New Camelot

The day that changed my life forever started out like any other, with me getting ready to go to work. Before I left I took a long look at Father, seeing his arm in a leather sling from the beating he’d been given by the vicious knuckle dusters, cracking his bones and stopping him from working. Not that I minded the extra work, I just wish the Knights were more kinder in letting my Father go. Its the new taxes. Twelve francs instead of seven. 

Mother looked up, stopped knitting and came to me before hugging me gently. Ever since my elder brother was arrested and thrown into the Incinerator for sorcery, I was all the family besides Father left, and my parents didn’t want to see me in trouble. Thinking of my elder brother was enough to make my parents cry their hearts out, sometimes I heard them late at night when the steam pits weren’t delivering steam to our heater, freezing us in the night, and they cried, lamenting the days when the High Court decided to show us peasants who was really in charge. Father stopped his work, groaning as he got up from his chair to pat me gently on the shoulder. “ Don’t talk to Knights or sorcerers.” He said quietly. I held back the scoff, though from hearing the stories from Grandfather meeting a sorcerer was as likely as a Knight saying one polite thing to me. Getting through the day without meeting a Knight was more important. I didn’t scoff, I just nodded obediently as expected, and hugged my parents. “ I won’t.” I whispered, though we knew the chances of meeting a sorcerer was slim. The Knights were a different story. 

Stepping out into the streets, I looked above, gazing as the sun caught the glint of the metal and crystal that made up the towers of the Overcity, casting their shadow over the Undercity, with the two moons overhead. There was a superstition going about the High Court casting their shadows on the lesser people, that they secretely used magic to see us in the shadows was something everyone claimed was true, and from the way everyone went out their way to avoid the shadows and to keep to the sunlit places in the city, they believed it. 

So did I. Bad things did tend to happen when people stepped into the shadows. My brother accidentally stepped into the shadows when he’d been bumped by a Knight, not long after he was arrested and executed for sorcery, though if he did was another matter. The Knights do sometimes kill anyone for anything, letting fear for them deepen among the peasant class. 

Sorcery, any kind of technology that had been practiced or discovered by the Knights is an immediate death sentence. Electric lights, teleportation, energy weapons, computers, gene resequencers, holograms - all were banned by the High Court, and the Knights were granted full authority to search any home or business suspected of harboring sorcery, or any artefacts. I glanced up at the sky for a fleeting glimpse of the two moons; it was said, in the days of Ancient Earth, there had been one natural moon, but now because of sorcery the natural order had been perverted because of the second moon. It was stories of this kind that made it so simple for the High Court to claim sorcery was evil, especially this as it disrupted the order of nature. My parents certainly believed sorcery was evil. One son dead. Me...I wasn’t so sure. The Great Purge was the extermination of the technomages, when the High Court decreed for the final time the ban on sorcery, technomages tried to stop them by creating floods, but this furthered the growing opinion the High Court had a point on sorcery. The Knights hunted down and slaughtered the ones who practiced sorcery, but so many are unaccounted for to this day, the searches go on day and night. Thinking of the Great Purge and the part the Knights played in it reminded me to keep my eyes on the Knights I was passing, and to stop myself from stepping into the shadows of the walls. 

It just made avoiding the Knights even harder. There weren’t many walking around this time of morning luckily, that would change when everyone went to work. I kept my head down in submission, though that rarely stopped one of them from stopping me in the streets. I raised my eyes to give a passing Knight a fleeting glimpse. A massive figure, clad in chainmail made from a titanium alloy, one of the only examples of alloy surviving, with the helmet covering the whole head with a visor of black glass covering the eyes so we couldn’t see their faces when they attack us. A whip and short sword was clipped to the belt, making the Knight’s bulk even more imposing. 

There were rumours that the Knights were made by sorcery. If someone said that in the presence of a Knight they would be hacked to death on the spot.

I blew out a breath as the weight of the sawn lumber made my muscles ache. I swore the loads were growing heavier each day. Working at the Incinerator paid the bills, put food in the stomachs of the family, and indeed Incinerator work was better than working in the fields or the Overcity, working as squires or manservants for the High Court or the Knights. I knew people of my district who worked there. They were never the same after. Working as manservants and housekeepers to the High Court was the worst profession in the City. The slaves were made to do degrading work all over suites and living areas, humiliated infront of High Court members. They were more jester than worker.  

My job was simple; make sure the burners always had wood to burn. No one spoke unless it was to give orders or answer a question from a passing Knight. Speech was forbidden in the workplace, sometimes punishable by death or a beating, depending on the severity, except for the supervisors to give orders and listen to explanations about this and that. The knights stood in the background, thick fingers coiling around their weapons, making it clear what would happen if anyone so much as spoke. It wasn’t easy to ignore the massive armour clad figures. They often enjoyed harassing people. Today it was my turn. 

