by Hocking, Ian
“Hi, Groove. You haven’t seen me, right?”
Jennifer held his gaze. Mikey or no Mikey, she had no permission to be there. They all knew it. It was a rule like the mandatory ID tag. If broken, even innocently, there would be royal hell to pay. “It’s cool,” said Groove. He slapped his visor back down and continued welding inside the computer. Jennifer wondered what component could possibly require welding.
Mikey cleared his throat and pulled her into an adjoining room. “Take a look.”
This new room was smaller. It was unremarkable apart from four frosted-glass chambers set into one wall. They looked like shower stalls. In the third stall, Jennifer could see a red stain on the interior. Mikey said, “Computer, open and activate cubicles one and two. Safe mode. No microbots.”
“Microbots?” asked Jennifer.
“We’ve been having some problems with them.” He chucked a thumb in the direction of the third stall.
“Mikey, are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
Mikey twitched. He looked left and right. He whispered, “The notes we’ve been using. We wouldn’t have got very far without them. We’re standing on the shoulders of giants, here.”
“Which giants?”
He grinned. “David Proctor and Bruce Shimoda. Ring a bell?”
Jennifer frowned. “You know they do. That’s my father and his research partner. But they abandoned their research twenty years ago.”
“And now we’ve taken over. I knew you’d be interested.”
Mikey stepped into one of the cubicles and put on the virtual reality headset. Jennifer, reluctantly, did the same. “You’re gonna love this. You know what we call it?”
“What?”
“Project Asgard. Computer, run that bad boy.”
Songs at My Funeral
David stepped slowly, as though his footfalls might crack the fragile floor and drop him into the crypt below. Organ music echoed from the stone, from the dark pews, and the dull stained glass. He bowed his head.
He expected to be seated at the rear, but his jailers told him to keep walking. The coffin loomed. He wondered how many pieces were inside. The church was almost empty. Four or five Japanese sat in the front row. David didn’t recognise any of them, but he could guess: brother, mother, sister...aunt, cousin, who knew. There were no friends. What had Bruce been doing for the last years of his life? Had he been hiding?
The family weren’t crying. David guessed that they had already buried him, years ago. Perhaps even twenty years ago. But Bruce’s family lived in Japan. Why were they here? Did they know that he was going to die? Did he tell them?
“Sit down,” said Mary.
He did so. It was the foremost pew on the left-hand aisle. He sat by a young man in his mid-thirties. The two jailers sat immediately behind him. His feet could stretch out. Not far, because of his chains; not so far they would reach the coffin.
Coffin, he thought. Now there’s a horrible little word.
Yet the organ played on.
The coffin lay on a solid conveyor belt. Artificial flowers of white and yellow hid the hard edges. David could smell formaldehyde and decay. Again, he imagined the interior. It would be dark in there: air-tight; the air foetid, warm. Bruce’ s fingernails and hair would be growing still. His immortal skeleton, even if it was in pieces, would outlast the flesh. Unless they burned him. Burned his friend Bruce.
Jennier flew through trees, cartwheeled, and hit the ground. Went into the ground. She rose up again and found herself in orbit around the planet. She heard a voice in the distance: “Jennifer, think slow. The headset picks up your intentions, but not real well. It’s learning, but you have to learn too. Picture me.”
She pictured Mikey’s face and heard a little beep. The computer had matched the pattern from her visual cortex with its own representation of Mikey. Abruptly, she pitched towards the surface, rushed into the largest continent, into a patch of green, which turned out to be a forest, and down to a valley floor with a little stream. Next to the stream was a moving translucent shape. Jennifer remembered a dream and became scared. Then the shape moved forward. It stepped across the stones that forded the stream. It extended an arm and waved.
“Dude, it’s me.”
“Mikey?”
“Yeah. This is how the computer represents visitors in the artificial universe.”
Jennifer imagined herself walking closer and, sure enough, it happened. “What do I look like?”
