Cronix

  A figure emerged from the little hut and stood outside, staring at him. An old man, bent and stiff. The man waved, started limping towards him. A few chickens scurried around as the man came down the lane. He was black and dressed in very simple clothes, with no shoes. Glenn wondered if he might be watching a film of Africa.

  It was disconcerting when the man appeared able to see him. Glenn assumed it was part of the virtual reality experience, to create the illusion of being there.

  The man walked right up to him, nodded in greeting. He spoke to him in what sounded a little like garbled French and kept calling him blanc. That much Glenn could make out, but almost nothing else, except that the man seemed to be introducing himself. The name was a blur to Glenn, but the old man repeated it several times: P’tit Kwisnel. Glenn shrugged, held up his hands, but the man kept on asking him something, and he had no idea what it was. The scene seemed so real that Glenn found himself actually talking to the illusory man.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I don’t speak your language. Who are you?”

  The man stared at him. He reached out and touched him on the shoulder. Glenn could feel nothing, but evidently the man thought he was making contact, because he reached down and picked up Glenn’s hand – his virtual hand, Glenn noted – and started leading him to the hut. Glenn followed, walking slowly until, to his shock he walked into some unseen object.

  The film went dead. Glenn was staring again at the smoky brown interior of the visor. It lifted up and he saw Stiney standing in front of him, loosening straps and removing the helmet from his head.

  “Neat huh?” Stiney said. “You walked into the wall.”

  “Weird,” said Glenn. “It really felt like I was there. Wherever 'there' was.”

  Fitch pulled up a chair. “You met someone. You interacted with a person there?”

  “Yes,” said Glenn. “It was an old black guy. Couldn’t understand a word he said. He was speaking something that sounded a bit like French, but I couldn’t understand it. Not that my French is very good.”

  “Creole,” said Fitch. “He once lived in Haiti.”

  Glenn nodded. “Seemed to be saying his name was Petit Kwisnel or something.” He paused, something nagging at him. “Wait, did you say he was from Haiti?”

  Fitch nodded, clearly pleased that Glenn had caught his nuance.

  “So … where is he now?” said Glenn.

  “That was a lifelike simulacrum of the part of southern Haiti where P’tit Kwisnel once lived. He passed away more than a year ago. Cancer.”

  Glenn smiled. “I don’t understand. This was filmed before he died? So how did you get him to interact with me so convincingly?”

  Fitch smiled. Glenn looked at Stiney, and he was grinning too.

  “Now he lives in the simulacrum, as it were. Or at least his mind does. We didn’t manage to salvage much of his mind when he died, unfortunately. This was all done more eighteen months ago, which, in terms of our research, is a lifetime. All he remembers is his house and his wife. That’s what he was asking you about, where his wife was. He’s a little confused.”

  Glenn sat in silence for a minute. “But that’s…Wait... I just spoke with a dead man?”

  Fitch nodded. “Yes. Though technically, we may have to rewrite the dictionary definition of ‘dead’ soon. Let me put it this way. When fish migrated from sea to land around 400 million years ago, they didn’t just jump out the water with fully formed lungs and limbs. There were hybrids and experimentations and a good number died gasping on the shores of the promised land. But eventually, bit by bit, they moved into that new environment. And that is what we are doing here, Glenn: not just creating a new chapter in human existence, but a new environment for humanity to live in. A bio-electronic environment, in fact.”

  “A bio-electronic environment,” Glenn repeated hollowly. “What the hell might that be?”

  “It’s hard to get your head around at first, Glenn. Think of this way: all those people sitting out in the world right now, playing computer games and looking at virtual worlds where they live duplicate lives as avatars on screen. Well, they’re a bit like those ancient fish peering out at a different, distorted world on the other side of the water, a world they can see but can’t quite comprehend yet, because life can’t be sustained there for now. We are trying to find a way to cross that barrier.”

  Glenn sat unblinking for a long moment, his mouth slightly open. Like one of the primitive fish Fitch had just described.

