The Astrals

This is the first chapter of something I'm hoping will be about 3 chapters it total. It's part of the backstory to a book I've been on and off writing for years, and even though much of this might change when I have the final version, I'm putting these 3 chapters on here hopefully if I get the other two written.

Set in an Alternate Reality somewhere :




March 2012, Orusgar, Northern England, and just over five years had passed since the city's modernisation had been completed. England along with other countries in the UK had joined the Collective States of Europe a decade earlier, and the ever changing President of Europe always had his or her pet project which they'd divert funds towards. When the State of England had its turn for President, the leader at the time directed his attention straight to Orusgar.

Almost every area was redeveloped, with the city's nanotech orb being its final and biggest achievement. Supposedly built to help keep the air cleaner than any other city and at the same time filter out much of the Sun's harmful rays, it attributed to the city often being termed one of the first of its type in the world, or Protocity, as one writer in the local area called it, a name which later caught on.

But the corporation that created and maintained the orb were a highly secretive group, and when the swathes of money that'd been thrown at the city later became known to the public, several groups inside and outside of Protocity began looking for answers.



- - - - -



"Need some help finding somewhere?"

Ed turned around to see a man standing about 20 feet away from him, halfway down the alley way that he was at the end of. He had short black hair and was wearing a black suit, but something about the aura he gave off made Ed sure he wasn't the average type of business man that'd be seen walking around the streets of this part of the city.

"Looking for symbols. Apparently there's a few cults around here, just researching." Said Ed, without any sign of emotion on his face.

"Yeah...seems that way, doesn't it?" said the suited man, smiling slightly.

It was when the man didn't move or stop looking at him that Ed thought the moment had finally arrived. Face to face with one of the Tchradaskhans, the cult he'd been researching for years and whose existence was still without any undeniable proof. The alley they both stood in was inbetween two multi-story buildings in the south east of Protocity, the business quadrant, and it was well known that at least some cults had a big influence wherever the money was.

"Is there a problem?" He asked, with a slightly more concerned look this time around.

"I've got some information for you, and also an offer if you'll give me a few minutes." Replied the suited man.

"Who are you?" Asked Ed.

"I'll tell you if you want to walk back up this way a bit." Replied the suited man as he turned, then started walking back up the alley towards the main street.

Ed stayed put for a few seconds and looked back around at the locked door and nearby walls again for signs or symbols, but saw nothing. He then looked back towards the suited man, now slowly walking. He wondered what type of game he was playing or who he could be, then decided to catch up.



- - - - -



"Sorry, your name?" Asked Ed, once he'd reached him and slowly walked alongside.

"Darren." He replied, then started talking.

"It's not the Tchradaskhans you want to be worried about." He said, and Ed quickly looked towards him, surprised to hear him mention the name of the cult he was currently trying to find information on.

"It's not likely you can do anything to them, and they'd probably overpower you with no problem at all anyway. The group you want to be looking for are the very people you're most familiar with. It's the Grey Magick Group, the activist-occultist group that your group separated from not so long back."

"What?" Said Ed, then started laughing.

"Are you mental? Putting aside how you even know me or knew where I'd be for one moment, you think the GMG are more important in the scheme of things than the Tchrads?"

"I didn't say that. I said it's not them "you" want to be worried about. It's not just you and your friends that are developing powers at the moment, they're also doing it, and they'll probably be declaring it very openly shortly."

"This sounds kind of insane, and I don't even know if you're a Tchrad yourself or not, do I? Maybe you're just filling my head with s***?"

"Oh, by giving you information about more occultists that'll soon be helping their scheme of things? And why would I give that information out if I was a Tchradaskhan?"

"Whatever. You know I can't just trust someone like this, so you're not going to get anywhere no matter what you say, sorry."

"That's why I'd rather take another approach, and this is the offer." Said Darren, as he started smiling.



- - - - -



"I represent a group called The Elementals. If it's ok with you and yours we'd prefer it that you didn't mention our name openly, for reasons that should become clear to you in the near future."

"Never heard of them and no idea of what you mean about the near future, but go on..."

