‘He’s not connected,’ she said to herself. ‘He is alone, completely alone in his body, I have to remember that. He’s not used to sharing things with friends because he’s got no one in his friend list. He doesn’t even have a friend list. An unbearable emptiness. I have to be patient with him…’
She ruffled his hair with her hand, which was sheathed in contact film. The thinnest sucs. She could almost feel the warmth of his skin… Why get annoyed? She should explain everything to him tenderly and calmly:
‘It’s totally normal to discuss these things with friends. The act isn’t something intimate. You do it at festivals and in luxury. You do it in front of everyone. And with everyone…’
‘I don’t want you to do it with everyone,’ the Wise One said. ‘Promise that you won’t.’
‘I won’t,’ she struggled to keep smiling.
He was like a moody child. He poked her and whined: ‘Mine’…
Well, as for first layer, that makes sense: members of the Council have to have long-term partners for ‘personal use’. At first this shocked her a little, but then she had to admit that it really was more hygienic and convenient this way… It would never have crossed her mind to take another partner even if she had wanted to…
Eighth understood this and wasn’t too worried about first layer. He was worried about third. He was jealous of luxury mode. He even asked her not to have acts with anyone there…
It was stupid. Absurd. A neurosis. Demanding that she restrain herself in the garden of delights!
Demanding that she observe certain rules in this space of absolute freedom.
Having failed to convince him of the ridiculousness of these requests, she started making promises. It was funny – he had no way of checking, but it calmed him down…
He always noticed when she was there. By her face in first layer. Her face always looked as if she was in pain. As if she was shouting without a sound or was about to cry. She did not deny that she went into luxury but she obediently lied about the act. She said that she didn’t do the act with anyone. That she was visiting her wolf cubs…
Eight was still lying on his side. She embraced him from behind, pressing her stomach and breasts against his back.
‘So then, are we going to try out the sucs? If you like it…’
‘I won’t like it, Cleo.’
‘But…’
‘I liked how it was then. The first time. Without any sucs…’ He still called that act ‘the first time’.
They were both silent for a little while. From down below, in the garden, came snatches of a slanging match. It was Layla talking in first layer to the Servant of Order’s new, additional woman, who he had taken a month ago. Layla’s voice, which was angry but still somehow frightened, broke into a shriek. The new one’s voice sounded quiet, but fairly assured. As well as Layla, Layla’s kids were shrieking too.
‘Tell me that you love me,’ Eighth asked suddenly.
‘The Living is full of love…’
‘No, not like that!’
‘How then?’
‘Tell me that you love only me.’
‘But it’s not like that…’
She felt his shoulders shaking.
‘Are you feeling alright?’
‘If you can, don’t press that film up against me. It’s making me cold.’
She moved away.
A memory flickered, half-decayed, fragile, like the wing of a dead butterfly in the wind. Once – she was only fifteen – she had given birth to a Darling. The infant was ill and temporarily ceased to exist after a few months. But the whole time he was with her she looked after him using the My Little Living program: she changed his clothes, fed him, bathed him, gave him massages and so on. For every procedure, she used single-use contact gloves like you’re supposed to. When she had touched him, completely naked, with her gloved hands, he had shaken exactly like that… Don’t press that film up against me.… As if he was cold. Perhaps she even took the gloves off a few times so that the little fellow would calm down. She probably did. But she couldn’t remember exactly. That’s always the way with first-layer memories: they crumble like yesterday’s dreams. And she had deleted the file ‘Darling’ from her memory a long time ago, on the advice of a psychologist. As soon as he temporarily ceased living. ‘Send psychically traumatic files to trash.’ Everything disappeared: photographs, videos, diary entries. Everything was forgotten – his face and eyes, his crying and groaning. All that was left were vague memories of his body… The way he used to shake. And the warmth of his lips as they gripped her swollen nipple.
…Cleo slowly took off the sucs and pressed her bare skin against his bare skin. He turned to her and embraced her, strong and commanding. Hot panic flooded her stomach. She felt like a snail that had been ripped from its shell. He touched her nipple with his tongue. She shuddered and closed her eyes. Calm. Calm. It’s only him after all. Her mate, the father of her dead children. The one she had been pining for all this time.
In third layer she dived with a jerk into luxury. She opened the forest and the den which were saved in her personal settings.
there is currently no one here apart from you invite friends for act independent act
She sneaks through the wet grass, weaving her way and making occasional sharp turns to one side to cover her tracks. At last she comes up to the den and pokes her head inside. It smells of decay, soil, fungus and her own musty fur. It does not smell of him. The white-eyed wolf, born of the same mother as her, has not come here without her…
…She has not been here for a long time herself. Not since they brought her to the Residence and she realised that he would never come back to their shared home.
But while hope still remained she came here often. She waited for him day after day, hunting and insulating the den, listening to the beating of four new hearts in her body. Then the time came, but something went wrong – she could not give them life. The cubs were born dead, although luxury promised all its users the fulfilment of their wildest fantasies. She gnawed through their slippery umbilical cords and went to dig a hole in the frozen earth. Then she dragged each of the four stiff, furry bodies there in turn. The bitter taste of carrion lingered on her teeth.
