Sofia and the Utopia Machine

by Judith Huang

  “You ingrate!” the voice growled, and he kicked her shins, then her stomach, then her face, as she collapsed in a writhing ball.

  “You had every privilege, every resource lavished on you. You had a scholarship, an education, a job; you had a family and a child. And instead of working hard to benefit society, instead of thinking of those who have benefited you, this is what you do! This is how you repay us!”

  A glob of spit landed on her face.

  “Pete…” she moaned, not caring any more. “Where’s Pete?”

  “We have him in custody for treason. Same as you. He was deprogramming the machine and now you have swiped the console. You have activated it for your own agenda. You are thieves and traitors. Traitors of the worst kind.”

  Clara was silent. She didn’t move. It was a long time before she heard the voice again.

  “You really have no idea what we can do to you, do you?” laughed the Inquisitor. “It’s amazing, what we have accomplished in the fields of doublethink. You were the jewel in the crown of the genetics programme and you still do not understand bodies.”

  Clara showed no reaction. The Inquisitor continued.

  “Bodies are very malleable things, my dear. The mind, too, is part of the body. Surely you realise this now. For many decades now we have been tapping your expertise on the mind—how it connects, how it rejects things, how it sifts and groups and moves… How it defines you. We have mapped every synapse of your brain. We know which thoughts flock where, we know which spots relate to which fingertip, which armpit, which toe…”

  The gooey film had sealed her mouth again.

  “As a fellow academic, I have admired your work from afar, Dr Tan. I always wondered what it would be like to apply it in person…to you…” He laughed. “Not that you handled the truly sordid things, of course. You were always too good for that, weren’t you? Always specialising in the high-end…” He paused. “Artificial bodies,” he said. “Such a misnomer, isn’t it? After all, in the end, isn’t it the use of our bodies that makes them real? What is the mind but an agglomeration of the senses? What more can it be? If you switched bodies with, say, a pigeon, or a bottom feeder… If you were uploaded into the Utopia Machine as one of that class, engineered to last not three years but forever, would your mind not take on the properties of a blithering idiot? Even your mind, Clara? Your precious overeducated mind?”

  Clara could feel her eyes. It suddenly occurred to her she could feel the frames of her glasses, which she hadn’t felt before, perched precariously on the bridge of her nose. She wasn’t hanging by her neck, as she had thought. No, she was suspended, somehow, from the wall, a sideways pendulum dangling over the endless infinite void of the room. She knew she was expected to speak, to defend her research—anything. But she kept silent.

  “Solitary confinement, indefinite,” said the Inquisitor. “Until she gets rid of that attitude.”

  She was dragged out by her legs and arms.

  Chapter 25: The Engine

  Ha’shan had grown very old. His beard was long and white, and his hands shook when he wrote. He was older than any of the inhabitants of his city, for his companion the djinn and the magic jewel in which he slept sustained him, and gave him an unnaturally long life.

  He had served the city in the valley of the four mountains well his whole life as the wisest councillor the council of elders had ever known. But Ha’shan could not rest on his laurels, for he alone remembered the words of the Star that had blinded him, all those years ago, when he was a young and foolish boy in the heart of the mountain.

  He knew that one day, when that ancient evil, the Lotan, threatened his city and his world, he would have to die for this city, and although Ha’shan loved his city, he was afraid of death and what it might bring.

  Thus he became an expert in divination, in astrology and the arts of foretelling the future, making serious study of the seismic events of his world in order to read the signs of the times when the Lotan was to appear.

  One day, he summoned his faithful djinn, who was ageless and looked just the same as when he had first accompanied his master to the heart of the mountain, and said, “Oh djinn, I am now old and the time of my rule in this city has been one of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Yet I know, even in my old age, that as my life draws to a close, a danger must arise, for the Star foretold that I would sacrifice my life to save the city from the one they call the Lotan.”

  “Yes, master,” said the djinn. “But what can you do but wait? For it does not appear that the Lotan has come to our city just yet.”

  “It is not enough to wait,” said Ha’shan, impatiently. “Over the years, I have secured the city and our reality against the Lotan with many skilful spells to hide the location of this place from it. But I fear that the time of his arrival draws near, for I can feel the encroaching of evil from the lands to the west. The merchants from those lands tell of a nameless dread, of blighted crops and terrifying typhoons that flatten entire cities.”

  “And the Lotan need not be at our city gates in order to threaten it. He only needs to be able to break the mind that operates our reality, the mind in which we are contained, to obliterate us, so it is very unwise to feel safe although the threat seems contained to the western lands.”

  “Furthermore, in my divination I have seen that the goddess of our land, the very one whose mind contains us, has been imprisoned by the cunning of the Lotan. Even now, she struggles against it and if we can, we must help. If the Lotan wins, it will mean the annihilation of us all.”

  Ha’shan said all this in a very grave voice. The djinn, floating beside him, shook his head in sorrow.

  “Master, I will do everything I can to help our goddess. But what can we do?”

  “I am afraid that what I must do involves you, my dear friend, my companion of many years. You must go to the goddess and assure her of the reality of our world, so that the scaffolding of our realm will not fall to pieces under the interrogation of the Lotan.”

