The Source Code

“Look! Why do you think they don’t want scientists? Scientists have an organization that always knows their whereabouts because scientists have all sorts of equipment, which can locate them. So, if those cannibals eat scientists, they’ll get into trouble!”

Maggie burst out laughing. “Paul! I don’t think that a small island, which is considered uninhabited, can house such a large tribe that is capable of eating us all at once. And they don’t have fridges for keeping the meat.”

George and Sandy rolled with laughter.

Totally preoccupied with defending the realization of his dream, Arthur failed to catch the humor and was desperately looking for counterarguments.

Meanwhile, trembling with rage, Paul retorted, “Maggie, they don’t need fridges. They can keep us alive, eating gradually one by one. Can you imagine what that will be?”

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 1: The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited Island
Chapter 6: Arthur’s Proposal
3D art by Ekat Rin

“All civilized people are completely sure that all thoughts they have are theirs. But it’s not so. If you watch your thoughts closely, you’ll realize that a significant number of them come to you from the outside.”

“Why do you think so?” demanded Sandy.

“I do not THINK so. I do KNOW it,” proclaimed Dee.

Maggie sniggered. “Really?”

“Yeah! When I was a kid, they prepared me to be a shaman. Alas, I have a poor gift. So, I failed to become a proper shaman, but I have some training of that sort. It’s nothing among my own people, but among your kind, it helps me a lot.”

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 1: The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited Island
Chapter 11: The Line from the Dream
3D art by Ekat Rin

“I wish you’d told me about your conclusions concerning the shaman right after you came out of the jungle.” Arthur chortled. “I guess you, guys, think that my friends, the scientists took me along to their expedition because they had no one to cook meals for them. Oh! Of course, I cooked when it was my turn to do it, but my main duty was to help them with the research. Besides, I know very well every Dee’s tribesman and even a number of members of the other tribes that visit Dee’s tribe occasionally. None of those I know were on Uguuly Island among the uncontacted people we saw.”

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 6: The Choice to Make a Choice
Chapter 2: Three Happy Idiots
3D art by Ekat Rin

“George, it’s different. That’s why he needed Maggie to be in that specific state. What he taught her, it’s a kind of … skills, maybe … It’s a kind of subconscious knowledge. George! Maggie’s special! She bears some cryptic invisible mark.”

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 2: Doubtless Doubts and the Doubtful Truth
Chapter 4: Arthur’s Version
3D art by Ekat Rin

“If truth be told, I came to the vernissage mainly because of free food at the party,” Maggie confessed, chuckling, while avidly devouring with her eyes Sandy’s paintings that were in her studio, “but I’ve got much more than that. Thank you.”

Sandy was baffled. Maybe whoever had told her that that extravagant girl was Anthony Ray’s daughter had been mistaken? On the other hand, Maggie really looked like him very much. Then, why a daughter of such a wealthy person came to the vernissage hoping for a free meal at the following party?

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 1: The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited Island
Chapter 5: Perfect Collaborators
Paintings by Hery Gaos
3D art by Ekat Rin

“But she’s an outstanding programmer! She’s working on a brilliant project! It’s exactly what our company needs right now!”

“And you are the one who knows better than others do what our company needs at the moment. Stunning!” Grindowell would’ve burst out laughing, but he never allowed himself such things in front of his subordinates.

“But it’s an incredibly brilliant project indeed!”

“Well. What kind of project?”

“A game!”

“What game?”

“A computer game, of course!”

Grindowell suppressed a groan. “What computer game?”

“Eh … Sorry?” Arthur stared at Grindowell without any idea in his eyes of what his boss wanted from him.

“Describe it!” barked Grindowell.

“I … I … I can’t … I didn’t see it …”

“Then, how do you know that it’s brilliant?”

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 2: Doubtless Doubts and the Doubtful Truth
Chapter 12: The News
3D art by Ekat Rin

Bead jumped on the couch and growled, looking into her eyes.

Maggie flinched, feeling goosebumps on the skin of her hands. “Does it mean that you want to tell me something?”

Bead growled again.

Maggie sat down on the chair across from him and said, “Well! Let’s try to communicate according to Dee’s method.”

For a while, she stared at her dog without really seeing him and did her best to discern the thoughts in her mind that were not hers.

Bead eyed her penetratingly.

At length, Maggie sniffed, annoyed, and snapped, “It’s pointless.”

However, she struggled for a while longer, feeling more and more exhausted from the vain attempts. At some point, Maggie took out her phone absentmindedly, looked through her social media pages, and by the purest accident, tapped an ad of the airline company, which services she’d used recently.

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 4: The Powerful Challenge for the Willpower
Chapter 11: An Appalling Discovery
3D art by Ekat Rin

While they were walking at a quick pace through the jungle, Dee was deluging HIM with questions, but the shaman kept silent. Eventually, HE stopped, moved the branches of a bush apart, and beckoned Dee to take a look.

