by Brett Bam
Marcos watched as his body walked calmly into the room which glowed with an iridescence that had no single source of light despite the brightness. Around him stood ten other men, who all looked remarkably similar to Marcos, some were younger, and some were older. He had seen them all before but had never once exchanged a voluntary word with any of them. He knew they had all been conceived and grown to human perfection in a clone vat much like the one dominating the centre of the room. He wished the Protocol controlling him would allow his eyes to rest on that tank. He knew what it held, obscured by gel - the boy he had made from his own genetic matter floating motionless in liquid.
He hardly thought of the motivations behind this strange gathering of people, this rare happening. He only yearned for a look into that tank, to see the eyes of that small creature he had held so briefly so long ago.
Marcus was vaguely aware that the Protocols in the room were exchanging long complicated bursts of information, streaming data which wound about the room visible in the real and invisible in the physical. He completely ignored the brooding monoliths of AI that swept over the barely perceived digital sky like thunderclouds; he ignored the sparkling vistas of the programs and operating systems which flickered into and out of existence, impossibly intertwined with this small room, a limitless space inside the limited room.
He waited breathlessly for that moment when he could look at the figure so near to him. He lacked the will-power to actually turn his head; instead his body was being forced by the Protocol to perform its necessary functions. He stood at a console sweeping his hands rapidly across the interface, manipulating programs, readying the room for something he did not understand or think about. All he wanted was to turn his head and look at the tank, but he could not.
Suddenly Marcos was turned to face the tank. He stood still, staring.
The boy was much older, much larger than the last time Marcos had seen him. His hair was long and spread beautifully in the gel. His body was slim and frail, naked and hairless. His eyes were closed and most of his face was encased in a complex machine with a tube that rose into the roof of the tank.
Then the Protocol spoke to him, an almost unheralded event.
This unit is malfunctioning; it is displaying independent thought patterns which we cannot perceive. It has become self aware and its dormant brain activity is increasing, despite attempts at suppression. The thought patterns are somehow creating a nullifying field which we cannot penetrate. We can see and hear nothing of which this unit thinks and we do not know why. The possibility that this is the Kulen De Sol is estimated at eighty-five percent and rising. Therefore, our timetable with this unit is accelerated. Observe and note.
Marcos heard the voice inside his head, transmitted through the implant throbbing in the back of his skull. For a long drawn out moment he digested what he had heard. He lifted a thumb to his mouth and chewed the already blunt and torn nail. When it began to bleed, the Protocol sent a thought into his head and he put the hand down at his side. Marcos did not notice the action; his mind had cast back to the time he had been tested and observed, back to the time the Protocol assigned a percentage value to his chances of being the Kulen De Sol. He remembered the pain of it, not a physical pain, but a real one, a mental one. He had been hollowed out and skinned alive, flayed and burned, and in the end, he had surrendered, given in, unsuccessful, failed. He had simply become Marcos De Sol and been released into the world. He was not alone in his failure. Every man in this room with him had at one point been through the testing phase, been assigned a percentage, and found wanting. They were all precursors to the end product, rough prototypes who did not have the skills required for whatever task the Protocol required the Kulen De Sol to perform. Was today the day his son would be tested? The memory of what he had endured filled Marcos with a deep and abiding fear. He was consumed by his lack of understanding, and what he did not understand terrified him.
He had been taken to a room deep in the centre of this very same building. He was a child at the time, as skinny and frail as the boy in the tank. The room was a dim memory, obscured by time, but the thing in the room burned as bright in his mind’s eye as it did that day. It was a spinning object, from it shone a light too intense to look at. It made a deep bass-filled throbbing noise that rattled Marcos completely. His teeth slid over one another from the vibrations no matter how hard he clamped his jaw shut. The light became harder and brighter and hotter as he approached the object. It seemed to be spinning at a great rate, hovering in the air unaided. The Protocol was already in his head, urging him on, their will turned to steel so his skin blistered and burned as he stood before the light. He lifted his hand and touched the object and his life erupted into a pain so great it had killed him. He woke in a sterile environment with machines hovering over him holding a wide variety of medical equipment.
