Parallel - The Awakening

A. Rice Paul

Description

Kenneth Robinson thinks he knows all about life, he's been around the block and he's learned a few things along the way.After his current job ends in disaster, Ken moves on to Afghanistan, and manages to start himself a nice little business in a hell-hole called Kandahar. Life is looking rosy and the money is rolling in.Then the storm arrives...

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: YouWriteOn.com
• Date de parution: 01 août 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781908400390
• Langue: English

Extrait

Parallel - The Awakening
2011 Edition
Paul A. Rice
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Parallel - The Awakening
Kenneth Robinson thinks he knows all about life, he s been around the block a couple of times and he s learned a few things along the way. After his current job ends in disaster, Ken moves on to Afghanistan. Where, after a lot of hard work, he manages to start himself a nice little business down in a hell-hole called Kandahar.

Right now, his life is looking rosy and the money is rolling in.

Yes, it was all going to plan, and then the storm arrived

Now he is about to discover that there are more than just lies and damn lies in this world. In fact, he s about to find out that there is more than just one world, and if he doesn t get his act together then lots of people are going to end up dead, very dead.

However, when it comes to the skills of blood-letting, Ken has had a fair bit of experience. In fact, he s an expert.

It s precisely because of those skills that Ken finds himself embarking upon a journey that will make him feel as though his mind has melted

