by Zales, Dima
Giving up, I attempt to fall asleep naturally again, but several minutes later, I’m still awake, my anxiety worsening by the second. It’s so bad that I start worrying about the fact that I’m worrying. Could something be wrong with me, like with Mason?
“You’re just really stressed,” Phoe whispers. “You need to calm down for the assisted-sleep command to work.” She hesitates for a second, then asks softly, “Do you want me to allow them to make you feel Oneness today, just this once?”
“You told me it’s psychologically addictive,” I say. “I was miserable when I was kicking it weeks ago.”
“Yes, I know, and Oneness is complete and utter bullshit.” Her voice grows in volume. “It’s the Adults’ answer to ancient religious experiences, which they hypocritically claim to have transcended.” She pauses, as if calming herself down, then adds in a more even tone, “Given that I told you all that, obviously I wouldn’t recommend you repeat that experience without good reason.”
“And that would be?” I find that injecting sarcasm into a subvocalization is easier than into a thought.
“I can see your neural scan. You’re distraught, and I don’t know another good way to soothe you,” she says. “Not without messing with your brain chemistry in potentially unpredictable ways. Oneness, for all its faults, has at least been tested on many brains.”
“As a form of control,” I say, repeating what she told me once.
“Yes, to keep you all pacified and happy, but keep in mind, it’s merely a program that expanded on the work of the ancient neurotheologists. It gets your nanocytes to interact with your brain stem, as well as the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes.” Her voice sounds closer, as though she’s sitting on the bed next to me.
“Knowing all these things doesn’t make it any less weird,” I whisper toward where her head would be, if she were really there.
Liam shifts in his chair; he might’ve heard me whisper.
“You can try meditating instead,” Phoe suggests. I’m grateful she didn’t use the chance to chastise me for the whisper. “It puts your brain in a nice delta-wave state, lowers your blood pressure, and, in general, gets you some of the same benefits as Oneness.”
“Well yeah, doesn’t Oneness incorporate a meditative state?”
“It does that too,” Phoe says. “And you could use its serenity right about now.”
“You know I haven’t been able to meditate since you showed up in my life,” I think, wondering if she can detect the bitterness in my thoughts. She doesn’t respond, so I subvocalize, “It’s fine. I’ll give Oneness a go. You can help me stop it if I want to, right?”
“I can,” she says softly. “And, Theo? I’m sorry I messed up your life.”
I begin responding, but at that moment, Oneness begins.
* * *
I feel pleasure.
No, not pleasure. Overwhelming bliss.
With the small part of my brain that retains its ability to think, I recall that the ancients called this intense pleasure ‘ecstasy.’
I try to compare it to regular day-to-day pleasant experiences and find them all lacking. This is better than eating Food, more exhilarating than winning at sports, and more exciting than being absorbed in a video game, a movie, or a book, or listening to music. None of those things come close to this phase of Oneness; the intensity of this pleasure is almost painful.
Then, suddenly, another element of Oneness manifests itself. With some internal vision, I see a bright light and feel a benevolent ethereal presence. If I were an ancient, I would probably think my dead ancestors, or deities, were surrounding me. Without any specific religious backdrop, though, this feeling simply intensifies. At its peak, it morphs into a conviction that the goodness and love of the universe is surrounding me. I feel connected to the distant stars. I recall learning that we are all made of stardust, and I feel like the stars and I are connected by an invisible network of kinship. I feel as though the universe, despite its supreme immensity, actually cares about what happens to me.
Then my breathing evens out, and with each breath, I get the impression that it’s not me who’s breathing, but that the universe is moving the air into me and then sucking it out, over and over.
I also feel love and wish happiness to the people of Oasis. I feel deep, unshakable love for my best friends, Liam and Mason. I feel love for Phoe. She’s a new friend, but in many ways, because of how intimate our communication is, she’s become one of my closest. Even if she is my imaginary friend, loving her would mean loving myself, and at this moment, I do love myself, wholeheartedly. I want all of us to be happy. I wish for all of us to be well.
I then feel similar love and happiness for people I usually would feel neutrally toward, like the Youths who sit next to me in my Lectures. I even feel magnanimous enough to wish good things to some people I usually don’t like. I understand them. They’re just human beings. Take Grace, for example. She was doing what she thought was right when she told on Mason. I can forgive her. Or take someone who’s wronged me even less, like Instructor Filomena. She’s a dedicated Adult who loves teaching. She made teaching her entire life, and I find room in my heart to respect her for it. I wish her happiness and wellbeing.
All this is spoiled, however, by a gnawing fear.
I’m enjoying this too much.
I could get addicted to this again. I could get to the point where I beg Phoe to allow me to experience Oneness every day, like I used to before she came into my life.
The sense of connectedness with the universe slips as these thoughts surface, and I remember that Oneness is an illusion created to keep us content. A falsehood that some Forebear probably cooked up on a theory that optimum health requires satisfying the need for spiritual fulfillment. Or the Forebears might’ve created it to prevent us from succumbing to a belief in the pointlessness of existence—an obvious risk for a tiny group on the last patch of Earth not consumed by the deadly Goo.