Then she created a putrid yellow moon, nibbled on the right side, and howled loudly. She hoped that he would still come. At least now. To weep for their children.
But he still did not appear and in despair she brought different partners from her list to the den a few times. None of them could give her the act the way he had given it to her then. When she took the form of a she-wolf, it got them going, but their fantasies were pathetic. They were limited to role-playing ‘hunter and hunted’ with a touch of S&M: some would turn themselves into idiotic mice or hares and throw themselves into her jaws, others would grab a gun… She would break off the act, return to the hole and give a long, protracted howl.
She missed him. She was his mate. He had created her that way.
Perhaps that was why she had agreed to live with him in the Residence. Because of that act, and not because of all the privileges there like the lab and socio-money.
…She creates the day at dawn, and the fiery sun, and the birds singing in the gleaming crowns of the trees. She creates sheaves of multi-coloured foliage and rolls around in them on her back. She lets herself hear human groans from first layer. Her own and those of the one who never comes to see her here.
When she is close to finishing, when her tongue is lolling out, and she is breathing rapidly, arching her back and stiffening her tail, when all her eight nipples are hard, she suddenly hears footsteps and sees someone’s long shadow next to her.
SPO guest entry carried out
She lifts her eyes.
The guest’s face is smeared with a layer of paint and powder, like a festival clown. The Servant of Order. He has access even here. He muscles in on her fantasy, insolently, as if he owns the place, as if it were his own cell.
She lifts her upper li
p, baring her front teeth, and growls quietly and flatly.
servant: no death!
cleo: gopz
servant: i have a message for the Wise One
cleo: what am i, his electronic secretary?
servant: don’t get cross, little doggy this is to do with you too. when you finish tell the Wise One that I am summoning you both to the laboratory
cleo: you cannot SUMMON the Wise One. only humbly request
Clown smiles and sits down next to her on the ground. He turns over the multi-coloured leaves with his hand in its brilliant yellow glove. He catches an earthworm, lifts it to his face and examines it, squeezing it between his thumb and index finger.
servant: let’s say this is the Wise One
The worm wriggles and coils in uneven rings.
servant: watch. i can crush him with my fingers.
or i can let him go
He opens his fingers; the worm falls into the autumn leaves. It lies there motionless for a few seconds, pretending to be unliving, then burrows in tentatively.
servant: but today i’m feeling nice. be in the lab in an hour
cleo: why?
servant: a repeat experiment
cleo: that’s impossible!! it’s too early to run the experiment right now. the ants and termites are giving bad results
servant: how many immersions?
cleo: not more than two
servant: that’ll be enough
The Servant left suddenly – rudely, without even saying goodbye – and she was left alone. She tucked in her tail and crawled into the den. She did not want to finish the act anymore.
She wanted to summon the self-righteous ghost from her memory; tear his dead throat to shreds with her claws and fangs – because he lied… Because he left me with a good-for-nothing, defective formula.
She curled up in a ball and whimpered gently, through her nostrils.
She heard Zero’s voice, distant and pathetic, coming from first layer:
‘Are you happy…? Tell me, are you happy here with me…?’
Namesakes
From: Servant
To: Fourth
Subject: FW: L-L ray: results
text of forwarded message:
‘2 September 471: in the Residence laboratory I repeated the directed Leo-Lot ray experiment previously carried out on people using the Marvel 4 device.
The following volunteers took part in the experiment:
1. Zero (the Wise One)
2. The Servant of Order
Both volunteers were placed in Roberts chambers (the latest Marvel 14 model). Both were given a trial injection of the experimental L-L drug.
This is the latest, most recent version of the L-L drug, which I have been working on for a month. This version of the drug has so far given only weak positive results in experiments with Hermotermes indicola termites (I managed to trace up to two reproductions for several adults), and I believe it requires further development.
Experimentation on people was, it seems to me, premature and was carried out only at the request of the Servant. As we might have expected, it ended in failure. Neither in the case of Zero (devoid of a priori incode), nor in the case of the Servant (who has a standard incode) did irradiation in a Roberts chamber immediately after the introduction of a dose of the L-L drug, which facilitates the ray’s penetration, produce any results.
I request that the laboratory be saved after me for further work on the drug…’
Fofs, how are we worse than termites
But seriously what do you reckon?
Regards,
S.
P.S. In response to this report I am requesting the report on the results from the first experiment with the Leo-Lot ray in 451.
From: Fourth
To: Servant
Subject: RE: ‘L-L: results’
Let her carry on for now.
(a negative result is still a result)
Regards,
4.
P.S. As you know the Leo-Lot experiment in 451 was unsuccessful; no reports were kept.
From: Servant
To: Fourth
Subject: who are you trying to kid
According to my information, back then you did receive a report from Professor Lot about the ray experiment. So please share it with me, if you’d be so kind!
Regards,
S.
From: Fourth
To: Servant
Subject: RE: who are you trying to kid
Dearest Servant,
The so-called ‘report’ by Professor Lot is a classic example of an entry in the ‘diary of a madman’. What would be the point in sharing it with you, I don’t understand.
