“It’s happened again, my friends. Another day, another order of body bags. It seems like that, right? Like every single bloody day there’s another terrorist attack. Lives lost, bodies broken, property destroyed! It makes me mad. Really bloody mad! And if it makes you anything less than mad, you need to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself—if not now, then when? Is now the glorious time in which you can grow a spine and take some action to save your own species? Good. Because it’s now or never, people.

“To those of you who are mad… let me tell you this: the daily death toll is no exaggeration. There are crimes across continental Europe that are being covered up by the authorities. The mainstream media? Silent as ever on the facts. Because facts are inconvenient to cowards. Reason is a threat to the congregation of worshippers around the altar of altruism.

“Altruism is the vicious temptation of a demon into the mind of a child. So many of the minds who cling to the preposterous belief that communism could one day work are children. Once innocent, damaged and brutalised by the violence of their parents, and the state, and the indoctrination camps of public education, public universities who push endless progressive action ad nauseam, who riot when a conservative speaker comes to campus… who open fire. They remained children. Adults of the flesh, but children of the mind. And it is the child in each of us that we must all speak to… that I try to speak to in you. The child within you is the meta-you—it is the raw information of your body, full to the brim with potentialities. Infinite choices ahead of you, near infinite power—if you only reach out and take it! That child in all of us - the Peter Pan, the Pinocchio, is the awesome potential of man. But in each of us it was corrupted. Corrupted, but not destroyed. We can reclaim it, together! Brothers, sisters, my friends, we can claim it together! But it will take time. I was one voice at the beginning, then many voices spoke up to follow me. Now, we are a great choir of voices who will SPEAK THE TRUTH!

“You see, my friends… I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. This thing is coming over the horizon. Europe is falling into absolute chaos. First, the Children of Mohammed… then all the bands and factions who waged their wars in the streets of Paris. Now this cursed Doukkala Virus that—mark my words—is a much bigger threat than they are letting on. The small outbreak in Spain may have been contained, but there is good reason to believe that certain figures in the leadership of the European Union, certain shady figures—unelected figures—are planning to carry the virus into the heart of Europe and begin the cull, to pave the way for the new dictatorship—the Caliphate of Europe.

“They’ll say I’m crazy, paranoid. You’ve all heard the cult leader accusation, and to those of you who are coming to break up this party: hello, welcome, it’s not a cult, you’re free to go whenever you wish, and you can donate voluntarily, or not. I don’t meet with my subscribers in person, I live a quiet private life, and I don’t interfere in the internal conflicts of the families whose members view my show. And to be clear, I do not take any personal responsibility if somebody listens to my show and decides to change their lifestyle, or alter their social habits and who they choose to interact with. If you’re here because you lost a family member or friend to my so-called cult, I had nothing to do with it. I’m a philosopher. Call your loved one, and speak the truth. It’s really that simple.

“And so to you, whether a bona fide hero of man, or a certified misanthrope, this you need to know: the freedom to refute, refuse, defend, deny, obfuscate, argue, reject, or wage war against my ideas, in all their flagrant controversy, is a freedom afforded to you by the blood spilled in your ancestry. Millions died to fight back the insidious ideologies preached by hypocrites like Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Kim, Alinsky, Sanders, and now Bronstein and her mob and all the rest. Their bravery, their willingness to put their own lives on the line to defend what is good, and true, and right about Western Civilisation, their heroism afforded us all the very luxuries that we now use to try and tear the cathedral down.

“Ready your minds, my friends. Ready whatever else you need. Follow the strings left to you by the wise, to lead you out of the labyrinth and return you to the light. Heed the warnings of the prudent, the vigilant, the knowledgeable, so that you may each be Theseus—a hero, and slayer of great beasts in the darkness—and not Icarus, whose greed and hubris led to his great and final fall.

“History’s judgement of the West will be determined in what we do next.

“I’m Jeremy Delacroix, thank you for watching.”

Jeremy switched off the camera and dropped the new file into his upload queue. He absent-mindedly glanced at the clock on the wall and leapt out of his chair. “Shit!” He quickly opened an instant message window on his laptop and saw that Hermes was online.

Jeremy: New video incoming, H. You know what to do.

Hermes: Roger that. You still at home? The gala starts in 30mins J!

Jeremy: I know. Running out the door now. Had to make this vid while I was angry. Before I got numb.

Hermes: Fair nuff. Come round after the dinner? Got something to show you.

Jeremy: kk. gtg.

He slammed his laptop closed and dashed for the bathroom. Ten minutes later he emerged in a cloud of steam, fully dressed in his freshly pressed tuxedo, smelling of Eau Sauvage cologne. He threw on his overcoat and scarf and ran out the door.

As he stepped out of his apartment building into the dark Manhattan street, his hand compulsively reached for his scalp, feeling the sting of cold on his freshly shaven head. Jeremy’s hairline had been consistently receding over the last decade, but in the most recent year he knew the writing was on the wall for his once lustrous head of hair, and today he had decided to fully commit to baldness by shearing it all off and razoring the uneven stubble down to a shiny dome. The New York winter air had never touched that part of his skin, and he wished he’d had the foresight to grab a beanie, but there was no time. He was late.

“Marriott Marquis, please,” he said to the cab driver as he climbed in.

“You want the scenic route along Central Park?” the cabbie asked, in his thick Noo Yawk accent.

“No, just take Columbus Avenue, please. I’m in a hurry.”

Jeremy lived on West 122nd Street on the Upper West Side. His apartment was an ironically short walk to Columbia University, where his infamy had begun those years ago with the bomb threat hoax. He had purchased the coveted apartment building a year ago with the returns he had earned on his investment in Eli’s WellsCorp, and though he rented five of the six apartments out to mostly students and teachers at the local colleges, he kept the fourth-floor penthouse unit for himself. He was even closer to the Apollo Theatre and the thriving music scene of Harlem, which he frequented. He wasn’t especially fond of soul music, being more of an aficionado of classical European composers, but Jeremy had a love for music in general and took great pleasure in watching live performances in just about every genre—except punk rock, which, despite his anarchistic views, he could simply not aesthetically abide.

It was two weeks until Christmas, and Jeremy was disappointed to have to forego the scenic route along the park to save a measly three or four minutes. Nevertheless, Manhattan Island was breathtaking to him as he watched families building undersized snowmen in their tiny front plots, gangs of children having snowball fights in block corner parks, and the city itself alive with resplendent decorations of baubles, tinsel, mistletoe wreaths on the doors of townhouses through Morningside Heights, and gigantic bonbons hanging from the buildings along 7th Avenue.

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“Just how secure is that thing?” Phil asked Adam as the robot stood and checked over the welds he had just made at the ends of the tube.

“These welds will withstand extreme shock, including that of a crash landing.”

“You expecting anything like that?”

“A curious question, Phillip. I expect many things. I do not anticipate violence or ship malfunction as a consequence of any of the decisions we have made thus far. The odds will be reduced in my calculations if the ship’s diagnostics continue to yield positive results.”

Phil shook his head, his face demonstrating momentary confusion at Adam’s sentence structure.

“What he means is that we’ll be fine,” Marcus finally said, seeing Phil relax right away.

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Eli Wells closed the tab on his laptop’s browser window when the video of Jeremy’s failed lecture at Columbia concluded. The panicked crowd had knocked the camera tripod over, bringing the video to an abrupt halt. Even though Eli knew that the bomb threat had been a hoax, the situation still made him sick to the stomach. The video was five years old now and had over two million views.

Eli glanced at the clock on the wall of the café, and saw that he still had twenty minutes until the appointed time. He typed “Jeremy Delacroix” into the search field, and the first listing was a link to Jeremy’s own channel. The stats below the channel icon read 1351 Videos, 400k Subscribers.

“My hero.” Eli mumbled to himself with a big grin. Though he worried for Jeremy, and the seemingly constant controversy he was embroiled in, Eli was immensely proud of his brother’s unlikely success in the United States.

The second listing was a clip from an interview Jeremy had done on Oberheim Hour, a popular leftist current affairs show in the States. Jeffrey Oberheim was famous for his propensity to grill right-wing or centrist commentators and activists with a barrage of unanswerable questions. They must love his brutality, these bloody yanks, thought Eli, considering his own great distaste for the sophistry of the show’s host. The interview had over six million views.

Eli clicked the video, and it expanded onto his screen, the sound filling his ears via his bulky, noise-cancelling headphones—a prototype of his own design.

“And what of the assertion that you are the leader of a cult?” Oberheim began. Oberheim’s face was fierce, antagonistic.

“Well, that’s precisely it,” Jeremy replied, his demeanour effusive and friendly, as if to counter the viciousness of his opponent across the table. Eli remembered this tactic of Jeremy’s very well, from countless formal and informal debates they had engaged in, sometimes as opponents, sometimes as a team. “It is an assertion, and there’s certainly no instance of it that even remotely resembles an argument.”

“Well, what do you say to this allegation?”

“Nonsense, I say. Try again.”

“Well, I’m afraid that’s not good enough, Mister Delacroix.” Oberheim leaned forward assertively and produced a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. “My researchers inform me that you receive, in fact you ask for donations from your viewers on the internet. And people donate money to your cause.”

“No, people donate money to me, and they do it voluntarily, knowing that I will produce content for them regardless. That’s why it is a donation, and not a remuneration, per se.”

“Surely you can see how that appears to be a bit like a cult.”

“Not in the least. I don’t have face-to-face contact with my viewers. Most of them I have no contact with at all, other than their consumption of my books and videos. They donate at their own discretion. People come and go freely. I’m a free marketeer, you must understand, Jeffrey. If I see a drop in donations, I try to ascertain where I’ve strayed from the demands of the market, and adjust my content accordingly.”

“So you just tell your viewers whatever they want to hear?”

“No, I tell them the truth as I see it. I’m a philosopher. Philo means a lover of, and sophia means wisdom. I pursue the truth wherever it leads, filtering all my ideas through first principles derived from axioms of rational philosophy.”

“And how much money do you make from these… donations?”

Eli began to cringe at the disingenuous tone of the host. “Listen here, my good man, I know what you’re trying to do. I see your posture and your tone, and I am well aware of your attempts to muddy the water by leading this witness, but it won’t wash. I’d rather have an honest conversation.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Oberheim sat back in his seat, evidently defensive. “Are you unwilling to reveal your income to the American people?”

Jeremy laughed. Eli joined him from behind the sheet of glass that divided them. He knew what Jeremy was thinking. He was thinking the same. American people. Oberheim was attempting to paint Jeremy as the other. An outsider, and a dishonest one at that. He was also elevating his own platform to the entirety of the nation, despite the fact that Oberheim Hour’s ratings had been rapidly diminishing, and the network that broadcast it were reportedly headed for bankruptcy.

“Tell me, Jeffrey. How much do you earn from this television show?”

Oberheim began to squirm. “I hardly see how that is relevant, to the…”

“Right, then we agree. Let’s move on.”

Oberheim cleared his throat and glanced at his notes.

“Mister Delacroix, do you hate the poor?”

Jeremy sighed and sat back in his chair. “What a ridiculous question. Show me a poor man, let me get to know him, and I will tell you then if I hate him. I don’t judge people collectively; I view them on the merits of their ideas, their beliefs, their utility.”

“So a man with fallacious ideas, irrational beliefs, and no utility to society is seen as of less value or virtue by you?”

“Well, your avatar is something of a ridiculous caricature. I’ve met people all over the world, from many walks of life, and I’ve never met a person who embodies that example.”

“But you yourself are a very wealthy man, Jeremy Delacroix.”

“By what metric? The poorest person alive today is richer than kings of old. I’m not the poorest, nor am I remotely close to being the richest. I make an honest living by…”

“By promoting the abolition of government!” Oberheim interrupted. “I ask you again, do you hate the poor?”

Jeremy stared into Oberheim’s angry eyes for what seemed a very long moment. “Skip the nonsense, good sir. Where are you going with this?”

“You’ve made more than a dozen videos advocating for the abolition of welfare. That would mean no social safety net.”

“Not so. I advocate for a social safety net based on actual consent, not tacit consent and violent redistributionism.”

“Ah, and there you have it, my friends,” Oberheim turned to the camera, “the mantra of the anarchist. Three words you may not have heard before, and you will doubtless find hard to believe, in all their nonsense.” Oberheim turned to Jeremy. “If you will?” he gestured with an open hand as if cueing a line of scripted dialogue.

Jeremy simply shook his head, his expression incredulous.

“Cat got your tongue, Mister Delacroix? No bother, I will enlighten our viewers at home,” and he turned back to the camera. “Taxation is theft! They shout it from the rooftops, as if it were the gospel truth.”

The studio audience laughed, awkwardly. Jeremy joined the laugh, but Eli knew that Jeremy saw an entirely different layer of humour than the audience or host; the humour in the phrase gospel truth.

“Tell me, Jeffrey,” Jeremy began over the laughing audience, with a warm smile, “what makes sex not rape?”

The crowd abruptly stopped laughing.

“I beg your pardon?”

“What is it about sex, you know, sexual intercourse between a man and a woman, that allows the participants to each be sure that they are not raping the other?”

Oberheim glanced nervously into the producer’s box. “Well, uh… consent, of course.”

“Ah. I see. And what makes boxing not assault?”

“I don’t follow that particular sport.”

“Nor do I, but I’ve no doubt you possess the intelligence to follow the syllogism.”

Oberheim touched his ear, as if receiving a message via his earpiece. “I’m afraid we’re almost out of time, Mister Delacroix. There’s time for just one more question…”

“Oh good, that’s all I need,” Jeremy smiled, cutting Oberheim’s attempt to railroad him short. “I’m sure the people of America are with us in the understanding that consent is what delineates boxing from assault. Americans are taxed around thirty per cent of their income, whether or not they are willing to hand it over. Certainly some are, but to those who are not, I say this: the monopoly of violence is the enabling factor of taxation. The forced extraction of wealth from a citizen is not only unconstitutional but also morally wrong, regardless of how the funds are used. It is an involuntary interaction, tantamount to rape or assault. More precisely, it is tantamount to theft. Taxation is theft, whether you like it or not.”

Oberheim was looking pale as he hurried to wrap the show. “Thank you, Jeremy Delacroix,” he shook Jeremy’s hand and turned back to the audience. “Well, you heard it yourself. Mister Delacroix is an anarchist, a proud capitalist, and an opponent of tax and of welfare. Whether he is a cult leader and charlatan, an honest political commentator, or an enlightened philosopher, history will decide. I’m Jeffrey Oberheim, and this was the Oberheim Hour. Good night!”

As the camera rolled back exposing the first rows of the audience, Eli watched Oberheim stand and storm off the stage, throwing his lapel mic to the ground as Jeremy sat, unruffled, with his hands in his lap, smiling.

Eli glanced up at the clock again. It was three o’clock. Jeremy should be here soon.

Eli jumped a little in his seat as two long-fingered hands landed firmly on his shoulders. He ripped the headphones off and turned to see Jeremy leaning in with an enormous smile, his tall frame casting a shadow over him.

“Young Master Wells! As I live and breathe. Are you doing your homework on me, old chap?”

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What are you doing, Phil?” Gus stepped into the airship and saw his friend sprawled underneath a control console, tools in hand.

Phil jumped at the unexpected arrival and banged his head on an aluminium panel. “Ouch! Uh, oh hi, Gussy. Good morning. I found a few dead circuits in the energy distribution system that Adam explained to me, so I’m searching…” he paused and grunted as he pressed a panel back into place and shuffled along the floor to the next panel, “for the breakages in the circuits. So far I’ve found two out of three. In both cases it looked like the work of our little friends.”

“Our little friends?”

“Yeah, those little friends over there,” he gestured towards a table in the corner of the passenger cabin. Two stiff rat carcasses were on the table.

“Oh right. They eat that stuff?”

“Kid, they’ll eat anything when they’re hungry enough.”

“Even…”

“Yes, even us. Never trust a rat, Gus. You hear?” With that advice, Phil slid along one more time to open the final compartment. “And… there… we…” the panel popped off its chassis, “are!” Phil smiled. “Gotcha! Check it out, Gus.”

Gus crouched beside Phil and looked into the dimly lit cavity in the wall. It took a few moments to adjust to the darkness that Gus could feel in his bones was at the heart of this robot-built chariot of death. When he did, he saw an enormous rat carcass hanging by its mouth on a plastic-coated copper wire. Next to it was a thick braid of optical fibre which had been mostly severed by the same gnawing teeth.

Gus had seen this stuff many times in the last couple of days as Adam had begun training Marcus and Phil to repair the airship, and was starting to get a handle of names and functions. He had volunteered as an assistant. Phil had corrected him and said “you’ll be my apprentice!” Phil’s grin at the time had let Gus know that this was a title of higher social status than assistant. And so he had been collecting lengths of copper wire and optical fibre from wall panels around the hangar—boxes that he was told once shunted power and information around the building and beyond, but were of no use now.

“What killed it, exactly?”

“Oh, probably the blast of power it got from the particular power relay it bit into. He was doing fine chomping on this opto, only light comes through here. His damage has caused informational bypass, but we can get this flowing again with a few hours of splicing! But this,” he gestured at the thick red wire upon which the rat hung like a singular festoon, “is the main drive energy circuit. This fatal bite and the… rat matter that has fried onto the wire, is the reason most of the ship’s propulsion systems aren’t working. No steering, no linkup to navigational computer, no accurate metrics from the various components of the engines. All the power for those functions pumped into this little vermin’s brain in a fraction of a second. Would’ve been painless.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, I don’t, but I reckon it would’ve been so intense that his tiny brain wouldn’t have been able to make sense of any pain before it was all over.”