They had never tested him again.
In the tank, the small boy suddenly twitched, and his eyes opened. The air in the chamber sparkled and there was something like an electric shock, Marcos convulsed in pain. He collapsed to the floor, along with every other member of the Human Supervisory Board. The room went dark.
Chapter 7
Kulen De Sol
Where am I?
Out? Out! I am out!
I am in my body, out of the real and in the physical. What happened? It had me. I was in the storm, swept up in the current, caught by that wind. Now all is peace and calm, the brightness of that other place, that real place, still stings like white hot spots behind my eyelids, which I could see even when they were tight shut. I still feel the pull of the place in my bones. It hurts. I open my eyes.
I peer into the liquid and it stings. I can still hear the murmurs and screams in the fabric and I can still see the light all about me, but it cannot follow me here. It cannot consume me here, here in the physical. There is a barrier between me and it, a barrier of flesh and bone standing solid between my soul and the influence of the fabric of murmurs. My body feels like my own again, not some lump of meat I was wearing. I have no wish to stay here, this close to the horror. I'm not done running yet, I need to be further away. I reach out again with physical movement, and once more my fingertips touch the solid wall of glass before me. The contact causes me to shift my place in the liquid, and I feel myself floating away from the touch. My feet touch something else, another wall of glass. It is a barrier, yet another one, keeping me close to the light and the fabric of screams. I need to get away! I push against the barrier, bracing myself with my feet and hand.
And I hear it crack, loud in the liquid. It is not so solid then. I push harder, and the crack sounds louder. I lift my other hand and place it against the barrier, moving sluggishly in the liquid and moving the tube from my mouth around behind me to create space for my body to twist. I tense myself and do more than push.
I scream.
I scream with my voice, but also with my heart and soul. I pour my small knowledge and my unknown passion into the scream and I feel the amber liquid vibrate with the shock of my physical voice. The thing in my mouth is in the way. I grasp it tightly and pull. I feel a tearing deep inside and the pain spurs me on to greater effort. Fear grips me and I pull the harder for it. I feel a sickening sucking sensation in the pit of my stomach as the infernal mouthpiece is disgustingly expelled. The thing penetrating my body tears and breaks, it is pulled from me with a horrid sucking sensation and I feel myself empty of it. My scream bubbles in the thick liquid and the air I exhale is not replaced. Panic rises up inside me like a wave. I cannot breathe. I push and pull and strike and kick and the barrier cracks and splinters and then… it gives suddenly with a wash of shattering glass and I feel a rush as the liquid flows forth. A mighty roar sounds and a great pull. I am disoriented as the world twists and turns and I fall for real. I feel glass cut me. I sprawl and slide on a hard surface. The illusion surrounding me shatters with a smashing tangle of sensory overload and black noise, like an explosion.
The tank is b
roken.
The tank, I was in a tank. Somehow, I had known that, and now I am free.
It has burst, and I am lying on a cold floor with the remains of the amber liquid swirling around me. I raise my head from the floor and see a miracle, the physical world.
I am fully conscious of the physical for the first time ever, and it shakes me to the core. The floor is solid. No whim can change that. It will stay solid, and that is an immutable fact, not something governed by the whim of the machine. The relief makes me shiver, and the shiver begins the spasms. I retch and choke and spasm so hard it nearly snaps my spine in two. I have suffered convulsions before, and my mind simply shuts down in order to avoid the pain. In the midst of that mental collapse I feel the otherplace loom large before me, its rippling fabric surface reaching for me once more. No, never again. I force myself away and back towards the physical. With a wrench of painful effort, I open my eyes and look around.
