by Brian Craft
Iris senses that GL is not returning the affection and pulls back to study her face. “You don’t remember me,” Iris says as her expression sinks.
GL looks over her eyes and mouth and hair, across her shoulders and torso, and failing to spark a memory she finally glances at the scars and scratches of her own hands. Her helpless expression only deepens as she looks back to this stranger’s face.
“Gloria,” Iris says. It doesn’t register either. “What have they done to you?”
“Gloria?” Orion says.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replies GL.
Orion injects, “You know her?”
Iris breaks away from GL and throws her arms around Orion next. She holds on to him for a long time, sensing his posture, trying to get a read on his state. “You’re probably mad at me,” Iris says as she finally eases back and sits.
Her statement spins Orion’s mind. “If you had any idea what I’ve been through because of you.”
“Yeah,” she replies. “I had a taste with that crazy nurse tech. But I bet you’ve had worse.” She looks at GL. “Let me start by telling you that your name is Gloria, and I’m here because of what you started.” She motions to Orion and says, “So is he.”
Orion seems as confused as GL now. “They’re attacking our memories. GL…Gloria, doesn’t even know how long she’s been here,” states Orion.
“The last time anyone from our group saw you was about one year ago,” Iris informs GL.
Tears begin to well in GL’s eyes. “You knew me before here?” It’s more of a realization than a question. She knows that she’s forgotten a lot, but how much she is almost afraid to know.
“Yes,” Iris continues, “you started speaking out before anyone else. You were a data scientist somewhere inside Societal Services. You discovered how Hivebeam is changing and started alerting us to the fact that it’s broadcasting more than just code for machines.”
GL responds with a blank expression. “I don’t remember any of that.”
Iris can’t hide her admiration for GL. “You started us. A resistance. No one really believed until you got us to see differently. Most still don’t believe that the city planners are lulling us to sleep. You started quietly spreading the word. To wake us up!”
“That’s where I come in, isn’t it?” Orion shifts the focus, stating, “That’s why you contacted me.”
“Hive,” Iris responds. “It was Gloria’s idea to get to Hivemembers. Change from the source.”
“And I got the target painted on me,” Orion adds gruffly.
"I followed you," Iris continues, and a look of optimistic wonder grows as she stares right into his eyes, "and I watched you, every night when you came out of those rotating doors at Societal Services. Standing in the long lines waiting for the transport. You were always so careful to hide studying people around you. You always leaned a little forward as maglev floated into the platform. And I rode with you, night after night for a long time."
“You tricked me,” Orion demands.
“No. I wanted to give you a chance. The same that Gloria gave me,” Iris says. “You’re different, Orion. You would gaze out the window of the transport, into the sky each night. Or straining to get the very last look down a street when they passed by.” Her smile is so sweet and innocent as she looks at him with utmost sincerity. “I saw you, Orion. And you had something different in your eyes.”
“What?” Orion asks.
"Hope," Iris replies. The promise of that hope intoxicates her even now in this moment. "Like a little boy that still believes something else can happen. I saw you wait for people in doorways and scan their faces instead of cutting yourself off in some video display." She inches closer to him, obvious her feelings showing through. "I felt you from a distance." She pauses before adding, "The next bit will sting a little. Because it was my call to give you the crime that would propel you out."
Orion leans away, but braced against the wall he can't recede any further and is forced to deal with the discomfort of her news. "Why?"
Iris smiles. “Because you needed it as much as we need you.”
Terrence gravitates to the group, and Jax follows. Even Scryberg inches a bit closer, encouraged by the honesty Iris has displayed and the unity surrounding them.
“I’m sorry,” Iris offers Orion. “But ask yourself, would you still want to be in the dark if you could?”
The question resonates with GL, drawing her attention more directly now. “I said that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Gloria,” Iris replies. “To us all.”
“How did you get here?” GL asks.
Iris cracks a devious little smile. “I was resisting.”