  “I think we’ll wrap it up for today,” Fitch said. “It's a lot to take in. Let’s go back to the house and you have a lie down. We’ll talk again later.”

  ***

  The stone fortress of the Tower of London, once home to deposed queens and royal favorites fallen from grace, had long ago become an island in the swollen Thames. These days, it served as London’s central armory and high security prison. Gone were the days of racks and iron maidens, Beefeater guards and tourists: the dungeons were clean, modern holding cells for prisoners awaiting trial.

  Mayor Lupo marched into the White Tower, built by William the Conqueror and now under the less-than-reassuring protection of the local volunteer militia. The chief warden, an Eternal, escorted the mayor down into the holding pens. Most were empty: minor misdemeanors, such as drunkenness and rowdy behavior, were dealt with by the police. Only the most serious offenders made it to the Tower.

  The Santa Muerte man was peering at a book when Lupo arrived: On the Origins of Post-Human Species, one of the few books prisoners were offered. The man, a gaunt creature covered in bruises and cuts from his arrest, stared at his visitor.

  “On your feet, Dawes,” snapped the warden. The man hesitated, then placed the book on the cot. “Do you know who this is?” the warden said. “This is the Mayor of London, so you be on your best behavior. Now, Mr Lupo has a few questions to ask you.”

  Lupo examined the man. He had been arrested the night before, ID'd from security footage at the DPP headquarters.

  “Sit down,” ordered Lupo. The man seated himself warily on his bed. Lupo leaned against the wall, pulled out his cigarette case and lit up.

  “I've read your statement Dawes. You claim you were ordered by a man called Thorpe to drive him and a 'Cronix' to the DPP headquarters last Tuesday. Right? This man Thorpe...”

  The prisoner cut in. “That wasn't no Cronix,” he said. “That was one of your lot.” He gazed in momentary confusion at the ugly mayor. “Well, one of their lot, at least,” he said, pointing at the warden.

  Lupo sighed. “You picked up this man Thorpe and...the other person... at the Haymarket? How long had you known Thorpe?”

  “Well,” Dawes began. “Thorpe's from my village. Known him all my life.”

  “And you knew he was a member of the Santa Muerte?”

  Dawes shook his head, a look of confusion his rutted face.

  “Why did you agree to help him?” Lupo tried, keeping things simple for this bumpkin.

  “Well,” Dawes scratched his greasy hair. “Thorpe and the others said you people…well, you aren’t really people, he said. That you’re dead, and you should move on to the next world. And that it was our job, as the living, should help you move on. Exorcise you, he called it.”

  Lupo squeezed his eyes and groaned. “And you hayseeds really believe that shit? Do I look like I’m dead to you, Dawes? Do I?” He stood up, his hand extended towards the prisoner. “Feel that. Go on, feel it. Is that dead?”

  Dawes hung his head. “Thorpe said...” he screwed up his eyes in concentration. “He said, we all have to give God a death.”

  “Fred said that? Really?” Lupo, fuming, could not restrain himself from correcting this idiot's misquotation. “’By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once: we owe God a death.’ Henry IV, Part Two, Act Three, Scene Two.”

  The mayor silently congratulated himself on shelling out extra for those guaranteed memory implants: you never knew what ghastly things might happen to your mind
down here on Earth.

  “William Shakespeare, Mr Dawes. Do you know where he is now? Hmm? He’s dead and gone, for all his genius and eternal fame, Mr Dawes. Just dirt in the ground.”

  “No,” said Dawes, some inner certainty suddenly lighting up his eyes. “He’s not dead. He’s just moved on. That’s what Thorpe said. The beautiful child said it too.”

  Lupo’s anger was drained by sudden fatigue. He hadn’t slept since the DPP bombing. “And what 'beautiful child' would that be Mr Dawes?”

  Dawes smiled, shook his head. “She just appeared, a week or two back. Lovely little girl, pretty as you could imagine. Clean too, for walking out the woods and into the village. Told us that reality is rooted in the body, not in the mind. And that you people existed only in your minds, so therefore you couldn’t be real.”