Regards,
4.
From: Servant
To: Fourth
Subject: RE:RE: who are you trying to kid
But still this ‘diary of a madman’ was enough for you to ban all research in this field and make it classified.
Cf. subj. of mail.
Share it.
From: Fourth
To: Servant
Subject: RE(3): who are you trying to kid
OK, by all means.
‘dust – five seconds of darkness – life – five seconds of darkness – dust. All the little volunteer doggies gave the same result. the continuity of death.’
From: Servant
To: Fourth
Subject: RE(4): who are you trying to kid
Gopz, what does that mean?!
From: Fourth
To: Servant
Subject: RE(5): who are you trying to kid
The crazy professor was evidently trying to say that man is mortal
At least you could read his report that way if you want to. And as we know you can always find someone who does.
For this reason I thought it best not to publicize Lot’s document.
P.S. For my part, I am waiting for your report on the ‘namesakes’ for August.
For August 471:
In total five pairs of ‘namesakes’ (cf. July: 3; June: 2).
1) 3 Aug.; 14:03
No. 2 690 460 437: mutated namesakes in embryo with time difference of 2 seconds; apoptosis of older after 8 hours (not noticed); younger dvlp. normally.
2) 8 Aug.; 23:45–23:52
No. 0 639 443 649; mutated namesakes in embryo with time difference of 7.6 minutes; no apoptosis for 24 hours; younger eliminated (by default) in embryo after 24 hours along with biological carrier. Carrier repros. normally.
3) 16 Aug.; 19:22
No. 0 000 009 254: mutated one-off reproduction in presence of mature namesake; no apoptosis over course of day; older namesake eliminated (age 56, gender m.) after 25 hours; younger dvlp. as normal.
4) 26 Aug.; 15:40
No. 0 004 727 556; mutated namesakes in embryo after stalled p. (3 hours of darkness) simultaneously; apoptosis of both after 30 mins.; subsequent stalled p. (4 hours of darkness), further repro. in sing. as normal.
5) 27 Aug.–30 Aug.
No. 0 000 000 203: 27 Aug. mutated one-off reproduction in presence of mature namesake; no apoptosis over course of day; older namesake (age 37, gender f.) eliminated 28 Aug., after 24 hours. Warning: after 5 seconds 28 Aug. REPRO. (!) despite presence of antenat. namesake; no apoptosis for one day. Older namesake eliminated 29 Aug. during regular medical check (no repro.), biol. carrier saved by conducting doctor). 30 Aug. – official complaint by bio. carrier (loss of Darling resulting from staff negligence). Measures taken on that day: conducting doctor eliminated (repro. normally), biol. carrier eliminated (p. remains stalled).
From: Fourth
To: Servant
Subject: RE: Report
Note: (!)
Extremely disturbed by case No. 5 dated 27–30 Aug.
Too many complications. Servant, be more careful!
The involvement of third parties is unacceptable!!
A secondary namesake is unprecedented.
The Wise One
; As he walked past the Diver’s see-through blue cell, Zero stopped. The Diver was sitting in his wonder-chair, facing the door. Artificial seaweed twisted together behind his back, forming an available-brown web. Zero always thought that the Diver, like Cracker had once, reminded him of a spider – a big, immobile spider, lurking in the shadow of his devious trap awaiting his prey – and his cell was like the solitary confinement chamber in the Special Unit… But he always dismissed this thought. You couldn’t leave Special Unit solitary, but here the door was open. True, the Diver still could not make use of his freedom, get up and leave… He just doesn’t want to, the Wise One quickly corrected himself. He considers external movement unnecessary…
The Servant had explained once that he and his father had specifically asked the designers to do up the cell as an ‘underwater world’. It is symbolic: the Diver has turned his back on everything external and transitory and immersed himself in the depths that are inaccessible to all livings (except the eight moderators) so that from there, in the deepest layer, he can look at the world with an unclouded, all-seeing eye, publishing wise decrees and giving the other members of the Council of Eight instructions when they come down to him for advice. At least, that’s how it used to be.
That’s how it was until the Diver gave the moderators his final piece of advice…
…Exactly a month ago, on the very day when Zero was delivered to the Residence (he did not know where they were taking him or what for, but he was sure that he was going to be executed), the Servant of Order read him the words of the Wise One’s Final Decree:
‘My friends, I am desperately tired. My time has come: I want to drown. I am leaving worldly affairs behind and immersing myself forever in thirteenth layer. You will not be able to visit me there, because no living has ever returned from there. The place of the Wise One should not lie empty, so for that reason you should replace me immediately, but do not seek my replacement amongst my kind. In these difficult days of ours, when the threat comes from the outside, it is not a Diver who should provide leadership. Not a Diver, but someone who is very familiar with first layer, someone who knows their way around outside as well as I do in the depths. That is why you should make Zero the Wise One. He sees that which you who have lived so many lives do not see. He will give you wisdom, and it will be the wisdom of a child.’
The Living Page 22