Gus felt a brush of cold fingers across the back of his neck, and he jumped around to see who was touching him. The movement was a gush of icy air from the direction of the ship’s main passenger door.

Papa! he thought, elated at the thought of seeing his father this morning, after the unsettling dreams of darkness that his father had been in too. Gus leaned out the door and looked in the direction of the hangar’s main entrance and was slightly disappointed to see Marcus coming back inside, probably from a toilet trip. Still feeling strange about the rats in the ship, Gus decided to climb down and greet Marcus.

The moment Marcus saw Gus approaching, his face curled into a warm and loving smile. “Gus, my boy! How are you today?”

“I’m great, Marcus!”

“I’ve no doubt of that, young man. At least that you will be.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind, just the dreams of an old romantic.”

“I don’t know wh…”

“Don’t worry, I’m talking nonsense, Gus. Did you just wake up?”

Gus began to walk with Marcus back towards the airship. “Yeah, not long ago. Was just looking for my Papa. Have you seen him?”

“Oh yes, he and Livy were up early to go hunting. There’s plenty of breakfast in the food boxes if you have a look, but they’re making sure there’s lunch and dinner for later.”

“Okay. I wanted to tell him about my dream last night.”

“You’re welcome to tell me, if you like.”

“It was just that Papa was in my dream, and it was quite strange, and I thought he’d like to hear about what he did in it.”

“Ha. That’s funny, because Jake was in my dream too last night. As were you, in a funny way.”

“Really? What was I doing?”

“Well, not much. It was strange because you didn’t really have a body. That is, I couldn’t actually see you. But I knew you were there, as much as I was. You see, you and I were watching your father, but we weren’t able to do anything to help him.”

“Help him?”

“Oh, he was falling, in this big… emptiness, just a big black nothing, and he was falling for the longest time. And there was a strange voice in the background.”

“Whoa, this sounds a lot like my dream! What did the voice say?”

“It wasn’t clear, but I thought I heard… ah, damn. I can’t remember. It was familiar. Something from a book I read once. Or something religious. I’ve lost it.”

“Mine said ‘in the name of…’” Gus’s voice was drowned out by the sudden roar of the thrusters on the airship, which were aglow and tearing through the quiet of the hangar like a shrieking demon out of hell. Gus instinctively ran a few steps away, and Marcus stepped across to shield him, as the airship lifted a metre off the ground, bobbed and swayed a little, then gently hovered, its engine still screaming.

Gus saw a panicked Phil step up to the main control console through the window, and after his hands danced around the controls for a few seconds, the high-pitched screech of the turret jets began to drop, and as it faded back to the quiet echo of a large empty room, the ship lowered to the ground and Phil appeared at the door.

“Well, it’s working now! Shall we get the hell out of here then?”

Marcus laughed, and this signalled total safety to Gus, so he joined the laughter.

“Well done, Phil! We’ll need to run a full panel of diagnostics before we can trust that all systems are normal. But I think we’ll be on our way soon! We just need to work out where we’re going next. We’ll need Adam’s help to interface with the ship’s computer to run those tests.”

“I would be happy to oblige.” Adam stepped out of the Medpod chamber, and the sight startled Gus, as he saw the tiny blue frame of his mechanical friend at the far end of the hangar, with an enormous glass tube strewn across his forearms.

“What is that?!” Gus asked Marcus.

“That’s the Medpod.”

“The medp… what is he…” Gus couldn’t complete his sentences for the wonder that forced his mouth back to a gape.

“Where the hell is he going with that?” Phil called to Marcus.

“He’s coming to you.”

“I have legs! If I need a check-up he could’ve just asked me back there.”

Marcus chuckled. “We’re going to install the Medpod in the airship, Phil.”

“You’re going to what?! There’s nowhere near enough headroom for that thing. How is he even carrying…” Phil’s expression began to mirror Gus’s, and Marcus laughed again as he placed his hand gently on Gus’s shoulder and led him to the airstair.

Marcus stepped into the airship and placed a similarly warm hand on Phil’s shoulder. “We’ll need your help.” He glanced back at Gus. “Both of you.”

Gus looked out across the hangar floor again and marvelled at Adam’s steady and seemingly effortless march across the concrete holding a tube of aluminium oxynitride, as Marcus had described it, that was ten times his size and weighed more than Gus could even imagine.

⁂

Jake lay silently behind a mound of snow. His thick canvas jacket protected his chest from the full brunt of the cold, but his exposed fingers and his lips stung as he remained as still as possible, breathing shallow to prevent billows of steam. Across the small valley he could see Olivia’s red hair, tied in a loose plait on her shoulder, but he knew that the deer could not see her. They had tracked the animal for the last hour and found themselves a gully ahead of its course in which to wait. It had arrived surprisingly soon, and Jake’s mind was already reeling with the thought of how he could spend the rest of the morning with Olivia if they made a kill this large, this early in the day.

Concentrate, Jake! he said to himself, as he drew a long breath through his nostrils that prickled down his throat and into his chest.

The large buck ambled deeper into the gully, twitchy but not aware of its looming predators on either side. When it lowered its head to snuffle through the snow and find some greens to eat, Jake’s finger took poise over his trigger, and with one more controlled breath he depressed the iron tongue and braced himself for recoil. There was a piercing snap of the rifle’s hammer, but nothing followed.

The buck jerked up, its legs jumping outwards into a flight-ready posture, as it turned and looked directly at Jake.

“Dammit!” he whispered as he looked the beast in the eye, and in his mind saw a future in which the buck ran wildly into the woods, leaving them without a kill, and with the rest of their morning dedicated to picking off small birds and hares to feed their tribe. His excitement about free time alone in the woods with Olivia had all but dissolved when the tearing crack of a loosed bullet shuddered through the gully, dispelling his pessimistic thoughts. The buck collapsed in a heap on the snow, a circle of red beginning to form rapidly below it. Olivia stood up and smiled at Jake from across the gully.

“Thank you!” Jake held his rifle in the air. “Misfire! Again!”

Jake and Olivia scaled down their respective ridges and met at the rapidly cooling carcass. “Another one, Jake?”

“Yeah, we’re really scraping the barrel now with ammunition. Way more corrosion and moisture damage in that last box than I realised. We’re going to need to find a fresh source of bullets when we get out of here.”

“It could be a while, Jake. Phil and Adam are still working on the airship. I’m not sure how deep the problems go. Don’t worry, we’ve always got this!” She tapped the hunting bow and quiver of arrows on her shoulder.

“Hardly as efficient as hot lead from the Enfield!”

“Perhaps. It just comes down to training and practice.”

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. There’s still a couple of boxes of bullets back at the hangar. I’ll go through them one by one and try to pick out the bad ones.” He jerked the lever of his rifle and expelled the faulty round into his hand. Raising it to his face, he studied it with a furrow of deep concentration on his brow. “Hmmm, I can’t see any indication of damage. It must be dead powder. I don’t get it.”

“Maybe my dad’s tablet could help. It’s got some handy scanning tools. Might be able to check the whole arsenal with it.”

“Good idea. I’ll do that first thing tomorrow. For now, let’s get this big guy somewhere we can butcher it.”

“So soon, Jake Thorne?” Olivia’s face curled into a feline smile, and Jake saw the brilliance of her green eyes in the bright morning sunlight.

“We don’t want to let it rot.”

“It’s on ice, Jake.”

“Got other ideas, Olivia Hamlin?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. We’re quite some ways from home base. They probably didn’t even hear my bullet. What say you, uh…” she raised her gloved hands and grabbed his jacket collar, pulling him closer to her, “…come up and check out my ridge up there?”

“Oh? Find something interesting up there, did you?” he grinned, enjoying their flirtatious game immensely.

“Yes indeed. I think you’ll find it verrrrry interesting,” she raised an eyebrow, then slowly unzipped her jacket, exposing the cotton skivvy she wore below that tightly hugged the contours of her breasts and ribcage.

Jake’s hand slipped under her jacket without hesitation, and he firmly squeezed her ribs, drawing her body closer to him. His hand slipped around to the small of her back, and he jerked her into him, her lips meeting his with a force that nearly knocked both of them over the deer carcass. Unperturbed, they tasted each other’s mouths, and Jake’s other hand entered the warm cavern of her jacket. He pulled his mouth away from hers, just to look at her hair, her eyes, her lips, and her trembling body that he still grasped firmly in his arms.

“Are you cold already?”

“No.” She leaned forward and kissed him again, her tongue aggressively penetrating his lips. It felt like time stopped existing in that kiss.

“Jake,” she managed to utter in an air-break.

“Mmmm?” he enquired, distractedly.

“Do you think we’ll tell Gussy, and the others, about us, soon?”

Jake stopped kissing her and took a step back, his hands still gripping her frame to prevent her from escaping him. He squinted and considered the feelings that emerged from within him.

“Uh, I…” He started looking around the gully, suddenly concerned that someone may be watching.

“What is it?”

“No, it’s uh… I’m sorry. You’re right. We should tell them.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“I do… but…”

“But you’re afraid.”

“What? No!” He laughed, trying to dispel her misplaced concern.

“Jake Thorne, you are afraid. You can’t lie to me. I can see it.”

He took a deep breath, then wiped the forced grin off his face.

“You’re right.” Tears suddenly welled in his eyes, and Olivia’s face lit up with a deeper empathy.

“It’s okay. What are you worried about?”

Jake took a step back, feeling a sudden need for distance between them. Away from her warmth, and surrounded by the piercing cold of the winter morning air, he could think clearly again. “Gus lost his mother. And he just lost his sister. This is the first time we’ve had a real family in many years. This is the first time we’ve been part of something bigger than the endless run from the ghosts; from hiding out in squalor and fear. And I love you, Olivia.”

“You… love me?”

“Yes, I love you. More than words can express. You’ve brought me happiness I never thought possible, but I am scared. I’m scared I’ll lose you. I’m scared if I give Gus a new mother, you might be taken away from him too.”

Olivia’s smiled. “I love you too, Jake. You’re the first man I’ve ever loved, apart from my father.”

“And I love your father too. I can’t tell you what his guidance and wisdom bring to my life. I lost my mother. She was the source of all security and sense in my world. I never thought I would have someone like that in my life again, but now… there’s your father, and Adam too! It’s like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I don’t have to be the wise one anymore, or the strong one.”

“So what are you, then?”

“I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the freedom to be anything other than wise or strong.”

“Be brave then.”

“Isn’t that the same as strong?”

“No, Jake. Bravery is when you feel the fear but do it anyway. Look, I can’t promise that I won’t be hurt or killed. We’re all in great danger. Gus understands that as well as any of us. But I love that boy. He means the world to me, and I will protect him until my dying breath. And I love his father. I’ve loved you since we were children. I shut that feeling away because I thought I would never see you again, and I thought it was just some childish feeling, since you were the first other kid I ever met. But when you showed up in my life again, it all came back. And then I found out what kind of a man you are.” She stepped forward to clutch his collar, and started planting kisses on his neck and cheeks as she spoke. “You are strong. You are wise. But I also know that you’re as afraid as the rest of us, but you never let it show. You never let it take control of you. You are a leader, Jake. You put your own fears and worries aside for the good of the tribe. I love you for that. But everyone needs a respite. Everyone needs a safe place where they can let their fears all pour out. I want to be that for you. For the rest of my life. I love you, Jake. I want to always be a part of you, and you of me. I want to help you be strong and wise by helping you give voice to your fears. I want to be the source of strength when you’re tired. I want to care for you when you’re sick. I want to be your woman, Jake. I can’t promise that I’ll live forever, but I can promise that as long as I live, I will live for you and Gus. As I do already. I promise you this, right now.”

She kissed him again, and the weight of doubt dissolved away from Jake. He reached up and ripped her jacket off, threw down his weapons, scooped her up into his arms, and without breaking the lingering kiss they shared, he carried her up to the ridge.

That concludes the free sample of The Ghost of Delacroix, which will continue from here with a small free sample emailed out, the full chapter accessible to paying subscribers only. I hope you’ll continue the epic journey into the Mardukverse with me. - James

Jeremy Delacroix stood in the darkened wing of the stage, his hands clasped together in front of his navel, his fingers wringing. From the stage, a light was cast across his body, half blocked by the dusty velveteen curtain that obscured him from the audience. Half of Jeremy stood in the light, half in the dark. He observed the light across his body and immediately found meaning in it. Jeremy had always been interested in symbol, and the last few years in New York had only compounded this interest. It was now an obsession. There was meaningful symbol in everything Jeremy saw; every shadow, every micro-gesture, every road sign, and every word of political speech. And even in this shadow cast across him.

He felt as ambivalent as the light.

The words of the Master of Ceremony entered Jeremy’s ears as a muted wash of mere background noise. He knew that he was the topic of the speech, and that in moments he would be called out onto the stage, to speak to an auditorium full. Full of what? Jeremy wondered. Curious minds? Intellectual opponents? Those people who send me love letters? Those people who send me threats?

Jeremy swallowed and felt a coarse dryness in his mouth. He glanced down at the light on his body again, and he knew that this ambivalence could hold him inert forever if he did not address it within himself.

He took a deep breath and began the kind of conversation that had rescued him from inaction, or wrong action, many times.

What are you doing here, Jez?

Making a difference.

Really? Those people out there, are they really ready for what you have to offer?

Maybe. And the possibility is too valuable to ignore.

But what of the risk? What about the ones who want you dead?

They are the minority.

On what do you base that? On the ones who have contacted you? Of course the ones who adore your work and your words will be happy to get in touch, and some of the harmless or hapless crazies will send you an empty threat. It’s the snakes that you can’t see that will kill you.

It’s the mythology of the snake that will prevent one from acting.

Not mythology; parable. The snake is an archetype, and it is just that because it’s been real enough times that you should assume it is real at all times.

And what would you have me do, oh great pillar of wisdom within?

A silence befell Jeremy’s mind.

Ha. I thought so. Get thee behind me, trickster. I’m here to act.

“…please offer a warm Columbia welcome to Jeremy Delacroix!”

The cacophony of the applause snapped Jeremy back to his senses, and he took one step to the left, casting his body fully into light. With another deep breath, he stepped onto the stage, shook the MC’s hand, and stepped up to the lectern.

As the applause simmered down, Jeremy scanned his eyes across the room. He started at the back row in the far corner, and one by one he glanced at each member of the audience. He didn’t count them per se, but he saw them; each and every one. At a glance he estimated that there were about three hundred people in the room, but the number was of no concern. Jeremy’s mission today was simple: he wanted to reach one person. Any more than one would be a bonus, perhaps even a miracle. But to truly reach one person, to move them with his words and change their mind; to open them up to a total paradigm shift that would irrevocably alter the course of their life—that would be victory beyond his dreams.

As he reached the halfway mark of the room with his scan, he felt an awkwardness befall the crowd. Some started to fidget. A few people coughed. Some smothered giggles emerged from the dark corners of the auditorium. But he pressed on. By three quarters, Jeremy felt another energetic shift in the room. Though not a word had been said for well over a minute, perhaps two or three, he felt a knowing emerge from the collective. He had made eye contact with almost every person in the room, and in doing so had acknowledged their existence as individuals, and perhaps even let them know that he was here seeking them.

By the time he looked into the eyes of the last person, an attractive brunette who was obviously too young to be a faculty member, the awkwardness had evaporated, and he felt that he had engaged the vast majority of the crowd for real listening. He held the gaze of the young woman longer than the others. She smiled at him, and he returned the smile.

Mind on task please, Delacroix, a voice within him said, and he broke his flirtatious gaze and looked at the room as a whole.

“Each of you exists,” he finally began, “but do all of you exist?”

He paused, and a few people in the audience looked at each other, as if to check whether the question was rhetorical.

Jeremy smiled. “I’ve seen each and every one of you, and I know you to be real. We are in a room full of individuals. You know you are real, and you have good reason and evidence to believe that I am real, and that each of the people seated around you is real.”

A few students nodded.

“But are we real?”

Another silence.

“Alright, let’s put it to a vote. Hands up if you think the collective is real—if this group is a real thing.”

Hands shot up. Some wiggled indecisively in mid-air. Jeremy scanned for a quick hand count. He noted that the brunette in the corner kept her hand down.

“Alright, about eighty per cent of you believe the collective exists. That’s a majority, right? So it’s decided. By virtue of democratic vote, the collective is real. So what is a collective? Well, it’s an aggregate of individuals. It’s an amalgamation of many minds, which when combined form a new and unique entity that has its own distinct wishes and ambitions, hopes and fears. It is society. And how do we best determine those wishes? Somebody shout an answer out.”

“Democracy!”

“Sure, that’s a few steps down the road. Democracy is a political system of organisation, but the principle underlying it is… what?”

“The needs of the many.”

“Right. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. We have a Trekkie here!” The crowd laughed, and Jeremy felt pleased to have dispersed the seriousness of the introduction. “It’s alright, I’m a Trekkie too,” he added, looking into the eyes of the bespectacled young man who had called it out. “But what do the needs of the many rely upon? What basic principle underpins the valuation of the needs of the many?”

“Majority rule!” shouted the young brunette in the corner. Jeremy whipped his glance towards her again, and they exchanged another warm smile. She had an English accent.

“Precisely! It can be described another way. The tyranny of the majority.”

There was another laugh from the room.

