millions more for you to save.”
“I can’t do that on my own,” he told her.
“You won’t have to. You will be the start of a chain reaction. Every Blank soul you reclaim will in turn reclaim another. This will continue across the continent and eventually across the world. Each reawakened life will make me stronger. Our minds will remain conjoined, you see, just as they were in that other place.
“Ours will be a mind more powerful than the greatest of supercomputers. No problem will be insurmountable, no truth deniable. No war worth fighting.”
He touched her fondly on the cheek and silently offered his allegiance, because beyond all else they too were conjoined. He would honour the role fate had delivered. He would do whatever she asked.
She would brook no dissent.
-
Greetings dear reader, I hope you enjoyed Blank. As us authors ultimately live and die by the word of others, I’d be most grateful if you took the time to post a few words of review at Amazon, iTunes or Barnes and Noble, wherever you first acquired the novel. Word of mouth has always been the greatest way for us writers to find an audience and your comments mean a lot in helping to make that happen.
About the Author
Matt Eaton was born under a wondering star in the Year of the Fire Horse. Believers knew the birth of a fire horse baby was to be avoided at all costs for such a child was fated to lead a life of irresponsibility and rebellion, spreading bad news among all concerned.
Undeterred by the weight of such prognostication, Matt instead turned bad news into a vocation. He has been a working journalist for more than 30 years across print, broadcast and digital media.
For the past 20 years he has been a reporter, presenter and producer at ABC News. Through the 1990s he spent seven years in Sydney at Triple Jay, the ABC’s youth network. It might be the only vaguely respectable media outlet in Australia that allowed Matt to simultaneously report on pro surfing and UFOs.
Surfing might be the more respectable of the two, although perhaps only by a small margin. Matt travelled across Australia and the Pacific covering pro surfing world tour events for Triple Jay News. Such fun, such irresponsibility.
He also travelled regularly, making two acclaimed radio documentaries for Triple Jay about his journeys through the Northern Territory and the United States.
Matt began working on two feature film projects in the late 1990s with his father Barry and renowned film and TV director Michael Carson, however neither project made it to the screen. Michael was lost to cancer in 2005.
In 2006, Matt and his family moved to Queensland, where he took up work for the ABC as a news producer and newsreader.
Matt spent several years developing his debut novel, Blank, the first of a trilogy of paranormal, post-apocalyptic thrillers. An audio version of the book will be available from late 2015.
Matt still lives in Brisbane with his wife and two daughters, very close to a flood-prone pony club. He neither owns nor rides horses, but is very fond of an open fire.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Claire for her constant indulgence of my many mental absences, and to my girls Stella and Molly for their unending positivity, encouragement and faith in their old man.
I had invaluable support and feedback through the many drafts of Blank from my good friends Adam Beswick, John Taylor and Paul Henman. Thanks to all of you for a range of helpful suggestions, proof reading and support that fed my stubborn determination to get this book in front of others.
And thanks to Stephanie Smith who, from her reading of the first draft during her days at Harper Voyager, through to her later work as my freelance editor, told me I had something worth pursuing.
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Matt Eaton
Cover design by JT Lindroos
Ebook formatting by Jesse Gordon, adarnedgoodbook.com