Orion stands and peels away to pace the room. The events couldn't be more perfectly aligned, a timeline advancing like clockwork, inside of a clockwork city, all synchronized. He thinks about Hivemind and his life before; the death of his co-worker, the endless jogs through empty hallways and the mindless indifference of the world around them. He's been contributing to the lull that turned life unbearable and pointless, telling himself all along that everyone benefited. It was a lie, and he knew it.
And now he is at the epicenter of the biggest lie machine imaginable. He is to be the key to the mechanism that finishes the job. It isn’t safety and security for the people, or resource management and mood enhancement for better sleep, it’s slavery. ‘Control your mind, or someone else will.’
But how will Burroughs do it? The leap seems impossible.
Orion stops pacing to address the group. “The only way out is through.” He briefly looks in each of their eyes before adding, “I self-animated in Hivemind.”
“Isn’t that impossible?” Iris inquires.
Holding his hands by his tilted head Orion replies, “Behold. The impossible.” He kneels with them. “Burroughs pushed me in Exam One right before the building shut down. I caused that power surge.” He looks at GL and states knowingly, “Clear.”
“You’re a bunch of fools!” Scryberg chimes in as he stomps away. “What do you think you can do?” He slams his hand on the tabletop, and then drags his fingernails, clawing the top like he can’t get that grip. He moves toward the door, pointing at it like an accusation. “Look where we are! They control the whole damn place. Every little tiny stinking inch. They probably control the atoms. And our sleep. And our thinking!” He points the accusing finger at Orion and asks, “What are you gonna do, float on up through the ceiling like some magician?”
Iris asks, “How did you control the building?”
Orion thinks a minute, and then replies, “He was in my mind. Burroughs generated a new thought in my mind. He put us on the top of the building and put himself there, too. He tried to manipulate me. He was in my mind again when they hit me with the Code Green. He was searching me, I could feel it.”
“I wonder if he knows you know,” GL adds.
Terrence has been quietly listening to everyone. He finally deals in, suggesting, “Use the machine on yourself.”
Scryberg declares, “Yeah, toast your own brain, Hive man. Better than someone else doing it. At least you get to pull the trigger yourself.”
“No. Use it to shut it down,” Iris finishes Terrence’s thought.
“I’ll need to get into Exam One alone,” Orion states.
GL stands to address them. “This is the only chance, you know? The Icarus room is on the uppermost floors. You can see out the elevator that it’s the only way up or down.”
Orion asserts, “I need you to distract them.”
“Burroughs will be there, and half the staff that handles us,” GL states. “If you take that elevator, you’ll have time before they can get it back and come after you.”
He looks at Iris. “I can’t run the machine alone.”
“Trust me?” Iris responds.
“You’re in this as much as me now,” Orion replies.
Jax gravitates to the central table and holds his hands over
the extruded pins. Without touching the surface, he feels something happening. Orion notices his odd behavior and walks over to join him.
Orion puts his hand on the surface, but Jax gently lifts it away from the pins, showing him that he should hover his hand over them.
“What am I supposed to feel?” Orion asks.
Almost as he speaks, the extruded rods composing the table begin to recede, starting with the centermost rods. The caving tabletop forms a funnel and the remaining food cubes slide toward the bottom. At the funnel center, the rods move aside and create a gaping hole. The cubes slip through and drop down the hole, disappearing somewhere into the building below the floor.
Terrence tells Orion, “Trash disposal.”
The blue-wash sky and clouds fade and disappear, leaving the dome all milky-white. The table suddenly seals its own hole, and the remainder of the rods sink to floor level. All rods stop flush with each other, leaving nothing but perfectly flat surface for them to stand on. Nothing left extruded for them to hide behind, stand on, or grab ahold.
The door slides open and Plummer leads in five other techs. He addresses the inmates, “Let’s make this easy. I know you all know what’s next.”
It’s time for them to enter Icarus.
CHAPTER 17
‘Out of many, one.’
