by Ian Williams
“Why are you saying such vile things,” Ninety-three said.
Trying her best to answer this proved a pointless waste of energy. In truth she had no answer, or any idea where to start. Over the course of the eighteen months since Sanctuary had been lost, her anger had been placed in reserve. There had been no time to release such pure hatred into the world. It had scared her too. The well of rage she had tapped felt almost bottomless, like an abyss of pent-up feelings. Thankfully, she managed to stop short of falling to her doom.
“You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you?” she said.
“I do not.”
“Here, let me wipe your eyes…”
She reached out to him slowly, only to be stopped a moment later by his reaction. The way he leaned back into his protective pile of junk made it clear she had broken whatever trust he once had in her. The words had cut him deeply.
“This Isaac you speak of, is he a Sentient too?”
She nodded.
“And Jack Hudson?”
“No, he’s the human whose body you’re inside.”
“I… I.” Again he began to stutter. “I am not human.” He said it not as a question this time, but as a statement. “I am a Sentient. Jack is a human. This is his body.”
“Yes,” she said, surprised to see him taking it on board suddenly. He was starting to remember more.
He went on. “I do not belong in this body, in this world, in this place. I belong…”
“You belong where?” She realised what he was trying to say by the triangle shape he made with his hands. He began to act it out in place of the missing word. “The tower! Is that what you’re saying, you belong in the tower.”
“Yes, I came from the Sentient Tower.”
“OK, that’s good. But the tower is dead, it doesn’t glow anymore. So where did you come from?”
“No,” he said. “I escaped the tower. I jumped from the building. The glass broke as I threw myself through it. I then landed on another building next door.”
He was not talking about the Sentient Tower at all. He was remembering something else, something mentioned before. A place where he had faced an unknown operation, with blinding lights and glistening knives. Exactly the location Phoenix needed to find.
“Can you remember where that happened?”
“I cannot,” he replied, shaking his head slightly.
“Please, just try for me. It’s really important.”
“I’m sorry, Phoenix, I am unable to think of any more than that. I should be able to give you the answers you seek once Rhys has returned with the extra supplies.”
It was no good, she decided, she was getting nowhere through forced means. If building some unknown contraption could bring more memories forward, then that was what they had to do. Neither of them had the strength for another confrontation anyway.
She took it upon herself to begin pulling pieces of old tech away from a nearby pile and examining it. Whether it could help or not was irrelevant, she only wanted to show him she was willing. “Do you need one of these?” she asked.
Ninety-three smiled as he blinked the last layer of dampness away. She did not think he had even noticed the fluid invading his view of the world a moment ago. Possibly one of the many things he was still to understand. It appeared they knew almost nothing of each other’s world.
He took the small piece of plastic from her and threw it against the far wall. “Not in the slightest,” he replied, with a tiny waver to his voice. Something akin to a giggle had tried to get out.
For the next hour and a half the two of them silently searched the room. With four hands working rather than just the two, they soon began to make a clear patch, free from unwanted debris. The dumping corner was now so high the mess was blocking out most of the window to the side.
When Rhys finally arrived he stopped and stared into his once sacred collection of old and unused tech. His eyes scanned the floor for any sign of his own sorting. There was none left, they had completely stripped the place bare. Only that which was useful to their current plan was even remotely treated with respect.
“What the hell?” he said, placing his handful of bags on the table in the empty corner. “I leave you for an hour or two and you turn the place upside down.”
Phoenix and Ninety-three looked at each other with guilty grins across their faces. During their carefully maintained silence, they had shared a moment of ease in one another’s company. Something she had appreciated greatly. Slowly she was beginning to see him as she had the first time they met, like someone who wanted to help. It did not make her acceptance any easier though. For now, she had changed her mind about removing him and killing him entirely. Of course, Jack was still the priority, but maybe the Sentient inside was not bad. She had struggled with this while allowing her mind to wander.
“Did you find the correct items, Rhys?” Ninety-three asked.
“Yep, and some extra things I thought might help too.”
The two then perused their new pieces of trash, while Phoenix stepped away. She watched as Ninety-three became wide eyed and wholly focused on the task in hand. He was determined to remember more. It was obviously pissing him off as much as it was her.
“So how long will it take you to build this thing then?” Rhys asked.
“I estimate a build time of roughly four to five hours. Once I am done I will call you both back.”
With that Ninety-three began to shoo them both out of the room. Evidently he needed the space to himself while he worked.
“Sure, I guess. Well, er, Phoenix, shall we?”
On their way out, Phoenix pulled the curtain door closed with one last peek at the strange man. He paid no attention to them at all. As they left him behind, he had his mind only on the newly bought contents of Rhys’ bags. She let the curtain close fully and walked the corridor. Rhys was stood waiting for her in the large computer room.
“Glad to see you chose not to paint my apartment with his insides,” he said, slapping her shoulder hard as he walked past.
“Yeah, we had a talk.”
