by Neil Clarke
“It is a reminder.”
Oyārun was tied to a circle frame, handles sticking out of all the primary and secondary māwal centers of her body. She was breathing slowly, evenly.
“Thirty-two minutes,” Aramīn said and put the whip back into its holster. “This will have to be enough.”
She grunted, beyond speech.
“If you cannot pass the initial acclimatization in this amount of time, it’s over,” he said, more abruptly than usual.
Was he afraid?
He began to remove the force field blades, quickly, as if urged on by someone else. “I have given you this amount of time, now you have to do something with it.”
She stumbled forward as he untied her, her muscles giving. He cradled her, but she felt hesitation in his posture.
“Thank you,” she said.
Aramīn stared into her eyes, then something intangible swooshed across his face, and his expression changed. “You’re welcome.” He helped her to the slab, sat her down on the ground with her back to one side. “May the universe itself forgive me, you’re welcome.”
III.
1.
There was an entire team standing by.
“Let’s go over this once again,” Aramīn said. “We need constant high throughput. I know you can induce it, but for the first time, I’m going to override some functions and induce it in you myself. Less room for error. The goal is not the pain. The pain is initially inevitable, but it is not desirable. I have given you the ability to manage it. Your mind will tune into the raw stream of the System and you are going to acclimatize. You are going to belong, to attach. You will need to learn how to process your new sensory environment, how to interact with it. Avoid your usual patterns. Try not to hold on to things, try not to treat them as conventional objects.”
Emien helped him out; she was standing by in case of an emergency that might need a māwalēni. “This cannot be explained; this can only be experienced,” she said.
“Yes, thank you,” Aramīn nodded. “Any last-minute advice you could offer?”
Emien shrugged. “It’s ineffable. I don’t think I can say anything about it. Try not to resist it; it resists back.”
Oyārun was strapped down, but she could breathe freely. This was the moment she had practiced for, all the time spent in that chamber with its walls drinking up the māwal, its floor drinking up her blood.
“All parameters within nominal range,” a tech said, looking up from her instrumentation. “Say the word and it’s a go.”
Aramīn stepped to her. “Show an Enāyūwē transform.” He paused, examining the image with the aid of his interface. “Mm. Looks neat.” He began to pace. “Let me look at the settings . . . I’d prefer a smooth buildup, avoid the exponential. B-W of around five.”
Nods around the room.
He turned to Oyārun. “We are ready whenever you are.”
“Go ahead,” she said, and Aramīn raised a hand—
The māwal rushed up her spine, faster, faster, forced by her systems controlled externally for the time being. She did not mind being taken over in this manner—one less thing to track, to manage, to maintain.
There was more and more. It seemed to her that the room had become transparent, and she could see through everything, even though her eyes were closed.
No pain so far. She was so used to this, her pain threshold was considerably elevated. Yet it did not come as a relief. She’d gotten used to pain to the point that it was comforting, and the lack nagged at her.
“Tell the System they can begin syncing,” Aramīn said outside. She was inside looking out, inside her own body, yet her mind was expanding, ballooning outward—
And it was there, the stream of the System, faster and more powerful than anything before, and she struggled not to get swept away.
The waves of power battered at her, and as she tried to pick out individual details, they rushed away from her. It was like sitting on the overhead train that passed just below the canopy and staring out—if she tried to focus her eyes on anything nearby, it would get yanked out of sight and her eyes would almost hurt from the effort of the tracking.
Everything all came at her, at the same time. No rest. No reprieve. She could not hold on to anything, there was always something more, something new and searingly bright and manifold. She could not cram it all into her skull.
She was trying to relax, trying to keep herself from hyperventilating, but it wasn’t working, her fingers were tingling—
“Override the voluntary respiratory control,” Aramīn yelled outside. “We cannot risk any more vasoconstriction—”
The systems clamped down on her hard, overrode her pattern of breathing. Momentary respite.
Inside, the stream still ate away at her. How could she ever get used to this? She struggled, to no avail. She held on for dear life—
“Let go,” Aramīn spoke right next to her body outside, and it took her some time to realize that he was talking to her, firmly, ordering her. “Do not resist. Do not resist.”
I’m not resisting, she wanted to say as she hung on with tooth and nail, I’m trying—
Then, an image of the train hurtling past and her sitting on board, staring out, eyes relaxed and taking in the cramped vista passing by without trying to fixate on any single object.
A change.
A letting go.
Something shifted inside her and there was no more pain, no more of the onslaught, just ceaseless joy and the smooth motion of coasting along the stream.
She did not remember anything else.
Oyārun was close to tears. “I—I know I was there, and it was beautiful, but I don’t remember—I don’t remember anything else—” She gestured broadly with her arms.
“The two kinds of sensory environments are absolutely different and ineffable from the point of view of each other,” he explained slowly and carefully. “Your self here has little to no access to your memories there, and vice versa, your self there has little access to your memories here.”
“But I—”
He went on. “It’s a quite extreme version of state-specific recall. We’ve been through this before.”
