Manifestations

by David M Henley

  ‘How can I? I have to get out of here.’

  ‘That cannot be, Peter. We must learn to accept it.’

  ‘We? You’re either a robotic mirror with a voice or you’re a spy pretending to be.’

  ‘I am your reflection, Peter. Do you not trust yourself?’

  Pete didn’t answer and turned away. Her lights faded automatically and the mirror was silent.

  He stood too quickly, making himself dizzy and lurched towards the exit, using his hand to steady himself on the doorway. At least now he understood the method Services used to keep the psis on the islands under control, which explained the minds of the interviewees he had met before. Simple intoxication.

  It must be in everything. In the food, the water, the locks around their necks; maybe even gassed into the air to keep them continually unbalanced. It was hard enough to stay upright and maintain a conversation, let alone control their powers enough to cause any trouble.

  He found himself in the spiral corridor that led to the main room. With his back against the wall Pete pushed himself towards the presence of Tådler. The boy who had become his only friend.

  I’m finding it hard to walk today, he thought.

  There is no hurry. I’m not going anywhere.

  Everything seemed brighter than it really was. Objects seemed closer than they really were. The big room had a circle of seats that faced a bank of common screens and along the outside wall were smaller lounging rooms divided by pearled glass. The sunlight was brightened by overhead floodlights that removed all shadows from the room. Patients sat in soft lounges flicking through channels for something of interest.

  Tådler ? Where are you?

  Over here. By the window.

  Peter reached out to Tådler’s mind. His head couldn’t make the journey and his body slid down a pillar to rest on the floor.

  Will it always be like this?

  Always. But you will get better at dealing with it.

  Tådler wasn’t as affected as the rest of them. Their only thought was that it was because he was so young; they might be limiting his dose. Tådler didn’t turn to face Pete. He didn’t want to give himself away or give them cause to ground him. Pete looked at the row of heads that were watching the screens.

  How do you cope with it?

  I try to stay calm, Tådler said. I’ve heard about you from the others.

  They know me?

  They know you were an agent.

  What do they say?

  They don’t know what to think. They say you have changed. They’re waiting to see what you’ll do.

  What can I do? I’m stuck here like the rest of them.

  Some of them want to join with you.

  Join with me? What does that mean?

  It’s where two telepaths join minds. Have you not done it? No. Have you?

  Yes ...

  And then they might trust me?

  It is very intimate. They would have to trust you first.

  Tådler, you’re only a boy ...

  It isn’t a physical act.

  Then what is it?

  The lighting began to pulse. Up and down, stirring the inmates to stand and shuffle to the corridors. He stood up with the rest of them as they began filing to their rooms.

  ‘What is happening?’ Pete asked out loud.

  ‘Rotation,’ someone mumbled and pushed past him.

  What’s that? he asked Tådler.

  Every week they swap the populations of the islands.

  Why?

  Why do they do any of it? Nobody knows when it will happen. Nobody knows if they will be staying or going. Nobody knows whether they are in the same place when they wake up. Each island is identical.

  They send us to other islands?

  We hope so.

  Pete stopped at his door but Tådler kept walking.

  I hope we’re both still here when it is over.

  ~ * ~

  Pete woke again.

  Where was he now?

  He leant forward to look out the window of the cockpit. A tiled floor rushed towards him. He was falling. He knew he hit. His face felt flat. But there was no pain. No feeling.

  Pete went out into the common room and sat in the nearest chair, looking around slowly, trying to remember whose faces he’d seen before. The other people looked up from what they were doing, some smiled, some did nothing but blink, some looked him over, weighing him. Tådler was gone — or he had been rotated. They were all new to him.

  On-screen was a loop of educational programming, showing how one could find calm in the gardens, fishing or at sport. The middle screen showed news and the third played a steady stream of cultural dramas, music and comedy. The news was friendly and light: the marriages of high society, movements in the civic structure and agricultural reports.

  It seemed that Ryu Shima was still Prime, his sister Sato was to hold an enormous party celebrating her betrothal and the weather reprogramming had enabled one per cent growth in food production and three hundred thousand square metres of land had been made fit for re-use.

  Pete looked outside through the glass walls. Everything appeared to be the same, though it could be as Tådler had said and all the islands were indistinguishable. Perhaps he had been moved. The ground was white, bright in the sun, broken up with rock gardens of bonsai trees and azaleas. He squinted through the piercing white and could see a few fields of green and then the ocean. The ocean went to the horizon.

  White, beautiful. Calm.

  He went back to his room.