“Trust me, not a patch on the original.”
“What is this place?”
“A whole other world.” The metal shape walked towards her and cast an arm. “All of the living things you see here, they’re real.
Real in the sense that have DNA. They were born here. They think and feel and see. This is their world.”
Jennifer walked down to the bank. The stream extended to the south, where the horizon was close. She heard the groan of a waterfall. She crouched and looked at the stream. There was not the slightest indication that a computer was behind these ripples, the glimmer of light, the occasional fish. “There are fish.”
“We have all kinds of animals here. But none of them are indigenous. I think your father’s research project had a large number of specialised organisms – they evolved basically from scratch, randomly. We don’t have time for that here. All of the plants and animals in this world are copies of the ones from the real world. So if we want to introduce a plant, we tear off a leaf, read its DNA, and then introduce it into the computer.”
“That simple?”
Mikey laughed. “No. There’s other stuff, which is Groove’s domain. The animals we introduce aren’t exactly born . .they appear as adults. So there are all kinds of things about the growth steps between the fertilized cell, the childhood, and the adult animal that we just miss. Now that’s fine for the plants. Here they are. But some animals, particularly the intelligent mammals, seem to require this development period. Mentally, I mean. When they appear as adults they lack a backlog of memories, of play, interaction with the world or other members of their species. They act weird.”
Jennifer looked into the forest. Its thick walls formed a green canyon. “Dangerous?”
“I guess you’d say ‘psychotic’. But they can’t touch you. You’re just made of light.” He added, quietly, “Like an angel.”
Jennifer did not feel embarrassed. She prided herself on a deficiency in that department. But she felt a little unsure. She knew that Mikey faced a severe penalty if she was discovered in his laboratory. Did that mean she owed him?
At that moment, Mikey’s hand went to his ear.
“Everything, OK?” she asked.
“Sure. Just a little problem Groove wants me to sort out. Stick around. When that’s meeting of yours?”
“About twenty-five minutes. You mind if I explore?”
“Mind? I want you to. It’s so rare I get to show this thing off.”
His image vanished.
David leaned forward and clasped his hands obediently as the vicar – or reverend, or whatever they called them in the Church of Scotland – went through a litany of prayer and empty comment. She was a tall woman and quite beautiful. She was in her forties. She was not Scottish. As far as David could tell, she was not English either. She had a careful and accentless delivery. She interested him, but his interest was passing. Like a rolling ball finding the lowest point on a landscape, his attention always came to rest on the coffin.
They sang a hymn: “All Things Bright and Beautiful”. It was pitiful. Bruce’s family were clearly non-practising Christians. David was no help. As a card-carrying atheist, he knew only the songs he had been required to sing in school. The one voice that rang true was that of the minister. During the hymns he would find her looking at him.
When they finished the final hymn, an old Beatles song began to play. The little curtains at the head of the coffin parted. It began its slow journey along the conveyor belt and, at length, was gone, but Da
vid wasn’t sure where. The church was surely too small to have its own crematorium. The minister walked over to a large device that he had not noticed before. It looked like a ‘ghetto blaster’ from the 1980s. She pressed a switch and retreated.
Bruce’s ghost appeared.
He stood a little hunched, smiling, his eyes blindly scanning the crowd. Everyone drew a sharp breath. The hologram raised its hands in benediction.
“When you see this hologram,” he said, “the rumours of my death will be, unfortunately, entirely true. I’m sorry I had to wait this long to make an appearance, but I couldn’t resist being late for my own funeral.” Bruce grinned and David laughed and a tear, finally, rolled down his cheek. This was Bruce, the old Bruce. David checked the audience. Bruce’s family were expressionless except for his father, who sat with a Mona Lisa smile and a constant, thoughtful nod.