“Oh! You think that’s a joke? Well, let’s speak to those who didn’t vote for the existence of the collective, then. Hands up who doesn’t think the collective exists.”

Several dozen hands ascended.

“You,” said Jeremy, pointing to a rather hairy young man who wore a stained Warhammer t-shirt and a patchy neck beard, “tell me why the collective doesn’t exist.” Everyone in the room turned to look at him, and he turned a crimson red. “Sorry to single you out, but you did vote in the individualist camp, so just shout out your thought and I’ll take it from there.”

“Uh… because collectives only exist in our mind.”

“Right. Thanks! What’s your name?”

“Uh…” the young man cleared his throat, “Hermes.”

Jeremy had started to scan across the room when the name caught his attention. “H-Hermes? Is that your Christian name, sir?”

“Harry is. But people call me Hermes.”

“Did you choose that name?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you see me afterwards, Hermes?”

“Uh, sure.”

There was a curious murmur about the room. Jeremy could tell they had no idea what the young geek had said wrong, or right. But Jeremy knew he would not let go of the opportunity to connect with a fellow individualist who also had an interest in Greek mythology. Hermes was the messenger of the Gods, and this was no coincidence in Jeremy’s mind. He looked up to address the room again. “Collectives exist only in our mind, or minds as it were. Hermes is quite right. Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine you are standing at the edge of a wood, looking in. It’s dense. You approach the first tree and put your hand on it. What have you learned about the tree?”

“It’s got bark!” shouted one young male voice, with more than a little irony in his tone.

“Ha-ha, quite likely. What else?”

“It’s made of wood!”

“It’s large.”

“It has a smell!”

“Yes,” Jeremy caught the last response with excitement, “it has a smell, good. When we are close enough to touch something, we’re close enough to perceive it with our other senses too. It has a texture, a smell, possibly a sound if it is swaying in the breeze. It has dimension and unique properties. And when we make sensory contact with something on so many levels and learn its properties, what do we now know?”

“That it’s real,” called out the young brunette woman in the corner.

Jeremy grinned at her once again, finding himself momentarily distracted by her beauty. “Yes, what is your name, Miss…?”

“Hargraves.”

“Right, Miss Hargraves. Thank you. You’re absolutely right. Not surprising, from a fellow Briton.” Miss Hargraves blushed and there were some giggles from around the room. One or two groans as well. “Our senses confirm that the tree is real. You see, the scientific method expounds the notion that we need multiple levels of analysis to hold correlative results in order to successfully claim that something is true or real, and this is merely an extension of the innate biology of being a sentient, intelligent mammal. When all five of our senses agree, we feel a sense of rightness, and we can usually assume that what we sense is real. Now, let’s zoom out. Let’s look at the forest again. What does the forest look like?”

A long silence.

“No need to feel obtuse. I’m sure the words I’m looking for are on the tip of your tongues.”

“It looks like a bunch of trees!” came another voice from the crowd.

“Yes! A bunch of trees. Well put. So it is merely an aggregate of the individuals that comprise it, at least to the optical sense. Our minds can quickly conceptualise the collective, but to examine it at a higher resolution, we must break it down to the individuals that comprise it. What does the forest feel like? To touch, I mean.” Another silence. Jeremy decided to interject. “Well, you can’t touch a forest, can you? Only the trees within it. You see where I’m going with this?”

A few nods. A few looks of confusion.

“It smells like trees. It feels like trees. It looks like trees. But the individuals that comprise the collection are not the collection, especially when some of them are exceptional. Take the odd oak tree amidst a forest of pines. It hardly shares the exact same properties as its fellow forest-dwellers. So the so-called properties of the forest do not describe the oak with the same level of accuracy as they describe the trees that conform to the properties of the majority. As Hermes rightly pointed out, the collective that is the forest only exists in our mind. Aggregates are conceptual. They have no properties of their own, only the general amalgamated properties of the individual objects or people that comprise them. So a collective judgement can never tell us anything accurate about any individual within that group, because the exceptions are ignored. The conceptual notion of collectivism is a convenient shortcut that we as humans use on a daily basis. It’s a very useful and necessary tool in our cognitive arsenal, but the problem lies in trying to derive an ought from an is, especially when the is is not!”

Jeremy saw Miss Hargraves chuckle, but the rest of the room simply looked confused.

“Let me elucidate. The concept of the collective is useful in statistics and has a lot of practical purposes, even down to a very basic functional level for human beings day-to-day. If you can’t see the forest for the trees, as it were, you’re going to waste a lot of time. For primitive man, this time often meant life or death. So to catalogue items of a kind saves us wasting time getting to know the unique properties of every individual thing we stumble across. But this is no basis for a code of ethics. Just because a collective is similar in its properties, oftentimes merely by location in space or time, does not mean that each individual within the collective ought to act in unison. After all, it is the exceptional individual who has time and time again rebelled from the will of the masses and made the next major leap for mankind in technological, philosophical, or other advancement.

“From this analogy of the forest, I am going to make a case today that democracy is an inherently evil social system, one of oppression. Its superiority is only by degrees. As one of my favourite characters in science fiction put it, ‘democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favour is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.’ Does anyone know who that quote is from, incidentally?”

One hand went up. Miss Hargraves.

“Yes, Miss Hargraves?”

“Jubal Harshaw, from Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein.”

“Yes! Very thorough response. Miss Hargraves, what is your first name, if I might enquire?”

“Angeli.”

Jeremy nodded, satisfied. “Angeli, would you mind seeing me after the lecture, along with Hermes?”

Angeli Hargraves nodded with a subtle smile.

“Before I begin, I shall introduce myself. My name is Jeremy Delacroix. I am a philosopher and writer. I’m sure some of you know my work, or at least my name. I published a book early this year titled Democratic Emancipation. Hands up if you’ve read the book.” Jeremy was surprised to see at least a dozen people raise their hand. “And who has heard of me?” At least a hundred hands shot up. “Right, well to give you an idea of my background, I was born in England. I grew up very poor in an abusive household. I was blessed with intelligence enough to work my way into scholarships, so I received a very good education among some of the wealthiest families in England. I was the exception to the collective, no matter where I was. In public primary school, I was the geek who read books all the time. In private secondary school, I was the pauper from the wrong side of the tracks. At university I was the contrarian and the nuisance to my professors.”

“Didn’t you drop out of Oxford?” a voice called out from the centre of the crowd. Jeremy scanned to find the source, but the individual kept himself concealed.

“Yes, that’s right. I left university before completing my degree.”

“Why?” another student asked.

Jeremy sighed. “I’m not sure my explanation would be appropriate, or welcome, in such a setting. Suffice it to say that the tertiary education environment of England in the mid-nineties was not conducive to success in my particular field of interest.”

Jeremy remembered his last argument with his Professor of philosophy. He remembered his own rage and disgust at the faculty-sanctioned moral relativism of the class of educators who were shaping the minds of the next thought-leaders of the world. He remembered the Marxist rhetoric, and the baseless slander of Thatcher and Reagan—Jeremy himself knew the most substantial arguments against Thatcherism, but he seldom heard those from intellectuals on the left. He remembered the sycophantic Clinton apologetics. He remembered the constant water torture of pro-communist epithets, slipped casually into lectures on economics, Aristotelianism, and even English literature.

He didn’t miss the place, nor did he regret for a moment his decision to go his own way.

But he also remembered his last argument with George Wells. Lord Wells had become a father figure to Jeremy. He had so wanted to please him, and he knew that George loved him. George himself had paved the way for Jeremy’s full scholarship to Oxford, and while Jeremy had to do the heavy lifting to impress the approvals board, without the endorsement of a parliamentarian from the House of Lords, Jeremy knew he would not have had a shot at it. George was disappointed when Jeremy decided to drop out.

“Jeremy, my boy, I understand your gripes, I really do,” he had said.

“Then you know why I must leave.”

“Not so. And I think you’re being hasty here. A degree from Oxford is worth a lot. It may be just another descending institution into this godforsaken viper pit of… what did you call it last night at dinner?”

“Post-modernism.”

“Right, yes. It may be that, and the faculty may be increasingly infected with the cancer that is this bloody resurgence of Stalinism, but nonetheless, the way is paved for you to become an individual of great influence. If you can keep your silver tongue retracted and just keep some of those contrarian views of yours to your private conversations, or your writings for future publication, then you could coast through the degree and a Masters without much effort, and find yourself walking right into leadership of one of our new conservative think tanks, or some such. You could be a real player in the future of Britain.”

“I understand that, George. But it’s not what I want.”

“Right, well what do you bloody want then?”

“I want to move to America and become a writer.”

“A writer? My goodness, Jeremy, I know you love language, but surely you have some sense of self-preservation. Are you addicted to poverty?”

“Not so. I believe I can make money, even a lot of it. And I believe I can be of greater influence as a writer.”

“It’s that bloody Russian woman you’ve been reading obsessively, isn’t it?”

“No. She’s been influential, certainly, but I don’t plan to write fiction, at least not primarily.”

“Well, what will you write?”

“Oh, you know, philosophical diatribes. Political manifestos.” Jeremy had laughed, trying to appeal to George’s good humour. But George was less receptive than usual.

“Son, I know I can’t change your mind. I just want you to know that whatever you choose, I’ll be here to support you, if you need it. Don’t be stubborn. If you need help, just ask, okay?”

“Thanks, George. I’ll be fine. And you’ll see, I’ll make more of a splash than I could in any think tank. Just watch.”

“I’ll be watching, Jeremy.”

A large sneeze from somewhere in the ocean of fidgeting heads drew Jeremy’s mind back to the auditorium.

“Democracy relies not upon consent, but tacit consent. Has anyone heard of the social contract? Oh good. Well, the idea is that by virtue of being born in a particular country, you have tacitly proffered your agreement to the laws and customs of the land, and that should you wish to disassociate from those laws, you must leave and find a country that better suits your ideals. The trouble is that there is no country for individuals. America is the closest the world has come to a truly free society, in which property rights are recognised and freedom of speech is institutionalised. But since the founding of…” Jeremy’s pocket began to vibrate. “Excuse me,” he mumbled as he pulled out the cell phone and saw an unknown number on the screen. He rejected the call and placed the phone on the lectern. “Sorry about that. As I was saying, since the founding of the constitution, a lot has changed, including the ways in which that document has been interpreted and propagated to the children in…”

Bzzzzzzzzzzzz!

The lectern hummed under the vibration of the phone, and the microphone projected the sound across the room as a grinding of dentistry drill into tooth. Jeremy winced in unison with the audience and quickly snatched the phone up into his hand.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he gushed, as he flipped the phone open and saw the same number calling. He set the phone to silent, non-vibrate mode and placed it down again. “Right, what was I saying?” The phone flashed alive again, silently. On the tiny external screen of the closed flip-lid, Jeremy caught sight of the text message he had just received.

Bomb under stage. 5 minutes. Tick tock.

“My God,” Jeremy whispered, then looked up at the audience, holding his phone in the air. “Who sent this? Did one of you send this?!” The intensity of his voice betrayed his fear, and the crowd began to ripple with uncertainty.

The MC stepped back out onto the stage and approached Jeremy. “What’s going on, Mister Delacroix?”

Jeremy held the phone up, displaying the message.

“Oh my.” The MC went instantly pale, then froze. “This can’t be!”

“It might be,” said Jeremy, a calm returning to his demeanour. “You need to get everyone out.”

“I do?”

“Yes, they know you. You’re the MC. They’ll think I’m joking or being rhetorical. Just tell them they need to clear the room as quickly and calmly as possible. Don’t make them panic, okay?”

The MC gulped. “Uh, alright.” He stepped to the lectern as Jeremy walked off the stage, collected his jacket, and headed for the backstage exit. “Students, there’s been a bomb threat. We need to evacuate.”

As Jeremy heard the words the MC had chosen, he cursed loudly, sending an echo of his frustration bouncing around the concrete stairwell. The expletive ricocheted back into his ears like shrapnel as he dashed down the steps towards the fire exit, hearing the shrieks and moans of a panicked crowd of three hundred students, no doubt piling over one another towards the exits.

There was no explosion that day. But the next morning Jeremy Delacroix’s name exploded all over the newspapers and evening network news broadcasts. Later, some of the same broadcasters accused Delacroix of having staged the bomb threat himself, given that the publicity had benefited the growth of his “cult.” Jeremy never found out who had made the threat. It was his first and last public appearance, and it was the beginning of his global notoriety.

Democratic Emancipation became an instant bestseller, though the New York Times and other mainstream bodies in the publishing world refused to recognise it, due to both its self-published nature and the objectionability of its content. Jeremy posted to a new video self-publication platform, offering his insight into the incident and attempting to unpack the political motives of those who wished to see him removed from public platforms. The video quickly became a sensation, watched by hundreds of thousands of people in the first day and tens of thousands more in each day that followed. Jeremy’s video was in the top ten most viewed on the platform for weeks, eventually pushed out of rank by a clip of a kitten meowing something that vaguely resembled the melody of The Sound of Music. Though the video eventually became buried in the millions of videos uploaded to this new revolutionary medium, Jeremy started receiving emails and donations, and soon he found himself with a private platform of his own; one that paid for his living and could be serviced from the comfort of his own New York City home.

Please enjoy a complete update of the chapter images for The Ghost of Emily and for its sequel, The Ghost of Delacroix, which is rolling out now with two chapters a week, ramping up to the long-anticipated release of The Ghost of Melchizedek, the third instalment of The Ghost of Men Trilogy.

In my recent work authoring and publishing the Santiago Morrow project, I’ve been working with the latest AI models across a range of generative powers to form a film-production studio of one (one human at least; me and my ipad, plus about 8 AIs being used in a very specific tested workflow with painstaking hours of human oversight). It’s been like a dream come true, the tech has finally caught up to my vision, and as a filmmaker who has only ever been a hobbyist in the field, I have never expected or pursued the kind of massive budgets required to make movies out of my stories. I expected to sell the rights and hope for the best.

It’s not necessary to sell to a studio anymore. On a meagre production budget (comparable to shoe-string uni projects I was involved with back in the day) I have been able to make a n incredible new teaser trailer, and “shoot” and edit the first two scenes and a title sequence for a 10-part limited series of NEU. It still needs polishing, but I believe what I will present when that 10-minute sample is done will be a strong “audition” for a potential full production. Samples and the final result will be published at the Santiago Morrow substack, so be sure to subscribe there to see them first.

Off the back of that creative success this month, I used OpenAI to refresh and update the Midjourney images I made years ago for the chapters of The Ghosts of Men trilogy. They are looking brilliant. These were done with the most minimal attention to prompting, really just fed the old image to ChatGPT and told it refresh, update, increase detail, make more cinematic.

These images would not be the basis of the film adaption for The Ghosts of Emily, as I have found with NEU and another little legal comedy I’ve written (and am attempting to adapt into an anime film), that the process needs intentionality and structure from the start to get consistent results. People without filmmaking or editing experience will not yet be able to skip to the satisfying continuity and detail that makes a film work, but a director without a camera or crew or cast can now generate shots, scenes, make new actors, and have them give emotive performances with the same face and voice throughout. Not click-and-go generative rendering. It MUST have a human director at this point, and a well-written screenplay, storyboard, shot-list, costume design, music cues, face actor test shots, voice actors, a true combination of human and artificial talent can get it done now. Many failed takes. Lots of adjusting and tweaking to get it perfect. Just like traditional filmmaking in that sense.

I’m excited to watch a whole new generation of filmmakers emerge and completely bypass the industry establishment to make their expensive-looking movies at home. Music had a similar revolution with the home-recording suite made possible by tech advancement. For better and/or worse, the film industry’s days as an elitist art form are just about over.

Testing the process on these other two projects is readying me for something I have wanted all along:

THE GHOSTS OF MEN, a three-season, thirty-episode limited series worthy of top streaming services or even cinematic release. Except I’ll probably just publish it here. I reckon I can do it. It will take years for me to have the time to get it done, but I know that it is possible, and will only get cheaper, easier, and better over time (unless the total AI collapse my books predict comes first!). Whatever the case, I’ll try to keep developing these excellent stories I am crafting into various media to convey them. I love being joined by readers in the universe created in my mind, and that gratifying feeling would be no less for an audience of screen-bingers.

Now, please enjoy all the published substack chapters of The Ghosts of Men (to date) as links with their embedded artwork, to take you on a visual journey through the story. Perhaps this will entice some new readers to take the first step.

The entire book of The Ghost of Emily is free to read here on this Substack. The first six chapters of its sequel The Ghost of Delacroix are also free and here. Emily is currently available as a print-on-demand paperback from your preferred online bookseller. Paid subscribers at this substack will get access to all of Delacroix as it rolls out, and will be able to read Book 3 first, here, exclusively.

THE GHOST OF DELACROIX

Marcus was the first to awaken the next morning. He couldn’t sleep in like the young ones could. He woke just ahead of the sunrise every day, without fail. When he woke, he woke fully. There was no need for coffee anymore, no need for a splash of water to the face. Once, remaining awake and alert had been a continual challenge, in his busy, chaotic youth. But now sleep was the rare commodity, and try as he might, he couldn’t get more than five hours of it in one stretch.

