by LEMPEREUR
“You can, Victor. I’ll do everything in my power to help you. However, as you have just said, my brother and I are merely guests on this base – we are not decision-makers.”
“No, perhaps not, but you are the only one who knows part of the truth about our people. When they question you, don’t serve them everything on a platter. The influence you have will be in direct proportion to the importance they place on what you know, but refuse to tell them. Your ability to understand the human psyche and analyze your environment will certainly have increased due to the permanent effects of convergence. You are no longer a man like the rest of them, Charlie, and it won’t take you long to realize that.”
“What about you?”
“I’m condemned to stay here until the end of the waking phase.”
“How long will that take?”
“According to my knowledge, the waking phase is programmed to last for a period of at least thirty or forty years. If I’m still alive then, you’ll practically be an old man.”
“We’ll both be old men,” answered Charlie with a smile. “Forty years is an eternity!”
“But I’m already an old man, Charlie, almost a relic!” he replied, returning the smile.
With that touch of humor, Victor avoided specifying that during the waking phase the cellular ageing process would no longer be blocked, as it had been during deep hibernation. It would nevertheless be greatly retarded, so that he would not age more than a few years, although by then, Charlie would be nearing the end of his life.
“And yet, it will not be too long,” he said in a more serious tone. “Between now and then you might have managed to locate Australopolis and you’ll be able to fill me in on your findings.”
Charlie had not thought that far ahead, but it was obvious: he could not live with such a secret forever, without trying to solve the mystery. It was not only for Victor’s sake that he would take on the quest. Perhaps Australopolis held the keys to the origin of humanity, and he did not doubt the interest that Giuseppe and his team would have in that.
“Antarctica is huge. How could I find a city buried under kilometers of ice? Would there be any vestiges of it left?”
“The task is difficult, I agree, but I have faith in you. With Giuseppe’s technical help you will find it, I’m sure. You have information within you that you do not even suspect yet and when the time comes it will permit you to locate Australopolis. Trust your intuition, as you have done successfully up till now. Your intuition is the guiding force allowing you to access the knowledge that has migrated from my brain to yours, through convergence. I would have liked you to discover that information here, but now it’s too late. It’s high time you got back to your brother. Perhaps it’s better this way after all. You will find out in due time when the context is right. That will save you revealing everything to them before you’ve protected both your own interests and mine.”
Charlie supposed he was alluding to what he would have discovered through the third door. It seemed logical, but he wanted to be sure.
“You are referring to what is on the other side of the third door, I suppose?”
“That third door doesn’t exist anymore. Neither do the others. I didn’t choose those doors. At first I wasn’t sure what we would find through them, but with the benefit of hindsight and thanks to convergence, I found a whole portion of my memory again. I remember that before he disappeared, Senec sent me a long letter in which he presented in great detail the plans and position of Australopolis. I can’t remember all of the information it contained. A large part of it has not yet emerged in my conscious memory and you could probably have helped me to access it, just as you did with Emma. It’s information that was extremely important at the time. My brother had always trusted me, so I wasn’t surprised when he confided in me again, but on that occasion something was different. For the first time he was expressly telling me – or rather writing to me – what he had to say. It wasn’t his usual habit, as you know. Before, he had always arranged things so I would have to find out for myself, indirectly. That time, he probably needed to know that someone he trusted would be able to find them one day, if he had the chance – someone who would not speak of it to anyone else. So I buried the information deep in my memory and never spoke of it. You are the only other person who knows about it now, Charlie. Only you and I know where they dug themselves in at the time.”
“Do you think their descendents could still be there?”
“It’s very unlikely, if not impossible and in that case, it would mean they never made it back above ground. No, if they didn’t all die before having the opportunity, I suppose they might have tried to come up when they thought the external conditions were sufficiently favorable. Their technology would have permitted it, but anything could have happened and I don’t know any more on the matter than you.”
“I’m sorry to insist on this point, but in the event that they could not or would not come back up, would their technology have allowed them to keep living underground for so long? After all, after such a long period of confinement, anything could happen, especially politically.”
“I’m still partially capable of reading your mind, Charlie, and despite the relative separation caused by the epileptic seizure, I will be able to continue doing so as long as we are still connected. However, I admit that I do not understand exactly what you are referring to when you say ‘politically’.”
“We humans have a natural tendency to search for solutions and irrational explanations as soon as we are confronted with fear. Since the dawn of the age, Man and his ancestors – at least, those we know of – have tended toward introspection and reliance on hypothetical divinities. It’s an easy way for us to maintain an illusion of control over some of the things that threaten us. Some historians think that religions began in pre-history, in response to natural threats such as fire, storms, illness and of course, large predators. I don’t know if it was the same for your people, but if it were the case, I suppose it wouldn’t be totally unrealistic to think that the inhabitants of Australopolis, not knowing what awaited them above ground, could have decided to shut themselves in, rather than risking life on the surface. It seems difficult to imagine, I know, especially for a city planned by scientific experts, but centuries of isolation and fear could well have led to the emergence of some collective superstitions with disastrous effects. Of course, I’m merely extrapolating, and what I say may be inspired by my own personal desires or fantasies.”
