In the near future, a machinist, a monk, and a mesmerizer are looking for the Source of the universe, but among the ancient scriptures, they only find the devil …
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THE HIGH AUCTION [Alternate Cover edition]
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Few humans in the future find the secrets of what words and sounds can do, for the Apocalypse and war led them to evolve in mind and physique. Two of them end World War III with just a speech. Some say they did mass hypnosis. Others say it was their voice and will. Fifty years later in South Asia, KUSHA, a twenty-three-year-old machine-geek with social awkwardness and amnesia, tries to get the Devil’s Book with secrets of voice.
In a society that worships the evolved High Grades with voice, how you speak and which words you talk with is important. As someone who finds all solutions in books, Kusha thinks the secrets in the three-foot-long ancient book will teach her to speak mesmerizingly. She believes it will help her evolve. So, she decides to attend the auction where the book will be sold. But there's a problem. Her idol of voice and everyone's beloved war heroes, YUAN and RUEM, are also after it for power.
They want to code fate, rewriting the material world. When they are not camping near the temples that rose from beneath the oceans after the Apocalypse, they are playing classical orchestra or Himalayan Thumri or ... maybe, reciting Bedouin or Bengali poetry. They are undead, immortal mesmerizers. And being a philosopher, Kusha admires their ethics as she fights them—the fight that starts with the book. The fight creates a chain reaction leading her to an epic journey.
She faces an unfair system, and if she wants to change it, she has to be a Goddess. And no drugs, hypnosis, or codes can help her to become what she needs to be. There’s no shortcut to evolution.
It’s about love with no rules, friendship in the veil of enmity, and a war in the name of secret wisdom.
About the Series:
THE HIGH AUCTION: WISDOM REVOLUTION is a book of genre-bending Adult Sci-fi-Fantasy series "The Machinist, The Monk, And The Mesmerizer Chronicles." Here, you'll find Metaphysical magic built around philosophy and spirituality. You'll find ancient mysteries, archaeological adventures, and, most importantly, you will meet some characters.
Its inspiration was from myths/truth (read the word you prefer) of all religions where humans evolved to Sufis, Rishis, Sannashis, Monks, and sometimes, Gods. Example: Shiva Purana in Hindu epics where Sati evolved to Goddess Parvati and splits into Kali to destroy the evil is a prominent example. You'll find diverse cultures, sexuality, and faith in this series. Enjoy.
What the Critiques and Reviewers are saying about it:
"GEM PROSE ..."
"EXCEPTIONALLY THOUGHT-PROVOKING ..."
"RELATABLE ... YOU KEEP NODDING AT EVERYTHING ..."
1. The Machinist
HE WOULD HAVE CALLED IT death.
But she didn’t.
Mostly because she didn’t know what
death or life or any other word in the world meant. Sometimes,
death only means the end of all old memories. The first time Kusha saw the sun
after her old memories died, it made her more curious than seeing her own breasts.
At least you can touch your breasts, but you cannot touch the sun. Meera found her watching the morning
sky standing stripped on the roof. “I’m your mother. Mo-ther,” Meera said,
approaching her adopted teen daughter, repeating ‘Mother’ several times. “And
you cannot be naked, sweetie,” she added, covering Kusha with her wide, red
shawl—spiral depictions of snails in golden stitches all over it. It was warm;
at least, as warm as Meera’s voice that sounded as if it were water pouring
through rocks in a desert. In response, Kusha extended her fingers
to trace her new mother’s lips. She assumed lips created words. “People talk,” Meera said, fetching those
fingers and placing them on her throat. “From here,” she added. Kusha gasped, sensing how Meera’s
vocal cords trembled, how her voice rang. In an instant, her brain, empty of
information and full of curiosity, craved to create sounds like that with her voice,
her lips, her tongue, with her entirety of being, if needed. She just wanted to speak. Kusha removed her fingers from
Meera’s throat and touched her own full lips. She gawked at her new mother, expecting
she’d speak more. Meera did. “But you must speak from
here.” Meera showed her belly. “Words are magic, sweetie. With words, you can
re-code fate.” Kusha didn’t understand what she
heard that day. However, her brain remembered every set of sounds Meera had
styled in her speech: “I’m your mother; mo-ther; mo-ther; you can’t be naked;
people talk; words are magic, with words, you can re-code fate …” Kusha
parroted them the next day in front of her new father and sister, not
completely naked this time. Meera made sure Kusha, as a sixteen-year-old, wore at
least a midi dress before she left her attic. That was seven years ago—a day after
she lost all her memories. Also, the day that started it all. The day that kicked
off her desire to speak that kept growing, and it will keep growing until she
craves to become a goddess one day. Either to save the world as a hero or to
destroy it, crafting a villain’s ballad. Remembering that day, Kusha gets distracted
from the laser that’s cutting
a car’s body.