<<<>>>
The translucent elevator ascends the core shaft toward the pinnacle of Mind Mastery. It passes the last of the skyscrapers unfinished outer façade, exposing it to afternoon sunlight pouring past the framework of incomplete upper floors. The radiant light sets the elevator’s interiors walls to glow, creating an aura around Orion and his five companions. They form a circle, with backs to each other and mag-cuffs linking their wrists one person to the next.
Plummer and his tech crew form a ring around them, guarding against anyone doing anything stupid. Then the elevator enters the shadow of the top floor, already finished and connected to the metal bones of the building. This is where Icarus lives.
The master control room looks surprisingly plain; dim lighting, no chairs, and only a narrow ledge full of tech that displays six holographic brain models. Above the ledge, a large two-way mirror looks into a torus-shaped room that is Icarus itself.
The ring-shaped chamber, the channeler’s chairs, and the central pillar seamlessly blending into everything are exactly as GL described, although she left out the silvery quality of the walls that glitter with microcircuits and wires so small and numerous that they seem like particles of silicon dust. To an outsider, the effect is magical.
Soon, the team will arrive, and the real spectacle will commence.
Director Pace strolls in and gravitates to the brain models. Dr. Burroughs is only a step behind. “I’m evolving this team to become transmitters, Director,” he tells Pace. “Minds linked through Icarus, they’ll reach out to man and machine alike. Telepathy and telekinesis unleashed from machinery and unrestricted by proximity, in an irresistible wave.”
Director Pace considers this, and the implication hits him suddenly. Advocate Abbey is right. It is unbridled mind control. He baits Burroughs with a stupid question. “Like maglev?”
"More," Burroughs says, his sickening excitement bubbling up. "Like Hivemind, the six will power Icarus. In turn, Icarus will generate their telepathic link, and then amplify it to be broadcast via the entire structure of this building!" Burroughs is intoxicated with the prospect. "It will be like the voice of God."
That is a stark notion.
Pace plays coy, feigning interest in the controls and the room itself. “So, the entire building is an antenna?” he asks.
Burroughs seems pleased that Pace understands. “Have I ever shown you my ants?”
Plummer leads Orion and the others, still cuffed together, into Icarus. Seeing Orion sours Pace with a look of disappointment, compelling him to straighten his bureaucratic posture in response. One of the best, if not the best, he thinks. A citizen, practically untouchable at the inner sanctum of Hivemind, the inner circle of our entire world. If Orion can fall so far, what can become of the rest of us? Pace realizes he may be in the very last position to curb this precarious plan.
“You’re not god,” Pace challenges Burroughs.
“Don’t get in your own way, Director.” Burroughs glares at him. “I created Hive, and this, and everything else, including you. You are here at my pleasure. So, shut up and witness a revolution.”
Orion’s team has been unshackled and loaded into their corresponding chairs. Magnetic cuffs lock Orion in chair #1, each adjacent chair filled around the central connecting pillar until the circle is complete next to Orion at chair #6, Iris.
She looks scared and can’t keep her eyes from darting around the room. Searching for anything that might give some indication that they will be okay.
Tiny lights begin to cascade in patterns inside the surface of the walls. A faint pulsing sound begins to resonate in the air and reverberate through every firm surface.
Nurse Mina filters between the chairs, inspecting the inmate/channelers and machine tech in checklist order. She finishes with Orion, his mag-cuffed hands anchored to the chair and unable to move. She grins. “Let me in, Hive man. I want to guide you out of your shell.”
“I’m not a Hivemember anymore,” Orion replies.
"Ooh, you're so right and so wrong," she teases. She bends close to his face. "This should be fun for you."
“You have a sick idea of fun,” Orion states, refusing to look in her in the eye.
She blows seductively across his lips. “Maybe we can change your mind.”
Mina exits, and the curved door slides shut behind her, seamlessly completing the interior torus.