  ‘Mirror.’ The wall of the alcove warmed and turned reflective. He knelt and faced his image. His hair was growing back. And stubble was turning to beard.

  ‘How are we today, Peter?’ the soft voice asked.

  ‘We’ve been better, mirror.’

  ‘Please, call me Peter.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Do you still hate yourself, Peter?’

  ‘How can I hate something I don’t know?’

  ‘What don’t you know? Perhaps if you tell me, I can help you,’ she said.

  ‘Help me? You can help me by getting me off this island.’ He crumpled forward and moaned. ‘Please help me, Prime. I know you can hear me. Please.’

  ‘The Prime is not here, Peter. It is only you.’

  ‘Ryu, I beg you. Stop this torture.’

  ‘Peter, please. Calm down.’ As it spoke, he did calm down. They were dosing him with something. He straightened up and looked again at the mirror. His mind was floating like a sailboat, cutting through drowsy waves. Water and light, bouncing off each other.

  ‘I do not know myself,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I have no past. I don’t know who I have been.’

  ‘You’re talking about your missing memories. Are they coming back to you? Amnesia is very common amongst telepaths.’

  ‘No, they aren’t coming back. Nothing is coming back. And everything since the manifestation is slipping away. It’s this place. You have to get me out of this place.’

  ‘These rooms are designed for your comfort.’

  ‘They’re designed to make us disappear.’

  ‘You could go outside. The weather is lovely this time of month.’

  ‘Why am I even talking to you?’ he asked in frustration.

  ‘It’s better than talking to yourself.’

  ‘You’ve been installed to drive me crazy. I won’t let you.’

  ‘Or I am here to bring you back to sanity. When you first arrived you were close to death. I didn’t think you’d make it.’

  ‘Geof, can you hear me?’ he asked the mirror suddenly. ‘Geof Ozenbach? If anyone might have access to this place, it is you. Keyword: Geof Ozenbach. Help me.’ Another cocktail of chemicals from his neck lock made him pitch backward. His view of the ceiling kaleidoscoped and changed colours.

  ‘Relax, Peter. There is nobody her
e but you. You are safe here.’

  ‘I don’t feel anything any more.’

  ‘What is it you want, Peter?’

  ‘I want to be free.’

  ‘But you know you can’t leave the islands, Peter. We’ve talked about this. You and I are here forever.’

  He looked up at the mirror and saw a tired and tamed man. He threw himself at the image, raising his fists to the glass. He was stunned by the necklock before he could reach it. His head felt like it was going down in a high-speed elevator.

  ~ * ~

  He knew it was night-time. The colour of the lighting changed, blue and clear like moonlight. The glowing line on the floor was brighter, suggesting he make his way out to the common room. In some ways, the centre was a beautiful place. Nothing would happen here. Nothing would ever happen again.

  In the corridor, doors were closed, the panels dulcet blue. All but one were home and quiet, a girl watching the screens who turned to watch as he came into the common room. Though his mind was muddy, he could feel her fear. She had heard about him from the others, a snitch, a traitor to all of them. She was afraid of what he might do to her ... then her lock released calmers to combat her raised heart-rate. Her stare turned glassy.

  Pete went out the sliding doors and gazed around. It was a rare cloudless night; the Milky Way spilt above, sketched over by the constant march of satellites and only just outshone by the thin cut of the rising moon.

  From here, he could see that the island was moulded as two simple hills covered in a lawn of grass and clover and pressed together to form a gutter that ran down into the ocean. The slopes were slight, the perfect gradient to make sure the centre was visible from every part of the island, and vice versa.

  He began following the path that traced down the line of the gully. It continued to the water’s edge and below, the steps fading into the depth.

  It was a tranquil and inviting nook. He felt it urging him to join the ocean. It made him wonder if the place was designed to make the inmates want to throw themselves in. That would be a convenient solution.

  Pete walked away. The headland was a perfectly smooth curve, like a ball bobbing in the sea. He felt tired and sat down to watch the lilt and tilt of the waves, the light of the moon thrown between them. His hand touched something smooth and he looked down. The grass was only an inch thick here and had been worn away to the creamy pale plastic the island was made of.

  It’s all fake, he thought, and looked out at the horizon, trying to let his mind float to where he thought the mainland was. Perhaps, he thought, if Tamsin knew where I was, she would come and save me ... The effort made him sick and he spat bile into the waves below.

  He may have slept, or he may just have sat for hours, but the sky changed, the stars were plucked away, and over the ocean the clouds were building again.