She looked at him, her eyes pleading, and she would have inwardly shuddered at how she might appear to him, begging thus, had she not been past shame. He had seen her screaming in agony, certain the next moment was going to be the last—and he had always been there for her.
Would he desert her now? Would he fail to help her?
“Is it always like this?” she muttered.
“Eventually there’s some cross talk. You remember more. But it’s always in the form of vague impressions, at most. Relatively few substantial memories carry over.”
“It was beautiful—”
“And it’s going to remain so, and you’re only going to see more of it, not less.”
Her face crumpled up. She couldn’t help herself. “But I can’t remember—”
“You remember a little. And what you remember is beautiful.” He drew back from her. “Is that not so?”
She lowered her head. “It’s true. But I—” She couldn’t find the words.
“You crave it.”
She looked up, surprised. Did he know her better than herself? Of course, she reminded herself, he’d seen this over and over. He’d seen many people go through this when they joined the System.
“I crave it!” She threw her words in his face. He did not flinch. “I crave it and I need it and I—” She was shaking, not with the māwal, but with desperation. Was there a difference? Power crested in her.
“Shh.” He drew her to himself. She sniffled into his overcoat. “And you will receive it. Perpetuate it. It’s yours.”
And yet behind his words was the awareness of time ticking down, of life ebbing away. The transformation shortened the life span. Everything had a price.
She clutched him and shook with tears.
“The first time it took us two days to get you back to
your baseline state, after just an hour of being in the System. Expect the same this time around as well. It takes a long time to work up to the norms.”
“It’s all right,” Oyārun said, resigned. She was bone weary, more despondent than exhausted. “I’m sorry.”
Aramīn remained silent, but he beheld her with a quizzical expression.
“You were right. About every single thing you’ve ever told me.”
He didn’t say I told you so. He didn’t even think of it, she could tell. He looked at her with sadness, or only exhaustion? Probably the latter, Oyārun decided. “Do you regret your choice now?”
“No,” she whispered. “No, and that’s the worst part of it.”
He sat down, heavily. “Hate me. I can be easily hated. After all, I am generally considered a monster.”
“You’re not.”
“Hm?” Was that actually unpleasant news to him, Oyārun wondered—did he want to be regarded as a monster?
“I’ve read the testimonials of your coworkers. In the Oral History Archives. Did you know . . . ” She felt too tired to speak. “The closer someone was to you during the War of Independence, the more likely they were to speak highly of you.”
He leaned forward slightly. “You ran correlations on that? ” Then he shook his head. “You shouldn’t have chosen this path. You should’ve chosen something . . . anything.”
“This was what I wanted. It’s not negotiable.”
“Not any longer, definitely. Even if you were to walk away from the System, the transformation is irreversible.”
Silence.
Aramīn spoke up first. “You’re only going to grow farther away from me. You went through your transformation, I helped you go through it, but my task is done for the most part. I taught you what I could. I try to keep an eye on everyone, check in from time to time, but that’s basically it.” He spread his hands. “My time is finite.” Was he pushing her away? Some part of him was, she decided. But was that the entirety of him?
“I can pray with you,” she offered.
Aramīn startled, for once. “Excuse me?”
She tried to backpedal. “Or just listen to you praying. I find it beautiful.” She swallowed, something uncomfortable occurring to her. “Will you pray for me too, once I’m gone?” I will leave this world before you.
He understood the implications. “I can, I definitely can.” He bowed his head formally—in the new Ereni manner, she realized. “I take solace in the fact that you desire that.”
2.
They strode along the snaking, winding corridors of the industrial area surrounding Memorial Park.
“So how are you faring? The reports only say everything is in order, but they cannot tell me about how you feel.” Aramīn lifted a hand and adjusted his cap just a little. “You’re up to the ten-hour limit now.”
“Yes, and . . . it’s fine. It still takes a bit long to recuperate after my shift, they’re telling me that it should go faster . . . ”
“I can look at the logs,” Aramīn offered. “See if anything jumps out to me, anything that could be adjusted.”
“Thank you, that’d be great.” Oyārun smiled—a carefree, relaxed smile despite the circles around her eyes. “Otherwise it’s going well.”
“And how do you like it?”
“I like it . . . ” She paused, took a deep breath. “Let’s not try to evade this? Let’s be honest. It’s vast, it’s gigantic, and it’s tearing me apart. And despite that I’m always back for more.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Was he really? Did she want him to be sorry, at all? “That’s the way things are.” This much was true.
“I love it. The worst part is the switchover when I realize I’m out, out of the stream, and I want to claw my way back in . . . ” Her voice sounded all too loud in the deserted, echoing corridor. “I want to go back, I crave it, every single moment. It never goes away. I can push it back, but it never goes away.”
He nodded. “It’s not easy, I know.” He pulled at his left sleeve, to make it look just right. “How much do you actually remember?”
