The Living

by Anna Starobinets

  layla: if i mean anything to you, get rid of that tart

  ‘So you knew from the very beginning that I had run away…?’

  ‘Come on, Wise One! I think you are underestimating your humble Servant.’ The Servant gave Zero a comedic bow. ‘Of course I knew.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you pick me up straightaway? Why did you let me go free?’

  ‘Well, I’d put it this way: we were waiting for the stars to align.’ The Servant of Order drew a sweeping smiley in the air with his index finger. ‘Our old friend Fifth, moderator of ents and ads, was a nasty old bugger. He would never have voted for you to join the Council and he would have talked the others out of it, he had quite a lot of authority… You would have been sentenced to a pause if we had “picked you up” earlier. Before Fifth’s pause. He was really in a bad way, poor fellow, so we decided to wait until he temporarily ceased. Plus it was interesting to watch you “in the wild”, so to speak… I was, by the way, happy with you by and large. That’s why in the Final Decree I mentioned your “wisdom of a child”, and I wasn’t lying. You have all the basic qualities of a real lead…’

  ‘You wrote the Final Decree?! You forced the Diver to give up his position as the Wise One?’

  ‘I told you’ – the Servant absent-mindedly scanned around looking for the caps lock so that he could put the next reply in capital letters, then remembered with irritation that in the monstrously impoverished surroundings of first layer there was no caps lock for conversations – ‘there is no Diver.’

  layla: i gave you my youth. i’m the mother of your darlings! seven years i didn’t go to a festival, not once! but you, bastard, now you’re going to take a second wife just like that?

  servant: gopz, stupid cow! what WIFE, where did you get that word from!

  layla: from the encyclopaedia of the ancient world

  The Wise One struggled up from the shapeless, nauseating sofa. The walls of the lobby started swaying even faster, dragging the floor along with them. It was like the Wise One was standing on the swings in the ancient attraction park. He stumbled, and was about to try and grab the back of the sofa but it ducked down like a traitor, sinking into the seat and turning the sofa into something like a lumpy bagel.

  ‘I told you not to stand up too quickly…’ The Servant of Order took Zero by the arm obligingly and sat him back down on the sofa. ‘None of the members of the Council can hold twelfth layer. No one, except Third, can even hold eleventh. They are just determined not to admit that they can’t hear what the Diver says… Once, when he was young, First said that he couldn’t see the Wise One. The rest almost tore him to pieces, like hornets round a lame grasshopper. They laughed, but they were all afraid. They could see a bit of themselves in First and were scared of being exposed and disgraced. Because the Council of Eight can see all twelve layers – so it is written in the Book of Life. No one dares question the Book, thus is it written, so that’s how it must be…’ The Servant of Order absent-mindedly deleted unwanted icons from the desktop; he felt spent – he wasn’t used to giving such long speeches outside of socio. ‘…They say it actually was all like that before,’ he muttered. ‘Twelve layers and Divers, real ones…’

  He hadn’t meant to say that: the words had somehow crept out of his mouth on their own. They had slipped from his lips, like wet, defenceless slugs. ‘Tiredness and nerves,’ the Servant thought, ‘first layer tension. As if being honest with this loser wasn’t enough. Bloody first layer! You can’t see what you are saying and you can’t concentrate properly so you end up blabbering away when you shouldn’t.’

  ‘But that’s all junk,’ the Servant summarized decisively. ‘There are no Divers and never have been. You shouldn’t interpret what’s in the Book literally. It’s just an allegory… As far as I understand it it’s about how any of the members of the Council can become the “Wise One”. You need to search around for the “Diver” inside yourself… Because you know what the most important thing is? The most important thing is to be the first to give a voice to the “will” of the Wise One; the rest will pretend that they were also there at his consultation in twelfth layer… My father realised that a long time ago. But he’s not the only one. Sixth has also bluffed us a few times. It took a lot of effort for father to force through the Final Decree. That slitty-eyed dung beetle knows there’s no Diver…’