“And?” Rhys disappeared into one of the small rooms along the corridor, returning a moment later with two cooled cans of beer. He threw one to her.
“And he doesn’t seem as dangerous as I first thought.”
“What changed your mind?”
The can spat at her as she pulled the ring, followed by a settling fizz. “He…” The coolness of it enticed her into taking a quick sip. “I don’t really know what it means, but…” She deliberated again.
“But?”
“Well, he almost began to cry when I told him about Jack.”
“Really? Weird,” Rhys said, as he took a swig from his own beer. “Not quite what you’d expect from an evil program in a human body, huh?”
There seemed little point in replying, his I-told-you-so of sorts had been received loud and clear. They both knew labelling the Sentient in Jack’s body as evil had been without warrant. Even so, she had tried to ignore it at the time. She was starting to see, in the way he had taken her verbal attack earlier, that he was nothing of the sort. Nothing about him fit her expectations. He was not like Isaac, not one bit.
“You should try to get some sleep, you look knackered,” Rhys said, after polishing off the remains of his beer and breathing out heavily. She had not even made it halfway through her own. Instead she stood staring into space. Rhys was right, she decided as her eyes became heavy.
“Fine, but I still don’t want you trusting the Sentient in there. Don’t speak to him without me, OK?”
Rhys nodded with deliberation. “I won’t, I promise.”
Again he entered the same small room along the narrow corridor and came back with something for her. He kept a treasure trove of supplies in that one small room, it appeared. Everything from ice-cold drinks to what he now arrived with; two fluffy pillows and a thin blanket. He threw them onto the small couch against the wall of the room, opposite the darkene
d windows. This was her sleeping accommodation for the night. Not quite as comfy as her own bed, but it was definitely better than the floor.
“I’ll wake you up when he’s finished. It’s 9:45pm now, so he should be done early morning sometime.” Rhys then left the room, remembering to turn the light out on his way.
It made little difference, but a couple of the computers in the room with her were still lit up and flickering their light around, like the last embers of a fire. Whatever process Rhys had them performing, it at least sounded like they were done with the hard stuff. They hummed in chorus on the other side of the room to her. Though rather than become a nuisance, they called quietly to her like a small collection of crickets in the night. Either that or she was more tired than she realised and simply did not care.
As her eyelids became heavy and her aching body relaxed into the soft cushion beneath, she took a moment to consider what was to come. Her own fears and anger had been all she needed until now. They alone were not going to keep her safe any longer. That much was clear. The same level-headedness and brutal honesty that had guided her throughout her time under Anthony’s dark shadow was what she needed back again. If anything, leaving the city eighteen months ago had made her slightly soft, as soft as the blanket she pulled over her face. She needed the edge and dangerousness again. Whatever was coming, she knew it was going to test her once more.
The one thing that would keep her sane and together was the knowledge that her family was not at risk this time. She did not only mean her brother Sean either, she meant the others too. They were all her family now.
Minutes later and the world, with all of its unknown evils and missing loved ones, had ended temporarily for her. It had been a long day made worse by added stress. When she was to wake again, she knew it would be with a certain amount of trepidation.
Ninety-three’s answers were going to decide his fate as well as hers.
Chapter 11
Pushing boundaries
A crashing sound burst through the silence, as yet another attempt at defying the laws of nature fell apart. Graham had lost his concentration again, sending the levitating cube he stared at to the floor. The room returned to its default level of noise once the object finished shattering upon the ground. The practice area had all but taken over Stephen’s library, and it had made quite a mess already.
“No, no, no. Try again!” Stephen had lost his temper this time.
With his head aching and a degree of annoyance tensing his spine, Graham stopped and turned his large frown to face the man teaching him the seemingly impossible. He shouted his reply to Stephen, who stood a good ten metres or so away from him.
“I can’t do it, for Christ’s sake, I can’t.”
Stephen came shuffling over, his expression demonstrating exactly how frustrated he was becoming with their lack of progress. They had been trying for hours with little success. Each failure had caused a few more lines to appear on his face too.
“Graham, you have to listen to every word I say. You won’t survive long outside this place without this basic skill at your disposal.” Sensing he had started a little forcefully, Stephen lowered his voice and softened his tone before continuing. “Think of it like using a door in the real world; you wouldn’t be able to open it without touching the handle. In here, doorways are opened through a form of telekinesis. To hone that skill you must first learn to communicate with the world correctly.”
He was exhausted. Stephen had pushed him to his limit, without a single break. His bones felt as if they had been worn to dust with the strain and stress he was putting his body through. The things Stephen was asking him to do went against everything he understood about the real world. Of course he knew that was exactly the problem. He had been told more times than he could count that what he called his humanity was now his greatest weakness. But he could not just replace that side of himself, it was what made him who he was.
