A Country Life

CHAPTER 17 - THE WATCHER

"Which is why you need to help him stay alive long enough to reach his potential. Two years – no more. After that it won't matter."

The argument had been going on for days, ever since the watcher had allowed Sable out of the oubliette – even before they had cleared the dungeons, following the string that led them out to the safety of the keep's lower levels.

"Two years! He won't last two weeks, whether I help him or not. In fact, it might be best if he is retrieved by SimCore, if that's indeed who they are. Better them than those back-to-medieval revenant monks, who make such a mockery of what they call faith. By the way, what made you choose to stay in the heartland of their twisted influence? Surely somewhere more remote would have been better. Wales, or even Scotland perhaps? Why an English Kingdom, for pity's sake?"

"Partly because I had no choice at first, and partly ... partly through pride, I admit. I thought that maybe, if I could prove a plague victim can be cured and given the gift of normal life, I could turn opinion around and change the way things are going. I thought I could maybe persuade the senate, and everyone else – even SimCore, that this war wasn't worth fighting if the need for it was removed from Earth. All it needs is this boy to survive a little longer. Please, I know you were meant to be impartial in your task, to watch and report and not do anything unless given explicit instruction. But I also know you have the power to choose to intervene if you want to. I fought for that, right from the start – for just such a reason as this."

The watcher looked unconvinced for a moment, then frowned as he realised what Sable was saying. "Your appearance in the oubliette - that wasn't a SimCore authorised upload... I had assumed it was a last-stand protocol that activated when you died, but it wasn't was it?"

Sable tapped his head and smiled ruefully at the watcher. "When the nano reached my net, it activated a last-stand routine of my own design, squirting a readied mind state up to here. It also activated the destruction of my net, which protected my work but necessarily doomed my mortal life. It couldn't be helped.

"What good is your work up here?" asked the watcher. "You know there is no way out from this v-con. It's trapped just as effectively as you are."

"No. I made a copy a long time ago. It's still down there, in need of protection and in grave danger."

"The boy."

"Indeed, the boy. He doesn't know it, but he holds the key to returning the human race to greatness once again, but until he can get that knowledge to where it is needed, and not before the right time, it can't be used. And I fear that both sides will try to stop him reaching that goal at all costs, as the price they will pay for his success will be their lives."

A bell sounded twice in the observatory, and the watcher stood. "It is time," he said, and walked over to the chair under the telescope's eyepiece. Once settled in the chair, the watcher released a clamp that held the telescope in place, allowing it to move once the timer on the clockwork mechanism completed its count down. A few seconds later there was an audible clank as the mechanism engaged, then a regular ticking as the telescope began to track on its target; the town and castle within Berkeley Protectorate, Wessex Kingdom. In the high clock-speed of the v-con, the watcher would have over an hour to make his observations. In real time, just eight minutes would pass. There would usually be in the order of hundreds of passes between locating and observing a target, as it relied on them being in the open at the same time and place as where the telescope was trained on – a combination rarely encountered, but it was the best that could be achieved with the tools at hand. After only a few moments searching, however, the watcher grunted in surprise.

"I've found your boy, and he's in trouble."

Sable looked up, the worry on his face clear to see even in the dim light of the oil lamp. Inwardly, the watcher sighed, as he felt he was about to make a decision that would anger his superiors, and perhas open the way for more serious consequences.