Two Knights were stood close to the wood bins where I was working with others, their black visors making it hard for us brave enough to look up at them to figure out which of us they were speculating would be good prey. I’d just picked up another lumber pile with a girl my age - I was 19 - and taking deep breaths to stop the urge to drop it to give my aching limbs time to recover after loads of practice, before the Knights moved forwards towards me. The other slaves backed away, looking down at their toes to stop the Knights from bullying them in turn. 

One of the Knights pointed at me to his friend, before he moved closer to me, jabbing his finger in my chest. “ You,” the voice was like fingernails scraped down a slate. “ Why do you not pick up your pace?” 

I kept my eyes down, hoping they would think I was mute. They didn’t. “ Answer him!” The other Knight roared, drawing the attention of some of the other slaves and Knights. I looked up, but kept my head bowed. It was a good idea to keep the head bowed to show submission. “ I am taking it slowly,” I started saying. “ That way I don’t feel exhausted by the end of the shift. Its a rule to consolidate your strengths.”

The Knights knew this. Slaves worked here all day and night, and they worked in shifts till the sun was high in the sky, then they had a brief break before working again for a shorter time. 

The first Knight nodded, voice surprisingly mild as if he hadn’t just threatened me with his size. “ Good. For a moment I thought you were being stupid.” The Knights turned to leave, and I relaxed. I was just turning back to carry on with my work, when the whip cracked and a searing pain went through my back. I collapsed to the ground in pain, breathing in and out. The First Knight stepped towards me, and picked me up by the scruff of my neck. An oily smell wafted from the helmet. The voice close to my ear made me shudder. It was cold as ice. “ Next time, answer our questions properly with the proper decorum.”

The Knight dropped me to the ground in a heap. 

After going to the sickroom where the medic at the Incinerator quietly tended to my injury, I went back to work after being given a pain draught, but as I kept bending to pick up the bundles of wood the pain kept coming to me. The other slaves didn’t say a word, but it didn’t stop them from giving me looks of pity.

The shift bell rang, but before I could leave my shift, the supervisor came over to me. She didn’t ask me how I was. No one could blame her, least of all me, since no supervisor in any industry in the City would show any care to a mere slave worker. 

She handed me a brown message bag. “ Take this to the lower levels, steam room twenty.”

Steam room twenty, the lowest and largest steam room there was, but also the most closest room to the underground springs and caverns that made up the reservoir. I knew all about the other steam rooms, but not that one. “ I’m sorry, Supervisor.” I replied evenly, showing as much politeness as possible. “ I do not know where it is.”

The answer annoyed the Supervisor. “ Then you had better find it, slave,” she hissed at me, keeping her voice down to stop any passing Knight from overhearing us, she may be privileged, but she could lose it at the snap of somebody’s fingers. She went on, her voice becoming harsh. “ I saw the punishment. If you want another, I can arrange it for you.” She held up the message bag. “ Take this bag, go to the lower levels, find the steam room and give to the supervisor there. Fail, and you will find the beating you had today will look like a slap. Go!”

I took the bag meekly, and headed over to the stairway. As I went down, the heat grew, and I had to show the passing Knights the message bag to show my business. There were twelve floors of the lower levels, but it was a rabbit warren down here, and I didn’t know all the routes. Where was it? There were signs on the walls, but I couldn’t read. No one had taught me, not that they could. No one had read in years.  

 I looked around hopefully for someone to see me, but there was no one I could see. Either the workers had gone off shift, or they were doing some other work, I didn’t know. Wood pilers and Steamers did different work. I hesitated, then decided to chance the risk of getting a beating. 

I called out. 

No reply. 

The heat crawled over my body, soaking me. I wished for a water bubble to drink from. I wandered around the corridors of the lower levels, keeping the message bag close to me. It was my shield, my excuse from being down here. The passageways were narrow, and I knew I was getting lost. I had hoped that by coming here to the lowest level of the Incinerator plant I could give the message to the supervisor on duty, then find someone willing to take me back to the surface. Finally I came to a disused door. Finally, some progress. I knocked on it, hoping to hear the words ‘ Come in,’ but there wasn’t a sound. 

I opened the door. No one. All there was inside this room was....it couldn’t be. How could this room have survived the Purge? Was this room on the List of Suspect, and it had never been found because of the maze of corridors?