There are ten men in the room with me, ten human men. They each have a silver shine wafting about them like a smooth gaseous cloud wrapped around their heads. It is a nebulous material that seems to be made of the same substance the real place was made of. They are slivers of the screaming fabric.
It is the fabric; it is here in this room, manifesting itself in these men. As I focus my eyes, I remember the power I felt so fleetingly in the otherplace, the power that allowed me to break free of its irreversible grip. It is still there glimmering inside me like a sheathed sword. In my mind’s eye, I grip it and it fills me with confidence. I focus my anger and draw my mental blade, wind flows from it, a gust of energised particles that bounce from me harmlessly. I strike at the fabric coiled about their head, and I see it begin to unravel and blow, like a wind before me. The silvery nebulas fade from their heads, dissipating like smoke in the force of the blasting wind. The men reel on their feet and all of them collapse to the floor, shrieking as the last threads of their nebulas vanish. They look suddenly vulnerable and scared.
I struggle, flopping about on the floor like a fish out of water. I can fight in the real but I’m useless in the physical. My limbs are strange things to me, they move weirdly. It is an effort to get them to work, but eventually I get my arms underneath me. I push up and rise from the floor. Of the remaining men, only one is still standing, and he is riveted with a stark and holy terror. It drips from him, and he stinks of it. I see his emotions crowding around inside him, and I recognise the fear first. It is the same feeling that swamped me at the sight of the otherplace.
Our eyes meet and for an instant I can see myself through his eyes, stark naked, dripping with amber slime, so small and skinny and frail. Is that really me? Do I truly look so weak? Am I only a child? The moment passes and the perception fades and once again I can see his fear raging from him like a black swirl of emotions boiling in the pit of his stomach.
Chapter 8
The Installation
Marcos felt the Protocol tear away in a blast of rage-filled wind, thrown aside like wasted memory. The all-encompassing light in the room darkened and went out. Marcos felt his own thoughts suddenly freed, and the sudden sense of freedom was disorienting.
Test him Marcos. Test the boy…
Then he was alone in his head.
How? How could this boy do such things? How could he break free? The fabric of the Protocol’s world was gone from his mind. Fearfully he swept his gaze across the room and saw the others sprawled unconscious on the floor. They were covered in the shattered shards of the tank and the amber gel flowed around them, sullying their simple, soft clothing. At last his eyes came to rest on the prone form of his son.
As he watched, the boy coughed and spasmed and turned over, flopping in the gel without coordination. He managed to roll to his side, and when the spasms stopped he managed to struggle to his knees. Slowly and hesitatingly the boy stood for the first time. The dark mane of hair that always floated so gracefully in the liquid hung heavy, covering his face and dripping viscous liquid on to his shoulders and chest. A hand came up and parted the hair ever so slowly, like a curtain being opened on a stage. Marcos felt a breathless anticipation as he waited to see his son’s eyes for the second time. Their gazes made contact and Marcos felt it like an electric shock that grasped him and held him tightly. The boy seemed suddenly full of light and far larger and stronger than the frail thing of seconds before. He was threatening, and Marcos remembered the sheer power of the boys scream, and the merciless wind that stripped the Protocol’s will from him like sandpaper on varnish. Who was this being before him? How had he done what he'd done? How could a physical being affect the fabric and its citizens so dramatically? Marcos felt a chill. The boy had no implant, no threads of conducting steel winding through his brain like he, and all these others, had been inflicted with. This boy had not yet been through the test, he did not have the interface graft, and Marcos knew that for a fact. And yet, looking into the eyes of his son was like looking into an electric rainbow; all the colours of the spectrum shimmered there, flashing as he turned his head. Then the boy broke eye contact and Marcos sagged to his knees with fatigue. The spell broke and suddenly the boy looked very much like a small child again. He was hurt and suffering, and when he looked like this he seemed utterly defenceless. A wave of sympathy washed over Marcos.