“Perhaps you just don’t want to accept that they’ve disappeared. I loved Emma, and by force of circumstance you felt that too, when we were under the effects of convergence.”
“That’s possible,” answered Charlie, with a grave face.
Victor was probably right. The rounded shape of her face and her reassuring voice would be engraved in his memory for a long time. He could not forget her, and Victor perceived that.
“At any rate, what you suggest is not devoid of sense,” answered Victor. “Despite our degree of civilization, religion and superstition had not completely disappeared. Neither science, nor major philosophical and political systems of thought were ever able to replace them. Incidentally, I don’t know where this tendency toward spirituality that inhabits us (and perhaps all living beings to various degrees) comes from. I think, as you put it so well, that all mortal beings cannot help but tend toward the irrational, no matter what their degree of consciousness or evolution. Such a tendency almost certainly existed in Australopolis, especially as it seems that all the conditions would have been there to foster it. They must have been subject to prolonged, intense fear. Confinement would have only added to the impact of fear on their psyche. But we may never know anything about it for sure – in any case, not unless you find the remains of the city. I can’t say why exactly, but I don’t believe in such an outcome. I would like them to be alive today too, and have them tell me what happened, but we aren’t in a dream or a memory anymore. We are talking about reality, which I kn
ow to be generally a lot crueler and less likely to satisfy our desires.”
“You’re right; even if they had the technological means, no social being could survive for more than a few generations in such confinement. Sooner or later they would have tried to get out of there, in spite of all the fears and beliefs that may have hindered them. Life and its drive for expansion always prevail in the end.”
“Maybe time will tell, Charlie. This conversation could go on forever but you must go home now. Don’t worry about me. I will survive and I hope they will let us have the opportunity to talk again someday.”
“I would like to be able to inform you regularly of my progress and tell you about your wife once I have found her, but I don’t know how. Do you know if other connections are possible? Failing that, maybe you could learn to use a neural probe, like to the one they have implanted in me. Its use requires a little training but if I understand correctly, convergence works both ways so I guess you should be able to use it without too much trouble. Don’t you think?”
“Connection would always be possible but I don’t want to take that risk again. The implantation of a neural probe, as you call it, seems dangerous.”
“As far as I’m concerned, everything has been fine, at least up till now. I don’t know if it will still be the case once they’ve taken it out again, but Francisco seems to know what he’s doing. I think I can trust him in that area.”
“The risk of bodily harm is one thing, but there’s something else that bothers me a lot more.”
“What do you mean?”
“What use do you think they’ll make of it? I’m not at all sure of the merits of such an experiment. It is probably better if they think I am unable to communicate directly with them. They mustn’t think that they can do without you. Even if I can communicate with them, I could never follow them to see what they are really doing. You can, though. I will wait for you; that would be better. I will wait until you come and meet me again when you think the time is right. Don’t be in a rush! Take the time to weigh up the pros and cons when you need to make the decision.”
“And what if I never come back?”
“Behind me is the kitchen door. That’s how you came in the first time. Open it and keep in mind that your goal is to find the path to reality. Once you are through that door nothing more will filter through from my mind. The connection will only be physical from then on. No more signals or information will pass through the neural probe that joins our two brains. You will be completely on your own. That will give you some time to find yourself before you return to reality. Don’t hurry, but don’t forget what your goal is. Finally, I hope that you will not forget me as you would a bad dream.”
Charlie stood up and walked toward the door. He was overcome by emotion again and he knew that Victor felt it too. His back turned, he remained motionless before the little wooden door. A heavy tear hit the icy tiled floor of the kitchen. Charlie was trembling. He turned around one last time to say goodbye to Victor but Victor was no longer there. All that was visible was a thick blanket of snow, stretching as far as the eye could see. The cold became more and more invasive, quickly driving Charlie to leave behind the meeting place that had changed him forever.
28 RETURN TO REALITY
Behind the little wooden door there was nothing, absolutely nothing; no floor, no walls, no sky, no horizon; nothing; total emptiness. Perplexed, Charlie turned around, in search of some visual point of reference, but the only one available was the sense that he was standing on his feet. Each step was another leap into the unknown, in a world devoid of physical sensation, until the moment when his foot finally encountered something solid. There was an invisible surface which he supposed was flat, but could not see. At first, he was afraid of falling at every step, but after a few minutes Charlie was walking along without the slightest apprehension. He was not at all bothered by it anymore, actually. He was preoccupied by something else entirely. His thoughts were totally focused on what he had just been through and the memory of all those people that he absolutely did not wish to forget. He was visualizing their faces one by one, trying to remember their posture, expressions and mannerisms.