The walls were lined with bookcases, each book had a silver-black binding so the light glinted on them, but I knew a nanobook when I saw one, at least I think they’re nanobooks. I’ve only heard of them; little...machines embedded in special paper, each little machine giving the book information, like a menu of choice the nobility expect at restaurants. There was a set of lightning gloves, devices that could alter the weather in an unholy way, a hand held holographic scanner, a bio manacle, increasing the speed of a normal man, and a number of devices stacked neatly in the room. 

“ Hello, my friend,” a voice whispered gently. 

I jumped, so absorbed was I that I’d ignored a metal disc mounted on the floor. The lighting in the room dimmed. Something stood on it, a shadowy person wrapped in an aura of gold. “ Hello.” My voice was a squeaking whisper. I was terrified, but my curiosity shook off my fear. “ Who are you?” 

The shadowy figure’s lips quirked, smiling, but the face was so smooth it was hard to tell. It was almost a cross between a smile and a frowning grimace. The face was unfinished, like the person who sculpted the face stopped halfway through. “ I am the last of the Mind Uploaders.” My confusion must have appeared on my face, because the... Mind Uploader asked another question. “ Do you know what I am?” It asked. 

“ No.”

“ Strange, judging from your profile, you match another young man that worked here and I never saw again. Minas, his name was I believe.” 

I gasped horrified “ That’s my brother. So he was practicing sorcery!” 

They were right I thought numbly, my parents, the Knights, the High Court....sorcery was pure evil! My mind changed when the Uploader spoke again. The being thought over my words. “ If you mean technology, then no. At least, not exactly. He was like you, fearful of understanding the technology your people have forgotten. Did you know that once a long time ago, Earth was the centre of a mighty Empire, then a Federation of worlds? How can technology be evil if it can bring you such things?” The Mind Uploader raised its....hand, it was like a mittened paw really. “ Don’t go,” it said, “ I miss having somebody to talk to.” 

Although I was terrified of discovery, I couldn’t help but go down to the Lower levels. The Mind Uploader had already worked its sorcery on my mind. On the first day, it had drawn my to stand on the platform it stood on, and ‘downloaded’ information into my brain. History spanning centuries, places and beings from across the galaxies, technology pouring into my mind like sauce over a piece of steak. I could now read, write, calculate numbers in my head, opening myself up to possibilities I’d never believed or thought about before. 

To have more knowledge downloaded in my mind, I just needed to stand on the metal plate, then it started. Knowledge trickled into my head. For the first time, the Uploader had to force me over there, pulled by an unseen force I later learnt was called an attraction beam. Now, I went up willingly, looking forwards to the new knowledge I would be receiving. 

“ So my brother discovered you. What then?” I asked one day. 

The Uploader didn’t reply at first, busy selecting the information intake before he responded. “ Like you, he was afraid of me, afraid of the High Court.” It scoffed. “ Fools, the lot of them. They used to use technology, or sorcery as you refer to it.”

I couldn’t believe it. “ The High Court uses technology?” 

“ Yes, They still do, though in secrecy. Those Knights, for example, they’re products of genetic engineering and robotics. The High Court recruits them secretly, going out late at night, kidnapping them or stealing from cradles when they’re young. Its better with infants, because then the mind is more open to mental manipulation. They’re cybernetic organisms now.” 

Thanks to the Uploading, I knew what a cybernetic organism was, a cross between a robot and a person. Now I knew the exact design of cyborgs, knew where the neutron power sources were, the nanobots going around uploading and repairing circuits. It explained so much, like how the Knights never took off their helmets. It also explained the kidnappings annually, and why the High Court didn’t do anything about it. 

I thought quickly, and the thought entered the mind of the Uploader computer. “ Yes. I can show you how to destroy the Knights.” 

In fact, the Uploader insisted on showing me. I took it he was pleased someone could finally destroy those horrors. If they really were people snatched from the cribs, what chance did they have now? My studies into cyber technology had shown once it had started on brain, it couldn’t be reversed, not unless you wanted the subject to regress to that of a vegetable. 

I couldn’t see the Uploader for a month after.  He told me to avoid coming down to the Lower levels to prevent discovery. Although the Knights hadn’t found the room the Mind Uploader was stored inside, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get suspicious of me getting lost down here. I stopped voluntering to take messages down to the Steam rooms for the time being. 

The High Court must suspect someone was practicing sorce-technology, somewhere in the city, because Knight patrols were increasing every second, searches had increased, I was hesitant about voluntering to go taking messages down to the steam rooms. I decided to wait until the patrols had started to diminish before I went back. 

I voluntered for the chance to take another message down so I could lose myself accidentally in the lower levels. I wasn’t missed by the Supervisors, but I was careful with how I went on with slipping away from the crowd. There were plenty of slave workers halfway through the day, so why waste time fretting about one single slave worker?

