The New Truth Movement

By Nicky Morrison

The New Truth is out there...

 

Jack is just an ordinary college student. How has he got involved with shadowy criminals, a deep cover spy, a dodgy businessman, a mysterious internet avatar, a 14th century nun...and a squirrel?

And what, exactly, is the New Truth Movement?

A genre-bending tale that mixes dry humour, magical realism and new weird elements into a fantastic thriller.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rarn Publishing
• Release date: Jan 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393626046

Book preview

1

The year is 2007 and we’re hovering over England. In the city of Nottingham, Dave Crooks is in his bedroom. He is at his computer. This is certainly nothing out of the ordinary. There is a knock at the door. Dave stays at his computer. There is a second knock. Dave gets up to open the door, while keeping one eye on the computer screen. It is Dave’s mum. She has his Sunday dinner on a tray. Dave takes the tray.

Everything going OK? asks Dave’s mum.

Dave’s mum is a single parent and Dave is her only child. She still worries about him, as all mothers do, even though he is now 25 years old.

Dave grunts. There is no discernible word in this grunt. It is just a grunt. He takes the tray over to his computer desk and resumes his original position.

Dave’s mum used to worry about the amount of time he spent on his own in his bedroom. She used to worry about the fact that he seemed to have few real friends. But in the last few years Dave’s business has really gone from strength to strength. From paying a bit of rent now and then, Dave now keeps his mum in a very comfortable condition. She can go to Bingo whenever she wants. When she is at Bingo, she can tell her friends about how well Dave is doing for himself. She cannot tell them exactly what he is doing. But he is certainly doing better than any of her friends’ sons. Some of them don’t even have jobs, never mind their own business.

Dave’s mum lingers in the doorway, but her son seems very busy. She is not sure exactly what the business is. Dave doesn’t like her to interfere. But it certainly involves his computer. She is just glad Dave has decided to stay at home, because he could easily afford to get his own place now. She leaves the room and shuts the door behind her.

---

Now we float to the north. It is the same day, but 3 hours earlier. In the market town of Beverley, in the east riding of Yorkshire, Derek Hyden is mowing the front lawn. For years now, Derek Hyden has mowed it in the same way, starting in the same corner of the garden, laying down the same strips. He begins with the front lawn and finishes with the back. Every other cut he uses the trimmer to do the edges. If it is too wet, he will leave it until the next weekend. But if it is dry, the lawn is cut. Derek’s routine has become ingrained into the lives of his neighbours. The noise of his lawnmower going at 10.00 am on a Sunday is so familiar that it goes unnoticed, like the passing of a train along the tracks about half a mile away. If Derek’s neighbours no longer really see him as he imposes his will on the ever-rebellious blades of grass, a passer-by, walking their dog perhaps, might think to themselves how contented and peaceful the man looked.

The truth is, Derek Hyden hates mowing the lawn.

The front door opens. Mrs Hyden appears in the garden. She says something to Derek, but he can’t hear and hasn’t seen her.

Derek! she shouts.

He swings the mower around and suddenly sees his wife standing there. He releases the button and the motor stops.

Hello, says Derek cheerfully.

Derek and his wife recently celebrated their Silver Wedding Anniversary.

Derek, I was just thinking that you could wash the cars after you do the garden.

Derek seems to consider the idea for a split second and then looks up at the sky.

Yes, it’s a lovely day. I might as well get the cars done as well.

Mrs Hyden smiles. She is pleased that she thought of the idea. She turns around and re-enters the house. She has lots of housework to do.

Derek presses down on the button of the mower and pulls the trigger. The familiar noise recommences. He resumes the journey up and down his lawn. After the front lawn, he will do the back. Then he will wash the cars.

Derek hates mowing the lawn. And he hates washing the fucking cars.

---

A bigger move this time. Same time of day. But we are heading south, to Portugal. We are hovering over the Convent of Santa Clara-a-Velha, in the city of Coimbra. We are also going back in time six hundred and twenty-nine years. The year is 1378.

We float down into the cell of Sister Lucia. She is sitting at her desk. In her hand is a quill, made from a goose feather. She is dipping the quill into a pot of ink and scratching words onto a sheet of paper. The sisters of the convent provide Lucia with her quills and ink, but the paper is specially imported from Andalusia, where the Moors have a paper mill. Sister Lucia says a silent prayer as she writes. She prays that the Christian princes retake the rest of Spain from the Moslems. But she also prays that when they do, they keep the paper mill going.

It is cold in Lucia’s cell and her writing fingers are frozen stiff. But she doesn’t mind the pain. It is sent by God and she will prove her devotion to him by completing her task and not complaining about it.

Laid out on the far edges of the desk are various other pieces of manuscript. Some of these are paper, but most are on parchment, made from the skin of sheep, or calves. Lucia occasionally stops to consult them, a finger tracing the words as she leans forward and squints to read the Latin on the page. Once she is content, she returns to her work. Scratch, scratch, scratch goes the quill. Lucia is dedicated to her work.

What is Lucia writing? Nobody really knows for sure. Because nobody has read Lucia’s work for five hundred years.

---

We zoom back to 2007 and head west, crossing the Atlantic at high speed until we reach New York City in the USA. In downtown Manhattan, Michael Bruni is in his office. His office is located on the 42 nd floor of a skyscraper and in front of him is a big window where he can look out on the city. There are many other such skyscrapers in this part of New York, as well as ‘Ground Zero’, the site of the World Trade Center that was destroyed on September 11 th, 2001. If he were to look down, he could see the cars driving along Fifth Avenue, tiny ants following a long, straight line of sugar through the urban jungle. But Michael doesn’t spend much time looking down.

He is slouched in his swivel chair, his hands clasped behind his head, with his back to his desk. The jacket