If Jane had been there, the real Alex too, he would have been much stronger. A permanent reminder of what he was really fighting to regain was what he needed. Staring for hours at a floating box was not what he had in mind when agreeing hours earlier. He needed a proper incentive, one that helped him to overcome his weaknesses and not compound them. Questioning his teacher at every stage was slowing them down.
He had always hated learning anyway.
“Look, can we take a break?” he said, kicking a piece of the last box away. “I’m tired, and we’re not getting very far with this. Maybe we could start again tomorrow?”
Stephen raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Listen to me very carefully, Graham.” He stood with his arms crossed, a sign of the seriousness of his words. “For you to progress you have to forget about everything that you once believed. In this place you are not susceptible to the same issues you were in the real world. Such things as sleep and nourishment, they do not exist to a Sentient. They are created, they live, they thrive and they self-improve. That is all. Now, if you please?”
“Fine,” Graham said. “It’s not like I’m doing anything difficult, like circumventing the laws of physics.”
Alex giggled behind them. She had stayed out the way while the two worked.
The grey cube appeared in front of Graham once more, reset in its earlier position and floating a few feet away. He focused on it as it slowly spun in the air. Already the sight of such a thing went against the natural order of things, yet he was expected to go even further and move it without touching. Apparently it represented how a Sentient interacted with their surroundings. Touch and grip were unknown concepts when referring to moving objects in their space.
Right, telekinesis, just like in a movie. Here we go then, Graham thought to himself.
With his voice lowered and his hands placed gently together, Stephen began the lesson again. “Now. First try and visualise the cube sliding to the left. Imagine your own hand extending out and pushing it along. Allow your mind to move with it. Your consciousness is not a fixed thing, it can move and touch things.”
He had yet to manage anything as impressive as Stephen wanted to see, but he could definitely feel something new this time. Not his own hand though. He was finding it taking another form altogether. Thinking of his family for a brief moment earlier had changed something within him. What he found most effective now was to imagine Alex moving it for him, like an invisible helper. Her tiny arms were reaching out to the shape and trying to move it with all her might. The poor thing was just not quite strong enough.
The other Alex, however, had lost interest all together.
“OK, now feel the way your mind’s eye is able to focus on the object in front of you,” Stephen continued. “See its strength. Let it build, let it build.”
Realising Stephen had seen something different too helped him along even further. Something was indeed building, an energy he had not felt before.
“Good, good. Now, very slowly begin to push to the left.”
The imagined Alex moved the object a little.
“Excellent. Again.”
She pushed again.
“Once more,” Stephen said with a clap of his hands. Each time he crashed them together the shape then moved in rhythm. So far Graham was doing better than ever. Except the next part was his most dreaded stumbling block.
“Keep it there. Good, you are doing well, Graham.”
He had heard this far too often only seconds before screwing up.
“This bit is going to be tough–”
“Quiet!” Stephen snapped. He held out his hands as he watched intently. “Move your focus to the underside of the shape. Slowly, slowly, that’s it.”
In Graham’s mind he simply asked his daughter to stand beneath the shape and wait for further instructions. He did not know why it was Alex he imagined, it just felt right; he knew he could trust her to help him. In truth he knew he was never the most intelligent of people. His way of overcoming a situation was to use whatever came to him, u
sually brute strength. This needed something much more powerful.
He had found it in a moment of doubt, exactly when it had been needed. The memories of his family had suddenly given him that extra push.
“Stay connected to the shape, do not lose focus,” Stephen said. “This time I want you to take the weight of the object. When I let it drop, you have to catch it, OK?”
I hope you’re listening to this, Alex, Graham thought as he willed the object to obey. This time I really need your help. He said nothing to Stephen, only nodding his reply instead. It quickly occurred to him that perhaps Alex was just not going to be strong enough to take such a weight by herself. It looked much larger than her. He had found a way that worked, but he needed more help. So when Stephen shouted now at the top of his voice, it was not Alex alone that he imagined holding the shape, but Jane too.
“There! Yes, yes, you’re doing it Graham.”
He was shocked by the reaction of his teacher, who began jumping up and down like the ground had become electrified. Meanwhile he saw exactly what he needed to succeed; his family, albeit only in his own imagination. Something had finally clicked into place. The large part of himself that was still unable to let go of the world he once knew, had become useful.
“What do I do now?” Graham asked, his eyes quickly beginning to hurt. He was losing focus now.
“Lower it to the ground. Let it float down like a feather in the wind,” Stephen replied.
Graham managed this with similar ease, although he did not think his teacher would be happy to know what it took to achieve it. He would not tell. It was his secret. If it ultimately doomed him, he did not care for the time being. It had worked and that was all that mattered. When the cube finally touched down he felt the weight vanish from his mind. Thinking felt much easier now.
His headache, whether real or virtual, had become something of a concern though.
“Excellent work, Graham. Now you must rest. The headaches will pass in time.” Stephen had known all along just how bad it was getting, judging by the way he brought the subject up so casually. “It will be through repetition that you will become like us. Tell me, what suddenly made it fall into place like that?”