"Not many have heard of us, we make sure of that." He replied, smiling again.

"We have plenty of information on most groups in this city and many outside it. But we prefer to be in touch with groups like yourselves in an effort to get better information for all involved. I know you can't trust us as you don't know who we are, and I know that when you go back home and start trying to find information on us you'll find very little, if anything. We have a network though and would like you to have access, but to do that you're going to need our equipment. It's a secure local network, but the way it functions can't be used on an average computer."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a network that requires, as a rule, fully new and secure computers before it can be accessed, to minimize any attempt at it being hacked. What we're offering you is a batch of network-ready laptops, at no cost. Once you have them you can simply connect with the instructions we give you, then you can see our information and decide for yourselves whether or not you think it's worth working with us."

"And in what way would we be working with you if we liked what we saw?" Replied Ed, after laughing again.

"We like to widen our research channels with groups we trust, which in turn helps minimize the corruption going on in the city and out in the wider world in many cases. You and your group, like all others we work with, can make whatever moves in any direction you want to with the information we provide. All we add to this is one simple clause, and that's that if you misuse the information we provide, and we'll warn you beforehand of several ways in which this could happen, and land in trouble, you neither bring us into the problem or mention our name if that's possible."

".......OK, and how many laptops are we talking about?"

"Twenty. We know your group has more members but we'll give you that amount first, then if you decide to work with us we'll supply more."

Ed gave a confused look and attempted to get a decent impression of him, but he couldn't. Something about him defied a character type and it just confused Ed the more he tried. He could still sense the aura on him but couldn't find any way to even try and describe it, which he found unsettling, even though when Darren spoke the aura seemed to dissipate.

- - - - -

Continued below.

To Ed, Darren was still a person that probably seemed to be nothing more than a con man, or a representative of a delusional group who thought they knew something they didn't, but to Darren, meeting Ed for the first time was something completely different. He knew that once Ed and his group got on to the network and started realising what his group was doing, and what they knew, they'd probably be seeing a lot more of each other for a long time to come.

Darren had met several like him in the past in the same way, and was still in touch with most of them, but this time it was more significant. Darren, along with many others in his group, knew the potential Ed and his group had, and also the importance of the place and time they were currently living in.

"You know I can't speak for all of us, but either way I might have at least one for myself to see what information you have. Where would I have to go to get one laptop?"

"It'll be delivered to your flat at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon if that's ok with you, and the man delivering will check with you once he arrives, and if you ask for more he'll add any number of extras up to twenty."

"...and don't be so concerned that we know where you live, we both know it's not hard to track your group down via the net in several ways." Added Darren, to which Ed, now deep in thought, nodded in response.

"That sounds fine. So how will I get onto the network and use it? Will that also be explained by the man delivering?"

"No. He'll give you a sheet of paper though with 20 login names and passwords. Once you're on you can go from there yourself. Finally, if we feel your group has been infiltrated in any way, at any point in time, all the accounts from your group will be shut down until whatever problem arises is resolved."

"OK." Replied Ed, still confused and amazed at the offer, but he knew any proof of how useful the network would be could only be worked out once he could get a look for himself.

Just after Ed had responded they both reached the end of the alley, where Darren stopped and turned towards him.

"Oh, and just so you know........you picked the right place. There's a Tchradaskhan cult somewhere in or underneath one or more of these buildings, and they use this alley quite often. Spend a few nights looking around in the same area if you want, and see if they either spare you or kill you." He said.

".....or you could just use the equipment we give you and research in a safer way instead." He said, as he gave one last look back at Ed, nodded slightly, then walked out onto the street.



- - - - -


End.



That's it for now, will hopefully add chapter 2 over the next week or two if I get it written. Also, I'm not going to pretend I'm brilliant with grammar, etc, so if anyone sees any mistakes please let me know (and thanks if you can!) and I'll note them for writing in the future.

Final thing just so you know : Ideally I'd like this to be more complete, but I don't want to hang around on each chapter for too long, would rather polish it up properly and finally once all 3 chapters are done, and share these ones while I'm writing to see what anyone thinks of it.