  It was clear to Lupo by now he was dealing with a simpleton. There was little to be gained from this interrogation. Hencock would simply have to terminate the dolt and the technicians air-side would scan his memory for any further clues about the bombing.

  “Okay, Mr Dawes,” he sighed. “Let me ask you one last thing. How many people in your village…where was it again, Brighton? How many people down there are involved in the Santa Muerte?”

  There was a blank look of incomprehension on the prisoner’s face. Lupo rephrased. “How many people believe that we are…dead?”

  Dawes’ eyes fixed on Lupo’s for a minute, apparently uncertain how to respond. “I think…I’d say…well, after the little girl, probably everybody, I reckon.”

  ***

  It had snowed heavily overnight. When Glenn came down in the morning, he was surprised to see Fitch out in the yard, shoveling snow. He stepped out to the porch, steaming coffee cup in hand.

  “Hi Doug,” he said. “Getting some exercise I see.”

  “No better way to enjoy a beautiful morning like this,” said Fitch, pushing back his woolen cap and plunging the shovel into a crisp pile of snow. He pulled out a cigarette and sparked up.

  “Yeah,” said Glenn, ambling up to the scientist. “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you really do smoke a lot. It’s not good for you, you know.”

  Fitch gave him a sardonic smile. “Thanks for the health tip. But I am in fact aware of the effects of tobacco abuse.” He took a long, greedy drag.

  “It’ll kill you,” said Glenn.

  Fitch let out a long laugh that quickly descended into a chesty wheeze.

  “That’s precisely why we’re out here, Glenn, to make sure people don’t have to worry about that kind of thing anymore. If our project works, future generations will be able to smoke, drink and indulge in all the earthly passions without a care.”

  “So we can all live forever in some gloomy little shack like that dead guy from Haiti?” said Glenn. He half expected Fitch to be angry, but the older man just shrugged.

  “Immortality may not look quite like we expect it to, at least, not at the outset. You know, Glenn, we have spent years looking into the human brain and have found absolutely no evidence of a ‘mind’ in any physical sense, just a tangle of nerve endings and synapses. Yet in this meaty thicket, our selves somehow lurk. So let me ask you, Glenn, how do you save something that doesn’t really, in any real physical sense, actually exist?”

  Glenn shrugged. He was already getting used to these unfathomable questions, and at least Fitch hadn't pull a pistol on him when he didn't know the answer. “I don’t know, Doug. Obviously we exist…I mean, here we are, talking to each other.”

  “Let me put it another way,” said Fitch. He stubbed his smoke out in the snow pile, the immediately pulled out another and lit it with his Zippo. “What does the word ‘disillusioned’ mean to you Glenn?”

  “I dunno,” Glenn wobbled the handle of the shovel in the snow. “I guess it means unhappy.”

  Fitch nodded. “In that case, would it be fair to deduce that happiness is an illusion? Or perhaps, more charitably, illusions are happiness?”

  Glenn had grown decidedly uncomfortable with these words games, so he just shrugged.

  Fitch leaned on the handle of the snow shovel. “Let me explain something to you quickly, Glenn. Millions of years ago, tectonic shifts pushed the isthmus of Panama up out of the sea, interrupting the ocean currents that used to cool Africa. The forests of Africa dried up in the heat, forcing apes to start walking on open grasslands, upright so they could see hidden predators. This new gait freed up their hands to use tools. Tool-use favored the survival of those hominids with larger brains. Larger brains allowed more complex social interactions in ever-growing societies, until groups of hominids became far too complex for the traditional grunting and grooming interaction that had led these ape-men out of the trees in the first place. Now, how do you navigate a large group of advanced-intelligence potential rivals in a highly complex social environment, while living on a savannah that is filled with dangerous predators that want to eat you?”

  “I give up,” muttered Glenn, again feeling like a dim-witted schoolboy.

