Dronikus, a novel set on a burning planet called Earth.
A beautiful, complex, intriguing, and untrustworthy woman
Zola filled countless hours and days and weeks on the network, catching up on what he had missed during his exile. He explored the store fronts, the storerooms, the vaults of knowledge, and the journals of human endeavour. He navigated through its highlights and its lowlights, the technological shooting stars of hope, and the painful dead-end demise of the natural world; the blooming of educated creativity and the squalid capture of state power by venal corporations; the passage of wars across so many regions and the ever-deadlier pandemics.
Access to Pandoke’s protected knowledge pathways, particularly the military and patent information sites, was denied him. He was able, nevertheless, to get a good picture of Pandoke’s capacities and role as a supplier of technologies, both dangerous and benign, in this region and in the world.
In darker moments he scoured the network for information on RePO and other rebel and opposition groups and movements, hoping for information and images of Chesa and Chun. He found nothing on them, but his wanderings led him to uncover layers of the past, the years of resistance, the wanton destruction of the natural world, and the cruel manipulation of the human one. Like an archaeologist he peeled these back, looking through a prism of the present to the time, some years ago, when he, too, was called upon to resist. And there she was – often in the centre, often just off to the side, sometimes hovering out of sight, but always present – Leilu.
One day Arno, standing in its customary position, folded down on itself into the bar stool box shape and switched off. The door clicked open and Nur appeared in the room.
‘Zola.’
‘Hello Nur.’ He sat in his chair at the bay window, watching the sun setting over the sea beyond the dome and the expansive lawns of the Shangdu gardens.
Nur scanned for surveillance devices before wandering over to the drinks cabinet and serving herself.
‘Why bother?’
‘Huh?’
‘Why bother with the scan? They know you are here.’
‘You never know…’ She took a sip of her drink. She walked across to the room, slightly unsteady on her feet, brushing past Zola’s shoulder, and took up a position against the window.
He looked up at her: ‘You’re stoned. I would have thought…’
‘You called. What do you want?’ she said.
‘Would you like to sit?’ Zola indicated the chair next to his, ‘just chill?’
‘I am chilled.’
They looked at each other. She saw a beautiful man, his skin somewhat rougher, his features somewhat less defined than she remembered – less vital perhaps, slightly older – his temples now showing flashes of grey, but his body still vigorous, his eyes still clear and intense. His presence had a power for her, at once heroic and erotic, even though he now sat sprawled in the easy chair, wrapped in a striped silk bedroom gown.
Zola saw Nur, a beautiful, complex, intriguing, and untrustworthy woman, someone he had loved and hated in equal measure for almost half his life. A woman whose moral compass always pointed in the direction she was heading: a woman who had been willing to destroy him for the furtherance of her own ends. A woman who had worked her way into his family and now, perhaps, held one of the keys to his future. He saw her now, stoned and desirous, somewhat adrift in stormy seas, yet as powerfully aggressive and intelligent as ever.
‘Nur… er…’
‘Zola… er…’ she mimicked his tone, smiling, but mocking. She put down her glass and reached into a small bag slung from her shoulder. She uncapped a plastic dispenser and ran the soft, spongy end across her tongue, just once. Then she capped it and returned it back to the bag. ‘What do you want?’
‘Enrike and Meriti showed me footage of the torture and murder of Agung.’
‘What?’
‘Did you know?’
‘I had heard rumours…’
‘Tell me about the Sesanti research project on Visiwa Island.’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know much. Even though I am a shareholder in Pandoke and sit on the board, they have managed to exclude me from all discussions about Sesanti and have kept me away from seeing what they are doing in the laboratories.’
‘Any idea of what’s going on?’
‘Not really, but I believe they’ve been doing stuff that is dangerous to the company.’
‘It’s obviously quite something for them to go killing Agung. And I’ve heard that the islanders have been taking action against Sesanti, in protest against some experiments. And that Sesanti has responded with force by sending dronikus and rators to attack the villages.’
‘I’ve heard that too,’ said Nur.
‘First Chesa, then Roberto and then Agung. Seems like there is a lot to hide…’
‘Who’s Chesa?’
‘A woman. A friend. They killed her when they got me.’