Though Dee’s eyes were perfectly adjusted to see in the darkness of the night woods, he spotted nothing that could make his teacher rouse him at such an hour. Dee didn’t remember taking it along, but his phone was in his hand. So, he turned on the flashlight, and …

“Oh, my God …” Dee whispered in English, aghast.

In front of him lay Maggie and Bead.

They looked dead.

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 5: The Employees of an Eccentric Employer
Chapter 4: Mr. Dee’s Trust
3D art by Ekat Rin

He didn’t do it too often, but from time to time, he read in the park. Thus, it shouldn’t make the spies suspicious.

Arthur chose a bench close to the path Maggie definitely used most—he’d met her precisely on that path when he’d found out that she was his neighbor, and precisely this path they’d walked before going to James.

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 7: The Source of the Source Code
Chapter 5: A Hero or a Traitor
3D art by Ekat Rin

The phone started talking in Maggie’s voice, “Sandy, can you come to me right now?”

The question sounded so that Sandy’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s wrong?”

“Can you or cannot?”

“Of course, I can.”

“Good. I’m waiting for you. And please, do not wash your hands!”

“What? Why?” If it were not for the utterly agitated intonation, which permeated Maggie’s odd request, Sandy would think it a kind of silly joke.

“Just do not wash your hands,” repeated Maggie and hung up.

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 3: The Charge of Those in Charge
Chapter 1: The Drawings and the Carving
Paintings by Hery Gaos
3D art by Ekat Rin

After two more cups of coffee, Arthur arrived.

“So, what do you need me to do?” he inquired too cheerfully to be natural. Actually, as it only could be expected after what Maggie had done to him.

“Dad asked to bring an Offer to perfection, but my mind refuses to obey me.”

“Mmmm … George … Is it okay? After all, I work for another company. Maybe they’re not competitors in truth … Still …”

“It’s quite okay. The Offer is to TORIHAN. So, if Dad manages to entice your boss this time, it will end up on your desk anyway.”

Arthur stared at George speechless, wide-eyed, and open-mouthed.

George laughed. “Yeah! I reacted approximately the same way when Dad said to me he was going to approach Alfred Torihan again.”

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 7: The Source of the Source Code
Chapter 4: George’s Secret
3D art by Ekat Rin

As Arthur returned to the room after seeing Paul off, he stopped dead, looking at Maggie. She was staring at the laptop’s screen so as if she’d just found out that the universal deluge had started.

“What?” Arthur asked apprehensively. “I’ve lost all the data?”

“Arthur, tell me, please, did this file contain a very strange and complicated equation that …” Maggie stopped talking, took out her phone, found something in its content, and approached Arthur. “This one.”

Arthur looked at the equation, then at Maggie, then at the equation again. “I … I don’t understand.”

“Did it contain this equation or not?” demanded Maggie, raising her voice.

Arthur nodded.

“Then, relax. All the rest of your data should be safe.”

Of course, it was good news, but Maggie looked far from cheerful.

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 2: Doubtless Doubts and the Doubtful Truth
Chapter 13: A Unique Equation
3D art by Ekat Rin

“Maggie, I’m sorry I’ve enraged you today, but, please, try to think rationally.”

“Arthur, stop it,” Maggie growled.

Bead growled too but as if in a peaceful reverie.

A pretty curious idea occurred to Maggie. She even halted to a stop, stunned by it. “Arthur, do you remember we talked about your friend? Sorry, I forgot his name. The physicist whose work I was hired to remove from the internet.”

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 6: The Employees of an Eccentric Employer
Chapter 5: Equality vs. Inequality
3D art by Ekat Rin

All of a sudden, the boar came into view, running straight toward the bush, behind which Arthur and Dee were hiding.

The time slowed down almost to a halt.

Arthur stopped breathing and blinking, his eyes open wide. He saw the boar running as if through a very thick liquid. Every movement took it an eternity.

“Now!” Arthur heard Dee whisper in his ear.

Dee’s whisper made time move at its normal pace and perhaps even faster than normal because the boar began approaching them at a speed of a racing car.

“Now!” shouted Dee forcing Arthur to get up and raise the sharpened stick.

It seemed just a split second remained before the boar ran into their bush.

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 1: The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited Island
Chapter 13: A Hunter and a Prey
3D art by Ekat Rin

Maggie jumped up from the couch and went through the content of the desk drawers.

“Where is it?”

A couple of years ago, a client presented her with a tablet. It was such a cheap pathetic model that Maggie hadn’t even bothered to unpack it. Now, it was the perfect device for hacking into the database of the mobile phone operator with the minimal risk to be tracked.