He even risked closing his eyes, fully aware that this perceived reality was not real at all. It simply reflected the emptiness of his mind, or rather the internal outpouring of a mind overcome by pain. Charlie was completely absorbed – almost hypnotized – by the flood of images running through his head. Everything else was emptiness to him; the fathomless emptiness that tends to follow the loss of a loved one or a part of oneself. It was the emptiness of grief, which sucks all the flavor and texture out of life, as if his senses had been temporarily put on standby, ignoring external stimuli to focus solely on those coming from within.
After a while – he had no way of measuring how long, apart from counting the number of his steps – an idea came to him, abruptly interrupting his painful but nostalgic train of thought. It became obvious to Charlie that he was refusing to leave convergence or perhaps it was convergence that was resisting the separation. It seemed to be clinging to some phantom vestige, one of those residual images that last for a few split seconds after an object has disappeared from view. There must be an enormous amount of energy involved such a process, engaging billions of neurons; and the separation was violently upsetting an equilibrium that sought at all costs to remain stable. That was probably why Victor had told him to take his time, while not losing sight of his goal. He had to find his reality again and leave that of convergence, or his brain would never find balanced perception again. He would risk being continuously persuaded that he was still connected. Like a schizophrenic, he would be forever lost somewhere between the real and the imagined; wandering in a reality created and populated by his own hallucinations.
He opened his eyes again and this time everything was different. He only needed to think of something for it to materialize. What appeared first was the enormous lawn he had crossed to reach the dome on first entering the connection. Charlie tried to concentrate exclusively on the memory of his first steps here, those which had drawn him toward Victor while drawing him away from his own reality. He had to find that bedroom with the bed where he would be able to go to sleep at last. When he awoke he would be with Jacques, able to talk to him again, touch him and even argue with him, if the opportunity arose. Clementine and Mario would be there, too, anxious to see him again. But for now, he had to follow this long and laborious road, without turning back or thinking about Emma, or Victor or all the others who filled his memory.
The heat had become oppressive. The sun shone in a deep blue sky, dotted here and there with white clouds that floated slowly by in the opposite direction to where he was heading. It was as if they were trying to make him turn back, drawing him in their wake toward what he absolutely must leave behind. Suddenly, he noticed a little red dot fluttering erratically a few meters above the ground. Behind him, after every step, the lawn seemed to sink down and break up before falling into a bottomless pit. There was no turning back now. A few meters further on, he realized that it was an orange butterfly with small, black markings: a monarch butterfly, the very sort that covers thousands of kilometers at its risk and peril, to reach its ultimate goal. A radiant smile lit up his face then, and he redoubled his efforts, going faster and faster so as not to lose sight of it. He lifted his feet with difficulty from the soil which had become thick and loamy. He felt as if he were being trapped and held back; sucked toward a world he so wanted and needed to get away from as quickly as possible. After a fierce struggle he finally collapsed, his knees sunk deep in the mud.
For a second he thought he was going to have to give up. Convergence was too strong. It would never let him leave. But the butterfly suddenly turned and came back to land on his shoulder. Charlie got up, closed his eyes again and concentrated on the heavy, cramped feeling that engulfed his legs. He imagined with all his might, hard, dry ground on which he would be able to set his feet and run at last without any tro
uble at all. When he opened them, he found that the butterfly had flown off again, showing him the way to go. Now the soil was dry and dusty, and he ran so fast that only a moment later he found himself in front of a little house. It had red shutters, which reminded him of his grandparents’ home. The door opened by itself, letting out a delicious smell of fresh baking. He was sure it was an apple tart, like the ones his grandmother would make each time he visited. The smell was both comforting and intensely familiar, which told Charlie he was out of danger.
Once inside the house he turned around for the first time and closed the door firmly. It was over. He went into the kitchen where a glass of orange juice and a slice of tart awaited him. There it all was; the plastic table cloth with its outdated motif, the copper pans, the matchboxes sitting next to the gas stove, and of course the old radio that was practically obsolete, playing old-time dance music with dreadful static. Charlie felt comfortable at last. He finished his piece of tart and laid his head on his arms before falling into a well deserved sleep.
29 RESURRECTION
“Jacques, wake up!”
“Huh? What? What’s going on?”
“It’s me, Mario. I think Charlie just woke up! It looks as if he came out of the connection by himself.”
“How is that possible? I thought he couldn’t wake up until the neural probe had been taken out.”
“I thought so too, but his arm just moved and his vital signs are normal again without us doing anything.”
Jacques propped himself up, still feeling groggy. In front of him the console screen showed a signal that had been blinking constantly for several minutes already.
“Are you alone, Mario? Where are the others?”