by Guy Garcia
Tom put aside the drawings and reopened the zeph.r program folder, scouring the files for clues to what had just transpired. Working backward, he could almost trace the line of reasoning, several styles of programming converging in a core microwave frequency generator surrounded by audio and visual tools and controls and, in some cases, slightly modified versions of the same program.
Then it hit him. So obvious, it had been right under his nose all along: the format of the file was part of its instruction manual. It was a test, and he knew the Meta Militia was waiting to give him his score.
Tom opened the 4chan/mm/ channel and initiated the request for a chat with mm629. The response came almost instantly.
mm629: hi swarm—did u enjoy the ride?
Swarm1209: wtf is zeph.r? where did it come from? who are you?
mm629: lol. You took a little trip into the wormhole
Swarm672: I guess you could say that
mm629: then you already know who we are. the medium, in more ways than one, is the message
Swarm2636: zeph.r is unfinished, isn’t it?
mm629: please explain.
Swarm3007: that’s why you gave it to me. u want me to finish the code. u want me to help u make it fully operational
mm629: did you hear that?
swarm8729: hear what?
mm629: applause and champagne corks popping ;) our faith in your cognitive acumen was not misplaced
swarm7877: tell me who you are. i dont care what yr name is. how did you get this? are you the architect?
mm629: i didn’t do it alone. i was one of many
swarm7511: was?
mm629: i’m with Meta now. we don’t answer to anybody
swarm4018: if you trust me with the zeph.r software, then the least you can do is tell me what it’s for
For almost a minute, there was no response. Then mm629 resumed the thread.
mm629: we think the less u know, the better for everybody
swarm6199: I deserve the truth
There was pause, shorter this time.
mm629: the people responsible for the initial development of zeph.r were motivated by fear, and fear begets death, and death must have consequences
swarm8908: that’s not an answer
mm629: all that matters is what u do next, swarm. that’s why we chose u to take zeph.r to the people. use zeph.r to open their eyes, make them see
swarm7355: what makes you so sure i will?
mm629: because now you know zeph.r is too potent for any single entity to own or control, because you feel the change coming, because you are the change coming, because there’s no turning back, not 4 u, not 4 anybody
swarm4835: u make it sound like a war
mm629: listen harder
mm629 has logged off
Tom was still staring at the screen when a familiar gait drew his attention to the window. Xander’s vault over the sill was even jauntier than usual. He opened his hand to reveal a thumb drive.
“What’s this for?”
“It’s a copy of “Stardust,” Xander explained. “It’s the new single I want to break in Las Vegas. I want you to design the video graphics and the app. There’s also a program in there for live visual effects that’s pretty cool.”
Tom started to plug the thumb drive into his computer.
“Do that later,” Xander said, grabbing Tom’s hoodie and tossing it on his lap. “We’ve got things to do.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see. Our carbon frame steeds await.”
Xander looked at the drawing of Tom’s zeph.r vision on the desk. “That’s cool,” he said. “Can you make an animation of that for ‘Stardust’?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Awesome. It’s perfect for the track. I’m using an Omnisphere.”
“An Omni what?”
“It’s a program that let’s you play an instrument with the harmonic characteristics of any other. So you can play a guitar that sounds like a piano and drums that sound like a sax. It can inject voice effects too.”
“That sounds sick, Xan.”
“It is. But right now, brother, we gotta get moving.”
It was a clear, breezy evening, perfect weather for an impromptu outing. The bikes were waiting for them outside, and Xander watched approvingly as Tom gaped at his and ran his hand over the high-tech frame.
“Holy shit, Zan.”
“Pretty sweet, no? They’re Nashbar Carbon 105s. More than a grand each, but who’s counting. Are you ready to roll?”
“Hell yeah.”
