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    Fall of the Faithful
    Fall of the Faithful
    Fall of the Faithful
    Ebook64 pages1 hour

    Fall of the Faithful

    By Tom Wells

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    Department of Human Preservation Agent Harold Gains had been called out to the crime scene of an apparent suicide jump from a high-rise hotel. Agent Gains had been dispatched to investigate the death of a male suspected to be a member of the secretive cult known as the Faithful. The subject's fall from ten stories looked like suicide, but looks can be deceiving as Agent Gains is soon to find out.

    Suicide may have been common for the newly initiated Faithful, a secretive cult who implant themselves with network interfaces that have been constitutionally banned in the United States, but this messy means of committing the act was not. The newly initiated usually start with simple network to brain interfaces and work up to full bodily neural implants in the following years. Gains pulled a scanner out of his satchel and began to run it over the Faithful’s body. Only his brain contained implants.

    This was consistent with all suicide attempts by the Faithful. Even if the jumper was very willing to join the Faith, few humans can take the information overload from the direct computer interface provided by the implants. It drives the newly implanted to the desperation of suicide.

    What felt wrong to Agent Gains about this case was that initiates who try suicide use either drowning or suffocation as their mode to the next life. This was the first implant he had heard of killing himself in a way that would defile his body temple for the implants.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTom Wells
    Release dateOct 30, 2011
    ISBN9781465989956
    Fall of the Faithful
    Author

    Tom Wells

    Tom Wells is a playwright. He lives in Hull and is an Associate Artist of Middle Child. Plays include Me, As A Penguin (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Arcola); The Kitchen Sink (Bush); Jumpers for Goalposts (Paines Plough/Watford Palace/Hull Truck); Cosmic (Root Theatre/Ros Terry); Folk (Birmingham Rep/Watford Palace/Hull Truck) and Broken Biscuits (Paines Plough/Live Theatre). Other work includes Jonesy and Great North Run (BBC Radio 4); Drip with music by Matthew Robins (Script Club/Boundless); Ben & Lump (Touchpaper/Channel 4) and pantos for the Lyric Hammersmith and Middle Child, Hull.

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      Book preview

      Fall of the Faithful - Tom Wells

      Fall of the Faithful

      by

      Tom Wells

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      *****

      PUBLISHED BY

      Rescue Publishing House

      Copyright © 2011: by Tom Wells

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this story with another person, please feel free to share it one copy at a time and not for any resale value. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

      *****

      Fall of the Faithful

      By Tom Wells

      Department of Human Preservation Agent Harold Gains had been called out to the crime scene of an apparent suicide jump from a high-rise hotel. Agent Gains had been dispatched to investigate the death of a male suspected to be a member of the secretive cult known as the Faithful. The subject's fall from ten stories looked like suicide, which was common amongst the newly initiated Faithful. The evidence that this was a suicide seemed clear when Agent Gains arrived on the scene. What was unclear was why the Department had been called to the scene so early. Local authorities normally resisted interaction with the Department until it was absolutely necessary, so Gains asked the detective in charge why he suspected the jumper was a keeper of the Faith.

      The city detective spat the answer out with all of the prejudiced disdain most non-believers have for people of the Faith, Well, I could have waited for you to show up at our morgue with your fancy scanning device to tell me, but seeing as the sidewalk has started the autopsy proceedings for us, I took the liberty of lifting a piece of the freak’s scull to see if he was one of them.

      As the city detective explained this, he had bent over and using the end of a network pad stylus, he carefully lifted a fragment of the jumper’s scull. The blood was already starting to coagulate in the summer heat and the brain matter had been shaken up into a gray gelatin blob inside, but the microchips and interface wiring were there. He was of the Faith all right, or so it seemed there on the street.

      I’m going to have to scan him before I can officially get involved, Gains informed the detective.

      Be my guest, I know you Feds love to follow your procedures, he replied sarcastically.

      Agent Gains could tell the detective knew he was in over his head here, which could be the only reason he actually contacted the Department voluntarily on this case. Suicide may have been common for the newly initiated Faithful, but this messy means of committing the act was not.

      The newly initiated usually start with simple network to brain interfaces and work up to full bodily neural implants in the following years. Gains pulled a scanner out of his satchel and began to run it over the Faithful’s body. Only his brain contained implants.

      This was consistent with all suicide attempts by the Faithful. Even if the jumper was very willing to join the Faith, few humans can take the information overload from the direct computer interface provided by the implants. It drives the newly implanted to the desperation of suicide.

      The Faithful see getting past the suicidal tendencies as a right of passage, and the rest of the US citizens view the Faithful as a criminal cult largely for this reason. This leaves the newly implanted isolated in their transition into the Faith. What felt wrong to Agent Gains about this case was that initiates who try suicide use either drowning or suffocation as their mode to the next life. This was the first implant he had heard of killing himself in a way that would defile his body temple for the implants.

      Gains pulled out a well-worn black leather bound notebook from his satchel and jotted down some notes. Then he retrieved his computer pad and typed in only a few select items from his notes before signaling them back to his office. Then he headed up to the hotel suite the jumper had leapt from.

      It was a simple high-rise hotel suite, with a small sitting room to the front, a bath area separating the sitting space from a small bedroom to the rear and a small balcony barely large enough for a single person to squeeze onto. The balcony was really nothing more than an architectural feature meant to attract patrons from the Internet images that didn't reveal just how small it really was. Dust and city grime had built up on the little used outdoor space, but the city investigators had apparently taken turns stepping out to have a bird's eye view of the body, effectively destroying any evidence that may have been left here in the first place. Gains only hoped now that someone had exercised some small bit of forethought and that a halo-image of the balcony was imprinted before the peep show parade.

      The suite had been registered to the jumper who's name was Jeff Swift. He had been in the room for two days prior, and was booked there for anther two weeks. Hotel records indicated that he had

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