Yet as these bummer thoughts enter my mind, I’m still feeling love toward everyone and everything. Only the echoes of the pleasure remain, but I still want this pleasure to stop. The possibility of my addiction to it scares me. I can finally verbalize my problem with Oneness. It’s the same problem I would’ve had with the drugs the ancients used to consume.
Oneness, for all its wonder, is the ultimate loss of control. Yet I want—no, I need—to be in control of my own mind. I don’t want to be a slave to Oneness, or to drugs, or to a spiritual experience. So I shout a thought in my mind as loudly as I can: “Phoe, can you shut this off?”
I have to assume she heard me, because as suddenly as Oneness began, it ends.
* * *
“Well, that was a disastrous idea,” Phoe mutters. “I’m sorry I suggested it.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I subvocalize. “I am feeling less anxious.”
“Yeah, but that’s not what I had in mind. Given how this went, I could’ve just as effectively given your butt an electric shock,” she says. “You’re merely feeling better because you got distracted.”
“I guess.” I rub my forehead.
“Ready to sleep?” she asks. “Or do you want me to come up with some other brilliant idea?”
“No,” I say. “I’d like to sleep. I just want to make sure you—”
“I’ve made it so that Oneness is once again disabled for you,” she thinks.
“Phoe,” I subvocalize, deciding to ask for something that’s been in the back of my mind for a while now. “Can you disable any and all tampering with my mind?” I pull the blanket up to cover more of my body. “Good, bad, I don’t care. I don’t want it.”
She’s silent for a while, then says, “I don’t think you understand what you’re asking me—”
“I know what I’m asking.” I say this so convincingly I almost believe it myself. Before she catches me on that thought, I subvocalize, “This is not a spur-of-the-moment request. I’ve been meaning to ask you this for some time. I don’
t want the Adults or the Elderly to keep me ‘neutered’—whatever that is.” My subvocalization devolves into a hushed whisper. “I don’t trust them to ‘pacify’ me either—”
“Calm down,” she says. “I’m not saying no. You just caught me off-guard.” She pauses for a second. “Truth be told, I’ve been planning to offer to do exactly that, only in the future when I thought you were ready. There’s a favor I want to ask of you, and I don’t know if I can trust you with it while your brain is under so much of their influence—”
“When I am ready?” The question comes out in a louder whisper than I intended. “You trust me? Do I need to remind you that you’re a voice in my head, and that I have no idea where you came from or what you—”
“Stop, please. Liam just heard you. Luckily, he’s ignoring you.” Phoe sounds tired. “If it means so much to you, I can expedite my original plans, but I still think it’s just your anxiety talking and—”
“Just do it,” I think more calmly this time. “Please.”
She goes silent again, then whispers, “Are you sure, Theo? At least consider a phased approach. I could start with the serotonin levels—”
“I’m sure,” I think at her. “I want it all gone. The ancients lived without all this mind manipulation, so why can’t I?”
“Okay,” she says. “I will do it, but I have to warn you. This takes time. If you don’t like how you feel and decide to go back to your current self, it won’t be quick. Your neurotransmitter levels might take a while to normalize—”
“That’s fine,” I say firmly. “I won’t want to go back.”
“That’s not all,” Phoe says. “There will be some things that will still affect you, like fear of the Barriers, since that works via neural implants that the nanos built into your brain, and I’m sure you don’t want me to perform neural surgery on you at this point. More importantly, there are aspects to what the Adults and the Elderly do to you guys that you’re not familiar with. I wanted to tell you about that before—”
“I don’t care,” I say just as firmly. “Please do as I asked. Disable what you can.”
“Okay,” she says. “Go to sleep and I’ll do it as soon as you’re under. It might actually be easier, computationally, to undo it all at once. I would just—”
“Thank you,” I say, stifling a yawn. “There’s something else I want to tell you.”
“What is it?” She sounds worried.
“Phoe…” I look for the right words to express the conclusion I’ve been slowly reaching. “I’m beginning to believe you’re not my imaginary friend after all.”
“You are?” She seems so surprised it’s as if she herself thought she was imaginary. “That’s good news.”
“Don’t sound so shocked. I wouldn’t ask you to do what I just did if I thought I was talking to myself.”
“Well”—she sounds thoughtful—“you’ve compartmentalized that sort of logic until now. For example, when I spared you from Oneness, you didn’t stop to think how you could’ve done it yourself.” She pauses. “I just didn’t want to rub your face in it.”
I smile in the darkness. “It could be my insanity worsening,” I subvocalize, “but I think I’m not crazy, which leads me to the big question you’ve dodged every time I’ve tried bringing it up—”
“Who am I, if not your imagination?” Her voice is so close that if she had lips, they would be brushing against my ear.
“Right.” I take in a slow breath. “That question.”
I’ve halfheartedly asked her this before. It was always a challenge of sorts: If you’re not a figment of my imagination, then who are you? She’s always responded with something along the lines of, “It’s complicated.” Her dodgy answers only fed my suspicion that it was me talking to myself somehow. I also couldn’t see how she could be someone, physically. I mean, she’s a disembodied voice. How could someone do what she does? Granted, she gave me some explanations that involved technology, but it’s technology no one in Oasis has heard of, so I thought that I, in my delusions, must’ve made it all up.