She closes her blue eyes as if shutting them will erase her memories—the
embarrassing ones, mostly. Thanks to her condition, she’s become an
endless source of embarrassment. If you start afresh with a fully blank brain,
like a newborn, you’ll have a lot to catch up on. Sometimes, it won’t be cute.
Sitting weirdly, spreading your legs—unaware of your briefs showing, or asking
your new parents why their lips are glued together, isn’t cute. Mistakes aren’t adorable when adults
make them. In seven years, she has achieved her
first desire—she learned to speak (in a month), sure. But speaking means
nothing if you don’t have voice—the real voice. The voice that never fears.
The voice that never doubts. The voice that wins without being
loud. Back then, she didn’t know why words
and voice mattered so much; until one day, Meera gave her books, films,
and famous speeches to teach her language. That was when she discovered about them:
the war heroes—the ones who ended the war with a four-minute speech. People put flowers and food on their
statues, paying respect with a silence you won’t find even in churches or
temples. You cannot see God in the temples. But you can see the war heroes: alive,
undead, the owners of voice and will. If they hadn’t banned calling
them Gods, there would’ve been temples in their names now, Kusha believes. And
the unevolved people who couldn’t be Gods yet would’ve visited those temples, chanting:
Oh! The Undead! Touch us with your
light. So we may evolve in body, soul, and
mind. Not that the war heroes will touch
them. Neither to shake hands, nor to touch lightly, and never ever intimately. Touching
unevolved people for pleasure isn’t principled. Kusha heard people whisper about it in
the Old City—the lawless city where sunlight never reaches the ground. She sets
aside the timeworn parts of her car now. Engine grease from her hand has
smeared on her temple. She handles the bared thirty-year-old car but not
expertly enough to do so silently as an evolved High Grade would. Rashad and
Meera Gaumont do everything without noise. All. The. Time. They’re High Grades—Grade
A: 107-year-olds with ageless bodies. And they follow the Untouchable Code by
heart. Not that they need to think about
the don’t-get-laid-with-a-Low-Grade code anyway. They’re loyal to each other. High
Grade couples who stay together for sixty years are rare. If you win time, you
don’t want to live with one partner for the rest of your life.
Until-death-do-us-part happens when time eats your energy to explore. Yes, time. Win time, live in youth
forever, and you’ll pass Grade A. But it’s not the end. Some evolve more, for the
evolution of the mind is exponentially infinite. Some High Grades have been
Grade A for fifty years. Fifty. Solid. Years! Rumors exist of what those High Grades can do: They kill with gaze …
they voice the wind or the water… they eat nothing … they have seen the
source of the universe … Some say whatever they utter with voice
becomes an enchantment. Like that in Shattya Yug—the age of truth—the
thousands of years old era when people spoke only the truth. And whatever they
used to say would always happen—whether it was a blessing or a curse. Kusha doesn’t have high grades or voice
or killing gazes. But she has a gift, her prophetic alarms. Most people name it
the sixth sense. Those occasional sensations that come without warning. Then,
she finds herself knowing things she isn’t supposed to know. Like now— It happens again. A prophetic alarm
comes, and it comes with a silent scream in her head. As if hundreds of frozen
needles have pierced her eyes and reached her brain, injecting information she
never knew before. Kusha calls it alarms, not sixth sense. Not even intuition.
Intuition sounds High Grade, something those evolved people may have.
The book God Particle Or Thought Particle says: ‘Intuition is the
passing thoughts downloaded from the universe.’ Kusha isn’t confident
enough to believe it could happen to her. No way could she download
anything as an unevolved, untouchable, Low Grade. But faith betrays sometimes. Faith has fluidity. Faith evolves like her
machine-learning models, self-correcting from previous experiences. So, when
the prophetic alarm comes, and she catches it as if it’s the smell from
Meera’s unsweetened saffron Kheer, Kusha stumbles on her faith. It’s a feeling,
she still tells herself. Just an alarm, about death? Kusha stops the laser, straightening herself and looking
away from the vehicle.