  The sun was rising on the other side of the island and he walked in shadow back towards the centre. As he got closer he could hear a dull thud, thud, thud echoing between the hills. He could just make out a person slumped against the window, one hand crooked up, weakly thumping the glass. He stood on the other side of the door and the woman looked up.

  Anchali? ‘Anchali, is that you?’ He raced to open the doors and knelt beside her.

  Anchali turned her face to him. He could see a lump rising on her forehead, purple and straining with burst capillaries. She didn’t seem to recognise him and returned to banging her arm on the window.

  ‘What is it? Do you want to come outside? Here.’ He slid the door open for her and she dragged herself into the courtyard. She stopped once she was on the grass and propped herself against a low plastic wall.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  Anchali didn’t answer. Her head rolled slowly towards him, a pendulum of spit swinging slowly from her chin. Can’t think ...

  Her head tipped forward and Pete bent down to sit beside her. It’s okay. Just try to be calm. It grated on him that he was repeating the words of the mirror.

  What is happening to me?

  You’re intoxicated, that’s all. They keep us permanently stupefied to limit our abilities.

  ‘Bastards ...’ she moaned. Pete found her reaction amusing and he laughed for the first time he could remember.

  ‘Yes. They are, aren’t they.’

  He felt a hand on his skin. It moved up his chest and stroked his ribs before curling invisible fingers around his windpipe. He couldn’t tell if it was threatening or loving.

  You left me.

  They took me here.

  Here ...?

  On the islands, Anchali. That’s where you are.

  The islands! Her mind rippled with alarm and she swooned over. No. They can’t...

  I’m sorry, Anchali. It’s all my fault.

  ~ * ~

  Anchali got better as the days went by. She could walk and talk and move about the common rooms, but she hardly spoke to Peter. What she knew of the outside world spread quickly amongst the inmates, stirring them up. The Weave broadcasts had kept news of the psi rebellion from them, but she made sure they knew about it now. Many of the inmates began seeking her out so she could share herself with them directly. More and more she disappeared to private rooms and he saw her less and less.

  Sometimes he found her glaring at him. He knew what she was thinking. All the telepaths knew he’d been an agent, and life for him became that much harder. When he walked through the corridor, people knocked him with their shoulders, or the benders tried to kick out his feet from under him.

  He heard their thoughts — he tried not to, but they twittered like birds inside his head. Agent. Traitor. Spy. Peter spent more and more time in his room and only stepped out when it was night and most of the inmates were asleep.

  He was on his knees before the mirror, his reflected face red from crying. ‘Help me ...’ he begged.

  ‘How can I help you today, Peter?’ she asked.

  ‘Please, send me to another island.’

  ‘The other islands are the same. You will be rotated in your turn.’

  ‘I need to go now.’

  ‘You aren’t very good at making friends, are you?’

  Pete swayed in position. It was like his answers were balls rolling around an empty barrel, unable to find their way out of his head. He just had to find the timing to release the words. ‘That’s you, isn’t it, Prime? That sounded like you.’

  ‘Do you so rely on the authority of others? No, Peter. I am not the Prime. I am only your reflection. I am an automated voice program built from your own records so I can ask you the questions you should ask yourself.’

  ‘What should I ask?’

  ‘That’s easy. Why don’t you remember who you are?’ the mirror asked.

  ‘I’m Peter ... I ...’ The answers seemed to spin around his head, marbles that rolled away before he could grasp them. Where were his memories from before the manifestation? Where had he been for twenty years? Why couldn’t he remember ...?

  ‘Pierre,’ he said.

  ~ * ~

  The next night Pete found Anchali lying face down in the corridor, head to the floor and moaning softly. She was wet and a puddle grew around her.

  Anchali, what happened to you?

  I... I tried to swim away.

  Oh.

  I had to get away. I can’t stay here.

  ‘Where is your room?’

  ‘I don’t...’

  ‘The number?’ Her collar had a number on it in faint light: thirty-eight.

  Her wet clothes soaked into his as he led her gently through the spiral until they reached her room. Peter helped her place her hand on the palmlock and the door opened. The room was exactly the same as his own. Pedestal bed, an alcove and a dispenser. He filled a cup with water and helped her drink.

  ‘Try not to move your head,’ he suggested.

  You’re Peter.

  That’s right. Peter Lazarus. You were my nurse, remember.<
br />
  Yes. Where am I? she asked.

  We’re on the islands, but please don’t —

  Oh ... that’s right. It all came back to her. She too found it hard to remain oriented here. It must be the same for all of them.