“So, who do I see before me?” He clasped his eyes with one hand and reached towards the audience with the other in the parody of clairvoyant. “Is there anybody here who has recently lost a...son? Bernard, Berty, Bruce? Ah, you, father,” he said. He opened his eyes and smiled at his father. “So this is it. Goodbye. I know you didn’t quite approve when I came to England. I guess you’ll never approve now.” Bruce bowed his head. He said something in fast Japanese that David, though he knew a few words of the language, couldn’t catch. Bruce’s father nodded.
“And, mother...”
The organ music start became louder. It was difficult to hear what Bruce was saying. Then David almost cried out as the holographic projector threw a harsh beam at him. The light was painfully bright.
Someone grabbed his ankle. He opened one eye and looked down. The hand had emerged from a crack in the floor. A slab had been moved sideways like a manhole cover. Was it Bruce? Was he already down there? A second hand grabbed his other ankle and, with a sharp tug, hauled him feet-first into the floor.
Because his feet were chained he landed cleanly. He rolled to one side in a parachutist’s fall. It was gloomy and very damp. There was a sense of space in the darkness. It reminded him of the bombed-out research centre. A woman’s voice said, “Keep quiet. I mean silent.”
Slowly, she dragged the slab back into position. It became black. She said, “Are you OK?”
There was a click as her torch was turned on. David watched as it played up and down his body.
“Yes thanks, the chains broke my fall,” he said acidly. “Who are you?”
“I gave the service.” She placed the torch on the floor and reached inside her robes. “The speech will last for another five minutes. That’s how long we’ve got.” She added grimly, “Unless you were noticed.”
David guffawed. “Well, gee, how could they notice? The floor just opened up and pulled me down. Happens every day...in cartoons.”
“Shut up, David. They didn’t see you. I recorded your image earlier and the projector is now playing it back, as a hologram, right in the place where you were sitting.”
“Well, I hope it’s a good projector.”
She produced a device that looked like a pair of garden shears. “Hold still.” She grabbed the crossover point of his leg chains and placed it between the jaws of the shears. There was a hiss of compressed air and the shears cut through. David looked at her. His hands were still cuffed.
“Now for my handcuffs.”
“Be quiet and follow me.”
She took the torch and left in a direction that, by David’s reckoning, would take them underneath the altar. He could hear Bruce’s voice above their heads. He had given a final message to his father. Was there a final message for David too? He would never know.
They walked down a narrow channel with a low ceiling. To the left and right were cots with lead coffins. David glanced at the Latin inscriptions. The tomb was incredibly old. Burials dated back to the fifteenth century.
“Where are we going?”
“Nearly there.”
They came to a larger, newer room. It smelled musty. There was a small mattress, some candles, tins of food, and some gardening tools. There was a wooden door on the left wall – an exterior door, judging by its halo of daylight. Rather incongruously, there was a satellite dish behind the mattress. It was connected to an old-fashioned laptop computer. On its screen was the view from a plane or a helicopter. A rough sheet of pink paper with some handwritten notes lay on the keyboard. He could just make out that they were instructions for remote control. Next to the computer there was a small blue rucksack. The minister said, “Take that rucksack and put it on.”
“How do I do that with my hands cuffed?”
She stopped and scratched her head. Then she grabbed the rucksack and began to untie the straps. Obviously she would re-tie them around his arms. “Look,” he said, taking advantage of the lull, “thanks for helping. But what do I call you?”
She pulled a strap tight. “Not ‘Your Holiness’. I’m not a priest. The real minister is otherwise engaged.”
She grabbed two strips of sacking and pushed them under his cuffs.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
She checked the computer. Then she studied the pink notepaper and, with crossed fingers, pressed a key. “It’s done. There’s not much time. Let’s go.” She flung open the door.
As they ran outside, David heard a noise behind him. In the far corner, some rags moved to reveal an elderly lady, woken by the sunshine. It had to be the real minister. The fake one grabbed his arm and said, “David, come on, keep moving.”