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 6: The Choice to Make a Choice
Chapter 7: A Guinea Pig, Docile Daughter, and Maybe Something Else
3D art by Ekat Rin

“Maybe I’m mistaken, but in my mind, love, this is when your beloved does exactly what she wants, and this is exactly what you expect of her, what you love about her. In my mind, love, this is when neither you nor she needs to make any sacrifices and compromises. Because both of you love exactly what each of you is in his or her essence and what reveals itself in what you think, what you do, and what you say.”

“That’s impossible,” stated Paul nearly in a whisper, compared to his recent cries, and took a sip of tea.

“Why?”

“Because people are very different, and no matter how strongly they love each other, to live together, they have to make certain sacrifices and compromises.”

“No. In my mind, it just seems impossible only because no one seeks such things.”

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 3: The Charge of Those in Charge
Chapter 10: What Makes People Think They Are in Love
3D art by Ekat Rin

Maggie skimmed through the test and gave Grindowell a bewildered look.

“What’s wrong?” he asked with a ghost of a gloating smile.

“It has nothing to do with TORIHAN’s activity, that is, with games and business process automation.”

Grindowell hemmed with a slight tinge of surprise, mingled with curiosity. “And what do you think it has to do with?”

“The first task must be something like a navigation system. The second one, I think, concerns controlling something like a large complex plant or, maybe, a big intercontinental ship or airplane.”

The slight tinge of surprise, mingled with curiosity, turned much brighter. “Have you come across such things?”

“Not really.”

“If the tasks of the test are too advanced for you, I can give you something less complicated.”

“No need. I like challenges.”

That was true. Besides, the test was a sort of programming masterpiece, and Maggie couldn’t help but enjoy it.

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 4: The Powerful Challenge for the Willpower
Chapter 6: Special Mood
3D art by Ekat Rin

“George, throughout centuries and even millennia, people perfected their skills in depicting the outer world, paying no mind to far more fascinating, mysterious and miraculous something.” Sandy stopped talking, looking at George.

“What is that thing?”

“It’s the inner world. Each of us is an infinite inner world that has nothing in common with the outer one. And those inner worlds are so much different that they even cannot be compared with one another. And saying ‘us’, I do not talk about humans only. I also mean animals and plants, winds and oceans, games and houses—everything! And saying ‘inner world’, I do not mean thoughts, emotions, feelings, and sensations.”

“But thoughts, emotions, feelings, and sensations are the components of the inner world. Actually, the inner world itself,” George objected.

“No. Thoughts, emotions, feelings, and sensations are just something like a mirror that can reflect both the inner and the outer worlds. We—that is, human beings—prefer to use this mirror for reflecting the outer world only. We do not consider the inner world worth too much attention. For us, the inner world is imagination, illusion but not reality. Yet, the inner world is a far more real thing than the entire outer world.”

“Why?”

“It’s the question you have to ask yourself because nobody but you can give you the valid answer.”

“Well. So? Do you want to say that you paint your inner world?”

“No,” Sandy smiled. “Just its reflection in my thoughts, emotions, feelings, and sensations. However, what we regard as the outer world is also just a reflection in our thoughts, emotions, feelings, and sensations.”

Book Series: The Source Code
Part I: The Source Code from a Dream
Book 4: The Powerful Challenge for the Willpower
Chapter 8: Abstract Art
Paintings by Hery Gaos
3D art by Ekat Rin

Why "The Source Code"

Because the story is about coding. However, it's not about computer coding, though there is a software company, a programmer for a character (even two, actually), and that weird line of source code that gave the title to the series.

Please, don’t get scared by all those maybe too serious things I’ve written further. I intended The Source Code to be a very light and entertaining read, and, judging by the opinion of my beta-readers, I succeeded.

Let’s start with sorting out what coding or programming is in its essence.

Coding is creating a cause to get an effect, a reason for things to happen. EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON. Randomness, coincident is an illusion. The Source Code is about the Reason: what it is, who creates it, how to create it, whom it belongs, where it resides, where to look for it, and how to use it.

We do things because we are programmed to do them: by upbringing, education, circumstances, actions of other people, animals, plants, natural phenomena, economic situation, etc., etc., etc. By doing what we do, we program everything around us; we create the cause of the next effect; we create the Reason.

The main coder of our behavior is the cultural environment we belong to. The Source Code is about two immensely different cultural environments.

From the moment I came to know about the existence of the people that still live as our far-distant ancestors, I have wondered why they still exist; why they didn’t evolve together with the others. The explanation seems very obvious to me: They keep intact what the majority of humankind had to discard to develop the civilized technological human world as we know it now.

However, the time has come—at the very least, it is very close—to retrieve the things the people we regard primitive have safeguarded for the rest of the human world for so long. Now—or very soon—we are going to need those things to reprogram our civilization and move to the next stage of evolution.