  “How would I go to the goddess?” asked the djinn, puzzled.

  “I will have to break your jewel,” said Ha’shan sorrowfully. “Then you will be able to speak to her, to go into her ear and help her defeat the evil one.”

  “But the jewel is keeping you alive,” said the djinn. “My spirit and its magic are what have given you your long life, and without it, you will crumble to dust.”

  “Yes,” said Ha’shan simply. “That is what will happen when I break the jewel. But it must be done. The time has come. I have lived a long life, and have gained much wisdom from it. I know now that the wisest leader is the one who is willing to sacrifice his own life for his people, that it is the throwing overboard of the crown that qualifies the prince to wear it. Therefore, I give up this life in order to save my city, and not just my city, but the world of worlds.”

  So Ha’shan gathered his sons and daughters and grandchildren to him, and his many servants, and blessed them and bequeathed his most precious possessions to them. “Know this, my sons and daughters: your father has lived a long life, and in choosing to destroy my djinn’s jewel, I choose to save you and our people, to send my djinn to the goddess. Send him on his way, and he will be free at last.” And with those last words, Ha’shan took the djinn’s jewel and smashed it with a magical sword that had been in his family for many generations.

  The sparkling shards of the jewel fell tinkling to the ground, and out of the jewel flew the djinn, now set free from his slavery to Ha’shan. He took one last look at his aged master, and sped off into the night as Ha’shan crumbled into dust, in search of the goddess and the Lotan.

  *

  Sofia lay limply on the floor. All fight had gone out of her. The voice had made her doubt everything—from the reality of Milton to the reality of the world she was trying to save itself. She was a sick, delusional girl, thinking she was important, a goddess, when really, she was nobody.

  Just then, a curious voice fluttered at her ear.

&nb
sp; “Great goddess!” it whispered.

  She saw a glowing light just before her eyes.

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  “Shh… Do not let the Lotan hear you,” it said. “I am a djinn, sent by your worshipper, Ha’shan of the city of the four mountains. I was released from my bonds to tell you to resist! You truly are our goddess, and the world you must save is real. The Lotan is lying.”

  Sofia gasped. The djinn had somersaulted in front of her, creating a glowing orange trail. He had traced the outline of a tiger, glowing bright in the pitch darkness. Then it popped out of existence again, like a whizzing firecracker escaping in a puff of smoke.

  Suddenly, the memory of Milton’s fur against her skin jolted her. Was it not possible the voice was right? The Lotan was tricking her. The new world that she had begun was real. Milton was real. Her flight from the island was real. And the fight against this monster—this evil being who was talking to her right now—that was real too, more real than anything else. And so would be its defeat.

  “You’re wrong,” said Sofia, in a small but defiant voice. “I’m not sick. I really am the goddess of this world. I created it. I remember doing it.”

  The voice of the Lotan loomed in Sofia’s ear again, asking her the questions that had been knotting themselves in tangles in her own mind since the new world had begun.

  “So what exactly qualifies you to be a god?” asked the Lotan, its voice silky and melodious.

  “Well, I created this place, didn’t I?”

  “By accident! And oh dear, what happens when you leave this place to whatever world you came from? They’ll have to go godless for thousands and thousands of years, with little guidance from yourself! Look what happened the last time you left them.”

  “Well, I can’t help that… The government is after me and they’ve probably imprisoned my mother…”

  “Tsk. What kind of god pops in and out of the world she created at her own convenience? Hadn’t you better just hand the reins over to me? At least I’m here, all the time.”

  “Why do you want to be in charge anyway?”

  “Why, because I am part of this place, and part of you as well. You are fortunate that I was split off from you at the beginning of things, so that I could be your placeholder while you were away…”

  “But that’s what Milton does, and he does a fine job!”

  “Pfft! That tiger? All he does is hunt and sleep! I have been doing far more than you would imagine.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  “Fine words from an absentee god!”

  Sofia stewed for a moment in her frustration. But she couldn’t help but feel that what the Lotan was saying rang true to a certain extent. Hadn’t she done poorly by her people—if they were indeed her people—by popping in and out of the world the way she had? If she really cared about this new world, perhaps she could never go back to the world she knew, the world in which she was being hunted down by the government.

  “No, this is my world! I did make it, it isn’t a delusion…” said Sofia, her spirits rising. “Ha’shan sent me his djinn! He sacrificed himself by breaking its jewel just so he could come to me and tell me he was real. You’re the one who isn’t real!”

  With the scant source of light the djinn had left, Sofia peered into the leathery depths of the cavern. Not only did the lake reach far down beyond the reach of starlight, it seemed to stretch endlessly in tunnels that led straight out into the ocean. The vast network of tunnels that the Lotan inhabited was filled with briny wonders.

  She couldn’t despair. She couldn’t just let go of it all. There was still her father. There was still her mother. She needed to rescue her father, wherever he had disappeared seven years ago. That was why she had set off the Utopia Machine in the first place—to find him.

  “You’re trying to trick me,” she said. “You’re trying to trick me into giving up control, and then I will be locked out of this world. Because somewhere in this world is the key to rescuing my father, and you don’t want me to find it.”