The day was dull, but he felt the light as a physical force. He almost tripped. The minister zigzagged through the graveyard and jumped over the wall. David followed. The autumn wind blew up the valley, which, after his spell in the cool church, cut him to the bone. They headed towards a lonely tree. He found that he could not run very fast with his hands tied. He panted. At the back of his mind was the thought that men younger and fitter than him had been known to collapse and die for less.
They reached the tree and the woman checked her watch. “A few more seconds,” she said. “Give me a boost.”
“What?” David gasped.
“A boost.”
David just did it. She put her foot in the stirrup made by the handcuffs and, before David could whisper that his wrists were breaking, she was gone. He waited. He glanced at the church: no sign of pursuit. He stamped his feet to warm them. His slippers were wet.
“What the hell are you doing?” he called. “How far do you think I can climb with my hands cuffed? What a crap escape plan.”
“Like I said,” she shouted down, “you’ll need those cuffs.” She looked back towards the church. “Scheisse. They’re coming.”
David turned. The entire congregation had poured from the church. In his bright orange overalls, he was not challenging to locate. Leading the charge was Mary, the WPC. They would reach the tree in half a minute.
“Can we move on to the next stage? Hello? Hello?” There was no sound from the tree. David stepped about, peered into the branches. He couldn’t see her. But he did notice something circling overhead. It was the glider he had spotted earlier. It circled like a vulture and trailed a cable.
“Look out,” the minister called. She landed nimbly next to him. In her hand was a thick cable with a hook at the end.
David looked at the hook.
He looked at the glider.
He looked at her.
He looked at the crowd running towards him.
He backed away. “What I said about things only happening in cartoons...” He looked up again. The glider was no longer circling. It had peeled away. Its tow cable grew taut.
Mary, the WPC, rushed up. She grabbed his arm. “Gotcha.”
“Then hold tight,” the minister said, and looped the hook around the chain between his cuffs. David felt the cuffs rub against the sacking she had stuffed underneath them. The sacking would not prevent his wrists from breaking.
Mary frowned. David took a breath. The minister said, “
Until we meet again.”
And then David was jerked towards the sky with such force that his rising arms struck his face. He tore through the tree and departed the church and the funeral unconscious. He did not hear Mary cry out in frustration, or the minister whoop with delight, or the fluttering of his paper overalls in the wind.
Jennifer flew over the edge of the waterfall and, as the ground fell away, she gasped. It was a world perfectly imagined. She could discern not the slightest error in perspective. The forest continued on either side. The fall erupted into a large lake. In the distance, she could see the beginnings of a large delta, and perhaps the ocean. She settled on a rock near the lip of the fall.
She would soon have to leave for her meeting with Michaels.
And then a black speck appeared in the sky. It was impossible to tell its size, but it fell in a straight line. It passed through a rainbow and landed in the lake with a brief flash of foam. Jennifer craned to see it. As she squinted, the computer read her thoughts and propelled her towards the centre of the lake, towards the landing splash.
Her stomach lurched. She was aware that she was both flying, somehow, but that she was standing perfectly still. The images washed around her. The world moved. She remained at rest.
The lake rushed up. The water was calmer here. It was perhaps twenty or thirty metres deep, though it was near the shelf. The water was very clear. Fish swam in shoals and a naked man rose to the surface.
He burst through with enough force to rise halfway out of the water. He took an enormous breath, went under, and then bobbed up once more, treading water, choking, wiping the long, matted hair from his face and wringing the water from his beard.
For moment Jennifer thought he was crying, but it was hysterical laughter.
Glider Down
Thursday, 14th September 2023
First, he noticed the wind. It was loud and strong. Then the wetness beneath his head and legs. Then the cramp. He opened his eyes. It was evening. He remembered everything. He had been grabbed by the ankles, pulled down into the crypt, had walked around the land of dead with the fake minister, and been yanked into the sky by the tow cable of a glider. He smiled. Things were unreal: memories from someone else, inserted into his mind piece by piece with no attention to overall coherence.