Xander steered them in the direction of downtown, a trajectory that usually led them to a new bar or band. The interlocking sizzle-click of their gears, with Xander thrumming a counter-tempo on the handlebars, was a reassuring soundtrack. Tom discarded his initial annoyance at being hustled away from zeph.r. Getting outside his head and into the fresh air on a bike that he’d only seen in magazines was exactly what he needed. Xander produced a flask of rye whiskey, which the pals passed back and forth as they rode. Xander slowed and pointed to a billboard across the street. “Look at that. What do you see?”
“An ad for bacon cheeseburgers?”
“Look closer—at the shine on that juicy tomato, the glistening slab of meat wedged between two perfect brown buns. What do you see now?”
“Fast food porno?”
“Exactly!” Xander effused like a professor praising a clever student. “Just think about it—a photo that stimulates physical lust for something with no substance or redeeming social value. That’s the very definition of pornography. Yet it’s perfectly legal—even for children! My God, have they no shame!” This was one of Xander’s favorite personas: sardonic sociologist.
“That’s pretty deep, Xan,” Tom said. “I can’t wait to hear your Freudian analysis of KFC.”
“Oh, you just wait …” Xander’s coyote howl echoed off the stucco buildings as he zoomed ahead. Catching up, Tom asked, “So are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Sure, but first eat this.” Xander gave Tom a hand-wrapped energy bar and took one for himself. Tom bit and chewed warily. The granola and chocolate were real enough but there was also a gritty, earthy ingredient that Tom didn’t recognize.
“What’s this?”
“Some food for thought,” Xander answered. “Breakfast of champions.”
They rode and chewed without talking for a while. “I miss this,” Xander said. “We used to do it all the time, remember? Carefree compadres, going nowhere, everywhere.”
“That was before you got famous and the bikes got expensive.”
“And before you got a girlfriend. By the way, how is the eternally elusive Lucy in the Sky? Still hooking up for safe sex at the cyber Yotel?” Xander chuckled at his own joke. “Dude, I mean seriously, how can you even be sure that Lucy isn’t a guy, not that I personally give a shit.”
“How does she know I’m not a girl?”
“Ha—so true. What do you know about Critical Mass?”
“The bicycle flash mobs? Not much,” Tom lied. “I think it started in San Francisco. Green cyclists, anti-car activists who use their bikes to create giant traffic jams.”
“Not traffic jams,” Xander corrected. “Collective social engagements. They’ve got affiliates in hundreds of cities around the world.”
“Cyclo-guerrillas international,” Tom translated.
“Exactamente. The goal is to raise awareness for alternative energy sources and, of course, to have some fun along the way.”
“Like Swarm?”
“Not exactly. Have you ever been to a mutant vehicles rally?”
“No,” Tom said truthfully.
“Well, that, bro-migo, is about to change.”
They had arrived at the plaza bordering the east side of th
e Texas State Capitol Building. Already hundreds of bikers were milling around the visitor’s center and overflowing onto the sidewalks and parking lot. While bicycles dominated, there were also unicyclists, two-man go-karts covered in yellow fur, shopping carts rigged with blinking Christmas lights, almost anything and everything with wheels. Several people with portable boom boxes blasting various strains of EDM and a contingent of riders in nineteenth-century sporting attire added to the madcap atmosphere. Whenever a car tried to squeeze through the hubbub, a trio of stunt riders would rear up and twirl on their back tires to stop it, raising a chorus of whoops and cheers.
Xander surveyed the scene with impatience. “If we don’t mobilize,” he observed, “this thing will get busted before it even starts.” He produced an air horn from his backpack and let out a couple of authoritative honks. “Yee-haw!” Xander shouted. “Let’s ride, people!” Several bikes on the edge of the crowd sprang into motion, and the rest began to follow, a careening cavalcade spilling onto Congress Avenue and stopping traffic. The herd turned right, presumably with the goal of looping around Lavaca before charging into the tourist zone from the west.
“Shouldn’t we turn left?” Tom asked. “Aren’t you one of the leaders of this thing?”