I took the message bag with me down the levels, my mind using the mental map the Uploader had placed there, using it to pick out another route in case I needed to lose a Knight who was following me by chance. After using three different routes, I arrived at the Uploader room. 

The hologram was pleased to see me, though cautious. “ The High Court are looking for me. I know they are.”

I nodded. “ I want it all. All the knowledge. I want to fight them.”

The Uploader hologram narrowed its brow, frowning at me. “ Fighting them is only half the trouble. I have one more databank to upload into your brain. How have you come with your lessons?” 

The Uploader had told me to spend as much time as possible going through the precious knowledge it had downloaded into my brain, and spend as time away from the downloading machine to let myself adjust to the knowledge. The Uploader had told me to practice my writing in my room where I could spend time to myself before bed. 

“ I’ve moved on from normal calculus, now I’m studying bioengineering equations.” I replied with some pride. Despite my initial fear, I enjoyed my lessons. 

The Uploader nodded in agreement. “ When I have downloaded this latest knowledge bank, you must deliver the message bag, then go home. This is the largest load yet.” 

I stepped onto the disc, and just as the knowledge had started pouring into my mind, the door slammed open revealing a squad of Knights along with my Supervisor. 

She looked pleased with herself, nodding smugly. “ There, you see,” she pointed. “ He’s been acting strangely, always voluntering for message work. Who’d want that job when they’d earn more stoking the Incinerator?”

The Knight captain turned its helmet to her. “ Excellent observation, Supervisor. Your service to the state has been noted and appreciated.”

My brain was still being infused, but the Uploader slowed the flow down. I felt my arm lift up, and the Uploader sent a thought rippling over my mind. 

A beam of pure energy left my hand. The beam hit the Knight on its armoured chest before it could raise its weapons.It glowed, then became a pile of glowing ash. The Supervisor gasped, and I could almost tell her thought was saying, he’s evil. 

The Mind Uploader took control of my other arm, creating a ball of purple energy. The Supervisor would call it a magic ball, but it was a shield. It extended around me and the Mind Uploader, and the technology around the room at once. The Mind Uploader and I were not going to let the Knights or the High Court destroy this precious treasure. 

The moment she saw the field, the Supervisor backed away with a fearful gasp, making the sign of safety to ward off sorcery, the Knights just stood there, as if working out what they should do next. The Mind Uploader sent a thought saying the Knights knew they couldn’t use their swords to bluntly damage the shield because it was so rare, but that didn’t stop them from trying when they reached their decision. Rushing towards me, with only the bubble shield for protection, they started slamming their short swords on the shield. 

Thud! The swords made such a dull thudding sound on the shield. The Mind Uploader using my body for its weapon, clenched my fists with his control, then flung my arms out. The Uploader used his control over my body and the shield to slam the guards against the walls of the room, making them shudder at the impacts. The Uploader slowly gathered his remaining energy, and slowly drew my hands together. I could feel a heat build between my hands, both inside and outside of my skin, growing hotter by the second. The energy created by the Uploader was drawn from the platform, I could feel the energy being molded between my hands like clay being molded into a bowl. 

A ball of energy, a ball grown from pure plasma converted from energy within the platform, molded by energy into matter, between my hands. I could feel the wind pick up, the heat building.....the sheer power stopped the guards and the now cowering supervisor, who was whimpering in a heap. The heat of the fusion ball made my heart quicken, and the power of it made me wonder if the sheer power, the knowledge of having a fusion ball growing between your hands, being able to move from one place to another in a second....this was why the High Court banned technology. They didn’t want anyone to handle the power. When the ball had grown to the size the downloads had told me was the same size as a basketball, the Mind Uploader and I threw it against the guards, catching them off guard. The last thing I remember is falling unconcious, induced by the Uploader as he teleported us out.

The Uploader and I spent the next four years travelling, me learning how to manipulate technology. In a matter of months I’d learnt how to teleport, with practice I could teleport myself with absolute safety and accuracy, and the distances grew and grew. As I learnt I drew on the superior knowledge of my mentor. We travelled, sometimes visible and sometimes not, teleporting around a world I never knew existed. The High Court doesn’t allow travel past the city walls unless its to go to the fishing villages on the coast, even then they wouldn’t allow anyone to leave the ever increasing confines of the City, but now I was seeing sights never before imagined. The Mind Uploader wasted no time showing me a world forgotten, showing me the decaying pyramids in a desert country called Egypt, showing me the rainforests. The incredibly beautiful Great Barrier Reef. We even walked under the sea using hydrostatic fields which kept the water out. It was like walking in a soap bubble. 

