by Remy Zins
Jason pushed the palm of his hands against the ground to sustain firmly his half-kneeling posture. It could avoid him to collapse during the transfer. His vision blurred for a fraction of seconds. As his body was riddled by a characteristic shiver, the familiar atmosphere of his living room fade away and was replaced by a much more luminous setting. A light breeze caressed his face. A circular carpet had been placed at his point of arrival so that he would not find himself in the dirt after his rematerialization.
He enjoyed going on assignments in the peripheral domain of influence. It was a space monitored by the Collective, which was part of its sphere of reality, but whose inhabitants were not connected to the internal network. Not to their knowledge, at least.
It broke the routine a bit. And also, here the Collective did not control absolutely everything, which let him appreciate a certain margin of liberty. In this domain, the Collective's dreamers-creators only produced a constant structure that required almost no update. But the best thing about this place, he couldn't allow himself to think about it. It was that here, individual minds were separated from one another, so he didn't have to police constantly his slightest thoughts.
- Do you want some help, sir?
Someone was offering their hand to help him stand up. He refused with a polite gesture and got up by himself. Two police officers in uniform faced him. Behind them, the tall vertical figures of troglodyte housings stood out against the white sky. They stretched as far as the eye could see. The peripheral domain of influence's capital counted hundreds of millions of inhabitants. They were those who were not fit for living in the Collective's nest: from trouble-makers to individuals on the verge of death whose thoughts and emotions would be unmanageable on the network. Those fine folks were maintained at distance by a police cordon.
Jason checked that the dreamer-creator in charge of his transfer had correctly dressed him as asked, with a dark suit and tie, along with black sunglasses and without forgetting the white ear bud with coiled wire. Seeing this, one of the police officers suppressed a mocking smile. Jason forgave him gladly. This poor chap didn't have the slightest idea of what the Collective's memory held. For him, the horizon of reality was limited to this peripheral domain of influence and he couldn't know anything else.
Jason looked around while arranging his suit around himself in a coordinated movement of arms and neck he found elegant.
- Where is the subject? he asked while searching his pockets. One of the police officers showed him the direction of a small cliff whose top hung above a group of dry trees.
- In a cave somewhere around there, sir.
- Is he alone? asked Jason while glancing at the inner pocket of his suit.
- He is alone, sir.
- Alright. Stay here and make sure that no one draws near the suspect, he said while nodding to designate the crowd.
- Yes, sir.
Jason moved away, but stopped after a few steps.
- Oh, and I almost forgot.
He turned around and addressed the one who had almost laughed at him:
- Cut me down this donut consumption. You're too fat.
- Certainly, sir. At your command, sir, the officer answered while standing to attention.
Jason headed for the pointed out direction. The watch that had been put on his wrist vibrated. It was the signal indicating that the mental firewall which had been especially designed to protect him in case the subject would try to penetrate his mind had been installed and tested successfully. Jason felt his level of stress increase, but he had learned to enjoy the sensation that adrenaline brought him just before situations of danger. He approached the rock wall with precaution, weapon drawn. Once he had reached the cave's entrance, he used a mirror with telescopic handle to look inside. There was a man back there, which Jason could only as a silhouette in the dark. He seemed to be sitting directly on the floor, motionless.
Jason moved forward very slowly, maintaining his weapon pointed at the man. The subject did not betray himself with any movement. Jason identified the position the man had adopted with a posture he had once observed in a scene recovered from a very old memory of the Collective. It used to be called something like “lo-tous.” He pulled the trigger, which projected a dart whose point released a powerful sedative. The subject remained in his posture; only his chin sagged. Jason moved closer with precautions. This was way too easy.
After having inspected the surroundings, he was nevertheless forced to conclude there was no apparent danger. So he drew from his inner pocket a transfer module he put down on the ground. He pulled a wire whose end was split in two and stuck each strand on the subject's temples. He pulled another one he put up on his own temples, deactivated the module's safety, and breathed in deeply. The rest of humanity's sphere of reality was quite another story. He pushed the thought away and hit the button.