The journey of discovery takes him into the past, into the future, and into places he could never have imagined. From the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan, to faraway places and unimaginable realities, Ken only has to do three things: never give up, never stop fighting, and above all - try not to go crazy.
1
Chained
2006
They punched him again, and again, and again. And then again one more time, just for good measure. Or fun. After they had finished beating him, the man lay in the sogginess of his own blood and faeces. Warm urine pooled, a brown tide lapping upon the torn shore of his weeping feet. He assumed brown, for by now it would have mixed with his own droppings, surely. No underwear here, only a boiler-suit to provide unfettered access, bowels to feet.
He could not see. But he could assume.
It was dark, darker than a black night on the inside of Lucifer s crack, with all the curtains drawn. And, in a crack he most certainly was - the deepest, smelliest crack of all time. It wasn t entirely due to his own stupid fault that he d ended up here, either. Stuck in the black crack of hell s master, chained and beaten, paying the Devil his keep, his board, his rent. Other people needed to take their share of blame, for this, his most dire of situations.
Perhaps they d like to come and pay their share of the bill?
Dark taxes The feeble grin was a big mistake, a grimace that served only to send more blood spilling from his mouth. Acres of chipped teeth firing a barrage of their psychopathic opinions, lasers, into the very depths of his creaking jawbone. The hood never helped. Filthy thing, imprisoning his mind more effectively than the chains holding his ankles, he was incarcerated, mind-and-body, stinking blackness.
He could not see. But he could smell.
The fetid rankness of suppurating body fluids caressed his nostrils, their reminder gentle, yet brutal. He was here, and here he would stay, stay until death. Stay until, until they cut his
He could not see. But he could think.
Until they cut my head off
His mind screamed.
NO!
Deep breathing, he could do that, if only just.
Breathe.
Tepid air sucked deep into bruised lungs. Broken ribs freely moving, like pick-up-sticks on a wind-rushed pond. Wait for the pain, the grinding, grating crepitus.
He could not see. But he could feel.
Indeed he could.
What little of his body they had not violated now seemed to be in someone else s possession. The rest, the parts they d punched and cut, bitten and slashed, burned and electrified - splashed with lighter fluid - those parts definitely belonged to him. He wished they did not.
The pain was beyond pain. It was his world.
Yes, he was imprisoned in a World-Of-Pain.
The thoughts whirled by on their merry-go-round of anguish.
Am I a pain-prisoner?
No, he was just a prisoner-prisoner. Chained and hooded in his world-of-pain. His mind drifted, struggling to remember the name of the film where he d first heard those words.
If you don t do as I say then you, mister, are gonna be in a world-of-pain!
Maybe it was a book, he could not think.
He slept. Not for long.
He could not see. But he could cry.
He cried again. Hot tears casting their salty tracks down his lacerated cheeks, searing his cracked and feathered lips. And yet, even whilst drowning in the depths of such anguish, his blinding naivety, the rushing arrogance, still failed to allow the reality of the situation, and his own part in it, to register with the prisoner.
It wasn t just my fault, no. The security advisor was as much to blame, the stupid bastard! Why hadn t he been more forthright, why hadn t he made sure we never went downtown unaccompanied?
He blubbered inside the hood.
Why, it was his job to look after us, why hadn t the guy done something? Look at what s happening. Look at the mess I m in. Look at it - stupid bastard!
His blindness knew no bounds. He d always been the same and it had been observed on more than one occasion.
John McGuire? Arrogant little prick, damned know-it-all!
He d heard it said. He didn t care.
His own thoughts ruled the roost around here.
We paid them to look after us. I ve been in more dangerous places than this, Pakistan is really not as bad as they make it out to be, the stupid bastards!
But it was.
His thoughts brushed the admission away.
It wasn t as bad as they made it out to be, it just wasn t - I was simply unlucky!
He d had plenty of experience, plenty.
He knew the score.
He d drunk gallons of beer in Kabul, taken hundreds of hookers in Rwanda - taken hookers everywhere - he d partied like a gypsy in Yemen, fornicated like a king in Baghdad, rocked the darkest corner of the Congo, and drank himself senseless in a scintillating Syria.
Pakistan was just another place of work, why the hell can t I venture downtown Karachi to check out the scene, why? One little trip downtown in a taxi, it s no big-deal.
The crystal-green eyes of the ex-pat security chief, bored into his dark, pain-filled world. Those softly spoken words, the clear warning, seared through the blackness of his purgatorial prison.
Under no circumstances are you ever to use taxis, gentlemen - that s why we pay a fortune for our own cars, are we clear? Looking at them without a smile whilst proceeding to point at the map, indicating the forbidden areas, the dangerous spots, the out-of-bounds places.
McGuire s thoughts idle.
They look interesting, definitely worth a little trip down there
The ex-pat s words hammering home endless other procedures to be followed in case of emergency. Apparently, he d been doing this stuff for more than thirty years, ex-special forces, or something.
Who cared?
The briefing droned on.
Blah-blah-blah
The man s gravel-filled voice faded into white noise as McGuire had let his thoughts return to the girl from the bar last night. The Russian, the blonde one, she was something else.
Dubai, party-town, his mind had wandered.
Here and now, in the present, whilst drowning in the bitter blackness of his prison, he barely remembered the man s name, the security chief.
Old whatisname yes, what was his name?
He tried to think.
Ken?
Yes, Ken, that was it.
Ken something-or-other
Robertson?
His mind seemed disjointed, throbbing fear knocking on the door of his conscious, niggling, disrupting his ability to think clearly.
Perhaps it was Rob- in -son?
Robinson, yes, that s it, Robinson
McGuire couldn t seem to remember the man s face, only the eyes. They were green. Green eyes, icy eyes, emeralds.
Who cared?
He turned from the restless chain of thought, resting his temple upon the knuckles of a bloodied hand propped between head and floor. It was a cold and damp floor, a black and stinking floor. Thoughts drifting like a sleepwalker.
Who cares now?
No-one, that s who cares now, no-one.
More tears, a gentle cascade of soft, helpless admittance. Stinging, wet truth. He and the others, those who wouldn t care, just as long as this wasn t happening to them they wouldn t, had sniggered silently. Casually leaning against the doorframe as the big man gave them his security briefing.
Yawn, yawn - yawn! The guy s a bloody dinosaur; making things sound worse than they really are, too busy justifying his job!
And as for his side-kick, Noman, the cocky Asian fool, he was just another local henchman who was too busy licking the security chief s boots to really know the score - the guy had never even been outside of Karachi, what the hell would he know? Well, those two and their stupid rules weren t a problem, because dollars buy everything, especially the favours of a skinny gate-guard and his taxi-driving cousin. But, there was, apparently, a major difference between favours and loyalty.
Yes, well, McGuire knew that now, didn t he? Now he did - now he knew. But now it was too late. He knew that one for sure, and the knowledge burned him.
He could not see. But he could know.
Wished he d listened, wished he d taken the advice, wished
He could not see. But he could wish.
He slept again, but not for long.
They awoke him.
Rattling steel, squeaking hinges, footsteps. More pain, the shocking agony of a hard-soled boot stamping down on his unsuspecting fingers. Something hard, viciously wooden, clacked off his skull with a hollow, thunking sound, its impact ushered his mind to the front row of a fantastical firework show, a rather agonizing display of lights and sparkles. The ticket was VIP.
A voice spoke in the dark, its words thick, guttural.
Food you eat food!
The fireworks subsided, if only slightly. He groaned.
Iron fingers, steel claws digging into his armpits, dragged him into a sitting position. Head forced towards the steel bench - it was steel, he knew tha