Xander chuckled at the thought. “No, man,” he said. “You can’t publish a route map, because then the cops will know where to put the roadblocks. There’s a general idea, which is to get to Sixth Street, but the exact path is decided by whoever’s in front at any given time.”
“So the people in front are in charge?”
“Nobody’s in charge; everybody’s in charge.”
Tom found Xander’s comment incredibly, inexplicably hilarious. As he laughed too long and too hard, he felt a sudden weight of atmospheric pressure on his skin and a rolling wave of nausea emanating from his core. He noted that the leaves in the trees were completely translucent and everything around them, even the air, seemed tactile and sentient. Of course: the magic energy bar.
“Oh boy,” Tom said, leaning forward on his handlebars as the pavement under his tires seemed to bend with space-time.
“Yep,” Xander said.
As Swarm, Tom had instigated dozens of flash mobs, but this one was different. Everywhere around him, his fellow mutaneers were smiling, talking, singing, laughing, seemingly clueless and unconcerned about the how and when of their ultimate destination. This amorphous collective had a beginning and an end but no front, middle, or back. It had an objective but no preordained path. As the group rolled along, hundreds of other alt-bikers joined, some of them waving flashlights and holding signs that read “Drink, don’t drive” and “Gas fuels wars.” Someone had brought along a high-def mobile projector, and Tom turned to see a life-size blue whale undulating across the building facades like a gargantuan mascot. The whale’s eye peered at Tom, telling him, “Yes, go ahead. You’re on the right track; don’t look back.” He experienced a sensation of being levitated and propelled forward by something much bigger and deeper than a mushroom-spiked parade of provocateurs. So, he thought, this is what it’s like to be part of the organism, inside the spontaneous heart of the happening.
The neon signs were saturated and streaking as Tom pedaled, liberated and exhilarated, to drift along with the coursing congregation. Xander was just ahead, talking to a girl with pink and purple glow lights on her bike frame. He looked back to check on his pal. “Tommy, how are you doing back there?”
“I just had a great conversation with a whale.”
Xander grinned and turned his attention back to his comely companion. Tom felt an inexplicable surge of euphoria, a sudden flashback of what he had felt earlier in the day when he tested the zeph.r signal. This was the part he had forgotten when he blacked out: how good it felt—inside and outside and all around him. No wonder he had ejaculated; it was an involuntary reflex to something that had nothing to do with sex or cheeseburgers. His body was responding to a stimulus somehow connected to the essential chemistry of the human condition, both macro and micro, to everything and everybody pouring down the streets, spinning in tandem around him, to this.
A familiar halo of luxuriant blond hair floated into Tom’s view. It could only belong to one person in the entire world. And there she was, riding her bike just a few yards away. Lucy in the Sky. In the flesh. He even recognized the red sweater that she had worn to one of their Skype dates. Tom pedaled faster. How close could he get without revealing himself? Even after all these months, she still hadn’t seen his face. But if he caught up and looked at her, would she know?
The bikers lurched left on Sixth Street and surged toward Austin’s main drag, where bars, drunk revelers, and Friday night traffic would ensure maximum chaos and press coverage. Tom was just a few feet behind Lucy now. He was pulling up alongside, still debating whether to reach out to touch her hair and let her see him, when he saw the police barricades. The bike mob gave a collective shudder, splitting the main group and sending bikers spinning in all directions. Some of the riders sped up and charged directly into the police line, while others did everything they could to avoid it. Lucy was swept up by the panicking crowd and pushed away from his orbit. “Lucy!” Tom shouted. She turned but was already too far away to identify the caller—then she was gone.