  The Servant of Order fell silent. In an instant the scintillating cheeriness of the white bakugan somehow disappeared completely and all that was left was an unpleasant shivering in his limbs and an indistinct sadness, like the sort you get when the act is interrupted in luxury mode.

  something is getting you down,

  – the socio psychotherapist started worrying –

  try and articulate it on your wall

  ‘There are no Divers and there never have been,’ the Servant hurriedly wrote on the wall of his cell in font size 20: the psychotherapist recommended this sort of relaxation technique in stressful situations. But his mood was utterly ruined. Just as it had been ruined the two times he had brought brainless ‘wise ones’ from the roboslums. ‘There are no Divers.’ Both times he had written that phrase all over the walls of the cell. But he still couldn’t quite fully believe what he had written. Then there was the letter in Renaissance…

  The letter to self from the middle of the second century – it was like a splinter stuck under his nail. In this letter he wasn’t yet called the Servant or even Cyborg 17. In the middle of the second century he had had the name Goblin and he had worked as a socio-virologist. In that letter he described his brief immersion in twelfth layer (‘…I dived! How can you give a name to what you experience in the deepest of deeps? Global language is not rich enough to find the right words… Pleasure, wisdom, a sense of soaring and endless peace…? None of that’s it, that’s not it… Love? Holiness? That’s not it… Perhaps, Death?’) and he wondered whether he should disappear forever off into the roboslums for an eternal immersion. Goblin did not leave any more letters in that reproduction. Most likely – judging by the fact that after the pause he was reproduced in the roboslums and received the name Cyborg 17 – he had gone through with his plans.

  There was no way now, of course, of checking whether this was junk. Was he a real Diver or had a virus just damaged his memory and judgment (that sort of thing happens to virologists the whole time)? Whatever happened, whenever he looked back, the Servant of Order shuddered in horror. He didn’t like to talk about his past – his invector was too shameful. For almost three centuries, right up to his current reproduction in 430, he had been a stinking slum robot. He would still be one now if his biological mother had not been born under a lucky star.

  His mother, big-eyed and hungry like a dragonfly, had been a slum witch. Her name was Mara and she was sixteen when Second noticed her as he toured the roboslums, in the company of six bodyguards, on a charitable ‘visit of loving care’. He gestured for her to come over and she crawled over on her knees. ‘Stand up and tell my fortune, little one,’ Second said. ‘Today I am giving you official permission to tell my fortune.’ ‘You should get down on your knees next to me,’ Mara replied. ‘Have a seat, you might need one.’ The moderator of tranquillity frowned in surprise at this unheard of impudence. The bodyguards raised their machine guns in unison. But Second shook his head to say no and slowly kneeled down opposite Mara. She pressed her hand in its contact glove against his swarthy forehead: ‘…I see beyond the pause, I see before, I tell all, of that you can be sure. I see you, moderator of tranquillity in all layers… And I see myself, naked, next to you in bed…’ Second laughed, unzipped his trousers and right there, not moving from the spot, performed the act with her in first layer. His bodyguards held her down – she, however, didn’t put up any particular resistance. Then Second got up, kicked the witch and walked off, surrounded by his guards.

  The next day he summoned her to the Residence.

  He kept her as his long-term partner. She had already got pregnant with Cybo
rg 17 back there in the slums. ‘It is just not done to give birth to robots in the Residence,’ the moderator of tranquillity said. ‘My Darling will be a man to be reckoned with.’ ‘He will be the Servant of Order,’ said Mara, placing her hand on her stomach. ‘Why not,’ Second replied thoughtfully, ‘why not…?’

  ‘…his place.’

  The Wise One’s words came as if from afar. The Servant of Order suddenly noticed that he had got distracted from first layer and lost the thread of the conversation. Limited attention syndrome is one of the Living’s chronic external illnesses…

  ‘What did you say, Wise One?’