Why death? A death alarm has never come before. What was she thinking? How
did the alarm happen? Trace back … Trace back … Kusha digs through her chain of
thoughts, looking blankly at the air. Soon, her mind reaches the source thought
like a train reaching its destination. The mail square! The alarm came
when she looked at the mail square earlier! Kusha looks at it again. A blue
square designated for the mail drones located near the Gaumont Manor’s airbase.
That’s when the next alarm comes. Once again: the silent scream, another
thought entering her brain, revealing a fact she didn’t know a second ago, and
a coldness that only her mind makes her feel beneath her flesh. Two alarms within five minutes, and one
of them is about death. It has never happened before. At
least, not in the memories she can access. Why does it feel normal? An alarm
about death is supposed to make her muscles tighten or her intestines grow
cold. Were death alarms normal before? Before everything? “Mail will be late,” Kusha mutters,
speaking her second alarm aloud, gazing at nothing in particular. As if she’s
worried more about mail being late than perceiving a death alarm. Her garage is open; the
scent of grass, just kissed by the morning sun, drifts from Gaumont Manor’s
lawn. “Says intuition?” Taha, her sister
for the last seven years, jumps from the second-floor balcony to the groomed
lawn below. This girl is doing it again: practicing jumping from four-meter-height
for her next grade test. Sometimes, it annoys Kusha. According
to the book How To Observe Your Self, it’s envy for being two grades
lower than your younger sister. Kusha groans silently; envy is rude. “Um, no,” she lies. “It’s the 50th
Independence Day. Thought, um—” “That the mail bots would be celebrating?”
Taha rolls her eyes. With her short skirt and pink tank top, no one would
imagine how invincible she is during combat. Her door sign reads: Don’t
ditch pink to act strong—in pink font. “You don’t have to lie!” she says. “If
I had a hundred percent correct intuition, I’d be showing it off on stage!” Kusha puts the laser down and takes
a mechanical drill. The second alarm—that
the mail will be late—bothers her more than the death alarm. Her entry ticket into the High Auction is supposed
to arrive today. The auction sells things you won’t
find anywhere else, the things that are the only ones of their kind. And soon,
they’ll sell it. The Devil’s Book: a three-foot-tall ancient book some
believe the devil himself wrote. Yes, the real devil. Others think the book
contains all the secrets of mesmerism. Not that she needs to mesmerize anyone
in particular. She only needs to stop stuttering while her new family stares at
her. Right. Seven years have passed with
the Gaumonts, so ‘new’ is an invalid excuse. “Dad won’t approve of you going to
that auction,” Taha says in the middle of all those jumping up and down—second-floor
balcony to the lawn and again back to the balcony. “He hates the Old City,”
Taha adds. “He never approves of anything I do,”
Kusha says from the garage, hiding her frown. She gets all her old cars and
tools from places you don’t want your daughters to visit. And Rashad Gaumont
certainly doesn’t want her to visit Magic Mama, the not-evolved-enough, middle-aged
man who lives in the Junk Land and works in the Old City. “He’s not a citizen!
He lives in a bus! So what if he made it himself? So what if he teaches you
about machines? Just don’t meet him.” “Why?” Kusha used to ask Rashad, and she’d always get the
same answer: “The unevolved kind brings chaos and wars.” Kusha didn’t listen. She went again
and bought this car too, from an antique dealer. He almost gave it away, saying
it would never run again. It has the old days’ engine, the kind you don’t find in
this era—the New World. A change of engine and batteries, a new set of all-terrain
tires, some safety trackers, sensors, and, well, a whole list of other things
with 300% luck to make it run again through the Junk Land, the land outside the
cities where it’s only ruins and rubble. Needs hard work, yes. But Kusha
instantly liked the color of its body, the moment she saw it: a sort of green
with a greyish tint and a good load of rust. Those industry-designed latest
models, which hover in the air, are nothing compared to the story these
cars have—Rashad, her adoptive father, encourages her. “So what if it’ll be
slower? So what if it’ll soon rust? So what if machines age faster? Clocks with
hands and sophisticated wheels have more art than a digital clock. Right?”
