…Before the man sitting to the left of me chokes on his coughing and snoring and temporarily ceases living. Before the womb, which believed that I was him, vomits me to the surface in disgust.
Cleo
Dog refuses to eat dry food
She hasn’t touched her food for a day now. Because I don’t play with her anymore, I don’t stroke her or play fetch with her.
your dog is depressed. you need to pay her more attention. your dog-owner rating equals 0.
I can’t. I’m also depressed. I’m a rubbish dog-owner. I hope when they get the beetle out of her, everything will be like before. But until then I won’t play with her whatever happens… Not now.
Not right now, when I’m looking at another document created with her help.
Ef: memory F: Hunter’s Living Journal: private entries:
Beetle2.doc
14.07.471
After the conversation with lot, which, unfortunately, took place outside the cell and was not recorded, the subject is nervous and clearly in a state of stress. From 9:00 unt il 11:00 she runs a series of requests – fairly chaotic – on themes like: ‘Leo demanded…’, ‘Leo said…’, ‘according to Leo’, ‘Leo five seconds of darkness’, ‘Leo leo lot ray’. Then she creates the folder ‘leo memories’. copies all the direct quotations she has found in it and saves the folder in her memory.
(note: the search requests on their own are no threat, and are, of course, not illegal. nevertheless ‘scientific investigations’ of this sort must be automatically registered as ‘suspicious’).
11:15. Request sent to the Association of Laboratory Workers: ‘please send me the articles I have written on the “Directed Leo-Lot Ray”.’
15:50. An entirely logical refusal from the Association of Laboratory Workers: ‘Unfortunately, we cannot distribute the requested documents. The Leo-Lot experiment was a failure. All research materials were destroyed either by the authors themselves or the Association.’
15:52. Another request to the Association of Laboratory Workers. This time the subject asks them to send all her research work not connected to the experiment.
17:20. The Association of Laboratory Workers sends out compressed files with a complete collection of Leo’s research articles. The subject unzips the files and saves them all in ‘leo memories’.
From 17:40 to 23:57 Cleo copies the texts of all the souvenir letters in Renaissance left during his previous reproduction into a separate file. She saves the file in her memory in the same folder.
15.07. 471:
09:15. Cleo downloads wonder-chess.
Something’s up here. She certainly isn’t planning on playing. Ah, there it is! She finds master Leo among the virtual players. She saves all the games he has played in her memory in the same ‘leo memories’ file.
12:00. Hello, something very interesting! The subject is closing or deactivating EVERYTHING in her memory except ‘leo memories’.
Page designers determine the size of the font and the encoding of the text. If the encoding doesn’t match the one set in the reader, what you see is
…see fire now
painf
unable to display page
…I choose visit to vet from the menu and send 200(!) unics to the right account. The Association of Game Raters fleeces you pretty mercilessly for veterinary services, even though the quality is, to be frank, not great: the reception room loads without a right-hand wall, the vet isn’t at all 3D – she’s all dull and flat, like a squashed beetle, and her facial expressions are limited, like a slum robot.
‘Welcome, dog-owner,’ she says through the unmoving half-moon of her mouth. ‘As you are here, you cannot be taking good care of your dog, which has led to her developing some illness. How can I help you?’
‘My dog is healthy. She’s just picked up a parasite. I want to delete it.’
‘Oh!’ Her face is stretched into a grimace for a second, so badly drawn that it could mean anything, from abhorrence to sympathy, and then straightens out. ‘Picking up a worm is very bad. It is good that I can help you. Deleting worms is a simple operation. It is a paid service. 100 unics for every socio-worm.’
‘It’s not a worm.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s more like a beetle.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, really. Spyware.’
‘I have never experienced a dog with spyware.’
‘Now you have.’
The vet makes her mouth round – probably to spit out the next ‘oh’ – and freezes. My dog, emboldened, sniffs and licks her frozen face, then goes over to the non-existent right-hand wall and, cocking her head to one side inquisitively, looks into the endless blackness.
Unfortunately, I am not able to carry out your request: my qualifications are insufficient.
You might want to try our superpro – a top level professional. Consultation costs 300 unics. Pay for consultation?
yes no
‘What a con!’ I say to the vet, but she just sits there, her rounded jaw hanging low, and doesn’t come out of her paralysis, even to say goodbye.
The superpro looks like he could be her twin brother, only instead of a black thatch of hair, he has an oval pink bald spot and glasses on his nose. In contrast to his less-qualified colleague he casts a shadow, has better facial expressions and his study loads fully.
He examines dog and takes an x-ray (another 100 unics flows out of my socio account). He hangs a series of x-rays on the wall of his office. What’s there on the slides doesn’t look too good: a little patch of white in the dog’s brain, absolutely tiny – but it has slender little legs extending out in all directions, shackling all her internal organs.