  “Well, the enlarged hominid brain created a new, virtual environment: the human mind. Think of the ego, the conscious mind, as a sort of avatar that allowed all these newly evolved, sentient hominids to find their way through the complex virtual world of the intellect: to interact with each other, read the facial expressions of others, hunt in packs and not kill each other, at least not too often. They had to remember taboos and danger areas and relationships and loyalties and hundreds of other interconnections within the group. Gradually, this new environment of the mind became a solid reality, the auto-pilot became the self, what we identify today as ‘us’, even though below it we are still just the same animal organism.”

  Glenn stared at the spotless blue sky arching over him, his own auto-pilot struggling to grasp what he was being told.

  “Let me put it more simply,” said Fitch. “Somehow, at the dawn of human history, we invented ourselves, just as we are now inventing avatars in online worlds, some thing that will identify me as me, easily recognizable to others and knowing its place in highly complex surroundings.”

  “We invented ourselves?”

  “Out of necessity, yes. The ‘self’ was a useful tool, but effectively an illusion.”

  “Isn’t that a bit like… Buddhist or something?” Glenn was feeling oddly discombobulated, as though he’d just smoked a too-long blunt of too-strong weed.

  “Some of the ancients in the East suspected the same thing, it’s true. Now modern science is coming to very similar conclusions. ‘We,’ as we understand ourselves, really don’t exist. We are a figment of our own imaginations. I know it sounds like science fiction, but maybe that’s why some people like science fiction: the soul trapped in the robot, the zombie spirit living in a dead body, doing the bidding of its master. If you take our genes to be that hidden master, maybe it makes sense. We are the science fiction.”

  “Jesus,” whispered Glenn. “But…I’m here, aren’t I? How can I not exist?”

  “Of course you exist, as a living organism, a galaxy of interacting cells,” said Fitch. “You are a 29-year-old animal of the homo sapiens species that survives relatively happily in an environment created by your ancestors over millions of years. But what would happen if all your peers disappeared? If you were the last of your species? What would happen to poor old Glenn Rose then, as you know him? Who would tell Glenn Rose that he’s still Glenn Rose? How long before he started to unravel, to fall to pieces? Why do you think people in solitary confinement, or ship-wrecked sailors, go mad? Because there is no ‘other’ to recognize them, to tell them what they are. Other people are the sounding board that helps us identify ourselves Take that away, and you’re a lone, lost mind facing up to the disturbing reality that what you are, or what you think you, is all in your head.”

  “Jesus,” muttered Glenn, for want of anything more constructive to contribute.

  Fitch frowned, dredging up a memory. “I was at an airport in Africa once, way out in
the boondocks. Can’t even recall which country it was. Anyway, as I was waiting in the departures lounge, there was this bird trapped inside the hall, flapping against the big glass window that looked out on the runway. It could see the world outside clearly enough, but couldn’t figure out why it couldn’t get there. Now, from a bird’s point of view, that might appear to be a mystical experience: trapped by an invisible, mysterious force far beyond its comprehension. If it had the capacity to think, maybe it would have called it the will of god. But it was just glass. All it had to do was to fly out one of the side doors at the bottom and it would be free.”

  He threw his cigarette butt into the snow and started walking back to the house. Glenn went with him.

  “What we are looking for is that door in the glass,” he said, pulling his gloves off and heading back to the house. “Then we can get to the other side. The question is, are our brains advanced enough to find it? And if we are, are we also smart enough to convince others to follow us outside?”

  ***

  Little man, you will serve me

  Oriente shot upright in bed with a howl. Lola, startled from sleep, pulled herself up next to him.

  He looked at her, eyes wide in panic. Shaking and sweating, he leapt out of bed and bolted for the door.

  “What the fuck?” she said, irritation turning to fear. Oriente was scrabbling like a lunatic at the door handle. She got up to follow but

  he burst into the corridor, buck naked.

  Lola fumbled into her uniform and rushed after him, past the surprised DPP guard drowsing in a chair outside. The confused man stumbled to his feet and set off after the bellowing patient.

  “Stop right there,” shouted the agent. But Oriente had already crashed into a doorway and was hunched like an animal, chest heaving, hands over his ears.