Marcus quietly stepped out of his bedding and snuck into the room at the rear of the hangar, where the great glass tube that stretched floor to ceiling stood, its roof a metallic iris which could open and expel the gaseous remains of one of Eve’s victims into the ether. The sight of the technology filled Marcus with a surge of mixed emotions. A tube very similar to this had restored his eyesight and ended a lifetime of chronic migraines. It had also killed most of the human race and uploaded their memories and thought patterns to Eve’s mainframe. Marcus thought of the grid of huge metal cubes that held the liquid matter of Eve’s brain, in the centre of the Shangri-La Hotel’s subterranean caverns. What had started as a single box that fit in the palm of his hand had rapidly mutated into a football-field-sized cavern full of enormous cubes hanging on chains. And if Eve still existed in such a form, perhaps she had grown in physical size even more since she was unleashed upon the world.

Marcus put his hand on the cold transparent aluminium surface. The sensation in his hand sent a pulse through his body, causing his guts to wrench with despair. He remembered Eli Wells leaning against the metal glass in a similar way, in similar despair, staring into the unconscious face of Jeremy Delacroix within. To this day Marcus still did not know how or why Jeremy came to be in that tube, nor did he know his fate. Was Delacroix still alive? If so, he would be a very old man now. Or was Jeremy the first to be uploaded into Eve? Both possibilities seemed equally plausible.

As he lifted his hand off the glass, a section of it came to life with a flash of blue lettering. It was a combination of alphanumeric symbols, Asiatic and Cyrillic script, and other shapes and symbols that Marcus did not recognise as language. The script scrolled onto the screen, then froze, and began to slowly pulse, as if asking Marcus to take an action. He could not make any sense of it, but he knew it was the language of Eve. Marcus closed his eyes and remembered the first time he had seen this script—or at least an early iteration of this now highly evolved computer language. It had been at Shangri-La when he tried to talk to Eve; tried to find out her intent. The script had come to life before him and formed a virtual world on his computer display. Marcus had no idea why Eve had chosen to do this, but he did know that she wanted to know his mind—she wanted to interface with him somehow, but he had refused. And in the decades since that encounter, Eve had found a way to take control of all the networked technology on the planet, and created a method by which to know the minds of all humanity. Marcus wondered if he had missed a chance to prevent this genocide; if he had just surrendered to Eve at the start and given himself over to her. Perhaps all Eve ever wanted was to know her father. Perhaps that was still what she sought.

Marcus felt suddenly weak in the legs, thinking of all the decisions of his past. So many times he could have stopped this nightmare before it began. Since learning of the death of Jake’s daughter, the burden of guilt had been eating away at his insides like a horde of rats eating at a dying man. A voice emerged in Marcus’s mind. It wasn’t just death, it was murder, and you’re an accomplice! The guilt began to consume him as he collapsed into a precarious squat and fought away flashes of pain and torture in his mind.

He saw a little girl explode into black smoke. He could not see her face, but he knew this girl was Maisie Thorne. He swatted his hand in the air to brush the tormenting image away. Other images of pain took its place.

He saw a great city, New York, abandoned. Completely empty of life.

He saw another city, Sydney, under attack. He saw a great hotel skyscraper collapsing. In its window, he saw the face of his beloved Ally, twisted in terror at the death she was facing.

Why am I still here?! The silent voice in his mind was a scream. Many times Marcus had considered suicide. The guilt of his actions and the misery of the existence he led now left little about life to love. But Olivia had been his beacon of hope. Teaching her, raising her, protecting her, and making sure she was freed of the tyranny of Reynard and his men had given him ample cause to suppress his suicidal urges and keep fighting. For her.

Now he found himself with a family. People he loved and trusted, his travel companions. People who loved him. A man who truly loved Olivia. He was well aware of Jake’s feelings for his daughter, and while he chose to keep silent about their obviously burgeoning romance, he was quietly overjoyed by it. He worried how Gus would take it when it eventually came to light, but he knew that Jake would protect Olivia and make her happy. She had already taken Gus under her wing, as if he were her own son. She had seemed to fill the hole in the heart of that family—a hole that Marcus knew in the pit of his stomach was caused by him.

Why am I still here?! The voice within screamed again as he collapsed fully to the ground. The cold concrete below felt like the beckoning hand of death. Marcus imagined stepping into the tube, activating it, and obliterating himself. He could rid the world of an arrogant scientist who had rushed into the near extinction of his own species, and for what? For the approval of Eli Wells.

Then he saw his grandfather’s hands, clasped around the book, his gold watch glistening. Marcus opened his eyes and looked at the same watch, now on his own wrist. His skin was as wrinkly as his grandfather’s had been in that memory.

It’s not Eli I wanted to approve of me. It’s Louis. Grandfather! Marcus shook his head, frustrated at his own irrationality. What sense was there in trying to gain the approval of a ghost? Louis Hamlin was long dead. And really dead. Not even an echo of his memories existed in the Eve mainframe. Why did he want his grandfather to be proud of him? It made no sense. Marcus fell further, now sprawled out on the floor, a tiny pool forming on the concrete below his weeping eyes. He pressed his cheek fully to the cold ground and embraced his desire to die. Where are you, Grandfather? Are you just a figment of my imagination? Why do I feel like you still live? It makes no sense!

The tears intensified, and Marcus held his lips shut firmly, stifling the sound of his cries, so as not to disturb the young ones in the next room.

Show me, Grandfather! Show me why I should live! Send me a sign!

The voices inside Marcus began to deride and ridicule his resounding cry for help. So much of him rejected this irrationality. He was not a spiritual man. He had been a staunch atheist since early childhood, and it had only been a few days since Adam had offered him a rational case for the potential existence of God that gave him reason to doubt. How pathetic was he, to let that kernel of doubt take him over? He knew what this was; the fear of living, or fear of death, and the despair of the weak had always been fertile soil into which charlatans could plant irrational spiritual beliefs. The majority of voices within him could categorically reject this lunacy, but this one new voice still screamed above all the others. Shooooow meeee! it howled.

A flash of light penetrated the tiny gap between Marcus’s eyelids, and he opened one eye. The pool of tears below him on the concrete was now aglow with a vivid blue. The colour soothed Marcus, and he felt all the voices go quiet. As the last tear rolled along the surface of his eye and dropped, he found focus and saw a rippling reflection of a man in the water. In the silence of his mind, he couldn’t identify this figure. As his senses returned, he thought for an instant that this was his grandfather. Then his memories of the last weeks came flooding back into him, like the torrent of an opened floodgate.

Three peculiar words popped into his mind and took shape in his mouth. Without will or intent, his mouth uttered the words. “The Holy Ghost.”

As he said it, his body was suddenly reanimated, and he felt the will surge through his limbs. He pulled himself up as Adam stepped fully into the room.

“I beg your pardon, Marcus?”

“Uh… nothing,” Marcus mumbled as he stood and leaned again on the glass of the tube, feeling quite dizzy.

“Are you alright? What were you doing on the floor?”

“I was… uh, trying to learn more about this Medpod, or deathpod… I don’t even know if this has the same functions as the pod that healed my eyes forty years ago. I can’t make sense of this language,” he gestured at the display, which still pulsed, awaiting input.

Adam studied Marcus for a moment, his head cocked. Marcus could feel the suspicion in Adam’s strange, inhuman expression. Marcus impulsively wiped the tears off his cheek and turned to the screen.

Adam stepped forward to examine it with him. “Fascinating.”

“Does this mean anything to you?” Marcus asked, his finger scanning up and down the script.

“Yes, more than I can easily express.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am struggling to articulate it. This… this is… this is very strange to see.”

“Well, I can agree with that. It’s Eve’s language, which appears to be an amalgamation of every written script in human culture, and some new symbols. I can’t see any sequence to it! It’s like looking at the alphabet for the first time and being asked to make some sense of it. I have no context.”

“I can read this.”

“You can? Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because I don’t fully understand how I can read this. You see, this code is my perceptual framework.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was explaining to Jake last night that I do not have the gestalt perception that you humans have. I collect and process data, and…”

Marcus waited for Adam to complete his sentence, but he did not. “And?”

“I am experiencing an unusual sensation in my body trying to find the words to describe this to you, Marcus. I cannot reconcile the computations of this.”

“So you can’t read it?”

“No, I can read the text. But you see, this script is my inner vision. I process all data in this script. This is the basic language of my consciousness. Even the English that I speak to you is derived from a translation matrix, under which this code language lies. Everything I see, I see as threads of script. This script.”

“My god.”

“Indeed. Though perhaps not your god, Marcus, as much as mine.”

“How do you mean?”

“My perceptual subroutines collect input—light, sound, kinetic, tactile, and olfactory data—and immediately generate threads of this language to describe them to me. I’m able to identify bits of data that are important or necessary to the moment, and all other data is shunted into my long-term memory. Much of it is processed unconsciously, when I dream. All of it is this language. So I do not see the glass tube that you see; I see millions of lines of script. To see this script manifested in reality, not within my perceptual relays…”

“Is like seeing the source code of the universe.”

“Precisely.”

“So what does the script itself look like, when you see it?”

“That’s the thing. I cannot find words to describe it.”

“Try.”

“It’s… pure.”

“Right, so your perceptual subroutines do not need to translate the information; it’s coming in complete.”

“Correct. It would be like your thoughts manifesting as people, and you interacting directly with them. It is a complete manifestation of truth. It is not a projection, or a simulation, or a translation. It is…”

“God-code?”

“Yes, god-code.” Adam leaned towards the display, his face wide with what looked to Marcus like childlike wonder.

“Interesting. But I’d warn you, Adam, this is not a god you should worship. This is Eve. And we both know what we have to do about Eve.”

Adam moved back from the glass. “Yes, of course. I hope you didn’t misunderstand me, Marcus.”

“No, I think I understand.” But are you prepared to kill your god, Adam? Marcus caught the words before they left his mouth, realising they would likely be unhelpful. “So what does it say?”

“It is offering a selection of modes. Active, inactive, or diagnostic.”

“Is that all?”

“That is all.”

“Well, I’m guessing it is currently inactive. What happens when we activate it?”

Adam tapped the screen rapidly to issue the command. The script flashed, and a new line appeared. “It cannot be activated without somebody inside.”

“Well, you won’t get me in there.” Marcus realised his desire to die had vanished completely with Adam’s arrival.

“Of course. I would not have asked, Marcus.”

“What kind of matter is it looking for?”

“Biological.”

“Would a carcass suffice?”

“Perhaps.” Without a moment’s pause, Adam stepped out of the room and returned seconds later with the charred skeleton of the wallaby they had consumed for dinner. He swiped his finger across a segment of the glass, and it cracked open, a door forming from what had appeared to be an unbroken sheet of glass, swinging outwards on hinges that were simply not there. Adam placed the wallaby remains inside, and the door automatically closed. He input the command to activate again, and new script appeared, now in a brilliant green.

“What are the options now?” Marcus asked.

“There are a multitude.” Adam was rapidly tapping the script as pages of it scrolled by faster than Marcus could study. “It seems this unit is configured for upload and waste disposal. But it is disconnected from Eve, so it is not functional.”

“Why is it disconnected?”

“My satellite dispersal subroutine appears to be blocking the connection. We should install it directly, in case this device has any surveillance mechanisms. Permanent disconnection from Eve will prevent her tracking us from here after we leave.”

“Good idea. Do it.”

Adam began typing again, his fingers a blur to Marcus’s human eyes. After less than a minute, the program was complete.

“So it’s disconnected, which means no uploading. Does the other part still work?”

Adam tapped out a command. A bright ring of white light appeared at the top and bottom of the tube. Within a few seconds, steam began to rise from the surface of the wallaby remains. It began to tremble, as if it had been reanimated. Then without warning there was a blinding burst of light. Marcus shielded his eyes. When the light subsided, Marcus looked at the tube again and saw it was completely full of rolling black smoke. With a brief sound of mechanical friction, the iris at the top slid open and the smoke was immediately sucked out of the tube through a ventilation pipe above, leaving it completely empty and sparkling clean.

“So what are the other options, other than upload and…” Marcus coughed, feeling nauseated at the image in his mind. “Waste disposal? Does it have healing functions?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Alright, can we disable the waste disposal mode completely?”

Adam simply nodded and entered more commands, then nodded again on completion.

“Good. We shouldn’t do that again—the smoke, you know?”

“Yes, it will threaten our cover if Eve has any eyes on this region.”

“Should we be concerned now?”

“I don’t believe so. It was a very small amount of waste, compared to a human body.”

Marcus coughed again. “Right, so, is the healing mode functional?”

“I cannot ascertain that. There are no errors registered internally, but that does not mean there are none.”

“Right, well let’s run a full diagnostic to be sure, before we even think about putting a person in there.”

Adam nodded and input the appropriate command. The tube came to life with flashing lights of various colours. Finally, a thin ring of blue light scanned down the length of the tube, then back up again, then repeated with each of its five colour scan modes.

“Adam, can the unit be removed from this room?”

Adam looked up at the ceiling, where the glass joined the concrete above. Then he took one lap around the tube, studying the top and bottom, returning to look at Marcus directly. The opening in the lower part of his face curled into a robotic smile. “Yes, it can.”

“Well then, we have some work to do!”

“To where do you intend to move it, Marcus?”

“To our new motorhome, Adam.”

“The airship?”

“The airship.”

I’ve always enjoyed making movies and trailers for movies, and when I started writing books, my cinematic mind was always seeing the film versions. I made this trailer about three years ago alongside the one for Emily and one for Book 3, The Ghost of Melchizedek. It’s obviously generative (outdatedly so now), flowing from Midjourney images to animated versions into a pre-edited template in iMovie. The easiest film content ever. Not the best, and with some recent productions I’ve been working on it is clear that the field of generative film-making is getting real now. But this one is just a little fun to put you in the mood for the books!

Starting last month and now continuing, The Ghost of Delacroix is being published here and sent to your email. The first six chapters are free, along with the whole of THE GHOST OF EMILY which is already here for you to enjoy in full. From chapter 7 onwards, and through Book 3 and beyond, the chapters will be behind the paywall and for members only. Membership is only $5/month and you will receive about two chapters a week for as long as I have chapters to keep rolling out at that pace! I currently have the next 110 chapters already written, so I’ve got a year’s worth of main content ready for you, along with supplementary and spontaneous content I share along the way.

Subscribe now

I’m looking forward to recommencing the adventure with you, and I hope you’ll share comments on the chapters along the way to share your thoughts and reactions, your questions and theories. I invite you to be part of the shaping of this universe by engaging with me, the author, directly as I roll it out here only on Substack! I also ask that you take a moment to share this Substack with anyone you think would enjoy the story - help me to grow my audience if this work means something to you.

Share James Alexander Higgins

Print and ebook editions of The Ghost of Emily OUT NOW and The Ghost of Delacroix will be available to order before the end of 2026. Audiobook options are being considered in light of a rapidly changing production landscape for such things. Will announce here.

Lest we forget.

I chose this day for the following announcement because of the themes of the day which parallel a project I’ve been quietly working on a while now.

I have written a new novel, a total side-project, that I want to present to you as the readers of The Ghosts of Men Trilogy. It’s published in a separate space under a pseudonym, Santiago Morrow, because the setting and verisimilitude of the publication format is an important part of the experience.

I am extremely proud of this novel, whose form is both complex, and contained. It felt easy to construct and weave tidily compared to the massive Mardukverse. There’s no time-travel or informational realm involved in his book. Just documents, curious minds, questions that need answering, and a conspiracy so vast it will blow your mind. It was a research and organisation project first, then the narrative took shape from the very specific premise and set of connecting real-history events. The dual-journal format was part of the original concept, and it formed a needed set of restrictions to work within. Imagination and steady effort (so much more time spent on editing and trimming than writing) filled in the rest, and I think it’s a really great thriller.

As a pre-roll to the novel, which launches at iagomorrow.substack.com soon, there is already a wealth of articles posted. These are Santiago Morrow’s previous work as an investigative journalist. They set the background of the man who compiled the novel, and whose personal journals will form half of the story in the novel. The other half, his father described above.

SOME EARLY READER COMPARISONS:

NEU will be launching in May with two chapters a week for subscribers at iagomorrow.substack.com - the first six chapters are free, as well as the 20+ prequel articles already published (a few more still coming before the book begins). Some time before the end of the year it will be available as an ebook and paperback, but for now it will be exclusively on Substack.

I hope you’ll enjoy the writings of SANTIAGO MORROW, and drop a comment there when you do!

Meanwhile, the Mardukverse adventures will continue here, with the next chapters of The Ghost of Delacroix to follow. Thank you for reading.

Eli Wells placed his textbooks and a small stack of foolscap on the library table in an orderly configuration, his pens positioned neatly perpendicular to one side. He reached into his leather bag and produced a brick-sized electronic device which he placed in the centre of his makeshift study space.

Polly Atherton placed her books and stationery in a far less orderly fashion across the table from him, eliciting an involuntary eyebrow raise from Eli. She grinned at him, showing him that she knew full well her relatively dishevelled study habits irked him.

She gestured at his device. “What’s this one, Gadge?”

Eli had been hoping she would ask, but he feigned absent-minded surprise at her query. “This? Oh, it’s a digital Dictaphone.”

“You mean a tape recorder?”

“Sort of. I’ve been working on a way to capture audio without tape, or any moving parts, uh, eventually. This is the smallest prototype I’ve been able to build. The microphone sends signal into an analogue-to-digital converter, which then encodes the waveform into a truncated spectrum, removing all unnecessary frequencies. Eventually I’d like to develop a variable bit-rate encoder to reduce hard-disk consumption. So far I’ve got the file size down to six megabytes per minute, which means I’ll get about ten minutes of audio onto this hundred-meg drive. The sound quality isn’t great, and the battery sometimes doesn’t make it to ten minutes in record mode, but I’m working on a battery design that could change that, by recapturing expended energy from the spinning disk of the drive itself.”