‘Bad news, I am afraid,’ says the superpro. ‘It would be dangerous to delete the beetle. Look, it has grown into all the vitally important areas. It is involved in nearly all the dog’s active processes… But there’s some good news too. The beetle presents no threat to the dog’s health. On the contrary, in a way it is even helping her. It is making the dog more active and intelligent. All your dog’s applications, such as vision, smell, intuition, curiosity, ability to learn and ability to sympathise are superbly well-developed… Judge for yourself, the beetle program is friendly.’
‘It’s spyware. It’s not friendly to me.’
‘In this game we look after the health of cats and dogs. We do not deal with the problems of dog-owners and cat-lovers. This is dealt with by the Psychological Service for Assisting the Population.’
‘Can you at least say when information was last downloaded from the beetle?’
‘300 unics,’ the superprofessional replies, and an entirely first-layer expression of cynicism appears on his round face.
I transfer the money silently and he lights up with a pleasant smile.
‘The last download was on 15th July 471, 12:00.’
The time of Zero’s death. The time of the last message sent by Ef… Let’s suppose Zero’s self-immolation in first layer distracted the planetman from following me in second. Why then didn’t he download the rest later, the most important bits?!
‘How much will deleting the beetle cost?’
‘I see no reason for the operation,’ the superpro says.
‘And what if I, say, triple your fee – will you see one then?’ The expression ‘deeply offended’ appears on his face.
‘The dog is inoperable,’ he says hostilely through gritted teeth. ‘Don’t worry, she’s completely healthy. All the best, no death, come again.’
The veterinary clinic shoves me and the dog back into the viscous between world. Dog tumbles about and yaps away – she loves going for walks in the depths, she likes the sensation of weightlessness. She twitches her paws playfully, inviting me to play with her.
‘She is a spy,’ I say to myself. ‘My dog is a spy. She is not my friend. A sneak.’
I wait for dog to turn away from me and then I go back to my cell.
Alone, without her. I leave her tumbli
ng in the socio-emptiness.
She will notice that I’ve gone, and get scared and start to look for me in the depths – but that won’t last long.
She won’t see me killing her.
And I won’t see her ceasing to live.
Why did he not download the most important bits? The things I did when I was thrown out of the fresh grave that formed in place of Lot’s cell? The things I did when the darkness swelled up inside me and burst like a septic boil. When I woke up in my cell and dog was licking me with its painted-on tongue. When I was turned inside out in first layer and the autodoctor was overflowing with recommendations: you appear to have been an accidental witness to someone’s socio-pause… this can cause considerable physical and mental stress… please consult a psychotherapist immediately… if nausea continues, call an ‘ambulance’…
I didn’t call an ambulance. Instead I called up a ghost.
I collected everything left in socio by my predecessor into one file – everything that Leo had ever said, written, thought or worked out… I thought at the end of the day if a ghost can play me at chess, why can’t he talk to me heart to heart? A ghost can make a move, based on the logic of his previously played games. A ghost will give me answers based on the logic of his previously lived life. Based on the make up of the brain that once invented the Leo-Lot ray.
I shut off everything in my memory except for the video function and ‘leo memories’, and I felt like I was losing my consciousness bit by bit. As if a voracious swarm of termites was gobbling up my thoughts, memories and habits, leaving yawning emptiness in their place… Then, devoured, empty, with fragments of someone else’s memory in my head, I lurched randomly back and forth through my cell, unaware, unremem-bering, completely disoriented.
My dog – that part of her which was stored outside my memory – crawled after me sadly and tried to whimper. My dog became a skeleton again, through which I could see her internal organs. The form in which she had been downloaded initially. I had installed the fur and the whole exterior manually, separately, and now all those settings had been wiped…
…I had no childhood. No home. No body. My life was tiny, cold and precise, like a snow crystal. I was made of symbols. I knew a lot of scientific theories and chess openings. But I had no idea how to use all this, who I should play against and why.
Even now, when I watch the video, I feel that chill. It’s like I’m standing in a breeze with my back to an open window. I’m standing and watching myself amble casually, randomly into my socio home cinema. The screen was turned off and my face was reflected in the twinkling black rectangle. The face of a man of about forty, whitish and half-transparent, as if pets had spun his skin from spider webs.
‘Who’s there?’ I asked in a man’s voice and replied to myself, ‘Leo.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I think you want to ask me a question.’
‘I don’t remember what it was.’
‘Let’s figure it out,’ I said. ‘Either you are interested in my scientific work, or my personal life, or my chess – that’s all that I am made of. Personal life can be eliminated straightaway: those memories take up no more than five per cent, and they are all quite vague. As for chess: if you had wanted to play against me, you would just have started a game. Therefore, all that’s left is science – but the records of my chess moves only answer for my logical thought. Which means that I have to create something for you. What is it?’
I hold the pause for a long time and then say calmly, ‘The formula for the compound. The one used for the injection in the Leo-Lot ray experiment.’
I didn’t know exactly whose words these were. Mine: could I rack his first-layer memory and recall why I summoned him, or perhaps they were his words after all? Probably his. He and his dead chess brain had probably worked out in advance what I expected from him.
