by Carol Davis
It wouldn’t matter, he told himself. Once he was immersed, he’d be alone anyway.
He found a seat in the middle of the auditorium, in between two other men (both of whom looked somewhat older than he was, and a good deal more tired), and he settled in quickly. The entire group seemed quiet, much less chatty than the evening group he was used to, and he wondered for a moment if this shift had seen a lot of disappearances.
Maybe it was just that they worked during the night, and slept during the day.
His heart stuttered as the lights went down, and he had to force himself to relax. For the first time he realized how valuable it had been to have Ben nearby, to have anyone familiar nearby. He glanced at the man to his right, not sure what he was hoping to see in the stranger’s face, but the man ignored him.
All right. It’s… all right.
He reached the field without trouble, and it was the same as always. The landscape changed a little, now and then: sometimes he added more flowers, or made them a different color, or made the stream larger. The birdsong could be farther away, the ground a little more rolling. But by and large it was the same, and there was a lot of comfort in that familiarity. Maybe too much, now that things on the outside were different – now that Ben was gone. Now that so many were gone.
Lida would be there when he went home, he told himself. She never went to the theater; there was no chance she’d disappear.
For a long while he walked alongside the stream, examining the plants and rocks along its banks. He had always loved the way the water bubbled and rolled, the way it caught the sunlight and glistened.
He loved the flowers, too – how delicate and intricate they were.
Beautiful.
All of it. The colors, the textures, the sounds.
This was an incredibly beautiful place, one that calmed his soul. He’d never found it boring, had never been tempted to create something different. Why do that, when small adjustments could make it new and fresh? Why abandon it altogether? It was familiar, pleasant, comforting. He tried to smile as he sat down cross-legged alongside the stream. A moment of looking located a couple of smooth pebbles that he pried from the ground. He held them in his palm, admiring the streaks of color in the stone, then flicked them into the water and grinned at the tiny geysers they created when they landed.
There was no trouble here. No danger.
You could stay here forever, suggested a small voice in his head.
He’d thought that a couple of times before. If he could manipulate the color of the flowers and the size of the stream, surely he could – with a little practice – tinker with time itself. Make the amount of time he spent here seem endless, even though in the real world it was only an hour. The entire thing was just an exercise in perception, after all.
There’s nothing to eat in here.
Then create something. You have the power. You can create anything you like.
He glanced at the ground to his left. A small patch of tiny blue flowers was growing there. With a blink, he made them yellow.
With another blink, he added small fish to the stream. Then he added a few more small, drifting clouds to the sky, turned the sky a slightly richer blue, added some more rocks to the stream bed, made the breeze a little stronger.
A small packet appeared beside him: a lunch.
“Huh,” said a voice behind him.
He was startled enough that it froze him. He couldn’t turn, couldn’t even begin to consider scrambling to his feet, so he sat there, hands trembling in his lap as Ben sat down beside him. It was all very casual, as if he and Ben had planned that Ben would come here at a particular time. That they’d have lunch together.
“This isn’t exactly a bold step,” Ben said.
Eli tried to speak, and couldn’t.
Smiling, Ben plucked up some pebbles and began tossing them into the stream. He seemed to be trying to hit one of the rocks that jutted up above the surface of the water; some of his tosses missed by a little bit, while others hit the mark.
“You’re dependable,” Ben said. “It makes you a good worker.”
“What would it accomplish if I wasn’t?”
“I don’t know. That’s the real question, isn’t it?”
Eli shook his head. This isn’t fair, he told himself. He’d never brought people into his creation, never once. As he’d told Lida, it wasn’t right to use people as if they were dolls, existing only for his pleasure, able to be manipulated exactly as he chose. Ben’s being gone didn’t make the situation any different.
Ben held out a hand. Instead of pebbles, he was holding a ball. “Feel like a game?” he asked.
“I think you should go.”
“If you really wanted that, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.”
“I can make you go.”
“I’m you, Eli. I’m part of your mind. All of this is part of your mind.”
“Of course it is. I know that.”
Nodding, Ben got up and brushed dirt off his pants. He was wearing his worker’s uniform and boots, the outfit Eli most frequently saw him in. He looked ready to take his place on the production line. Like nothing had changed.
“Ask me anything,” Ben offered.
Eli peered up at him, squinting against the sun. “I want you to go.”
“No you don’t.”
“I wanted to relax. You’re not helping me relax.”
“You wanted to relax. But you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You should be at work. Or you should be at home, resting. But you couldn’t resist using the token. It’s your small rebellion, isn’t it? Your job is always the same, day after day. And your frustration with Lida is always the same, but you can’t work up the courage to tell her you want to end it and find someone else. You’re a man of small movements, Eli. Someone who’s never going to stir up trouble.”
Ben paused for a moment. Then he said, “You’re never going to scream.”
Eli ignored him. He turned his head just enough that Ben passed out of his peripheral vision and he could focus on the bubbling water. On the flowers growing on the far bed of the stream.
On the breeze and the birdsong.
“Where is this place, Eli?” Ben asked.