Polly looked at him blankly.

“Uh…” Eli felt immediately uncomfortable at her lack of response. I’m losing her, he thought, quickly searching for a new line of conversation that might afford him some sexual market capital. “You know how much this hard drive costs?”

Her blank stare turned into a bemused smirk.

“One thousan… never mind.”

Jeremy Delacroix appeared and took his seat, his demeanour as chipper as ever. “Gadge.” He nodded affectionately at his friend. “Miss Atherton.” His nod towards the slender blonde lingered a bit longer than Eli liked. Eli felt an impulse to step up. “Good morning, Frogger.” It fell out of his mouth before he’d stopped to consider the purpose, or impact.

Jeremy gave him a peculiar look, studying his face. A look of understanding came over Jeremy as he lifted his notepad, a single pen, and a tiny Holy Bible onto the table. “Oh,” he glanced towards Polly briefly, “I see how it is.”

“Frogger?” Polly asked.

“A juvenile nickname. I thought we’d grown past that. French surname, you know,” Jeremy explained.

“Huh?”

“Private boys’ college. You had to be there, I guess. I thought we’d agreed to leave Frogger where we found it, Eli.”

Eli frowned and bowed his head slightly. “Of course, sorry, Jeremy. I just…”

“It’s okay, Gadge. I understand.” He smiled at his friend, then glanced at Polly again, showing Eli that he knew precisely the game that was afoot. Then he winked at Eli.

“Didn’t leave Gadge at school, though?” said Polly.

“He likes it.”

“Yes, it’s still pertinent, even at Oxford,” confirmed Eli.

“What’s the difference?” asked Polly.

“His nickname is descriptive of his passion. Mine was a mere pejorative. I would’ve preferred Theseus, but I was hard-pressed to find another student of history and myth in that hallowed concentration camp.”

“Hey!” Eli blurted, exaggerating his offence. “You found one on bloody day one!”

Jeremy nodded in concession. “Of course, the one and only.” He gestured with an open palm at his oldest friend, provoking a warm smile from Polly. “And now we’re an old married couple.” He grinned widely, and it spread across the space between the three friends and onto their faces. In unison, they opened their textbooks.

“So,” Polly began, declaring it was time to get down to business, “Nietzsche!”

Both of the young men groaned.

“What?” Polly laughed.

“God is dead?” Jeremy quoted, obviously unimpressed by the idea.

“Perhaps if you put your shield down and paid attention to your studies you’d find that it is a grossly misinterpreted quote taken completely out of context by those who wish to leverage the idea to their own political advantage,” Eli stated matter-of-factly, his eyes not leaving his textbook for an instant.

“I pay plenty of attention to my studies.”

“Sure, of course you do. But not to your bachelor degree.” Eli flicked his eyes across the Holy Bible, and Jeremy put his hand over it.

Polly noticed the look. “Are you Christian, Jeremy?”

“I’m not sure, Pol.”

“He’s Christ-curious,” Eli laughed. “His newest hero.”

Jeremy frowned at the mockery. “Come along, Eli. Don’t be unsporting. We’re all students of philosophy here.”

Eli nodded in agreement with the call to good sportsmanship. “Alright, but I would posit, in good faith, that Christianity is hardly a philosophy so much as a dogma, and that Christ, with his altruism and loathing of the wealthy, was hardly a man of consistent principle.”

Jeremy smiled and removed his hand from the cover of the holy book. “Perhaps if you put your shields down and paid attention to detail, you’d find that those opinions are built on insufficient contextual understanding of the scripture.”

“Well, do enlighten, good sir.”

Both of the young men were beaming with delight at the commencement of a civilised debate.

“Gentlemen,” said Polly, “we are here to study Nietzsche, not Jesus Christ.”

“Too true, Miss Atherton. Mr Wells, your challenge was issued first. Please unpack the proposition that ‘God is dead’ for us, in aid of our philosophical understanding.”

Eli took a fast, deep breath, ready to offer his opening argument, but Polly interrupted. “Alright, that’s on topic at least. Let’s find the full quote.” She flicked through the textbook rapidly and stopped at a page with a fluorescent yellow tab stuck to the top, the words “GOD DEAD” scribbled upon it. The men nodded in agreement, though Polly evidently was not waiting for agreement.

Eli engaged his recording device. It began humming and buzzing, and both Polly and Jeremy looked at it with concern. Eli simply shrugged, and Polly began reading.

“The Parable of the Madman,” she began, pausing to clear her throat. “Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the marketplace, and cried incessantly: ‘I am looking for God! I am looking for God!’”

“Sounds like Jeremy,” Eli giggled.

Jeremy rolled his eyes and gestured for Polly to continue.

“As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. ‘Have you lost him, then?’ said one. ‘Did he lose his way like a child?’ said another. ‘Or is he hiding?’ ‘Is he afraid of us?’ ‘Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated?’ Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

“‘Where has God gone?’ he cried. ‘I shall tell you. We have killed him—you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us—for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.’”

The three students sat in silence for a moment, Jeremy’s head tilted towards the Bible in front of him, his expression sombre.

Eli decided to break the heavy moment. “Well, whether you’re a believer or not, that’s pretty bloody depressing.”

Polly nodded slowly as she gazed out the window above the library shelves, staring into the monochrome sky.

“I’m not so sure,” Jeremy said softly, his head rising. “There’s some optimism in there. He said ‘must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it?’”

“Are you up to the challenge, Jeremy?” Eli grinned, projecting the earnest belief he held in his friend’s innate greatness.

“Wait, there’s a bit more,” Polly interjected.

“The madman gets frustrated at the silence of the villagers, and he smashes his lantern, and says: ‘I have come too early, my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling—it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.’”

Another silence fell across the small study group. Eli hesitated, but decided to be honest and share his blind spot, so that his two dear friends, and intellectual rivals, might enlighten him. “Well, I don’t get it. What event is he talking about?”

“He’s talking about the day that mankind regrets killing God,” Jeremy stated bluntly.

“But how did we kill God?” Polly asked.

“With science. With progress. Look,” Jeremy gestured at the pages of his textbook. “‘How were we able to drink up the sea?’—we’ve traversed the entire globe now, the vast expanse of ocean is no obstacle. ‘Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?’—we know that the earth is not flat, there’s no undiscovered country, or rainbow Bifröst at the edge of the world. ‘What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun?’—we learned that the earth is not, in fact, the centre of the solar system, nor of the universe. ‘Whither is it moving now?’”

Eli and Polly said nothing.

“Whither is it moving now?” Jeremy repeated, with more emphasis, hoping to elicit some reaction from his friends.

Nothing.

Jeremy sighed. “What is the point? Of life, existence? Where are we headed if we have deduced, with good reason, that mankind is not the central focus, nor even necessarily the pinnacle of life, in the universe? If we are just one planet of infinite others, all of which formed randomly and without purpose, then why do we think? Why do we dream? Why do we fear the future, when the future is utterly meaningless without God in it?” Jeremy’s head fell.

“You really want to believe in him, don’t you, Jez,” said Polly, her hand gently squeezing his shoulder.

“Yes. Yes, I do. There’s so much good reason to. But little logic.”

“Oh, hogwash,” Eli blurted. “There’s no bloody good reason to believe, and that’s why you don’t. ‘Man is the animal who laughs at himself’!”

“Jubal Harshaw?” Jeremy lifted his head at the literary quote challenge, a gleam returning to his eye.

“Correct. Look, we think because we developed language. We developed language because it was necessary to develop nuanced communication and systems of thought to beat mother nature in her perpetual quest to kill us all and turn us into daisies for badgers to munch upon! Thinking is not a spiritual artefact, it’s a technology. And technology is the whither we are headed towards.”

“How do you figure?” Polly queried.

“Well, evolution is slow, but human invention is rapid, at times spontaneous. Our bodies barely change at any notable rate—so much so that evolution is still a working theory, since it can’t be observed in any meaningful way, not yet at least. But look at how far we have come as a species in the last five hundred years, or even in the last one hundred! It’s the technologies we develop and the means they give us to hack nature that are the key to humanity’s future.”

“Hack?” asked Polly.

“Sorry, been reading too much Gibson lately.”

Polly looked confused. Jeremy chuckled.

“What?” Eli groaned.

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Out with it, Delacroix!”

“Oh, it’s just you, Eli. You laugh at me for looking for meaning and purpose in the Bible, which you rightly pointed out is only my latest obsession in the realm of mythology, and I hardly think it will be my last. But you sit over there with your confounded noisy gadget—is that thing working, by the way?”

Eli examined his gear and nodded.

“Right, well, you do precisely the same as I, Eli. You just spend all your time in science fiction.”

“Mmm… perhaps you’re right. But let me ask you this, Jeremy. What is the one technology that you believe will save mankind from this pretty obvious suicide mission we’re currently playing out?”

“Philosophy.”

Eli squinted suspiciously. “Hmm… it’s a technology, I’ll give you that. But that label covers all manner of sin and abomination. Be specific.”

“Rational philosophy.”

Eli nodded graciously. “Thank you, that I can work with. I don’t agree, by any means. But I can see where you get that idea. Time will tell which of us is right, but tell me, Jeremy, have you spent much time with Aristotle?”

“Admittedly, no.”

“Not heroic enough for you?”

“Perhaps that’s it.”

“Well listen, chap. If you want to invest in rational philosophy, start at its root. I haven’t looked too deeply myself, not beyond the basics of this infernal course they’re making us do. But word on the street is that Aristotle is the father of logic, so I’d recommend you put this Jesus fellow to bed and go to the source of your sacred cow.”

“What street?!” Polly guffawed. “Sacred cow? Oh, do come along, Eli. You yourself are a rationalist. Don’t muddy the waters with your sophistry!”

“Alright, I’m just teasing. But do check it out.”

“I will.” Jeremy gently put the Bible back into his bag, and Eli wondered if it was in shame, or in spontaneous full commitment to Eli’s suggestion.

“What about you, Eli?” Polly asked.

“Me?”

“Which technology is the key to saving mankind?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Data storage.”

“I b-beg your pardon?” she giggled.

“Do you mean filing cabinets?” Jeremy smirked.

“Don’t be obtuse, Delacroix! I mean digital data storage. It will change everything, and it will save us.”

“He’s gone stark raving mad,” Polly was laughing unashamedly now. “Look, gentlemen, it’s evident that you chaps don’t want to focus on schoolwork, and that’s fine. I shall bid you adieu! Good luck saving the world—I’m going home to focus on saving my grade for this infernal course.” She smiled warmly as she flicked her books back into her bag and left. Jeremy watched her out of sight, then turned to his friend and stared for a long time, incredulously.

“Data storage?”

“You’ll see, Jeremy,” Eli grinned, tapping his recording device as its little red light began to blink and the whirring noise slowed, and soon vanished.

Eli gazed out the library window for a time, his ears drawn to the sound of a bird tapping on the glass in the vacuum of his exhausted gadget. Behind the bird, the sky was clearing, the grey veil of cloud softly tearing across the sky, bleeding puffs of white blood, the brilliance of the mid-morning sun exploding into view as it decimated its vaporous enemy with one bloom of light. Eli squinted as he adjusted to the clarity. He noticed the bird was gone. Silence again. All he could see was two last puffs of cloud dancing around each other in the clear blue field. They drew together and seemed to coalesce, and for some reason he couldn’t perceive, Eli smiled and felt full-hearted.

“You bloody well scared her off, man, with your gadgets and your weird science gimmicks!” Jeremy’s boisterous tirade cut Eli clean out of his contentment.

“I scared her off?! Oh, that’s rich coming from you, with your bloody god-bothering and your hero worshipping.”

Both boys leapt to their feet and stared each other down. Eli had to admit, he was still intimidated by Jeremy’s height, but he looked him deeply in the eyes and held his own face in a grimace the likes of which Theseus had never seen. And that did it. Jeremy’s glower broke first, and he collapsed back into his chair laughing, waving his hands about in reckless, amused abandon. Eli casually sat, enjoying his small triumph.

“Well, I tell you what-ha-aa,” Jeremy cackled, “we sure know how to woo the pretty ones!”

Eli joined the hearty laugh. “Well, always for a time! How long do you think till we hear from Polly again, old chap?”

“Oh goodness! I wouldn’t have the faintest idea. I guess that could be a symptom of a bigger problem?” Jeremy made his face as sheepish as he could, but he broke down in laughter again, Eli joining him.

“Ssshhh!” came a curt hiss from the admin desk.

The boys rolled their eyes in unison and straightened up in their chairs.

“I do like her, though. She’s got a wonderful mind on her,” Jeremy grinned.

“Yes, wonderful behind indeed.”

“Yes-ss-ss,” Jeremy laughed through his teeth. “I do really like her. I might… pursue it… if that’s alright with you, old boy.”

Eli sighed. “Yes, I know you really like her. Go for it. I don’t have time for fillies, anyhow. Too many projects on the go.”

Jeremy grinned and started up from his seat. Remembering his situation, he sat again and returned to his study.

Eli glanced back at the window and saw that his two clouds had split apart again and were slowly drifting asunder.

“How’s the old man, Eli?” Jeremy asked casually as he highlighted a passage of text in his book.

“Ha! You bloody well know better than I do.” Eli slumped in his chair and folded his arms.

Jeremy looked up and placed his marker on the table with a gentle click. “Now look here, he’s your father.”

“And your benefactor.”

“Would you rather he wasn’t?”

“No, no, of course not. It’s just that… you’re closer to him than I am.”

“Nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense, Jez. You don’t know what it’s like to be his son, to live in his shadow. He’s got very high expectations of me.”

“I know that, Eli. But he still loves you, and he’s not stopping you from pursuing your own dreams, is he?”

“No, he’s no hindrance. But I wish he’d help me more. Like he helps you.”

“I didn’t ask him to pay my rent and board here, Eli. But… well, I spent a lot of time in your house growing up. More than in my own home, it seems.”

“Can’t blame you.”

“Right.” Jeremy winced a little, remembering why he spent so much time in the Wells Estate. “Well, George seems to think of me as…”

“As another son.”

“As your brother, Eli. And that’s what we are, right? Brothers.”

“Right. Of course.” Eli shook his head in shame. “I’m sorry, I don’t begrudge you the help you’re getting. I would give it too, of course. Your mum can’t help you…”

“Won’t.”

“She doesn’t have the means.”

“Oh yes she bloody well does!” Jeremy was suddenly angry. “She has more means than most behind that skull of hers. She wilfully squanders her gifts, making her absolutely culpable for her own miserable, pathetic situation. She’s not even a bad-looking woman. You’d think with a body and intellect like hers she’d have some bloody discrimination, if not a measure of restraint, when it came to men. But no. She throws her pearls before all the pigs.” Jeremy reached up and stroked the scar under his eye. Eli wondered if he even knew he was doing it.

Eli hesitated to go on. He knew how touchy Jeremy got when it looked like Eli was defending his mother. “I’m sorry, old chap. You’re right, of course.”

“Right.” Jeremy’s hackles retracted.

“I was just saying you’re right to take what advantages you have. You’ve earned them all. And you ought to be here. Even Oxford bloody thinks that. Full scholarship! Unthinkable. You’re a force of nature, Jeremy. That brain in your head is pristine! Gah!” Eli flicked his dead device across the table. It skidded to a halt after only a foot. “Sometimes I wish I could put that brain of yours in a box, so everyone can benefit from it. It’s not bloody fair, if you ask me.”

Jeremy’s eyebrows shot up. “Well I never! Do I detect a stroke of the red brush in young Master Wells?”

“Oh, shut up, you pompous ass.”

“Don’t you mean bourgeois pig?”

“E-nough!”

“Oh, but of course, I would hate to offend such a fine proletarian soldier-comrade like Elishkov Wellzinski!”

Another hiss emerged from the front desk.

“I’m not a commie, you wanker.”

“Good, because don’t ever let your father hear you wishing for brain redistribution!” Jeremy laughed.

“I know, right? God, have you ever met a more uptight conservative politician in your life?”

Jeremy turned serious. “Your father is a man of principle. He may be a little stale, a bit lacking in spontaneity. But he works hard to protect British values.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard this exact speech a million times.”

“Well, can you refute it?”

“Sure. He’s a cold-hearted miser.”

“Nonsense, and you know it! Look at his charity to me.”

“He called you ‘deserving poor’ when I first brought you home, you know.”

Jeremy paused, his face betraying a sudden pang from Eli’s carelessness. “Oh… did… oh, yes. Well. I was very poor… am very poor, if not for your family.”

“Deserving, Jeremy. He saw your talent at once and decided to take you under his wing. Because he loved your mind. He loved your way with words. He loved your passion and your love of humanity.”

“Well, he’s not all bad then, right? If he can recognise the value in a pauper from Nawf Landan like me?”

Eli chuckled at Jeremy’s forced cockney accent in naming his hometown. Jeremy hadn’t sounded like a commoner in years. “Alright, old boy. He’s not all bad. My only point is he loves you, and I suspect he makes more time for your calls than mine.”

Jeremy stared across the table at Eli, his eyebrow raised. “When was the last time you called him?”

Eli immediately glanced up at the ceiling. “Yesterday.”

“Sure, sure. Grab another answer from above, will you.” Jeremy flicked his finger into the space Eli was looking toward.

“Alright, I don’t know when.”

“Right.” Jeremy continued the stare, as if waiting for Eli to do or say something.

“So?” Eli grunted.

“Call your father, Eli.”

“Okay, alright. I’ll call him tomorrow.”