Kusha beams when Rashad praises her cars, though he doesn’t approve of the way
she gets them. Her eyes sparkle even now as she
works on its body. Its rusty, old screws aren’t loosening, even after using the
oils she bought from the Old City, costing thousands of credits, no less. Looks
like she needs to melt the body more, ruining its antique look. Big industries
could keep this look with their molecular level repairing technology. Such a
shame! A sudden screeching noise sends
shivers to her teeth. She looks at the head of her
mechanical drill; its bit broken. Fifty thousand credits ruined in a second. She
needed four months’ savings to afford just this bit set. Four. Months. Heat rushes to her face as she
throws the drill in a random direction. It lands outside the garage, on the
lawn, flattening the grass. Taha notices it like she notices
most things Kusha does. “Angry about being angry, aren’t you?” She smirks, still
leaping. Too late. Subconscious reaction
is a Low Grade’s thing, Kusha reminds herself. The drill lands on the lawn,
crushing something tiny. She can’t see it, but she knows she has ruined a
seedling. Perhaps a bird or the wind carried the seed and Meera didn’t notice
it yet. Otherwise, it would be groomed out for daring to grow its head high in
such a neat lawn. Kusha approaches it. Terrible
spatial sense! As usual! She touches the nearly broken stem, pulling it upright
lightly, hoping it’ll stand again. Tsk! As if she can fix the living like she fixes machines.
Meera heals her colossal plants and
flowers with her strong prana, her
core energy. Healing isn’t a feat a Low Grade can do. Kusha pushes the last of her long screw
into the soil, another expensive thing she bought from the Old City. The
almost-broken, two-inch seedling now stands supported. Guilt, partly for a tiny
seedling, slightly more for being an unobservant, untouchable human who isn’t graded
yet. Even if she rebuilds hundreds of old cars, will it ever equal healing a
tiny life? Will it equal evolution? Humans evolved after the Apocalypse
and the war, just like her machine bugs evolve fighting toads in Meera’s wild
garden. Some people progress more than others; they’re the High Grades. Seven
years in the comfortable Gaumont Manor cannot help you grow. If you’re a bug, you
need toads—dozens of toads—so you may evolve. ‘Comfort isn’t always a blessing. Comfort brings zero evolution. Comfort gives no grades.’ Kusha read these lines on the back
cover of Book Of Prana. Taha watches her now—kneeling on the
ground and busy with something. “Why are you obsessed with the High Auction?”
she asks her, the same thing she’s been asking for days. “You even used … wait,
abused your intuition to win that entry.” She says intuition, knowing
Kusha prefers alarms. “What happened
to it’s rude and unfair to others with no alarm?” Taha taunts. Kusha flushes. Never exploit the alarm—it’s her self-initiated rule.
Breaking your own rule is a burden, especially if your fifteen-year-old younger
sister catches you red-handed. All for winning this year’s lucky entry to the
High Auction, correctly guessing the fourteen-digit ticket number in a single
attempt. To think she forfeited her ethics for the Devil’s Book! The only book
in the world she sees in her dreams, daydreams, and nightmares. The only book
that may have the secrets of voice, the real ones, and not the boring
jargon page after page that only tickles your curiosity and tells you the
things you already know. “How do you know these things?” Taha
shouts, “Brain? Mind? Guts? Soul? You said you’ll teach me!” Kusha doesn’t reply at first. Her alarms are unique. It’s a gift,
while people earn grades through training and tests. “I just … know,” Kusha
repeats as usual. “If there are—” “Some options?” Taha interrupts. “Yeah
… you’ve said it … hundreds of times. How do you … find the right option?”
She pauses frequently to catch her breath from all the jumping up and down. Kusha ignores Taha’s question. She dislikes
questions about her alarms. Besides,
the seedling still holds her attention. It’s a tiny plant, but that’s not the
point. The point is, she can’t heal it. She can only heal … well, not heal, but
fix ruined cars. “Want to go somewhere?” Kusha asks,
looking at Taha. Even if it takes manually fixing millions of old cars to equal
healing one tiny plant, she’ll do it. Silly. But she has enough time to be
silly. Just not enough of it to evolve. She’s a twenty-three-year-old. By this
time, people become at least Grade C while she started the grade race only
seven years ago. It’s unfair. Even a unique gift or a brain that memorizes
books after one reading doesn’t make it fair if you stutter before the High Grades,
if you can’t speak in a world that runs with voice, if you can’t master
words when they say: the universe began with words. Taha stops leaping from the lawn to
the second floor. Her pink pigtails stop bouncing, too. Both her father and eight-months-pregnant
mother are visiting the doctor. “Of course!” she screams like a teenager does,
knowing where this ‘going somewhere’ means. “Sure? You’re not supposed to.”