“It’s in my mind,” Eli said.
Ben inhaled a deep lungful of air and let it out slowly. Eli could hear it, and it didn’t surprise him. He remembered Ben breathing, so of course Ben would breathe here, and do it noisily, as he’d always done. Ben did everything noisily, because he wanted to be noticed. Wanted to be seen. Remembered.
“There are no birds in the quad,” Ben said.
“Of course there are.”
“When have you ever seen a bird? Or a fish? Or a flower, for that matter? When have you ever seen green grass, or a stream? There’s no body of water in the quad, Eli. There are no animals. Just buildings. And people. And dust. Let’s not forget that ever-present, ever-annoying dust.”
Eli turned more firmly away, but Ben moved back into his field of vision. “When have you ever seen a bird, Eli?” he demanded. “Tell me.”
“Go away, Ben.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know!”
Ben sat down again. Now, he was holding a bottle of second label water, identical to the one he’d brought to the theater the other day. “No, you don’t, do you?” he said softly. “It’s all the marvel of human imagination, they tell you. Look at what fabulous things you can conjure up! Isn’t the brain a fantastic thing?”
“It is,” Eli said.
“Hmm,” Ben replied.
Then he was gone.
The bottle of water was still there, though, lying on its side in the grass. Eli picked it up and turned it over and over in his hands, studying the pale blue label, noting that the seal had been broken and a couple of sips taken out of the bottle. It was the bottle Ben had given him the other day, he realized, and he himself had taken those few sips that were gone.
This was water.
The water he understood. In bottles like this.
Ben was right: there were no streams anywhere in the quad. No natural bodies of water of any kind. But somehow he had known what a stream was, what it was called, what it looked like, how the water in it ought to move, how it ought to reflect the sunlight. The bubbling water in front of him, traveling over a bed of silty mud and small stones, wasn’t something he’d pulled out of his imagination.
So what was it, really?
Where was it?
With his heart thudding behind his ribs he dropped the bottle into the grass, then stepped down into the stream. The water was cold, enough so that it made him shudder and wrap his arms around himself. He stood there for a minute, then sat down in it and let it flow around his body. There was a power in that flow, more than he’d expected there would be – and yet it wasn’t a surprise.
It felt right.
Like flowing water ought to feel.
All of this, in fact – the grass, the trees, the sky, the birds – was how it ought to be. How it was, in some other place.
His mind was spinning as he flung himself backwards and lay down on the bed of the stream. He was completely submerged, watching the water flow above him, watching the clouds drift across the sky through that meandering filter of liquid. And this too felt right. Not surprising, not unfamiliar. This was what it should feel like to be underwater. What it had felt like to be underwater.
In another place.
You’ve never seen blue sky. The sky is never blue. Why would you come here and create a blue sky?
And flowers?
What are flowers? What are birds?
Why have you never questioned any of this?
Why have you never questioned ANYTHING?
He sat up again because he had to, because his lungs were straining for air, because he had to sit up or drown.
But was that possible?
To die here, in this place that had been his refuge, the place he had conjured up out of his own imagination? A place where the sky was the wrong color, and water flowed in great quantities across the ground, where there were tiny blossoming plants and small, fantastic animals the likes of which didn’t exist anywhere in his quad… or any other quad?
Where is this place?
He said it aloud then, as he climbed to his feet soaking wet, water coursing off his clothes and his skin and his hair; said it aloud because he had to, because Ben was right, he was not at all creative, he had no imagination to speak of, certainly not enough to have created a place like this out of whole cloth.
“WHERE IS THIS PLACE?!?”
He cried it out to the sky, to the farthest reach of what he could see. Over and over he asked the same question, understanding in some vague, fluttering way that there was an answer, and that he himself knew what it was.
“WHERE…”
~~~~
He felt himself being lifted. From where, he wasn’t sure. His body, his consciousness, didn’t seem fully formed, as if he was dreaming.
Others were there.
He felt himself moving up and out, felt the impact of small obstacles, heard the mutter of voices.
Heard his own voice.
Screaming.
There were more obstacles, things bumping against his limbs, his torso, but he kept moving, accompanied by shrieks of protest. His voice? Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was someone else.
He kept moving. Moving. A long way.
He heard voices. Other sounds. Something heavy made a thump. Then he was falling, and the ground hit him hard. It felt good, for a moment, not to be moving, because the movement spun his mind, made it impossible for him to get a grasp on which way was up. Instinctively he wrapped himself into a ball, head tucked in, babbling now, wanting to be away, out of this, to be warm and not in pain.
“They won’t be happy,” a voice said. “Look at him. He’s pissed all over himself.”
And another voice replied, “Not our problem. Nobody said we ought to clean ’em up first. Just do it.”
His head was roaring. His neck felt like it was on fire.
“He’s not calm yet.”
“You want to give him some warm milk and a hug?”
“You know the transition’s easier if they’re calm. What does it hurt to wait another couple of minutes?”
Something warm came to rest on the back of Eli’s head. Something gentle, comforting. A hand? Yes, it felt like a hand.