Now I have to consider the likelihood that she was telling me the truth, that some form of technology is allowing her to be a voice in my head. But that just makes it harder for me to figure out who she is. Since I don’t know how to be a voice in someone’s head, I have to assume no other Youth knows how to do that either; we all learn the same things at the Institute.
If she’s not a Youth, then she has to be either an Adult or an Elderly. Only she doesn’t sound like an Adult at all. She curses and says things that they would find abominable—another reason I thought she was an expression of my own anarchistic tendencies. Though I’ve never spoken to any of the Elderly or know much about them, I imagine they’re worse than Adults when it comes to acting all proper, so she’s even less likely to be one of them.
Given all that, I focused on the easiest theory: that she’s my imaginary friend. Now, though, I can’t ignore all the evidence that suggests she can’t be a figment of my imagination.
If Phoe is real, then I have a new friend, a close friend, and I don’t really know who she is. Could she be one of those supernatural beings the ancients dwelled on so much? Or—
“I’m not a deity of any kind,” Phoe says with amusement. “I know you weren’t serious, but still. I’m also not—”
“A banana, nor an ancient proctologist, nor an invisible pink unicorn.” I try to make my thoughts sound stern. “There are a countless number of things you’re not.”
“You’re right,” Phoe says. “But I hope you can forgive me. This is not a conversation I’m ready to have. At least not yet. And especially not before I block the Adults’ influence on you. I’ll do my best to explain it to you as soon as I can. Like I told you before, it’s complicated.”
I start to object, but before the words can come out, I yawn again, and with an almost unnatural suddenness, sleep steals my consciousness away.
* * *
I wake up with a start.
I think I had a nightmare that involved falling from a great height. I don’t recall the exact details, especially where I managed to find access to ‘a great height’ in Oasis, but that’s just as well.
I’m absolutely, positively terrified of heights, even the not-so-tall ones like the roof of our Dorm building.
Heart still pounding from the dream, I look around my room.
Liam is sleeping in his bed, but Mason’s bed is missing, as is Mason.
“Uh oh,” I subvocalize. “Where did he go? I hope not to talk to Grace again.”
“This is very odd.” Phoe’s voice is coming from the room’s entrance, as if she’s sticking her head in to check on me. “After I did what you asked—after I made sure your brain is tamper-free—I was preparing some things related to the ‘who am I’ question and wasn’t paying attention to this room. So I don’t know where he is.” She sounds worried. “Don’t go anywhere or do anything until I figure this out.”
“No, wait,” I whisper. She doesn’t respond, so I say, louder, “Phoe, come back. What do you mean you don’t know where he is? Don’t you always know everyone’s whereabouts?”
Phoe doesn’t answer. Instead, I hear Liam rustling in his bed.
Crap. I have so many questions for Phoe, not the least of which is about the changes to my brain. I certainly don’t feel any different.
Pondering that, I sit up and feel the morning teeth cleaning happening in my mouth.
My shoes appear, and I put them on.
“Why are you getting up so early?” Liam says in a sleep-raspy voice.
I bring up a Screen and check the time.
8:45 a.m.
“We’re actually late,” I say. “We’ll have to run if we want to make it to the Calculus Lecture.”
“Like I was saying,” Liam says, sounding a lot more awake. “Why are you getting up so early?”
I ignore his question and ask him, “When did you head to bed? Was Mason still here at that point?”
Liam sits up and swings his legs off the edge of the bed, giving me a puzzled look. “I went to sleep after I finished watching my movie. And I don’t understand your second question.”
“I was asking if Mason was still in his bed, but if you went to sleep right after me, then he would have been,” I explain. “And if you slept so much, why are you giving me a hard time? I thought you stayed up all night playing with your Screen again.”
“I’m still recovering from my last two all-nighters,” Liam says. “And what the uckfay is this mason thing you keep rambling about?”
“I’m talking about Mason, who is not here this morning. Mason, who was in bed last night,” I say with growing irritation. “And I told you not to say just a single word in code—”
“Dude, I’m too sleepy for some complex historical joke or riddle,” Liam says, suppressing a yawn. “Are we talking about a stone builder or a secret society mason?”
“I’m even less in the mood for jokes,” I say. “I’m worried about him.”
Liam gives me an evaluating look. “Are you okay, dude?” Then in Pig Latin, he asks, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Mason, our uckingfay friend,” I reply, in my irritation making Liam’s favorite cryptographical mistake. “The guy who needs our help today. Ring any bells?”
Liam’s face turns uncharacteristically serious. He looks at me intently and says, “This is a dumb joke, whatever this is.”
I get up, walk toward the door, and say, “Right back at you.”
“Theo,” Liam says. “Are you sleepwalking? Like some ancients used to do?”
“Okay.” My voice is terse as I continue in code. “Screw this. I’m leaving. I don’t have time for your shit.”
I head toward the door, and Liam gets an expression I don’t recall ever seeing on his face.