This was his son. He had felt exposed and vulnerable before this slight thing, this naked and young being, dripping and hurt. And yet it was his own flesh and blood, as much a part of him as the Protocol had ever been. This was a piece of himself grown from nothing, and he needed help. Slowly and carefully Marcos extended his hand and offered it palm out. The little boy shied from the movement and this sudden show of fear emboldened Marcos, loaning him the strength to gain his feet.
“Are you alright?” he asked, and his voice sounded weak and wavering to his own ears. The boy reacted sharply and his sudden look sent daggers of pain flaring into Marcos' eyes, like a sudden bright light that made him flinch. Marcos sensed that the verbalising of words confused him, having never used language before. He heard a sharp hissing, reminiscent of the approach of the otherplace into his perceptions, but this was more intense and localised.
He realised it was coming from his son. As he turned to the boy he felt that distinct impression of sudden and total immersion in the otherplace. For a small second he thought the Protocol had him again, and his first emotion was one of regret.
But it was not the Protocol. It was not invasive, did not pour into him. It admired him, it smiled upon him. For a moment, he thought that what he was seeing was impossible.
All things are possible.
The thought came unbidden to his mind, a young voice.
I want to be free.
Marcos walked forward and crouched in the slime with the boy. He reached out a hand and brushed the matted hair aside and put his finger under the boy’s chin, lifting his face. The electric eyes settled on him, causing his heart to vibrate.
“My name is Marcos De Sol. I made you. Now I will save you.” He bent and collected the tiny body in his arms. He walked from the room, thinking for himself for the first time in his life.
We find a doorway and wander through it, with me struggling to find my feet below me. I fall several times in my efforts to walk and then my father sweeps me up in his arms and carries me. He thinks himself my father, he thinks of me as Kulen? Kulen De Sol? That must be my name.
The amber gel is drying on my skin and it feels tight and uncomfortable. The blood flowing from the cuts has dried and crusted to a black coating. The glass cut me deeply, but the blood has stopped flowing and the cuts hardly hurt. I brush at myself as we go, we move down a long featureless corridor, shedding flakes of dried blood and amber crystals, a trail of crumbs leading away from that particular hell.
I am inside a great machine, I can feel it throbbing around me endlessly. It spins and turns and flows with the imprisoned energy of the otherplace. There are little flecks of it marking this place, remnants from before. If I st
ay here then the fabric will find me and try to swallow me once more. Yet, even the endless machine has faults, everything has at least one flaw no matter how small it might be. I am that flaw, that mistake; I am that hole in the machine. We can get out and away, my father and I, we shall escape. I feel the wind inside me and it stands ready to unravel itself again.
We walk and walk through strange places, great halls and fantastic machines. As we walk, the knowledge inside me begins to settle. Things begin to gather and I feel very calm. My thoughts begin to coalesce. I feel like I open my eyes for the first time and see the world for what it is. I take a deep breath and exhale, cradled in the safety of my father’s arms. He shakes me as he walks through this place, but I do not mind that, I feel I have found a safe place amongst all this terror. I wish my father would hold me like this forever. And surely he will. He will take me away to a place empty of machines, and I will never have to suffer again. Everything is going to be all right. I am at peace, blessed peace, while my father carries me.
Time passes…
Something calls to me on the faintest trace of my perception. I am quiet, and there it is. It has been calling the whole time, making a noise I just couldn’t hear until now. It is like... music, a hint of something wonderful, like a subtle whistle in the wind. It catches my attention immediately. With my eyes closed, I listen.
There it is again.
I separate myself from my father, reaching for that space where the fabric looms in the hemisphere above me. I slip away from my body…
Time slows to a crawl as my mind leaves the ponderous bio-chemical processes of the physical behind. My body is once again a discarded suit, messily removed. My Father stands silent and still, frozen in the moment of taking a step. I watch him like that for a while and see his eyes close slowly as he blinks. He is unaware of me like this, a free spirit moving at the speed of thought.