“Rest easy, now,” said a voice that seemed to go with the hand. “Relax.”
The hand stroked his hair.
“Do I die now?” Eli whispered. But maybe he hadn’t said it aloud. Maybe he’d said it only to himself. It didn’t seem to matter; the hand just went on caressing him, soothing him, as if he were a small child, or a pet.
What’s…?
“We need to get this moving.”
“All right,” said the voice that belonged to the hand. “All right, then. I just wish this didn’t need to be so rough.”
“If wishes were horses,” the other voice replied. “Get him into the damned chamber.”
Then he was moved again. Lifted, bundled, lifted into a place that seemed confined. This is the end of it, his mind said, and somehow that seemed all right – like it felt all right to go to sleep at night, because his day’s work had been completed. Because he’d done everything he was supposed to do.
This is when I die, he told himself.
Somehow, that seemed all right.
~~~~
He was being moved again. Manipulated. Every inch of him burned, hot and cold at the same time.
Am I dead?
“Easy, now. All right? This will end.”
End? And then what?
He was lying on his back, on something solid. Something warm lay on top of him, something with weight. The word blanket drifted through his mind, but that didn’t seem right. Before he could question it, his hand was surrounded and lifted and his fingers were moved. A voice said some words he couldn’t hold on to long enough to make sense of them. He couldn’t make sense of any of it, really.
If he was dead, shouldn’t they be leaving him alone?
The voice spoke again. Maybe it was a different voice. “The memory blocking chip was removed without complication. His core temperature is nearing normal – all progress is as expected. We’ll be checking vision, hearing and reflexes in a few minutes.”
“Good.”
What…?
“Have his next of kin been notified?”
“Yes. They’ll be here in the morning. They were anxious to come sooner, but they were told that he needs to rest.”
Next…? What…?
A powerful shudder ran through him, almost a convulsion. When it stopped, he felt a little more connected.
Closer to… what? The world?
“Mr. Christopher. Can you hear me?”
That’s… yes. That’s my name.
He struggled to open his eyes, managed to crack the lids slightly. Light flooded in, too much of it to bear, and he pressed his lids shut again. Close by, someone made what sounded like a chuckle. Like this was amusing in some way. He heard footsteps approaching, someone wearing boots or very solid shoes, and he could tell that the person ended up standing within arm’s reach of him.
“Welcome back, Worker,” an officious voice said. “We want to thank you for your service on Field Production Base Four, and for the sacrifice you’ve made during the past two years. We understand the challenges involved, and assure you that the entire planet is grateful for your contribution to our continuing energy needs.”
The shoes clattered away.
Field Production…?
Again, he tried to open his eyes, this time with more success. Not that he could see much; he was looking at what seemed to be a ceiling, all of it pale blue and featureless. When he tried to turn his head to the side, his neck protested ferociously enough to make him wince.
“You’ll need to take it slowly for a few hours, Mr. Chri
stopher,” a voice said. “Give your body a chance to acclimate.”
To get used to being dead?
“What a waste of time.” There were footsteps, then something wrapped around Eli’s upper arm – a grasp that felt familiar. Hands pulled him upright, into a sit, and he struggled to make his eyes focus as shapes moved around him: one close by, the one that was moving him, and others that seemed to be trying to interfere.
“Mr. Ellard,” a voice said sternly. “This isn’t protocol.”
Mr. …Ellard?
Ben?
He squinted, stretched his eyelids open wide, tried desperately to focus. Finally, his eyes cooperated.
“Ben,” he rasped.
It was Ben, standing alongside him, smiling, dressed in unfamiliar clothes. He looked at ease, healthy, very much not dead. The hand that was wrapped around Eli’s biceps was warm, its grip firm and sure.
“How ’bout you get out of bed, Worker?” he said in a mocking tone. “Or are you gonna go along with protocol?”
“I don’t–”
“Mr. Ellard.”
That was a nurse, Eli could see now: a blonde woman in a crisp white uniform, very much offended by Ben’s having barged in here. Wherever “here” was. Her arms were clamped across her chest, her lips clamped tightly together.
“How ’bout we bust out of here?” Ben said.
A minute later (a minute that seemed to be composed entirely of whirlwind) they were at the far end of a corridor, standing in front of a wall made entirely of glass – a wall beyond which lay a broad lawn of bright green grass bordered by flower beds. Visible at the horizon was a stripe of bright blue sky. Still wobbly, Eli stood staring at it, wondering whether he was still in the theater; whether his excursion had gone wrong somehow and was now, finally, settling into something that wasn’t completely terrifying.
“Do you know where you are?” Ben asked quietly.
“I… no. I don’t. Think so.”
“This doesn’t look familiar.”
Eli thought of the quad, of every bit of it that he’d seen since he began working. Plain gray buildings, all sharp angles of constone and glass. Gray streets. Small parks with rows of benches that were seldom used because of the relentless beating-down of the sun. There was no green there. There were no plants – at least, none outside of the nursery facility. There were certainly no flower beds.