Whatever it was, I froze for two and a half hours (158 minutes 37 seconds according to the clock on the video) and all that time the dog’s skeleton desperately nuzzled me with its bony nose. Then I started moving again, created a new file and wrote the formula in it.
I said out loud to my reflection, ‘Sorry. There is a five per cent chance of a mistake in the formula.’ After a little while socio suggests I restore all settings.
it seems your previous settings were more convenient restore them?
yes no
save new file ‘Formula’ in memory?
I saved it.
Ef did not download everything from the beetle. Instead he came to me in first layer and asked whether I knew the Leo-Lot formula. And before that he asked if any of the festival employees might help a pre-pauser after the shower. You don’t have to know hundreds of openings and middle games to realise that the man in the mask that quizzed me on Golden Mean Square, who did not know how pauses are carried out, is no planetman.
He is someone who has made too many mistakes recently. He is someone who has one message waiting for him in the Everything’s Going to Be Alright service. To the Saviour from the Apostle.
He is the one who has already destroyed me once before.
He is the one I need.
They say there’s no better way of getting to know someone than luxury mode. They’re lying. The best way to get to know someone is the directed Leo-Lot ray. I need a lab. I need to win his confidence, get contact up and running, convince him.
They say that there’s no better way of getting close to someone than luxury mode. They’re probably lying about that too, but I don’t know any other way…
Error #47037
your dog cannot find its way home
cleo: control panel: install and delete programmes: delete dog
…please wait… program will be deleted in 60 seconds… deletion of program is in progress… unsuccessful!
error #43048. it is impossible to delete ‘dog’: you do not have access to the application ‘body of dog’ if this error occurs again, please contact techsupport…
I couldn’t delete her here, in the cell. But I was afraid of looking at her fading eyes for a whole minute. Dog owner friends of mine have told me how naturalistic socio-animals are when they die… I didn’t know that it would be like this. As the Living is my witness, I didn’t want to drag out her suffering. I wanted it all to happen quickly and painlessly…
She will whimper, she will look for the way home, she will sniff around, trying to find my trail. But there are no trails in the depths. There are no smells and no sounds can be heard.
Without food, water or the attention of her owner she will be done for in two to three days. The beetle will write the chronicle of her solitude, and then they will both disappear.
your dog is depressed
we would like to remind you that she is an inside dog, and long walks outside the cell are harmful to her call dog back home?
yes no
let’s call the dog back home… unsuccessful!
unfortunately, your dog cannot find the way home.
…They say the only way to forget about sadness and shame, to silence the voice of your conscience, is to move to luxury.
I offer him an act, and he agrees. He wants to be dominant.
Luxury
He creates the earth, the grass, the flowers and the shrubs, the trees and the stones, the hills and the gullies, the pine cones and the moss, the fallen leaves and the mushrooms rotting beneath them, the fine suspension of rain in the air, the low, swollen sky, and the birds hiding their snakelike heads under their warm wings. He creates the animals – mice, badgers and racoons, squirrels and hares, and deer, and foxes, and bears.
He creates himself in the form of a wild dog or, maybe, a wolf.
He creates me in a form like his.
I draw his scent in through my nostrils and realise that in this world he and I have the same mother, that he is my brother and my husband, that we were born together and we will die together, and become a part of this earth and this grass, of these flowers and shrubs, of th
ese trees and pine cones and leaves. And our children’s children, as they track a fat hare on a rainy evening, will smell our scent as it seeps from the plants and the soil.
…He licks my ears, my eyes and nose, my stomach, my crotch and my nipples and then my eyes and ears again. In first layer I would feel sick with disgust, but here, in luxury, in the wet grass, in the body of an animal, I take pleasure in every touch. He licks me, and his mouth is hot with the scent of me, and of our mother, of the male he fought with over me, of the damp earth, of the blood and flesh of our prey, and of death, and, ever so slightly, of fear.
We know that there, on the far side of the blue-grey hills, where the animal marks on the tree trunks stop, there, beyond the line that binds sky and earth, lives the Dead God.
No one knows how he was born: he does not and never has had a mother or a father.
His body is not whole. The parts are not connected to each other and one part can crawl away from another over the line of the horizon.
He does not grow old. He will never die because he is already dead…
We fear him.
We will mate to try to fight this fear…
He is completely dominant in this act. He created this whole world, he created me and himself – all that is left to me is the details.
I create a home for us – a den on the slope of a hill. Its entrance is almost invisible in a thick cluster of tree roots, but just in case I create an outcrop of tall grass. For safety. So that no one will notice us… Inside the den I create a floor of warm branches and dry leaves.
I go inside and he sneaks in after me. He bites my neck with his teeth; it is not painful, but commanding. I break free, turn around and growl for show, but I give in almost immediately. I think about the pups, which will smell like me and him. He takes me, growling quietly.
The Living Page 19