  ‘I said: because the Diver did not become your puppet, you decided to take me in his place. A first-layerer with no access to socio. You could frighten me with your black and white beetles and train me up so that once a month I would read your words off a piece of paper… Am I right?’

  ‘Only in the broadest terms…’

  ‘“To the Saviour from the Apostle”,’ Zero said flatly. ‘It was you who wrote that, to “cheer me up a bit”? Of course. Back there, in the Pause Zone, you fed Matthew a tranqvitamin. And then you slipped him a text in deep layers. “You will be held captive, but the Servant will elevate you if you will serve him.”’

  ‘Incredible,’ the Servant of Order thought spitefully. ‘He can quote the text off by heart without having access to memory…’ Servant stared into the Wise One’s crazed pupils, which pulsed from excessive white bakugan juice, and he suddenly became, if not scared, then distinctly out of sorts. Uncomfortable, as if he could feel the fixed gaze of a poisonous insect on the back of his head.

  ‘That wasn’t me,’ the Servant replied, to his own amazement: it sounded as if he was justifying himself. ‘That was your mate Cracker.’

  ‘My friend Cracker was capable of that sort of thing,’ the Wise One replied provocatively, ‘but he had already temporarily ceased a week before Matthew left his message.’

  ‘I know,’ the Servant said quietly and angrily, and, for some reason, honestly. ‘We did an autopsy on Matthew’s cell. Cracker had put that text in his memory long before his pause, even before you ran away, Wise One. With the instruction: “activate before pause”.’

  The Servant of Order felt about in his memory trash for Matthew’s message and picked at it, as if he were poking a sore tooth with his tongue, and kept fighting the strong desire to delete it permanently. But no, he mustn’t. He had to keep this document as a reminder of his, the Servant’s, personal and professional disgrace. As evidence of the fact that even his cell, the Servant’s, was accessible and vulnerable. That some cunning little common or garden creep could get into his cell, the cell of the Servant of Order, and then crawl along the most delicate, most intricate web of neurons, and sneak into, infiltrate, his consciousness, his, the Servant of Order… The Servant frowned as if someone was tickling the back of his head with a cold metal stick. That rat Cracker – he had figured out a way of unpicking more than just his socio memory. He had read his thoughts. His secret plan, that he had never expressed in any layer, to do whatever it took to change his invector…

  ‘So I’m supposed to serve the Servant?’ Zero burst out laughing with a strange, quavering laugh, as if it wasn’t him that was laughing but someone old and evil who had taken up residence behind his breastbone.

  ‘You must serve the Living loyally,’ the Servant responded ritually, as if he had been waiting for this question and prepared his answer in advance. ‘Especially now, in these difficult days of ours, when the stability of the Living is under threat… Wise One…’ The Servant sank his gaze into Zero and held a long pause. ‘…What you’re about to see is quite something.’

  The Servant strode towards the table and solemnly pulled an inviz cover off something square and bulky that was jutting up strangely in the middle of the lobby.

  ‘A present for you.’ The Servant made an expansive gesture; he seemed extremely pleased with himself.

  ‘A Crystal X0?’ The Wise One stared hard at his ‘present’. ‘You wanted to surprise me with a Crystal XO, that old piece of crap that they use in natural development groups so that the hydrocephalics get to watch Baby Bubbles somehow?’

  ‘Well, excuse me.’ The Servant pulled closed the dark threads of his lips in offence. ‘There wasn’t a lot of choice. Crystal X0 is still the only first-layer monitor. There’s no demand, you see. Maybe Sixth and First will develop something specially for you later, something more… elegant. But for now we’ve ordered you three monitors, and everything else you might need. One is in the conference hall – you, Wise One, wouldn’t have noticed this with all this fuss, one here in the lobby, and one will be installed in your apartments – and each will have an in-built socio slot with limited connectivity! Great, right? You will have limited access to certain second-layer services. For instance, the members of the Council will be able to send you letters and messages… You will even be able to watch adverts and series!’

  ‘What, am I supposed to say thank you?’