‘That’s dreadful, really dreadful,’ regret in her voice.
‘Enrike blames the government controllers.’
‘Ha! Why does that not surprise me? He would have ordered it. Of course he did. Fucker.’ She drained her glass. ‘Well, I’m next for the slaughter. And when he does, he’ll hang my corpse out for the vultures at the company’s Christmas barbecue.’
Zola smiled at her imagery.
‘Not that there are any vultures left, nor for that matter is there ever a Christmas barbecue.’
‘Why do you think they’ll try to kill you?’
‘He has always hated me, you know that. And now it’s getting to the point where he can see that I’m not rolling over, that there is no other way to get what he wants. Soon he’ll come for me.’
‘And what does he want?’
Nur paused. ‘I think it’s to do with his presentation about networked humans. I can’t say more.’
‘You can’t say more because you don’t know more, or because you don’t trust me?’
‘A bit of both… I can say that I think they’re engaged in some rather dubious stuff.’
‘Like?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Nur!’
‘Well I don’t know where you stand, whether I can trust you or not.’ After a pause she said, ‘we’re at a kind of crossroads, it’s make or break, as I see it.’
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘You, me, the company. It’s becoming critical,’ she said. ‘I’m the only one really standing in his way now, now that Meriti… But you’re back, things could be different.’
He looked away, shaking his head. ‘Nur, I actually don’t want to hear about Pandoke board politics.’
‘It’s more than the board. It’s the future of the company. You can’t ignore it, Zola.’
‘Okay. Maybe another day, hey?’
She shook her head and walked over to the drinks cabinet again. ‘So infuriating,’ she said, mumbling to herself as she poured another drink.
‘Look, I asked you to come here for a reason. And that was for you to show me the codes and the operations for these guys.’ He pointed to Arno, still a bar stool box in the corner. ‘You’re not too stoned to show me?’
‘You know that I function better like this.’ She sat down at the terminal and within moments was immersed.
Zola watched her as she worked, looking for that lucid, humane, and even caring interior, so well hidden behind the enhanced good looks and conspicuous sensuality that she worked so hard to achieve. Yet, what an incredible woman, he thought, able to advance when faced with such an implacable foe as Enrike and the other powerful men of Pandoke. Perhaps she wasn’t exaggerating. Perhaps, coinciding with his return to Shangdu, there were threats to Nur and she was truly scared.
After a time she looked up. ‘I’ve made you a profile with high-level access, hidden within my profile.’ She patiently showed him how to work in the system and how to program the rators.
‘I’m going to wake up Arno now,’ she said, ‘but as he wakes let’s just cosy up a bit, ok?’
‘What the fuck?’
‘They’re going to see us through this rator’s eyes and they’re going to suspect that I’m trying to win you over, particularly after that lumpy disaster on your face had me screaming the fact to the whole world that I was in your room.’
‘It’s a fairly well-founded suspicion.’
‘I’m going to act like I’m trying to fuck you again.’
‘They’ll never believe that,’ he said, at once serious and ironic.
‘They think I can get any and every man to bend to my will, even a mightily pissed-off ex-lover and former exile like you.’
Dronikus is a novel published in 2023, now being serialised here on Substack. You can read a chapter every week for free.
Liking what you’re reading? Don’t want to wait to see what happens next? You can read the full book now by purchasing a digital or print copy of Dronikus from:
AndAlso Books (print edition)
Amazon (epub), Smashwords (epub), Apple Books (epub), Barnes&Noble (epub)
Note from Marko Newman: Hi Dronikus readers. I hope that you are liking what you are reading. There is still a fair way to go in the story with many twists and turns to come.
For those who are joining the story I highly recommend you take the time to peruse earlier chapters to give you a bit of a lead-in to the story.
I suggest:
Chapters 1 to 3, 7, 9 and 12:
I have a favour to ask all readers: please forward the story (any episode) to anyone who you think may like this short weekly hit of fiction reading. Suggest that if they like it they could subscribe to the weekly post. Emphasise that it is free and that one can unsubscribe with one click.
If you are on Substack please recommend Hey, what’s that sound? to other Substackers.
I’m keen to hear any comments or questions or thoughts you may have. My email is: markonewman@icloud.com
Cheers, Marko