The local TV stations had been tipped off and were already on the scene, setting up camera angles, blocking the sidewalks and adding to the confusion. Tom watched as an officer trotted into the first wave of bikes and tackled a rider like a linebacker, both of them hurtling to the ground in a bundle of fists and spinning wheels. On cue, dozens of bikers whipped out their phones and began to video the altercation, managing somehow to be participants and spectators simultaneously. Tom watched as the woman Xander had been talking to moved in closer to record the melee and started screaming, “Recording law enforcement officials in a public place is legal! You are the ones breaking the law!” Her shouts only enraged the officers further, and when they went after her, Xander sprinted to her defense. As Tom ran to back up his friend, he felt bulky arms gripping him from behind, dragging him back and pushing him into a police van. He tried to yell out, but the officer’s chokehold was squeezing his esophagus. As the vehicle pulled away in the tear gas haze, Tom got a last glimpse of Xander holding his ground against at least three police officers, whirling like a dervish and gathering speed in the eye of the cycle-strewn storm.
Tom’s mom bailed him out around midnight, but he had to wait until the next morning to visit Xander at the hospital. DJX had two cracked ribs, three sprained fingers, a black eye, and a busted lip. Bandages covered half his body, and his left arm was suspended in a splint, but considering the circumstances, as the doctor solemnly noted, he was a lucky man. True to form, Xander was in a sanguine mood.
Xander jiggled his arm sling in greeting. “Did you have fun last night?” he asked, lifting only the part of this mouth that wasn’t bruised. Tom pulled up a plastic visitors’ chair.
“Not as much as you.”
“True that.” Xander said. “Those bastards. It’s all over Twitter. There’s going to be an investigation.”
“What about the bikes?”
Xander waved beneficently with his good hand. “No worries, bro. We’ll get new ones, better ones. By the way, she looks really nice.”
“You saw Lucy?”
“Yeah, I saw your virtual squeeze. I’m just glad she’s not a figment of your imagination or some fat guy wearing his mom’s underwear.”
“Nah, that was the cop that clubbed me,” Tom said. “You could have warned me about the chocolate-mushroom bar.”
Xander jiggled his broken arm dismissively. “Where’s the fun in that?” He motioned to Tom to come closer. “Go to the closet and get my apartment keys out of my jeans.”
“You’re still high, aren’t you?”
“Shut up and listen to me,” Xander said, suddenly serious. “I want you to go my plac
e and get my hard drive and keep it safe until I’m out of here. Fabian says I’ll be fine in time for ARK, but I want you to have the master of ‘Stardust’ so the cops can’t confiscate it and you can make the visuals. Plus, you can start working on that app that embeds code into music. I left a Leap Motion controller for you, too.”
“What’s that?”
“Just take it, “ Xander ordered. “I’m trusting you with my music, Tommy. Make it great; make it amazing.”
“Don’t worry, buddy. I will.”
Tom did as Xander asked, fetching his friend’s hard drive and placing it on his workstation along with the thumb drive with the visual effects software, the Leap Motion controller, and the laptop loaded with zeph.r. Tom took off his hoodie, locked the door, and cracked open an energy drink. For the next several hours, he tinkered with the various programs, stitching them together and weaving their commands into a kind of binaural audio-visual device. The Leap Motion was the coup de grâce. By sensing and tracking the movements of human hands and fingers, it allowed Tom to not only manipulate visual effects but also to create shapes and images in three dimensions without even touching a keypad or mouse. Tom smiled at the thought: ten fingers, ten digits, digital. Tom put on his headphones and cued a 3-D rendition of the “Stardust” video graphic to the Leap Motion software. Then he lifted his hands toward the screen, which instantly sprang to life, awaiting his next instruction. As his extremities flexed and danced in the air, the pixels on the screen responded to his orchestral gestures, spiraling, spinning, and revealing a dazzling realm of infinite immersive possibility, one that he had somehow dreamed but never seen, a vast panorama that now, for the first time and forever, he could summon and command with his virtual fingertips, warping reality with a twist of his wrist, stopping and starting time with upraised palms, weeping as he felt himself morphing and merging with the machines around him like a deity who was finally, tentatively at first but with increasing aplomb and assurance, grasping the source of his nascent power and flowering intention.