Kusha looks at the semi-organic, semi-metallic bracelet implanted on her right wrist.
It’s projecting the time. Meera ordered Taha to train for two hours. It still isn’t
two hours. Kusha wonders if she’s being a bad sister. “Who cares?” Taha says. “The war
ended fifty years ago. It’ll never come again.” So, the ‘you should be prepared for anything’
part of Meera’s speech is ignorable? Kusha thinks. She never speaks her thoughts, or maybe
she speaks only 1% of her thoughts, but it’s not the reason she halts now.
Kusha widens her eyes. That ‘it’ll never come again’ felt so ominous, so
striking! If words were measured like temperature, they’d feel as cold as a
planet with no sun and as dark as the ground of the Old City. Kusha forces the thought away. Some
things shouldn’t be downloaded even as subconscious alarms, she thinks. Two prophetic alarms are enough
for one morning, she believes. But if she wanted, if she pondered a
bit more on the thought, if she focused on her alarms, she could’ve caught another important prophecy. Perhaps,
it’d have avoided many things. Perhaps, she could be cautious about what she gets
attached to in the future. Perhaps, it would’ve never created this story. *
* * WHEN BOTH THE girls approach the backyard that holds Kusha’s self-awarded
prizes—her vehicles with monster tires—Taha applies her jumping training. She gets
into the pickup truck in one leap. “Did you ask the question?” Taha
asks. It’s been a month since they’ve sneaked into Junk Land. Kusha, settling into the driver’s
seat of the truck, gazes vacantly into the air. Is it safe to go now? (a)
Yes (b) No, she wonders and soon finds the answer with her intuition-like alarm. It’s easy to pick the right
one when the options are only two. “Yes. It’s safe.” “I love your intuition!” Taha says. “It’s
unfair you don’t tell me the war hero action figure winning numbers.” She makes
a sad face. She saw how Kusha correctly guessed the High Auction’s ticket
number one digit at a time. If you have a lottery-guessing sister, it’s hard
not to feel excited. Taha’s favorite company arranges
giveaways for their latest action figures—‘dolls’ according to Meera. Kusha
never reveals the winning numbers. It’s cheating, she believes. And cheating is
rude. Kusha asks herself another question,
making sure Taha doesn’t notice. Will death happen today? (a) Yes (b) No. Her
intuition picks No. She ignites the engine. When will it happen and where?—she thinks, but no answer
comes. It’s not a yes-no question, and she has no options to choose from. So,
just as her machine bugs calculate their next moves, her mind storms, creating
and canceling options: the death
alarm came after looking at the mail box
... so, mail has a connection … the auction entry ticket … maybe it has
something to do with the High Auction? Kusha frowns. Will anyone die in the High Auction?
(a) Yes (b) No. Yes. Yes? Someone will die at the auction!
Tsk! First, the mail will be late, and next, the death alarm is related to the High Auction. Is it a bad sign? (a) Yes (b) No.
Yes. Of course, it’s a bad sign!
Unnecessary question! Is it an omen? (a) Yes (b) No. Yes. Is it only one death? … Kusha keeps asking questions one
after another, biting her lower lip. Rashad will never let her attend the auction
if he hears about the death alarm. He believes in her alarms. Everyone does. |
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THE HIGH AUCTION [Alternate Cover edition]
The alternate covers of the next books in WISDOM REVOLUTION:
This is such a unique premise! A monk war hero? A mesmerizer villain? A stem girl with intuition who even dances Asian? And everyone is looking for the Source of the universe in near future? I'm in love with this premise already. I just ordered your book, Misba.
ReplyDeleteWow! You are so talented, Misba. The book sounds so incredible. I have read all the sample chapters available in Nomad's app. I am reading the rest of the book; thanks for letting me read the whole book. I loved your cover art a lot. Even though I'm reading the ARC from the app, I will sure buy the physical copy of the original cover edition. Best wishes!
ReplyDeleteThis is so fantastic! I reviewed your book in my Goodreads. I will soon post it on my blog too. Best of luck for your book, Misba. I loved your world so much!
ReplyDelete