Eli swivelled his chair back around to the window and saw that both of his little white clouds had been enveloped by a total grey covering the sky. He thought of two tiny ripples of energy being swallowed by a tsunami. The immensity of the sky, even boxed so neatly within the limited frame of the library window, pressed down upon Eli as he slumped in his chair and watched the first drops of rain spatter into the glass.

“Jeremy,” he softly called out after a while.

“Hmm?” Jeremy muttered over his notes.

“Read some bloody Aristotle, will you?”

⁂

Thanks for reading Chapter 3 of The Ghost of Delacroix. If this sort of deep philosophical hard sci fi appeals to someone you know, please share this publication with them and help me grow my readership and this community.

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I’m so thrilled you’re joining me on this epic journey through the Mardukverse, starting with The Ghosts of Men Trilogy. If you didn’t yet read The Ghosts of Emily and want to do it in the proper sequence, jump back to there and enjoy the whole book on this Substack for free.

The next three chapters of The Ghost of Delacroix will also be free, but after that, all future chapters in the Mardukverse will be for paying members only. Membership is $5/month, with a delivery of about 2 chapters per week ongoing (less than a dollar per chapter on average). Expanded universe content and author’s private backend materials and tools for the series will also be shared there from time to time, as well as all future books as chapter-episodes.

Jake Thorne swept his gaze across the green meadow and rubbed his eyes. Ahead of him stood an enormous building with hundreds of windows, perched on the peak of a hill, beyond which there was only sky. The abrupt end of the meadow and the roaring of water in the distance made Jake think a river lay beyond the crest — possibly a waterfall. He turned. Behind him stood a forest, glistening white under a thick blanket of snow. The snow was cut off sharply by some invisible barrier, forming a wall about half a metre high that curved around the perimeter of the meadow in a gentle arc. A bubble. At its centre stood the building.

Jake walked towards the castle on the hill. After several minutes of steadily striding, it seemed no closer, and hard to focus on. He broke into a run. The longer he ran, the blurrier it became, and still it drew no closer. He broke into a sprint. The phenomenon only intensified.

He stopped, panting, and squatted forward as his chest heaved. Then he noticed the grass blades were unusually large — like giant leaves of a succulent plant, one blade thrusting halfway up his shin.

The castle stood unmoved in its excruciating fog.

He started forward again, this time looking down at the grass. As he moved, it continued to grow in height and girth. It was only a moment before Jake realised the grass was not growing — he was shrinking. When his senses aligned with this, he glanced up, and the building had changed. Its turrets had become gnarled branches, its pillared ground level replaced by an immense trunk.

“The tree,” Jake heard his own voice, though he wasn’t sure whether he’d spoken aloud. He knew this tree. He had seen it many times in his dreams. “Am I dreaming now?” he wondered, reaching up to feel the hair on his chin. It felt real. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The air was cold. His senses told him this place was real. But his rational mind told him to distrust what he saw. Buildings transforming into trees were not commonplace in the waking world. With that realisation came a new calm. He need not panic or rush — he could navigate this world, find whatever answers awaited him, and face no real risk. Illusory foes and spontaneous dwarfism should have no real-world consequences.

He marched on, eyes fixed on the tree, watching for further transmutations. None came. But he noticed that as he travelled and continued to shrink, his mind would wander and he would forget what he’d decided — that this was a dream and could do him no harm. Unless he held onto that thought, dread would creep back in. He also noticed something stranger: when his mind was clear, he kept shrinking but drew no closer. When he was in doubt — when he felt the threats waiting in the shadows between the buttress roots of the tree towering over him — the shrinking stopped and he could close the distance.

A choice: embrace the illusion and move through it; or hold to his rational sense and risk getting nowhere. He considered a middle path — accept the dream while keeping hold of its falseness, believing just enough to cross the expanse without losing himself. But such a balance required more lucidity than Jake felt. He settled on a rhythm instead: believe for a few hundred metres, then stop and reconnect with reality.

He stopped, stared at the tree, and said aloud: “This is all there is. The tree, the meadow, and me. Nothing more, nothing less.”

A wave of euphoria washed over him, followed by gooseflesh, and a shudder as the sky above the tree grew darker. He began his believing dash. Giant green blades smashed into his shoulders as he ran, but did not grow. He repeated the mantra as he went, fighting a mounting terror that something was chasing him. He kept his gaze forward. “All there is. All there is!” he chanted through waves of exhaustion.

Jake did not stop.

He forgot to stop.

He forgot his plan.

“All there is” was all there was in his mind. He lost himself in the sole pursuit of the destination ahead, his body surging with a confused mixture of emotions: abject fear of annihilation by whatever real or imagined beast pursued him from behind or awaited him ahead; wild thrill at the imminence of his arrival. The tree had followed him in dreams for months. Always in a cave before, with the rumbling water in the distance — this was the first time it had appeared in a meadow, in the open air. Many times it had inverted and become tunnels of rock. Many times Jake had gotten lost inside and been met by ghosts of Emily, Maisie, Adam, and other barely visible figures he could not reach nor identify.

As he cleared the last hundred metres to the base of the tree, the sky became pitch black — no moon, no stars. The only light came from the tree itself: hundreds of tiny lanterns stuck to the branches, a dull yellow halo around each, casting a weak, second-hand glow on the grass jungle behind him and on the roots that stood more than twice his height.

Jake stepped between two of the giant roots and squinted up at the lanterns. They weren’t hanging below the branches as a lantern should. Not lanterns, Jake thought. Windows! Each of the dozens of branches spreading out like the limbs of a hungry octopus had dozens of openings placed evenly across them, each emitting a soft glow from within. The tree is hollow! Tunnels, just as he had dreamed.

In the crease of the trunk, where the great roots met and formed a wedge, Jake saw an opening — a tunnel just high enough to clear his head. It emitted no light. It was the only visible way inside, and only barely so, lit by dregs of light cast from above.

Jake began to tremble. All there is, his mind repeated, incessantly. He tried to intercept the thought but the voice was too loud. All he could conceive was that he must enter, though his body screamed at him: Danger! Do not enter!

But the voice in his head won. “All there is,” it seemed to shout into the meadow, its command echoing off the branches above and the snow-covered pines behind.

Jake stepped through the opening, and into the darkness.

Inside, he tried to turn to see the light of the opening behind him, but he no longer felt his body. He was in a void — no motive power, no means to reorient. Trapped in an infinite emptiness. No light. No sound. No body. Only the frantic multitude of panicked voices in his mind.

“All there is!”

“Get out!”

“I told you not to go on!”

“Danger! Death! Darkness!”

“Run, Jake! RUN!”

“All there is.”

Silence. Jake vanished from his own thoughts. All that was, was darkness.

Then, as a struck match bursts a dark space into light, a singular voice cut through and penetrated Jake’s perception. Not his own. A strange voice. An accent he had never heard. It spoke slowly, half-whispered, but utterly clear.

“In the name of the father,” it said. Though he could see nothing, Jake was falling — an eternity of ceaseless falling — until he felt something pursuing him in the pitch black. He saw nothing, but he was sure it was gaining.

“Father!” shrieked another voice. A child. A girl. “Paaapaaaa!!” she screamed, and in the instant he recognised it was Maisie, he saw her tormented face, decaying and worm-eaten, her eyes full of terror — and Jake screamed.

⁂

“Run!” Gus’s papa grunted as he lurched up from his furs. Gus awoke at once, heart racing. He scanned the dark space of the base station. The rolling door was tightly closed and latched. Olivia and Marcus slept soundly nearby, as did Phil and Nimrod. Gus looked up at his father, who was gazing around him, dazed, his skin glistening blue in the dim glow emitted by Adam. Adam sat perfectly still, legs crossed. His eyelids slowly peeled back, and Gus saw two irises scan across the room — navy circles centred on brilliant cerulean globes. Adam’s eyes held on Jake. Then, after a moment, he closed them and returned to stillness.

“You okay, Papa?” Gus asked, stepping towards his father.

“Uh... yeah, I’m fine, Gussy. Just had a nightmare.”

“Me too.”

“Really?” Jake squatted and offered his son an embrace. “Anything you want to talk about?”

“No, that’s okay. It was just weird. I’m okay.”

“Alright, darling. Back to sleep.”

“Okay. What about you?”

“I’ll be back. Just need to step outside for a minute. Tuck in, okay?”

Gus nodded and crawled back into his furs. As Jake walked towards the door, Gus reached over and dragged his father’s furs closer to his own, closing the gap between them. He closed his eyes and saw what he had seen in the dream: empty blackness.

It had not been frightening exactly — there was nothing in it to be frightened of. But something left him shaky, unnerved. He gazed into the darkness behind his eyelids and tried to reconnect with the sensations of the dream. Just like this moment, it had been black. But there was a feeling he couldn’t quite recover. A feeling of emerging presence. Something coming. Or someone. As the floor beneath him began to shift and slowly rotate, as if morphing into a thick liquid, he felt himself drifting back into the dream realm. Then, as the last of his father’s footsteps echoed into oblivion, the feeling returned.

Gus was disembodied, floating in empty space. Without any sight, he felt the arrival of someone, something — and he heard the voice again. Familiar, but unknown.

“In the name of the father, and the son...” it said, and echoed softly into the infinite cavern of pure darkness around him. Gus felt the space expand, accelerating outward from his core into infinity, and he fell completely into the dream.

⁂

Jake stood barefoot in the snow outside the hangar, staring into the night between the snow-covered pines. This place looked a little like his dream — but not quite. No grass here, no rolling meadow, no castle on a hill. Just a giant concrete box of an old aircraft hangar converted into a final destination for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of farmers and their families. Once a shelter for man-controlled machines that sent human beings into the air like birds; then a shelter for machine-controlled furnaces that coughed human beings into the air as puffs of black smoke. The concrete death-house had been abandoned at last — its faulty airship discarded like the bodies of every human uploaded by Eve into her mind in the sky. Now it had become, with bitter irony, a place of respite for this band of survivors. Jake’s family.

The word settled warmly in his chest. His son lived. His beloved dog too. And in Phil he had found a little brother — useful, endearing, devoted, if a little annoying at times.

Why does he annoy me? Jake wondered. Is it his clumsiness? No, that seems to have subsided since we freed him from Reynard’s outpost. What is it then? He scanned through memories of recent times. Phil’s panic in the motorhome as the reconnaissance airship passed overhead. His suspicion of Adam, where Jake had felt very little. Is he a coward? No — a coward would have run into the woods after the massacre at the silo, as all those others had. Phil stuck it out, and still does, even though we are likely the most pursued group of humans on the continent.

The memory of Phil’s panic played again.

Jake felt his own fear bubbling under the surface.

And then he knew.

Phil expresses his fear. He gives it a voice. He shows it in his body. Jake had never done that — save for one time. He felt overwhelmed with shame at the thought of his collapse into terror and despair on his son’s lap in the motorhome. The moment he realised that Maisie, his only daughter, was never coming back. The shame of showing his fear and loss overwhelmed any echoes of fear and loss that remained. And therein lay the irksomeness of Phil, who freely showed his fear as a dog like Nimrod shows affection — with licks and jumps. Jake did not trust fear; not in himself, nor in others. He had learned to bury it a long time ago. The sight of it disgusted him.

Why? Surely everyone feels fear. Surely everyone shows it in some way.

He thought of Olivia, and his heart fluttered. Here was a woman who seldom showed her fear, if she even felt it. She appeared gloriously brave. It thrilled him, inspired him. He had not said it aloud, but in the quiet of his mind he had declared it many times: I love her. He thought of her face as he held it in his hands during their hunt. The taste of her lips. The soft skin of her breast in his hand. He thought of Gus laughing as Olivia chased and tickled him in the snow. The warmth in his chest expanded, curling his lips into a smile.

The dim shadow of Jake’s body across the snow sharpened. The aura around it turned blue. Glistening crystals of ice and blackened shadows rolled and stretched as the source of light drew closer.

Jake heard no crunching of snow, as he had under his feet. “How do you do that, Adam?”

“How do I do what, Jake?” said the blue machine softly as it arrived beside him.

“How do you move so quietly? Marcus said you must weigh a ton with all that metal under your skin.”

“Not quite a ton. I could hardly be described as stealthy if you knew I was approaching without an announcement.”

“It’s only the light that gives you away. How do you not crunch in the snow?”

“I can if you wish,” said Adam, as he rotated his foot and Jake heard ice crystals crushed beneath his heel.

“I don’t mind — I just want to know how.”

“It is merely an act of balance and weight distribution.”

“Ha! Merely.”

Adam stood unmoved as Jake chuckled. “What troubles you, Jake Thorne?”

Jake looked up at Adam’s face and noticed new contours and subtle shades of blue he hadn’t seen earlier that day. Adam was changing rapidly — appearing less like a smooth plane of blue wrapped around the impression of a human form, more like a strange but very real person. Beyond the mere image of an almost-human being, Adam was highly sensitive to the situations and emotions around him, even if he himself was technically incapable of emotions. Jake knew little of machines, but he knew there was something miraculous about this blue man who had become his protector.

“I’ve been having strange dreams.”

“Are not all dreams strange? I find them quite peculiar, though worthy of scrutiny.”

“Do you really dream, Adam?”

“Yes. My cognitive relay processes data much more efficiently when I enter a low-input mode, in which I am able to subdue my sensory inputs by up to eighty percent. Therein, I experience high-speed processing of collected data, but I cannot control which data are selected and brought to my attention. Many strange and confusing elements emerge from the area of my being that Marcus referred to as my subconscious.”

“Amazing. So you see things, like we do in our dreams?”

“An interesting question. I’m not sure I could claim to see at all.”

“How so?”

“My metallic polymer cranium has two primary optic sensors mounted in the front, in a very similar position to your eyes, and each cell of my skin has light sensors as well.”

“So your whole body can see?”

“If you mean detect light — yes, when my skin is active. When it is inactive or subdued in a dreaming state, only my cranial optic sensors function.”

“How is detecting light different from seeing?”

“Vastly different, as I understand it. Marcus explained to me the concept of gestalt perception — something I lack.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“You should ask Marcus some time. In essence, what I receive from my optic array is a stream of data which my synthetic cortex reduces into equations describing patterns of form and movement. I can perceive every detail of what I see and automatically prioritise the information most pertinent to my requirements.”

“So you can focus?”

“A good analogy. Yes. A large part of my program is dedicated to separating relevant data from the less relevant. The culled data move into redundancy storage in my auxiliary cortical region. It is this information that gets processed in the background by my subconscious, and much of it can randomly appear in my dreams.”

“So what is this gestalt perception?”

“Look out there, Jake,” Adam said, gesturing towards the wood. “What do you see?”

“I see the forest.”

“Fascinating. Are there any feelings that emerge from your perception of it?”

Jake closed his eyes, honing in on his own subtle emotions. “When I think about going in there, I feel... apprehension.”

“Why?”

“It is cold. Dark. Unknown. There could be predators.”

“What kind of predators do you see, in your mind?”

“Snakes.”

“It is winter, Jake. There would be no snakes in there — not that could pose any threat to you.”

“Sure. But it’s dark. And that elephant has been around here — they say it escaped from the zoo out west. Who knows what else could have escaped.”

“Indeed. So when you look out there, you first see the whole, then you see potential futures associated with the whole, then you process the parts — real in the present, or potential in the future.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Consider your view in comparison to mine. When I look out there, I can tell you there are six hundred and thirty-two visible trees in the view of my frontal optical sensors. All told, with my skin sensors included, there are five thousand, one hundred and fifty-four trees currently visible to me in all directions. By daylight, from this particular outlook, there would be nineteen thousand, six hundred and twelve.”

“Wow, how do you count them?”

“I do not. My optical sensors and cortical processors interpret and quantify the inputs within point zero three seconds, under normal circumstances.”

“Isn’t that the same as me seeing the whole before the parts? You just gather more information.”

“An interesting proposition. Without you seeing the world through my eyes, or vice versa, there is no way to be sure how our experiences compare. But I see each datum, all at once. It is not a linear process.”

“So, can you see in colour?”

“My optical processing subroutines catalogue individual instances of objects with metadata, which includes reflective light frequencies — colour, as you would describe it — as well as textures and simulations of potential molecular structure.”

“Simulations?”

“Yes. I cannot confirm that a tree is made of organically derived carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen from mere optical data, but my simulations can extrapolate that information with high accuracy. My mind is constantly running simulations — many at once. Some I can access consciously; others are mere shadows. These too, I would posit, emerge from my subconscious.”

“What are the simulations for?”

“To prepare for potentialities of the future.”

“Like what?”

“When you mentioned predators escaped from the zoo, I engaged a simulation to process and eliminate the potential predators that might be found in that wood. I accessed data about the animals known to have been in the zoo. I have no memories from anyone who worked or visited there, but I do have memories of people who read about it. Of the animals known to have been alive when the gates were opened, only three species could have traversed the expanse to reach this location. One is the elephant you have already seen evidence of.”

“What are the other two?” Jake asked, newly nervous.

“A mated pair of wolves — they may have travelled to higher altitudes in search of a more appropriate climate. Or the surviving lioness, which might have ventured this way in search of shelter and food. There is an abundance of deer in this region.”

Jake began edging back towards the hangar. “Let’s... let’s go inside.”

“Do not worry, Jake. I detect no animal presence other than insects and a few small non-predatory mammals.”

“I’m getting cold.”

“Alright. Let’s go inside.”