“It’s not . . . it’s not really remembering. But more carries over. It scares me a little. I’m not supposed to be able to do that, and yet.” She hesitated. It seemed like too large a thing to say, too large for words. “I’ve been wondering about it. Maybe it’s because I’m . . . maybe it’s because I was born planetside? I always had my interface, and that was also very seamless for me. Maybe the two could be combined?”
Aramīn frowned, and in that instant he appeared more like the scientist he was than ever before. “The planetary computer networks and the System?” He considered it seriously, Oyārun could tell. He was taking her seriously. “Information is information, after all. Maybe in a few generations.”
Oyārun nodded cheerfully. “They could be combined somehow. I think that would be great. Sometime down along the line.”
“Is that you saying that, or is that the System?”
She stopped dead in surprise.
“The connection goes both ways,” he said, stopping just a fraction of a second after she did. Always keeping an eye on her. “The influence goes both ways.”
“I—You’re right.” She massaged her face. “I don’t know.” She lowered her hands and looked at him, entirely clueless. “I don’t know.” Then a torrent of words poured out all of a sudden: “How much of me is me? It’s inside me but I’m also inside it, I help making it what it is, and it also makes me into what I am, and I—”
“Shh. I know. Let’s walk.”
She obediently fell into pace next to him.
“I have been suspecting that the System is trying to pass me messages,” he said. “I get small signals. My environment changing in subtle ways. Trees dropping their leaves, lights flickering when I pass by. People blurting out sentences they themselves cannot explain. The way the māwal is supposed to operate. A lot depends on the carrier; with most people, complex information just doesn’t make it across. So far, all I had were fragments, but now some of them at least have fallen into a pattern. A pattern I can understand,” he emphasized, and there was something in his voice that for a moment did not bridge the gap between the two of them.
“A pattern you can understand?” she asked, uncomprehending.
“I can understand the hunger to control.” There, a piece of the puzzle she’d been looking for. Right there. “I can understand the hunger to expand.”
“It’s . . . shaped by us, but in turn it’s shaped by you,” she offered weakly.
“What do you mean?”
“Indirectly. We are affected by you because you trained us, and we are in the System, so it makes sense . . . for the System to be affected by you.” Your cognotype. The words remained unspoken.
He laughed all of a sudden, his laughter shrill and sharp like knives. Like the crack of a whip. “By me? Oh yes! A thousand times yes! But it makes perfect sense—oh, the irony!”
She thought back on the Archive logs. People will say he is a sadist and a Falconer . . . Some of that is true . . . and him saying I suppose I do have those tendencies, nonchalant, even satisfied.
He quieted down abruptly. His brow furrowed. “Are you bothered by this?”
She considered it for a moment. “The System is standing between here and the abyss.” She closed her eyes briefly. “I have seen the monsters. Some of me has. Inside.”
“I know.”
“What you’re doing . . . it’s necessary. I understand that.”
“But do you understand the implications?” Again, the old debate; this time about a different topic, but the patterns were the same. “Maybe the way this country will turn out will make people wish it had not come into existence in the first place. Maybe people will curse Eren for centuries to come.”
“Do you really think that?”
“I hope that’s not going to be the case. But I don’t know.”
“There’s more of us than there is of you,” she sa
id. With some of his merciless nature inside her.
He stifled another laugh. “Indeed.”
The corridor opened to the familiar cavern. A gust of air caught at their clothing, made Aramīn’s overcoat billow, deposited a large leaf on the top of his cap. A sign? A gesture from the System?
Aramīn removed the leaf, then turned it around in his hands. He was about to tuck it into a pocket, but then changed his mind and handed it to Oyārun.
“Well then,” Aramīn said, “let us pray.”
About the Author
Bogi Takács is a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person (e/em/eir/emself or they pronouns) and a resident alien in the US. E is a winner of the Lambda award for editing Transcendent 2: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, and a finalist for the Hugo and Locus awards. Eir debut poetry collection Algorithmic Shapeshifting is out now from Aqueduct, and eir debut short story collection The Trans Space Octopus Congregation was published in Fall 2019 by Lethe Press. You can find Bogi on various social media as bogiperson.
Strange Comfort
Tegan Moore
Before Mug Ruith Vent Station, Jens had never had much of an imagination. For example, and just for starters: he never would’ve imagined he’d end up at Mug Ruith Vent Station.
Other things he’d failed to imagine: That a contractual subclause would send him to Europa, orbiting Jupiter, ten freezing miles beneath the surface of an alien ocean. How bored he’d get of working on music when he had almost unlimited time to spend on it. How living in two rooms with another human for six months would overlap the two of them, blur their boundaries, and that he might like it. How obsessed he’d become with the portholes.
That had pleased Elena. “You wouldn’t be so terrified of them if you weren’t imagining something spooky out there.”
“There is something spooky out there,” Jens said.
“Oh, besides that.”
“That thing is spooky enough.”
She made fun of him for it. How could he be any kind of artist if he didn’t have an imagination? Where did he think his music came from?
“Everywhere,” was Jens’ answer, though the real answer was “nowhere.”