Almost out of reflex as Orion quickly scans the sparkling walls in front of him. He knows Hivemind all too well. He knows that you have to let go and not fight the takeover, but things have changed. Whatever is going to happen next, he must stay sentient. But how?
He glances over at Iris. She’s panting heavily, her anxiety making her tremble. Then the central pillar begins to glow, and the throbbing pulse inside Icarus intensifies. A focused pool of light concentrates on the pillar above her. “What’s happening?” she calls out. “Orion?”
Before he can answer, the focused pool intensifies and extends outward as if it’s a fluid in a thick, silky, slithery stream. It slowly snakes around her, expanding, thickening, and surrounding her entire body. Then, next to Iris, Terrence in chair #5 experiences the same phenomenon, then chair #4 and Jax. Followed by chair #3 and Scryberg who is still fighting until the glow surrounds him and his body relaxes. Then chair #2 where GL glares at the two-way mirror where she knows Burroughs is lurking.
Finally chair #1, where Orion floods with the glowing liquidy light stream. Inside the energy cocoon surrounding him, every single hair on his skin stands up as if it’s electrically charged and reaching for the source. He relaxes his mind and lets Icarus claim his body. In his mind, he repeats, Clear. Clear. Clear. Clear…
The brain models in front of Burroughs sparkle with increasing activity. The pulse of the entire experiment ramping up and echoing across every space. Through the mirror, he sees that Icarus is glittering brilliantly, too. Its patterns of light roll across the curved walls in waves. He has created a perfect singularity of man and machine. The six are one and Icarus is alive.
Burroughs beckons Pace to see. “They are now one.”
The director’s earlier concern has melted away, and now he grows eager to see more. “Go further.”
Nurse Mina quietly slinks next to Burroughs. She quietly asks him, “Remember the building. Another surge—“
Burroughs shuts her down with a malevolent side-glance and replies, “That surge was a fluke.” He glares through the mirror. “And he would need a hundred Orion’s to beat his new master.”
Clear. Clear. Clear.
Burroughs speaks aloud, “Icarus, initiate protocol one.”
The bodies of all six inmates tense, the
ir arms, legs, and backs straighten like empty channels filled with high-pressure fluid. Orion repeats, Clear. Clear, until there’s something else in his mind. Like a whisper struggling through static, he hears Iris. He concentrates on her words. It sounds like, ‘Resist.’
Other voices from Orion’s team whisper faintly in the growing vacuum of his mind, but he must not lose concentration. He repeats his mantra, Clear. Clear.
A tiny slot in the wall slides open directly in front of Orion. A thin mechanical appendage extends a silver sphere into the room. Orion feels a sickening wave of pins and needles roll across his entire body from head to toe, across his feet and up his legs, around his torso and arms, up his neck, over his jaw, and across his face to surround his eyeballs in spikey electric jabs, the same as GL had warned him. The mechanical appendage releases the sphere and it floats in midair.
Burroughs feasts his eyes, as they have reached the uncrossed frontier border he has hoped to conquer. He and Pace watch as the sphere, free-floating, traces the border of the torus in a perfect orbit. It slips past GL in chair #2 and continues encircling the group.
“Look at that. I’ve reached out through them and plucked that sphere out of the air. Controlling it, to do what I please,” Burroughs says. Then his concentration shifts, he turns away to listen to the room. Through Icarus’s pulsing heartbeat, he can almost detect the word: Clear.
The sphere gains velocity, slipping around the torus without touching anything. A second sphere is introduced to the room and it rockets off in the opposite direction from the first. They crisscross paths, then their trajectories shift, creating arcs that go high and low in a pattern.
Iris’s hands twitch rabidly now. Her breathing staggers into a shallow gasping. She’s the new member, less conditioned than the others. She’s the weak link, the one that is on the verge of burning out.
Orion aims all his thoughts onto the simple mechanism of the magnetic cuffs. It’s the humblest technology in the room. If he can reach it with his mind, he might be able to interrupt it.