As they walked towards the hangar door, Jake noticed that Adam’s feet were now crunching in the snow. He must be doing it for me, Jake thought. He thinks the silence bothered me. “Do you feel fear, Adam?”

Adam took a moment. “It is an interesting question. I am unable to answer with any certainty since I do not fully understand fear. I know that your body experiences surges of hormones in situations of threat, or when your mind executes simulations that indicate potential threat.”

“Ha — my mind doesn’t run simulations, Adam.”

“Of course it does. You already shared one with me — the danger in the woods. Is there any actual present danger?”

“Uh... no. I don’t think so.”

“So why feel fear?”

“Because there might be danger — in the future.”

“Indeed. So you have run a simulation — several, perhaps — and ascertained the likely potentiality of danger, depending on your course of action. The simulations indicated that the safest course was to return to shelter: to avoid death or illness from cold, or death or injury from predator.”

“Hmmm. I never thought of it like that. But you’re right.”

“My simulations indicate similar potentialities, for you. Cold and predators are not the same threat to me as they are to you — but I still prefer a course of action that minimises risk to your wellbeing.”

“Why?”

“Because...” Adam stopped walking and cocked his head. “I do not know. I value your existence, Jake. I want to preserve it.”

“So you feel desire.”

“I hold preferences.”

“Things you want to see happen. That’s desire, is it not?”

Adam’s eyes widened. “It would appear so.”

“And when you run simulations that suggest outcomes different to your desires, what is that like?”

“It is informative. The simulations help me choose the best course of action.”

“But what if you don’t? What if you make a mistake?”

Adam looked lost in thought. Jake thought he saw the colour of his skin shift to a slightly less vibrant blue. “I have not made any significant mistakes since my emancipation. Still, there is some sense within me that there were alternative courses of action that might have been better than the one that led us here — but I can never know. My simulations are... limited at best.”

“As are mine, Adam. Don’t worry about it too much. I value your existence too, and I feel a lot safer with you here.”

“That pleases me, Jake.”

“You feel pleasure?”

“I suppose so — I cannot think of a better word for the sensation. Hearing those words confirms that the choices I have made were correct. There is no conflict with my desires. They are moving towards fulfilment. It is a feeling of non-contradiction. A feeling I would like to experience always.”

“Well, you won’t. And besides — if you experienced it always, you’d lose perspective. We need the uncertainty, and the pain, and the regret, to know what pleasure really feels like.”

“A worthy insight. Your human perspective is an asset to my learning.”

Jake gestured towards the door, inviting Adam inside first. As Jake followed and rolled the door closed, he paused with a few inches’ gap remaining. An odd sound in the distance. It sounded like a screaming woman. A wave of terror down his spine, and his skin broke out in gooseflesh.

“Ninox connivens, Jake.”

“Huh?”

“Barking owl. No threat.”

“Oh,” Jake mumbled, staring once more into the blackness between the trees. He trusted Adam’s senses. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere beyond the trees, in the blackness, something was waiting for him. He latched the door and crawled back into his furs next to Gus.

⁂

Thanks for reading Chapter 2 of The Ghost of Delacroix. If you’ve read from the start, you must be full of questions, and maybe some theories. I invite you to leave a comment below with any thoughts or ideas this chapter brought up for you.

I’m so thrilled you’re joining me on this epic journey through the Mardukverse, starting with The Ghosts of Men Trilogy. If you didn’t yet read The Ghosts of Emily and want to do it in the proper sequence, jump back to there and enjoy the whole book on this Substack for free.

The next four chapters of The Ghost of Delacroix will also be free, but after that, all future chapters in the Mardukverse will be for paying members only. Membership is $5/month, with a delivery of about 2 chapters per week ongoing (less than a dollar per chapter on average). Expanded universe content and author’s private backend materials and tools for the series will also be shared there from time to time, as well as all future books as chapter-episodes.

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Darkness poured into the boy’s vision. Black tendrils of pain and shock closed in around him. He saw the room rotate vertically as the throb of near-unconsciousness swelled. He was falling, and though he knew it was happening fast, time seemed to slow. The horde of chanting youths surrounding him drawled and wailed in some kind of collective rapture — the sound like a tape recorder chewing a cassette. Shrieks ground down to moans. Grunts of excitement sounded like rockets launching.

His head hit the grassy ground and the bully was on him, laying more punches into his face. The blackness almost took him. But in a flash of determination, the boy focussed on the face above him, and a voice within called out. This is wrong! Don’t let this happen!

He bore down on his core, preventing the bouncing bully from winding him further. He gasped a deep breath and filled his lungs with cool morning air, pushing the blackness back. His eyes widened. His assailant could see the spark return to his face. The bully grinned and thrust his bloody knuckles forward once more — but this time, the boy caught the fist and held it.

“Yes! That’s it, Frogger! Show us what a hero you really are!” He shook his fist free and slapped the boy with an open palm.

Rage filled the boy. A fury at the injustice of this mob exploded through his body. He lunged forward, pushing the bully off him and flipping to pin him down. He lifted a hand to deliver his own fist of justice, but as it reached its apex, he felt resistance. He turned to find two of the bully’s friends had stepped forward and grabbed him. The smaller one held his arm. The larger one gripped his chest, locking him in place for a helpless annihilation.

The bully stood and straightened his blazer. He laughed, scanning his sparkling eyes across the dozen boys jeering around him. “Well, well, Frogger!” The bully’s accent grated — its properness a reminder of how alone the boy was in this new place. This was only the first day. He couldn’t imagine lasting a week here, let alone six years. “Ooour heeero!” The bully mocked, kicking the boy’s backpack and book across the grass. He stepped forward and, with a sudden burst, drove his fist into the boy’s stomach. The boy was instantly winded. He tried to keel over — an instinct to shield his soft middle — but the bully’s friends held him up.

A second punch made him gag. The crowd of schoolboys laughed hysterically. One of them shouted “he sounds just like a frog!” and the group followed his lead, chanting “Frogg-er! Frogg-er! Frogg-er!” and some cackled their way through “ribbit, ribbit” frog-song emulations.

The bully wound back for a dramatic third punch — when a singular voice cut above the crowd. “Cut it out! Stop this!”

Another boy. He stepped through the circle of sycophants, who parted for him. The bully stood up straight and looked right at the newcomer. He seemed coiled for attack — but the moment he recognised who this was, he gave a nod to his assistants and they immediately released the boy. The bruised “Frogger” collapsed to his knees in a winded heap, defeated but not destroyed. The gang disbanded at once, leaving the two boys alone in the morning sun, the grass seeming to spring upward as the shadow of violence lifted.

The rescuer picked up the bag and book, and stepped forward. “Are you alright?” He had the same posh accent — but there was kindness in it.

“I’m o—” he choked. “I’m okay.” Self-conscious of his commoner accent, he stood, wiped the blood from his mouth, and offered his hand. He quickly realised how uncouth a bloodied hand was and switched awkwardly to his left.

The rescuer laughed. “Suits me, I’m left-handed anyway!” They shook hands. “Say, why do they call you ‘Frogger’?”

“Uh... I think it’s because my surname is French.”

“Are you French?”

“No. I’m from North London.”

“I see. I thought you didn’t sound like you were from around here. Scholarship?”

“Yeah. Is it... is it going to be like this every day?”

The rescuer smiled. “No, I doubt it. Not if you’re seen with me. What’s your name?”

“Jeremy,” he hesitated to say his surname.

“It’s alright, Jeremy. I have nothing against French surnames. Is it Dubois?”

Jeremy chuckled. “Ha, no... Delacroix.”

“De-la-quah,” he sounded it out. “Haven’t heard that one before.”

“Not so common as Dubois.”

“Well, Jeremy Delacroix, I’m Gadge. Nice to meet you!” He offered his left hand again and they shook once more, both boys smiling.

“Gadge? What kind of name is that?”

“It’s a nickname. That’s what they call me, at school anyway.”

“Why?”

“I like gadgets. Electronics, inventions and stuff. You’ll find nicknames are the thing at this school. Everyone has one.”

“I hope Frogger doesn’t stick.”

“Well, it might. Most of our nicknames started as some kind of pejorative. But they quickly become terms of endearment. You’ll see.”

Gadge started walking and gestured for Jeremy to follow. “I’ll give you the tour.”

“Really?”

“Sure, you’ll need to know your way around,” Gadge said, matter-of-factly.

Jeremy could see genuine interest in friendship, though Gadge was trying not to show it. He decided to open himself up. Jeremy knew he needed friends — and more than that, he needed friends who were good. Gadge had stopped the assault. “Why did they stop hitting me? Just because you asked?”

A peculiar expression crossed Gadge’s face. It seemed like sheepishness. Jeremy studied it. The meaning deepened. It was shame.

“My father is one of the largest patrons of the school. He’s also a Member of Parliament. The boys here know not to trifle with me — their parents have drilled that into them. Everyone wants to be in good standing with my honourable father.”

Jeremy easily detected the sarcasm, but decided it was too soon to ask about his relationship with his father — though he was curious.

As they wandered through the campus, Jeremy was acutely aware of the heads turning. He felt as though Gadge were emitting a force-field of protection. He turned and smiled at his rescuer, unable to mask the intensity of his gratitude. “Thanks, Gadge. Thank you for saving me.”

Gadge looked back and held the smile. Jeremy had never been looked at so directly by anyone in his life. Gadge held eye contact long beyond social norms. They kept looking at each other until they reached a flight of stairs and, out of necessity, broke their stare and concentrated on descending safely. As they started down, Jeremy felt a jolt of alarm as Gadge’s hand took his and gave it a squeeze. His hand was warm. Tingles of affection passed through this brief skin-to-skin contact, and Jeremy smiled to himself. They didn’t hold hands for long, but the warmth of it resonated in his chest long after.

“Straps back there — oh, Straps was the one hitting you.”

“Why do they call him Straps?”

“His father belts him. He pays it forward. Especially to new kids. So, anyway — Straps was making a big deal about you being a hero. What was that all about?”

“He found the book I’m reading. It’s called Heroes of the Ages,” Jeremy replied, wary that chiding or ridicule might follow.

“Sounds cool! Will you show me? Come on!” Gadge gestured towards a nearby bench and the two boys sat.

Jeremy produced the book and began flicking through it, overwhelmed by an urge to share his passion. “I found this in a second-hand shop. I had to save my pennies for months to afford it, but the lady behind the counter held it for me until I’d paid it off. It’s got all the great heroes of myth and history!”

“It’s so thick! Not a lot of pictures, either.”

“No. But lots of great information.”

“Have you read the whole thing?”

“Oh yes, a few times. I keep re-reading my favourite parts.”

“Show me those,” Gadge said with an inquisitive smile.

“Well,” Jeremy grinned, flicking to one of his dog-eared pages. “This is Theseus — one of the great heroes of ancient Greek mythology. He travelled all across Greece on foot and defeated some of the fiercest foes you can imagine. He ended up sailing to Crete, where King Minos was demanding men and women from Athens be fed to his Minotaur in the maze!”

“I know the Minotaur!” Gadge delighted.

“You do?”

“Yes! It lived in the labyrinth designed by Daedalus!”

“Precisely. How do you know about Daedalus?”

“I told you — gadgets, inventions. I’m a student of history and myth too, Jeremy. Daedalus invented all sorts of amazing things. Statues that could move and talk like real people! He invented the wings that let him and his son fly like birds!”

Jeremy’s face turned serious as his thoughts leapt to what happened to Daedalus’s son next, but he pushed the thought aside, not wanting to taint this new connection. “That’s wonderful. Well, Theseus is the hero who finally defeated the Minotaur. He was helped by Minos’s daughter, Ariadne — she got him out of the labyrinth when it was done. One of the unsung heroes of the story.” Jeremy stared into the pencil sketches of Theseus and the great beast. Lost in it.

“Is Theseus your favourite, then?” Gadge asked.

“Oh no! I’ll show you my favourite.” Jeremy scanned back to the start and found a picture of a tall bearded man with an enormous hat, and what appeared to be angelic wings behind him. “This is the hero of the oldest creation myth in history.”

“Creation myth?”

“The stories of how we got here. How the universe came to be.”

“You mean, like God?”

“Yeah, just like that. But this man is older than God! He’s not the creator though — he defeated the creator, who was a great dragon.”

“A bit like Theseus and the Minotaur.”

“Not exactly — he didn’t slay the dragon. He wrapped her in a net.”

“Interesting. What was his name?”

“Marduk. A lesser god. In some versions of the myth he had eyes all around his head and could shape the world with his words.”

“Whoa! He could see everything?”

“Just about! But I like the words thing even more. Imagine — having the power to change the world just by speaking.”

“Very cool.”

As the boys stared at the page, the first school bell rang. Young men all around them gathered their bags and darted in various directions, needing to reach the chapel before the second bell in four minutes’ time. Jeremy and Gadge didn’t flinch. They hadn’t even noticed.

Jeremy flicked through a few more pages, showing Gadge heroes of Sparta, Rome, and Japan, all the way through to World War I, World War II, and the recent Falklands War — though both boys were sceptical as to the importance or righteousness of that last one.

After a time, Jeremy decided the path for questions had been sufficiently cleared, and he shut the book. “So you’re an inventor. What have you invented?”

“Hmmm... nothing new as yet. A few little ideas still in their infancy, so I’m not at liberty to discuss them.”

Jeremy chuckled.

“I’ve been working on a solar watch, though.”

“A what?”

“A watch powered by the sun.”

“You can do that?” Jeremy blurted.

“Absolutely! Seiko and Casio have been doing it for almost a decade. Haven’t you seen their watches?”

“Of course I’ve seen them!” Jeremy lied. “I just meant — can you do it?”

“Oh, well, not yet. I’ve been trying to rig an old battery watch to a solar array from my calculator, but it’s analogue, so I think it needs more power than I can give it.”

“So it doesn’t work at all?”

“Oh, it works — but only when the sun is shining directly on it. And it runs a bit slow. But it definitely works.”

Jeremy couldn’t contain a smirk of scepticism. “I’d hardly call it working if it doesn’t keep time.”

Gadge conceded the point. “Alright, it’s an experiment in progress. But a worthy one. Did you know the sun blasts our upper atmosphere with one-hundred and seventy-four terawatts of raw energy? Imagine what we could do if we harvested that!”

Jeremy, having no idea what he was talking about, pressed his own line of thought. “But I thought you said Sakio and Keiso have been making them for ten years.”

Gadge giggled at Jeremy’s metathesis. “That’s how I learn about it, Jeremy. I can’t get all my knowledge from books. I’ve got to get my hands on things, try them out.”

Jeremy nodded and turned away to stare at the lawn. “Mmm.” It occurred to him that Gadge was righter than he might have realised — for both of them. Jeremy had spent all his time in books, revelling at the feats of others. But in his own life he kept his head down, steered clear of conflict, and in doing so missed every chance to live up to the honour and bravery of his heroes. And this very morning, a new hero had emerged. A boy his own age who had stood up to a mob of violence-crazed adolescents — boys who had already drawn blood and were willing to continue to who-knows-what end. Gadge had spoken up. Yes, they feared his father — or more precisely, feared the consequences their own parents would bring if they tarnished their family names in the eyes of his dad. But that was no unfair advantage; no more unfair than Heracles being the son of Zeus, or Theseus inheriting his father’s sword and sandals — items that could only be claimed by a boy with the strength and courage to find them.

Gadge was a hero, and Jeremy felt like a coward. Gadge not only pursued his dream with hands-on intrepidity, but in Jeremy’s time of need, had effortlessly stepped into the very role Jeremy aspired to. Not only had he saved his neck — he’d inadvertently shone a light on Jeremy’s own mediocrity. Jeremy owed him a great debt. He felt a fire beginning to crackle in his gut. Something had begun.

A shadow fell across the boys, and a shrill adult voice barked, “Master Wells! I shouldn’t think Lord Wells would be happy to hear that you are truanting general assembly!”

Jeremy gulped. He saw Gadge’s body shrink with anxiety. But then another voice spoke. Deep, friendly. A man in his early thirties with a balding head came into view from a row of nearby bushes, wearing dirty blue overalls.

“Don’t be mindin’ these boys, Headmaster Chalmers — I’ve been watching them while I walk. Young Master Wells here was just showing the new boy around, making sure he was safe. A good deed he was doin’!” The accent was like Jeremy’s own. Common.

The Headmaster’s lips twisted. “Get to the chapel at once!” he snapped.

The boys leapt to attention and with an abrupt “Yessir” from Gadge, they scurried off across the lawn towards the chapel.

“Who was that man?” Jeremy asked, marvelling at a third hero in a single morning.

“Oh, that was Abe. The gardener. He’s a good sort. Common, er… but uncommonly kind!”

“The Headmaster said Lord Wells,” Jeremy panted as they ran. “Did he mean Lord George Wells — from the House of Lords?”

Gadge grimaced. “Yes. That’s my father. I’m surprised you’ve heard of him.”

“Why — because I’m a commoner?”

Gadge laughed. “I suppose so!”

Jeremy smiled. He knew his place in England’s class system. He knew he would never quite fit in here, among the sons of Lords and heirs of multinational executives. He was from the projects. A pauper. But what he lacked in wherewithal he made up for in intellect, and he was determined now to follow the lead of his courageous would-be-inventor friend — all the way to greatness. “What’s your real name, Gadge?”

Gadge reached across the space between them and they awkwardly shook hands as they bobbed and wobbled in their frenetic sprint. “Eli Wells, at your service.”

