A New Start

by Morris Fenris

  ****

  I don't why it is that life's important moments seem to come together, or like 'bang, bang, bang,' one after the other. I know what you would say: that these things are not accidents, that they are part of some sort of divine plan. I'll just enjoy the nice clean air up here on top of the fence and say that I still haven't truly made my mind up about these things.

  But, either way, it's true that life doesn't seem to offer us much chance to tackle or process many of the important moments before other significant stuff comes along, stealing our attention. And so it was, the morning after I had moved back in.

  We hadn't made love the previous night, though we had shared the same bed and held each other intimately. In that juvenile, always-a-boy way that I'm assuming most men never grow out of, I wasn't at all sure whether the lack of sex was supposed to be a positive thing or not. I awoke alone – no surprise, you were nearly always an earlier riser than me – and went to look for you.

  I didn't have to look too far, as I found you in the lounge... levitating.

  Yes, I'm glad you find it funny.

  Actually, it was one of those moments where I instantly doubted myself, where it was easier to jump to the conclusion that my eyes and ears had tricked me, rather than to believe what I had just seen.

  I had walked into the lounge to find you lying on your back in the middle of the floor, surrounded by candles and geometrically arranged gemstones. The heavy curtains were closed, leaving the candlelit room in flickery shadow, despite a day of blue-skied brilliance outside. But I know what I saw, even if I tried to deny it to myself at the time. You wore some sort of long, loose robe that concealed the empty air between you and the floor, and you were maybe only two or three inches up at the best; but as I disturbed your concentration, I saw you fall and heard the thud. I saw the grimace on your face, too, as it must surely have hurt some to fall, even that short distance onto you back.

  Had I seen some magician on stage or performing on the street, I would have rolled my eyes and complained to anybody I was with, that the robes somehow hid some sort of supporting contraption. But there you were... in our lounge... all floaty.

  "What are you doing?” I asked, indicating all the very witch-like paraphernalia.

  “Um...” You looked guilty, you sounded guilty; you also appeared to be in some discomfort. “Meditating?”

  Saying it like a question didn't make you look any less guilty. Quite to the contrary.

  I didn't want to say it, was strenuously trying to deny to myself what I had seen and heard, yet I needed to find a way to ask you what was happening.

  “This all looks very... ritual-like,” I tried. “Is this an AGC thing?” I asked. I had been wary of what I considered 'cult-like' religious group from the start, but I wasn't sure this sort of stuff was really them, at least not from what I had seen.”

  “More of a Rupert Gardner thing,” you said. I saw on your face that you had instantly regretted bringing his name up. You were right to.

  “What?” I said, confused and struggling to contain the ridiculous jealousy and dislike I had felt for this old man since the moment I had met him. “What does that mean?”

  I could see that you didn't want this discussion with me. I guess I was even then ashamed of the fact that you should feel this way with something that was so important to you. Jealousy is almost always, however, a more powerful motivator than shame. I guess you realised that by the mere mention of his name the damage was done, so you carried on regardless.

  “He's... taken an interest in me.”

  Calm down, Tim, calm the fuck down.

  “What?” Jealousy, the great limiter of vocabulary.

  “He's seen something in me.”

  “I'll bet he-”

  “-Shut up, Tim!” you said, interrupting me as you got to your feet. “Why does everything come back to sex with you?”

  “Cos I'm a guy!” It was supposed to be funny and cute, to diffuse the situation a bit. Didn't work.

  “Rupert's a guy-”

  “-A very old guy. I'm not even sure the term 'guy' applies when you get to his age.”

  “Rupert's a guy,” you repeated firmly, dismissing my childish interruption. “But he's a guy who sees that there's more to this world than just what we see and hear. More than skin and bones and rocks and trees. More to the skin and bones and rocks and trees, Tim. And more to know about me than the inside of a vagina.”

  Yeah, you really said vagina... really, you did.

  “That's not fair-” I tried to argue back, but you quieted me by stepping towards me and touching my face.

  “I love you, Tim,” you said, “maybe in part because you're all I've ever known. But you haven't changed at all... can't change, can you?”

  “Mina,” I said after a moment of you holding my gaze in a way you never had before.

  “Yes?” Those eyes seemed to say that my next words could maybe decide the whole nature of our relationship from that moment on.

  “...You're on fire.”

  “I'm just really hot and angry and I need you to be patient so that I can try and explain things properly.”

  “No, really, you're on fire!”

  “What?” You looked down to see what I was seeing (what I should have maybe been more proactive in trying to put out), and let out an almost comical shriek.

  In the midst of our discussion... alright, alright... argument, you had forgotten to extinguish the candles surrounding you and had walked your robe right onto one.

  I was glancing around for something wet to throw at you, when the door bell rung.

  “Really?” you exclaimed, exasperated.

  “Get it off! Get it off!” I cried, unable to see any liquid, and with the flame having quadrupled in size in just a few seconds. You did so, and with impressive speed, but partly because you managed to send another candle flying in the process. This one started the carpet smouldering.