  The Servant of Order twisted his face in irritation and turned on the Crystal. Something squeaked thinly. The screen flickered like a million swarming silver midges.

  ‘There’s a little something I need to show you,’ the Servant said.

  He closed his eyes and established a socio connection with the Crystal. The set-up was unpleasant and rough somehow – like he had been whacked in the forehead with a wooden baton. The Servant plunged into eighth layer and went into the System; on the way in, as ever, he felt a momentary falling sensation and a simultaneous shortness of breath. The System was not good at accepting those it had not chosen itself, those to whom it had not chosen to reveal itself. The System currently only allowed Fourth, the moderator of assistance to nature, to see it directly. The Servant of Order and the other members of the Council had to content themselves with a shared copy of the System, which was, however, sufficiently sensitive and aggressive to bite into their brains on the way in and the way out.

  servant: command: share System with external user

  Crystal X0.

  caution! System is a completely secret program and should not be viewed by unauthorized persons. cancel command ‘share’ continue

  with command

  caution! user Crystal Xo may threaten the

  secure running of the System

  cancel command ‘share’ continue

  with command

  caution! System will be shared with external user

  Crystal Xo

  …processing…

  …everything is now operational…

  He got a headache from the stress, unavailable spots started dancing in front of his eyes. It’s so slow. Gopz, it’s slow! It’s like trying to share a program with an unliving friend… ‘In a way that’s exactly what he is,’ the Servant suddenly realised. ‘A Crystal socio slot is unliving, external. My nerve cells are going crazy trying to link up with its mechanical neurons… Ah right, at last… It’s got going…’ The Servant wiped the sweat from his brow.

  …On the Crystal monitor the System looked unusual and somehow almost innocuous, not like in eighth layer. Like a funny animated little guy, sort of like Livvles, made of flashing, multi-coloured numbers and letters twisted into tiny spirals. Nothing at all like a nightmarish beast, unwittingly ingesting you into its dark, sticky, greedy, calculated, calculating, constantly self-renewing, living womb.

  ‘The Living = 3 000 000 000 livings’: the legend shone from the bottom of the screen.

  ‘Look, Wise One. Look and tremble,’ the Servant said in a whisper, and, it seemed, without mockery. ‘You see before you: the System.’

  Zero stared at the little man made of numbers in disbelief.

  ‘Do you at least know what the System is?’ the Servant asked contemptuously, misinterpreting the Wise One’s stare.

  ‘No one knows what the System is,’ replied the Wise One, and the Servant gave a satisfied nod.

  That was the correct answer. The
password for all those who knew.

  What is the System?

  The soul of the Living.

  Or the body of the Living.

  Or the mind of the Living.

  What is the System?

  The most precise model of the Living.

  What is the System?

  The nativity gift of the magi.

  What is the System?

  The restless ghost of the Living that appears to the chosen few.

  But even the chosen few probably don’t know what the System is.

  Not in Wikipedia, or in the Encyclopaedia Socialia, or on AnswerNet are there any articles about the System. Not a word about it – as if the System does not exist. But every living sooner or later finds out about the System. Some a bit more, some a bit less; some see a little bit of it in a dream and some just catch the end of some first-layer rumour…

  In this sense the Wise One had, one might say, got lucky. He had heard about the System from the person who knew more about it than anyone. From the very first person to see it. From Cracker.

  ‘The System is alive,’ his friend had explained to him. ‘It has consciousness and free will.’

  It is a program that was never written by anyone – at the least, by any living – and which it is impossible to control. It appeared immediately after the birth of the Living, and since then it has always been in inviz mode and shown itself only to the chosen few. Members of the Council (not all of them) and the very best Divers too. When a Diver drowns, it swallows him forever… As he talked about the System, Cracker scratched the scabby patches on his skin until they bled: ‘I didn’t create it, it installed itself in eighth layer, it did it itself, you see! When I first saw it, it looked perfect to me… Then, much later I realised that it’s a sort of virus. Not a gift, but a curse…