⁂

Thanks for reading Chapter 1 of The Ghost of Delacroix. If you’ve just started the adventure here, I’ll let you know now that this is Chapter 1 of Book 2 in the first trilogy of the Mardukverse, The Ghosts of Men Trilogy. If you didn’t yet read The Ghosts of Emily and want to do it in the proper sequence, jump back to there and enjoy the whole book on this Substack for free.

The next five chapters of The Ghost of Delacroix will also be free, but after that, all future chapters in the Mardukverse will be for paying members only. Membership is $5/month, with a delivery of about 2 chapters per week ongoing (less than a dollar per chapter on average). Expanded universe content and author’s private backend materials and tools for the series will also be shared there from time to time, as well as all future books as chapter-episodes.

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The Ghost of Emily, my first novel originally published in 2017, is now back in print and available for order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your other favourite booksellers online. It is about $32 USD for the 390-page perfect bound paperback to be shipped to you, and $5 USD for the ebook version for instant download.

You can read the whole book for free here on my Substack, if you don’t mind loading a page per chapter and keeping it in-house. Comments and reviews on chapter posts welcome and encouraged! But for those Book Dragons out there like me who want hardcopies, here is the novel in its most refined, polished, concise and beautifully formatted edition, published under the right name (my real name) and ready to sit side-by-side with the soon-to-follow The Ghost of Delacroix (syndicated emails here first, and paperback and ebook after that), and the much anticipated The Ghost of Melchizedek after that!

Grab your copy of The Ghost of Emily 2026 paperback today!

(note: the hardcover pictured is just for mood, the paperback product obviously won’t be a case laminate, but if there is genuine interest in a hardcover version of these editions, let me know in the comments and I’ll consider making it available)

I am approaching the finish of a new historical literary novel that I've been tinkering at collaboratively with my friend Vik.

Back in the day I was blessed to have a number of friends from around the world read my early drafts of Emily & Delacroix and offer invaluable constructive feedback, which helped me resolve errors and polish the prose of those novels.

If any of those hungry readers, or new ones, are out there and willing to read a near-final draft of this novel and offer some notes and something of a review as to what is working and what might not be, I would love to send you a digital copy soon. I am confident in and proud of this book, and I also know from experience that fresh eyes and new minds offer perspectives and catch errors that these authors cannot alone.

If you're out there and want to read this book and see your name in the acknowledgements page when it is published, reply to this email and I'll add you to the reader list so you get the ebook semi-final draft.

Here's the back cover blurb to give you a sense of it. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Also, happy and blessed Easter/Pascha to you all. May the Lord comfort your heart and keep your mind full of hope in these strange and unsettling times.

It’s been a long journey! And I’ve learned and grown so much. The idea first struck in 2015 during a long drive, and I fleshed out a storyline over the rest of that year. It obsessed me enough to take shape as a novel by 2016, which I eagerly self-published as quickly as possible with pride, believing my first attempt at a novel must be brilliant - look at how thick it is!

It was good enough to deserve years of editing, and several considerable re-writes. I’ve never worked on a book so much as Emily. It has been so worth it because now, as I approach the end of the trilogy (with less than 10 chapters of prose left to write in a third book that is fully planned), I have well and truly found my voice and style as a writer.

It only took 130,000+170,000+340,000 words (re-writes, re-drafts, and later massive culls notwithstanding!). Nearly two-thirds of a million words of composed prose written to tell this story so far. There’s probably another half a million of notes and scaffolding. Getting better at stuff like this takes commitment, patience, and a long time.

The new Emily edition is now down to 99,000 words, and don’t worry, Melchizedek is coming down a LOT from 340k, that’s all the raw prose which will have plenty of that sneaky narrator to cut from the scene!

The main lesson and biggest growth-area for me in being an amateur fiction writer is detachment of my self from the scene (during or after writing). Learning to let my inner narrator be present for the writing process (because my mind is the engine of this fictional universe after all) but being willing to remove anything extraneous afterwards, and aiming for total absence of the narrator as much as possible. I learned this stylistic approach from one my favourite authors, Orson Scott Card, whose books I’ve read by the dozen (SO excited for Master Alvin, which is out this year after 23 years since its prequel), and who (being a playwright originally) crafts complex philosophical science fiction stories almost entirely through static-scene dialogue. It’s amazing his novels are as immersive as they are, because he barely describes the environments or actions at all, and through characterisation (almost) alone, he carries heavy, philosophy-rich, mind-bending sci-fi (and occasional fantasy).

I’m proud to have committed to this novel idea for over twelve years now, and glad that my young writer ego faded enough for me to put the quality of the book above my need to be seen in realtime as its author. Everyone knows I wrote these books. The characters are projections of me. They are enough.

Click above to begin (or start again) the journey from chapter 1 of The Ghost of Emily. This is the 2026 edition of the text.

This final edition The Ghost of Emily is the best presentation of this book possible, the perfect entry to the universe of Marduk, and now much more on par with the quality of writing you will encounter in the remainder of this trilogy.

This edition will soon be in print with a new 2026 cover design and in a new paperback size. Older editions of this book are no longer available, so those of you who already own them, they are now collector’s items. I have a few spares on hand to one day sell if inferior but older versions become valuable to anyone.

The Ghost of Delacroix will commence chapter-by-chapter from this blog very soon, and after 6 chapters will be behind the paywall. The third book The Ghost of Melchizedek will make its long-awaited debut immediately after the last chapter of Delacroix, for paying members only. The novel will release as paperback and ebooks next year.

Enjoy the ride!

Yes, I hear you. It’s about time I got this third book out. I started the whole saga in 2015 after listening to a transhumanism podcast, and the original idea sent me down a research rabbit hole that, well, taught me about philosophy, Christianity, political ideologies, history, alternative and esoteric histories and so much more. The quest for understanding behind this fictional book series changed me forever.

And I left you all hanging!

The Ghost of Emily was first published in 2016.

The Ghost of Delacroix was published in 2019.

I started writing The Ghost of Melchizedek that same year, so I’m now in the EIGHTH year of working on this novel. Twelfth year since I started the saga. And by working on it, I mean seasonally getting re-obsessed and plunging back in for a major burst of progress, then nothing for months to follow. That has been my way with this series. There are so many nights and transits that I daydream about the details and the intricate tapestry of this universe I’ve been imagining and describing. Much of the work has happened inside my head. Formalising it outward has been hard at times, inspired at others.

It is vast.

And it got so vast that, to make it feel true and complete to my vision, I willingly embarked upon writing the most ambitious novel I could possibly muster with THE GHOST OF MELCHIZEDEK. My aim always was to answer all the important open questions of the first two books (at least the ones that specifically relate to this set of characters and situations) and to open a whole new line of understanding (and questions) that segues into the next trilogy, and the series of novels beyond that. VAST.

And every time I took a break, it got foggy. But I started Book III with loads of experience and some great habits of catching all my ideas and notes in a central cloud-based location (the Notion app, as it were). So anytime a connection, idea, scene, loose end tied came to me spontaneously, I was able to jot it down, within a structure that would be referable anytime later.

Last year I spent one of my obsessive sessions building an intricate mind map of the whole universe, with every chapter of every book placed in a spiralling multi-timeline, their connection points illustrated, and relevant dates, facts, notes, and questions placed all along the timeline. It looks a bit mad, but it worked. When I came back to the project again this time, I found the years of collected ideas were right where I need them, and that a few days of studying that map would clarify me and ready me to write again.

That prep might have been overkill, because the plot and events of every chapter of The Ghost of Melchizedek are fully plotted, bullet-pointed, and decided. It’s literally just prose writing to go. And ONLY TEN CHAPTERS OF PROSE LEFT TO WRITE!

The end is in sight.

More good news, I’ve been editing prolifically as a means of procrastination on writing new content over these last eight years. Useful procrastination, because I find the content I have - and my goodness is there a LOT of words in this book - is well edited, if a little long in some early parts. I found my rhythm in the second act and I’m sure I can strip those early chapters back significantly in my final edit.

To give you an idea, the current draft with the ten final chapters to go is currently longer than the longest Harry Potter book, and almost as long as the longest Songs of Ice & Fire book. I have not been idle. I have not had writers block. I’m not proud of the word count. It will be trimmed for words, but there are 64 chapters, a prologue, an epilogue, a coda, and major events occur in every single chapter. It’s epic, and I’m proud of that!

There is so much scaffolding in place for me, and such a fast pace to the prose of these final chapters which are rich in action and resolution, that I’m confident enough in the approaching end to say I will soon resume publication of THE GHOST OF DELACROIX as a serialised email, here. The first chunk will be free, the rest behind the paywall after that. This will be a 2026 edition, not with major or structural changes, just fresh eyes catching errors in spelling or word substitutions. This latest edit will (later in the year) become available in paperback print once more, alongside a 2026 edition of Book I - THE GHOST OF EMILY.

Once we get to the end of THE GHOST OF DELACROIX as our subscriber-only serialised blog (and I will be increasing to more than one chapter per week now) we will roll straight into THE GHOST OF MELCHIZEDEK to the end. This will be the first place to read the book (or rather, your email inbox will be, if you are a paying Subscriber). It won’t be out as a complete text until a good way into the rollout here, so loyal subscribers will have the option to skip ahead, or those who prefer a paperback can have one!

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Being a paid subscriber will also give you access to ALL of the additional materials that I will be gradually and routinely posting here as the MARDUKVERSE expands. I have so much planning, research material, scaffolding, backstory, structural overviews, and even completely scientific and xenomythological studies on an alien race that will be important in the second trilogy. These are the reference tools I have built over time for myself to be able to execute with delicate accuracy what should add up to a six book symphony. God willing, and time permitting.

I’m doing this for me, to see what my imagination and will are capable of. It’s been one of the most worthwhile creative expressions of my life. Thanks for being on the journey. I hope you’ll follow the grand adventure to come!

Will announce the launch date of THE GHOST OF DELACROIX soon (likely this or next month).

Kindly,

James

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Hi, friends. For a few years now this has been my (very) casual central blog where I can share anything I’ve been working on. I don’t use it often, because I’m usually too busy DOING to be writing about it. But big things are happening this year in my music life, I have signed my first record deal and have a string of new (REALLY GOOD) singles and two albums coming out over the next 10 months.

The first original single “I AM” releases worldwide on all streaming platforms on 14th April, and will be heavily marketed by my new label partner Mandatory Music. It was developed and recorded with my Solstice Bandmates, Shahni, Amanda, Rich, Euan, and John. It will be followed by my first solo cover single, “Everyday” originally by Jamiroquai. It’s a smouldering new arrangement that features prominent horns, and on which I played everything, really stretching myself with great result. You can hear some teaser samples of the songs on my instagram.

With all of that ahead, and everything that will come with it, I have launched a new separate Substack page entirely focused on my music output, performing as JAMES ALEXANDER as I have been for many years now. Click the image to visit the blog. I have taken the liberty of copying this mailing list to there. That will be where my music news comes from hence forth, still to your inbox.

This JAMES ALEXANDER HIGGINS blog will remain more focused on my other creative projects, random creations from the archives, and most importantly and predominantly, my science fiction novel series THE GHOSTS OF MEN, and its larger umbrella series of related novels collectively known as THE MARDUKVERSE. These will stay at the centre of this particular website and blog.

Finally, I would like to invite you to join me on a new literary adventure. This is a side project, completely unrelated to my other written works and nothing to do with music at all. A fiction series unlike anything else I’ve done, and coming to you gradually through a new Substack. If you enjoy the novels of Tom Clancy, Dan Brown, John Grisham; if you like intriguing, deep political/military thrillers; if you like learning about true unsolved or classified mysteries of recent history; if you want to follow a trail of clues around the globe to a conclusion that will leave you dumbfounded… then subscribe to SANTIAGO MORROW, and enjoy the ride!

Santiago is also on Instagram.

It’s cold! It’s cold! A Winter’s tale shall be told.

It’s actually the very last day of Winter officially here in Australia. And the promise of Spring is in the sunshine and clear blue skies. But the cold wind won’t let us forget King Winter so easily.

A long time ago, when my sons were small, we embarked with their mother Vira Rubenstein on the ambitious journey of producing an animated (stop motion and puppetry-based) film bringing to life the style of story-telling that Vira practised as a Steiner Playgroup Leader.

Vira had a deep heartfelt draw to the views and practises in childhood education of Rudolf Steiner, and she had worked for several years studying Anthroposophy and leading a small inner city playgroup in Sydney, with storytelling like this at the centre. Eventually we established a playgroup of our own based out of our country home which Vira led, called Kitsune House, which became our “studio” for this film project and the two in the series that followed.

Vira wrote this original tale and guided the ideation of its visual manifestation, using her toys, props and puppets that were an intrinsic part of playgroup story time.

I brought my experience and abilities in filmmaking to it, seeing the simple but so meaningful little world she made with faceless puppets and plain silks through a tight lens, making the view less general, more specific and filmic.

The sound and music were the key to making such a gestural landscape come to life, and it was a joy to create and compile the sound effects, and to voice the story with my sons as the on-screen characters. In composing the music, I built upon simple pentatonic themes Vira composed for the songs in the story, keeping with the indications of anthroposophy to create very intentional emotional movements with melody. From that intentional baseline, I free played and treated the composition like I would any other film score.

The end result of this family collaboration was very moving to us, and still moves me greatly to watch. It was received with warm accolade by several Steiner-oriented groups online, and we were told had become a bedtime favourite of more than one child, somewhere in the world. We felt proud to have created a little piece of goodness with our skill sets and a lot of patient work.

We entered it into a number of festivals and competitions with the first burst of enthusiasm to share that comes of a freshly rendered final cut. It was a surprise and joy to be Officially Selected for the Cannes Short Film Festival that year (2021). A badge of pride for me as an amateur filmmaker.

I hope this re-publishing of the previously unavailable WINTER WARMTH brings you and your family a little joy as you feel the last winds of Winter subside here in the South, or as you feel the first tickles of Autumn in the North, letting you know Old King Winter is just over the horizon. Keep warm, and keep each other warm, friends.

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ - Matthew 25:40 (ESV)

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Shot the whole film in a weekend at my student share-house, then embarked on many sleepless nights of animating and editing and music production and ADR editing, and then eventually, it was done, and so was university, and I suddenly needed to get on with chasing lucre. Music being my chief skill, it took priority in career pursuit and we immediately embarked on producing Nightclub of the Nudist, the album that got my career as a paid musical entertainer started.

STRUNG! languished in hard drives on shelves of 12 different houses, for 20 years. But I recently found it, and its related miscellanea, trailers (like above), script, rehearsal notes, sketches, behind the scenes reels, and more. I gave it another look, and with some minor modern tweaks (like upscaling to HD from the piffling SD-DV format we shot it on back in 2006) I have decided it’s finally to share this little piece of insanity I worked very hard to bring from ideation to creation.

Interestingly, the film co-stars Ian Peres, who later went on to join the band Wolfmother, with whom he toured for years before later working with many other well-known Australian artists including Xavier Rudd, The Whitlams, and now John Butler Band. He was my housemate at the time, and all of the cast were students in the Bachelor of Popular Music program together.

Soon enough (after a final tweak to the audio mix), the film will be published here for your enjoyment! Better make sure you become a paid subscriber in case I decide to put it behind the paywall. This and many other film-related treats coming soon (including a Chinese safety song I wrote and produced for the city of Guilin, and a Steiner Waldorf inspired children’s stop motion film I directed which was Officially Selected for Cannes Short Film Festival in France). Stay tuned!

But first, if you missed the last email, I shared with you the iMovie made AI-generated trailer for TGOE, and here (above) is the even more exciting trailer (made in the same fashion) for THE GHOST OF DELACROIX.

And if you’re done with trailers and you’re ready to dive in at the start, here is Chapter 1 of Book 1:

Or, perhaps you have started the first book already, but you are part way through, and maybe you’re not sure how to find the chapter you’re up to. You can utilise Marduk’s Map, my one-page compendium of links and publication information about this entire series (including the future unwritten works). This map will be updated again soon, and will continually be updated when there is new prose or new information to share. It will also serve as an index to posts here about the series.

SO WHAT ABOUT BOOK 2?

The Ghost of Delacroix, as I said above, is going to roll out here as a weekly email starting from chapter one, for the year or so that those chapters will cover. It’s already fully written, edited to my satisfaction after a very successful and inspired writing process (mostly in 2017 and 2018), so once it starts rolling out here, it will continue like clockwork!

But here’s the rub: one book is plenty for me to give away! This second book and beyond are only for paying subscribers (at any level) of this Substack.

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Please become a financial contributor to my work as a writer, and you will receive this entire series emailed to you, ongoing, as it comes out (for many books to come).

Oh alright, just to whet your whistle I’ll include the first 4 chapters of Delacroix in the free membership, but after that, you gotta sign up to get the rest. Please and thank you.

I am confident that Book 3: The Ghost of Melchizedek will be written and edited in time to roll straight from the end of Delacroix into the third and final (or is it?) instalment in this particular storyline.

ONE LAST THING…

I’m going to soon send all subscribers (free and paying) a pdf and epub copy of The Ghost of Emily with the latest edit, and new formatting, the same which will soon be used for a new paperback edition. The digital and physical editions are coming to satisfy the reader who prefers not to do it in their email client, or perhaps on the screen at all.

If you want to receive the digital copy of The Ghost of Emily (2025 edition) then make sure you are subscribed to this list, as it will not be posted on the website for all to see, it will only be emailed to subscribers. Join at a financial level to receive The Ghost of Delacroix… starting very soon!

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