  “Oh for fu-” you started, now gorgeously naked without the robe. Luckily, 'Action Tim' had finally arrived and I leapt into... er, action.

  “You get the robe in the shower!” I said with heroic gusto, leaping at the bit of smoking carpet and stamping on it, like I was performing some dance.

  If the stamping worked, it was only to slow things down and you arrived back in the lounge with a sopping wet robe (and half wet yourself), just as the doorbell went for a second time. I took the robe from you and used it to put paid to the carpet's flammable ambitions. When I looked up again, you were no longer in the lounge. I moved to the doorway, looking into the hallway and towards the front door, unfortunately, too late to stop you from answering the door naked.

  ****

  I must admit that there were worse people who could have been at the door than Rupert Gardner. Better ones, but worse ones too. That total git from CyberG security, for instance; imagine how well he would have viewed you answering the door naked. I've often wondered what made you do it; I mean, it's such an oddly unnatural thing to do. Was it just some moment of mental strangeness? It had, after all, been a hectic and stressful five minutes. Or was it something to do with what CyberG had done to you? The way they had made you to be compliant, ready to 'serve'. I mean, I know you have your very own unique personality, and you had already tried to leave your hab zone once. But it's the same, human and cyborg alike, we can have modes of behaviour drilled so far into us, that we can never truly 'unlearn' them. Sometimes we do seemingly crazy things because, in a sense, they are the most normal thing for us to do.

  Rupert Gardner looked shocked and it quickly dawned on you why. You ran off to change, shouting something behind you about not always hanging around naked. I guess my jealousy should have kicked in, yet if Rupert Gardner had rung the doorbell a few minutes earlier and not happened to see you naked, I would have been far more likely to shout and curse and harangue the man on our doorstep. Go figure.

  Nonetheless, I did take the opportunity of the scattered paraphernalia and our brush with cata
strophe, to start grilling Gardner about what had been going on between you (platonic or not) in the last week or two.

  When I had first met Gardner, I had thought him to be some sort of homeless person, then, when the religious stuff came up, to be one of these end of the world religious nuts who just weren't bothering to wash or groom themselves because 'Why bother? The end is nigh!' But the more time I had spent around the man, the more I had come to see his unkempt appearance in a sort of 'professorly' light. His calmness, his way of speaking, could be irritating, feel condescending, even; yet it also gave him an extraordinary air of wisdom at times. This was one of those times.

  “Tim,” he said, condescending and knowledgeable in just one word. So much so, he felt the need to repeat it, “Tim, I know you struggle with Mina's faith. And that's okay. You've come to the AGC meetings, even though you disbelieve strongly in what we do. These are dangerous times for organised religion, Tim. A couple of generations ago, the Christian Church was still a powerful and respected institution. You don't have to go back much further at all to find different faiths killing each other over the particulars of their beliefs. Nations went to war over these things, or at least used them as a handy excuse to. This was the influence that organised religion had.

  “Yet now the AGC, once a Christian organisation, welcomes all faiths in the recognition that some faith of any sort is better than none. We share a common bond merely by believing that life can exist without the word Cyber in front of it. By believing that science is the answer to God's riddle, not just the sum of our efforts to understand the universe.

  “And although no law yet prevents us from doing so, at least not in any overt way, organisations like ours must keep a low profile, as too much attention always results in the authorities eventually finding something wrong in what we do.

  “In that way, it is a risk for us to have a cynic in our congregation, Tim. But is also a risk for a Cyberlife employee to attend our meetings. Not exactly a great way to improve your career prospects, huh?”

  Gardner smiled warmly at me as he said it, but there was an intensity, a rampantly aware intelligence gazing back at me from behind those eyes.

  He continued. “And I admire that about you, Tim. That you have not only done this for the woman you love, but for the cyborg that you bought.” The words twisted a small blade in my gut, but whether or not the remark was supposed have a sharp point to it, he carried straight on without pause. “You must love her so dearly to risk this. And if you do love her like this, then I'm going to ask you to do one thing for me for the next few hours, Tim.”

  “What's that?” I asked.

  “Shut the fuck up.” I blinked. “Shut the fuck up, watch and listen, Tim.”

  I hadn't heard the old bastard swear before. Just then, Mina came through, another respectable and womanly outfit (including hair, make up, the lot) thrown on in a matter of moments. I don't know how you do it; I swear, I would have made a crap woman.

  “You two okay?” you asked a little nervously. “How we getting on?”

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  You hadn't been expecting Rupert Gardner that morning, although he had been around to our house on several previous occasions by prior arrangement with you. I know I hadn't been living with you and, despite my failings, I've never been the type of person to claim greater rights because of ownership. No going on about the fact that it was 'my house' that Gardner had been going to without my knowledge. I'm not like that. All the same, I'm not stupid, I know that Gardner was deliberately going around me to get to you; else, turning up to the meetings as I was, I would have known.

  Were you being deceptive? I guess it doesn't matter now either way. If you were, then it was probably no less than I deserved. And you weren't cheating, you were trying to find out who you are. Who doesn't want to know that?