“ Why did the High Court ban technology?” I asked the Uploader as we took another stroll under the sea. 

The Uploader turned to me. “ There was a solar flare, it cooked the half the technology on the planet, except for the Uploaders like myself, the weather and teleport technologies. There was much demand for the remaining technology, which Man has become dependent on for centuries. The High Court were established to control the flow of use, but they discovered quickly they couldn’t control it, so they began experimenting. One of those experiments resulted in an explosion that caused widespread damage. After that it was easy for the High Court to ban technology, deeming it evil.”

Learning from the Uploader was an experience, being away from home made me worry about my family though. How would the High Court treat them? That worry followed me throughout our travels. It came as a surprise when I discovered there were settlements around the world, the Uploader was amused by this. 

“ You didn’t really think we were alone, did you? One little city on a world like this?” I was just amazed. 

My studies took place everyday, the Uploader drawing on the power of the sun to become a stronger hologram to teach me. With the lightning gloves I found myself able to create storms and, wondrously, snow before a wave of my hand brought the sun back. 

I learnt how to create earthquakes and volcanoes by using a space station in orbit. The station had been put there to inbduce volcanic activity when the population needed fertile land in large quantities. I’d heard stories told about volcanoes, that technology could create one was a shock. The Uploader reassured me it had been carefully regulated, every action was taken with safety. 

Our travels ended two years later, returning to the City. I was no longer the person I had been before. I was more confident, more controlled. The Uploader had taken me to be taught by experts, engineers and scientists that I’d once called mages when I’d reached a level of knowledge before I was ready. I’d excelled in those lessons until it was time to return. I was sorry to leave the tutors.

We returned home to find the City had become even worse than before. The High Court had murdered my family, imprisoning many innocents. Now the whole of the Incinerator was to keep them warm, and the common people cold at night. 

 I decided it was time to do something about the High Court. 

It was time to end this. 

I made an electromagnetic bomb to destroy the Knights. Since no one on Earth except for the technomages knew the Knights were machines and they could be destroyed easily, the High Court controlled a seemingly unstoppable army. Planting the device on the tallest spire, I waited for the bomb to detonate. The Knights dropped to the ground, frying the people inside the armour that could no longer support them. I did feel a sense of guilt but it was squashed by the knowledge of what they’d done.

I caused a rainfall in the Overcity, flooding them and keeping the Undercity free. Flooding the Overcity was easy, freezing it was easier. Finding support for a revolution was easy, once they got over my new powers. I met with some of them in a meeting hall in the Undercity. It had been quiet since the destruction of the Knights. Many of them recognised me that night. I showed them what lay within a Knights armour. Everyone moved closer, their curiosity overriding their fear. The women screamed when they saw the wizened and grey face of what had once been a teenager. His face was like paper, his eyes were grey, and his eyes were sunken pits. I licked my dry lips, looking the corpse, then the people with pity. 

“ This is what the High Court have been doing to us,” I said quietly, but my words carried easily through the disgusted and shocked air. “ Look at him. This used to be one of us, a person. Someone with feelings and someone who had years of life left. I have seen with my own eyes the lies the High Court have spread. There’s more to the world than what they say. The High Court murdered my family, all because I stumbled onto the truth.”

I gazed around the room. Everyone was waiting for what I was going to say next with bated breath. “ It is time to end all that.”

The people cheered. They were still cheering when they started storming the Overcity, killing with pitchforks and tools until the walls were covered in congealed blood. Technology was taught by the Mind Uploader, once the people got over their latent fear of science. I watched as they started accepting technology once more. Oh, there was the occasional disagreement as the older generations who’d lived in fear of the words science and technology, some older people even trying to burn down the homes of those who were now practicing science instead of whimpering in fear of it. The cowards were never seen, but the technology we now had working for us safeguards our lives so no one was really hurt. Nevertheless, quite a few warnings were made to those practicing science that the older generation still needed time to get used to it all. Over the next few years, the incidents became fewer, and many, including those of the older generation elevated themselves as examples of tolerance, using machines and science to cook, and even clean their homes faster than a broom. I watched as new generations of technology aware children took over the running of the City, discovering millions of long forgotten technologies in the City. 

Soon the Incinerator plant stopped when the geothermal heating systems were repaired and reactivated, finally the slavery in the City crawled to a stop. I remembered the deaths of my parents, and I built a memorial for all the damage the High Court had done, especially to those lost in the Purge and the aftermath. 

I started travelling again when the City had grown technologically, but I was pleased when the new generations began to re-explore the world, building new villages that grew like flowers into cities. 

Who would ever think this revolution started when a mere peasant stumbled across a Mind Uploader on a normal working day?