  The Lotan was silent. She felt anger rising in her belly. She knew she was on the right track.

  “What is it? You know it! I know you know it! You’re the one who is hiding it. How can I find my father? Is there some test I have to pass?”

  The Lotan hissed in the dark. Something seemed to be uncoiling in the depths. Sofia flinched as she felt the walls of the tunnels closing in on her. The waters started splashing against the sides of the tunnel harder than before. Suddenly, it occurred to her that perhaps she had been inside the voice, that perhaps she was in some kind of coiling gut, and that she was inside the Lotan.

  Something caught her eye—a light. It was dim and faintly purple, but it was light. What could she do to make this throat open, if it were in fact a throat she was in? She moved towards one of the walls of the tunnel and, using her fingernails, dug into it and scratched. The wall, which was wet and rough to the touch, started convulsing. She did it again.

  If only she had some kind of knife or sword, she thought. Then she remembered she did. She felt in her pocket for the tiny knife the old dying woman had given her and flicked it open. She scratched its sharp tip, in one long drag against the wall. This time she felt the walls shake and cough even more, like the rumblings of an earthquake. A gooey black substance came out of the walls, which Sofia realised was blood. A cry of pain rose out of the depths of the throat. The great maw of the creature opened.

  Sofia took a deep breath and lunged her way towards the light.

  Tumbling over the slick floor of the creature’s tongue, Sofia clambered over its craggy teeth and fell head first out of its mouth. The Lotan was hacking and coughing, and rearing on its hind legs.

  Milton was there before her. He nudged her to her feet. She was wet and reeking of the most horrible fishy smell, and grimaced as she tried to get some of the slime off herself.

  “You defeated it,” he said happily as she shook the slime and water from her hair.

  “What?” Sofia was still shell-shocked. She couldn’t believe she had been in the monster’s mouth! Disoriented, she reached for Milton’s reassuring, warm side.

  “You defeated it,” said Milton again, nudging her elbow with his nose. “You recognised what it was trying to do and got out of there before he could trick you any further. The Lotan works against your mind.”

  Sofia rubbed her eyes. She was standing in a circular room, and at the centre of the room was a pedestal that was like a sundial. A sphere glowed above it, floating in the middle of the air. It was what had been giving off the purple glow that she had plunged towards. Stranger still, the room seemed to be filled with liquid, and hanging about in the liquid were constellations of the earliest stars. Yet Sofia breathed normally.

  “Where am I? And what’s that?”

  The sphere flattened itself into purple words that floated in the air.

  RETURN TO ORIGINATOR?

  The question mark blinked, then the ticker-tape of words appeared again.

  RETURN TO ORIGINATOR?

  “What does that mean?” Sofia was in awe. She stepped towards the sphere again, and this time sunlight spilled over her face. She realised it was coming from above—and when she looked up, she saw that she was at the bottom of a well.

  “Is this the well?” she asked Milton, shaking her head in wonder.

  “Yes, it is…this is the room at the bottom of the well,” said the tiger. “You couldn’t come here until you had defeated the Lotan. Only those who have passed through the Belly of the Beast can come here. This is the beating heart, the engine of this world.”

  “Does that mean…if I tell the engine to take us to my dad, it’ll take us to him?”

  “Return to originator…well, I can’t think of anyone else the originator could be.”

  “Let’s go,” said Sofia, excited. “Let’s go rescue my dad.”

  Chapter 26: The Rescue

  RETURNING…IN…3, 2, 1…


  Sofia felt as though her guts were being sucked out. The world seemed as though a dark cloud had covered the sun, grey and grainy, drained of all colour. It felt as though a vacuum had opened up in her belly. Then, all of a sudden, it was over. She was still in the well, and Milton was still there.

  “Is that it?” she asked, slightly disappointed. Nothing around her had changed.

  “The golden cube that contains this world in your world has been moved between where you were to where your father is out there,” said Milton. “You won’t be able to tell from here. There’s only one way to find out if it worked—you’ll have to go through that door.”

  Was her father on the other side of the door that stood before her? Sofia could hardly contain herself. It felt as though she had been waiting for this moment all her life and she could hardly believe it was finally here. Her father—the father she had dreamt of finding, the father who had passed her those strange dreams that had led her to this new world, the father who had named the Utopia Machine after her—could be inches away from her right now! It felt as though something were boiling inside of her; the bubbles kept hitting the surface of the water and she was in danger of tipping over.

  She took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

  She was in a cell a few metres wide and long. There were no windows, and behind her was a metal door with a slit in it. A small, thin, middle-aged man, who had a shock of black hair streaked with grey and a kind, angular face, sat on a thin plank bed beside a bare metal sink.

  Sofia saw instantly how she resembled him. His face was similar, in some ways, to the one she often contemplated before the mirror. Was this her Papa, in the flesh? He was so much smaller in person than she had imagined him. He was awfully skinny, sitting in a short-sleeved white shirt that hung off him and brown khaki pants, with a worn leather belt holding them up. His tortoiseshell glasses were thick and perched halfway down his nose, which looked just like her own.