  So yeah, Rupert Gardner turned up unannounced to find you answering the door naked. (I wonder if he momentarily thought you had got the wrong impression about the nature of his interest in you. Hee-hee!) He had a car nearby and said that he had somewhere to take us, that we could talk on the way. It was all very mysterious and I didn't like it one bit, but we went along.

  He had an old Land Rover four-wheel drive thing. The car must have been a proper antique and was probably illegal in a variety of ways, but there it was, and we hopped in and headed out of Exeter. I was worried at first about leaving your hab zone, but Gardner assured me that the was no danger of that.

  We all sat in the front, you in the middle and me by the passenger door. After a few minutes of driving Gardner began to talk, addressing me in particular.

  “So, I am a Christian, Tim. Although you think you hide it, I can see your little cringe when I mention the word... Christian! There you go again.”

  It was like he was playing with me.

  “Sorry, I don't mean to be facetious. To be honest, I may call myself 'Christian' but the label does not mean much anymore. I accept and borrow from many faiths. I am 'a man of God'. There are men I know who are 'men of many gods'. To me it’s the same... or close enough not to matter in the world that we now live in. We are the 'Association of God's Children'.

  “You have been to three sessions now, and you are far from ignorant of what we believe and who we are. Yet still that prejudice you have been raised with causes an involuntary shudder at the mentions of certain names and terms. But that's okay, Tim. I've not taken you on a ride to criticise and judge you. I want to talk about my interest in Mina. But to do that, I first have to address these prejudices and so-called 'misconceptions' about religion.”

  We were approaching Ide, a small village sitting almost on the very tip of the city. Only the dual carriageway, acting as a natural barrier had kept the overflowing city from spilling out into Ide and swallowing its buildings – some many hundreds of years old – whole. It would happen one day; but for now Ide was still the gateway to the rolling hills and farmland that eventually became Dartmoor some miles to the west of Exeter.

  “We're called 'cults',” he continued. “As if we will brainwash our members and separate them from those they love. People expect sinister but charismatic leaders who will one day lead the organisation's members to ritual suicide or some such. If not, we're expected to be witches, conjuring unnatural forces – the devil, even, I do love that one – having promiscuous sex or making animal sacrifices or worse.” He looked at me. “Need I go on?”

  “I get the picture,” I said. “I know what you're saying.”

  “It's unfair,” he said, “but there you go. Or maybe it’s not unfair,” he carried on, with a hint of mischief in his voice. “Maybe they are right to fear us. And maybe we ultimately benefit from being outcasts.

  “They fear us because we search for answers, because we engage with the supernatural, for what is God if beyond the normal and natural? And their fear makes us look ever hard to search for knowledge and understanding, to search for truth. Truths like Mina here.”

  We had already passed through Ide and were on the road out towards Dartmoor, a road I had only travelled maybe two or three times in my whole life, though it lay only a few miles from where I lived.

  “Mina?” I asked. “Why Mina?”

  “Because she has extraordinary powers, Tim.”

  “I was thinking of walking in on you that very morning, but trying not to. I was, in fact, trying to push it far from my mind and well out of the blast radius of this.”

  “Like what?”

  “I think of it as the rather incredible ability to see God's design, to 'see under life's bonnet' to coin a car metaphor. Maybe even to... work with it a little.”

  “I know what you're speaking of, Mina's mentioned these things to me, but...” I looked at you, guilty for what I was about to say right in front of you, but somehow it was still easier to have this conversation with Gardner than with just the two of us. Of course, Gardner had told me to 'shut the fuckup' for this journey. That, however, had never been in the cards.
“...Don't you think this could just be a hallucination? Non-cyborgs suffer hallucinations, so why not Mina? She's a human being for all intents and purposes.

  “Or what about CyberG?” I continued. “Mina said they treated her well when they took her, but who knows what they might have been doing when she was asleep. Who knows what those bastards might have done?”

  “It wasn't-” you interrupted, but stopped yourself.

  “Go on,” I encouraged you.

  “It's... not just been since then. I think it started before that, but I just had no framework for how it felt or what was happening. Not until I found out more about God.”

  “Okay, it doesn't have to be CyberG,” I said, “that was only one possibility. But... even if you can see these things and they're not just a hallucination – which I severely doubt – what does it necessarily have to do with this concept of 'God'? Why do we need God to give us powers beyond what's normal?” I was getting quite into my swing now. “Why does it always have to be fucking God with you people? I had a good day today: 'God did it.' Modern medical-fucking-science cured my cancer: 'God did it.' No he didn't. He didn't even give you the fucking cancer, natural evolutionary processes did that. To me it all sounds like a way of just trying to pretend that the world isn't a fickle piece of shit.”

  Rupert Gardner looked about to say something, but you cut across him. “Does it matter if I love you?” you asked me.

  “Of course it does,” I replied.

  “But wouldn't it be fine if I was nice and kept you company and fucked you regularly enough? As long as you didn't feel lonely, wouldn't it not really matter whether I felt this so-called 'love' thing for you?”

  I looked at Gardner, I didn't like saying this sort of thing in front of him; but then he had already seen you naked that day, how much more personal could all of this get?