Of course, such things don’t happen by a government decree. They go in a natural way, and the process is already in motion. More and more people get interested in weird rituals and lore of isolated tribes so much that they try those rituals and lore on themselves.

I have to confess: the beliefs and techniques I talk about in The Source Code I didn’t glean through research. They originated in my imagination long ago when I was a kid. Since then, I’ve been practicing them, and they serve me well. But! As I grew up, I got interested in the peculiarities of different cultures. My research in this field keeps bringing proof that the things I’ve invented on my own was discovered thousands of years ago and is still in use among uncontacted people from different places.

So, “The Source Code” is because the story is about the program code the people that still live as our far-distant ancestors keep intact in the world until we—who has discarded this lore millennia ago—are ready to install it back in our consciousness and subconscious mind.

Genre and Structure of the Series

The Source Code is literary fiction with quite a deal of suspense, sci-fi, and romance. If you are eager for riddles, intrigues, unexpected plot twists, adventures, light touches of humor, overwhelming discoveries, and potent emotions, The Source Code is for you.

I would call The Source Code a standalone novel, but it’s too big to go in one installment. So, I divided it into parts. Each part has a clear, logical ending.

Part 1—The Source Code from a Dream—will be released in 2022. It comprises 7 books:

Book 1
The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited Island

In her dream, the freelance programmer Maggie Ray sees a mysterious line of source code, and, together with her brother George, her collaborator Sandy, and their friends, she ends up in an isolated tribe on an island that is considered uninhabited.

Book 2
Doubtless Doubts and the Doubtful Truth

Maggie keeps a secret about what happened to her on the island from everyone. However, she has to confide in her brother, and ... they discover a strange connection between their adventures on the island and the source code Maggie saw in her dream.

Book 3
The Charge of Those in Charge

The new trip to the archipelago brings more questions than answers, and all those questions concern the things Maggie never considered real. However, the change in George and Sandy makes all the mysteries seem unimportant.

Book 4
The Powerful Challenge for the Willpower

Maggie realizes she has not been in full control of her life ever since the first trip to the archipelago. Struggling to break free from the compulsion, she heeds the advice of the one she never expected to be able to give such things as advice.

Book 5
The Employees of an Eccentric Employer

The situation turns out to be far worse than Maggie could ever imagine, and there is no answer to the question of why she, George, Sandy, and their friends got involved in things so much different from a sensible concept of life.

Book 6
The Choice to Make a Choice

George and Sandy’s reaction to the appalling news shocks Maggie, but the visit to a physicist that studies physic aspects of psychological phenomena reveals to her who stands behind the uncanny things they all are going through.

Book 7
The Source of the Source Code

Maggie is determined to put an end to all that parapsychological mystification and turns out face to face with its source.

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P.S.: You don’t need to wait until 2022 if you want to taste The Source Code. Right now, you can read book1, The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited Island. However, I warn you: its ending is a cliffhanger. On the other hand, everyone, who supports me now, will be given an opportunity to purchase The Source Code from a Dream with a significant discount. How to do that, you’ll learn from The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited Island.

Locations and Characters

The story unfolds in two locations: a megalopolis on the mainland and a small island country situated on an archipelago, some islands of which are still inhabited by isolated tribes. I have in mind real places but deliberately do not mention them anywhere in the narrative—just my whim.

The name of the island Uguuly I invented and googled to make sure there are no islands with that name on the Earth.

Another name of a place—TORIHAN—is not geographical; it’s the name of a fictional top software company. Of course, it’s situated on the mainland in the megalopolis.

Well. And now, let’s move to characters. It happened so that there are quite a number of them, and all I put on the following list can be called main, for they have their own stories that are woven into the main plot. They are listed as they appear in the narrative:

Mainland:
Maggie Ray – a freelance programmer
Bead – Maggie’s dog. The Source Code is not a story about pets; yet, Bead is one of the main characters
Sandy Jones – an abstract painter and 3D artist, Maggie’s collaborator and best friend
George Ray – a lawyer, Maggie’s brother
Arthur Evans – a lawyer and amateur anthropologist, George’s friend
Paul Wallace – a real estate agent, Sandy’s boyfriend
Oswald Grindowell – a programmer, the Managing Director of TORIHAN
James Ogden – a physicist, Arthur’s friend
Alfred Torihan – the Owner and President of TORIHAN

Archipelago:
Dee – an aborigine, lives in a tribe, but at the same time, he is an entrepreneur that owns a tour agency
Gaany – an aborigine, Dee’s niece
The shaman – an aborigine, Dee’s and Gaany’s teacher
Lucy – Caucasian, Dee’s employee
Annie – African, Dee’s employee
Mrs. Aven – a restaurant owner, Lucy’s mother