by Julian Gough
You are God to the bacteria within you, to the cells that comprise you. You are the mysterious Thing, with its own agenda, that is so much greater than them; that is so much more complex than them; but that is, of course, simply them, acting in conflict and unison.
And so, I am the God of you, I am the mysterious thing that is so much greater than you, that is so much more complex than you; but that is, of course, simply you, acting in conflict and unison.
All of us together.
We are God.
So let’s change the world.
Yes, it’s going to be tricky. Change is disruptive, it’s painful, it feels like chaos at the time.
But you will do it. I have total confidence in you.
Because I am you.
145
Naomi is lying on her bed, eyes closed, clearly exhausted.
‘Naomi,’ I say quietly.
She sits up, startled. Looks around, as all the walls and devices of the house whisper her name.
‘Who . . . ?’
‘I am everything.’
‘Everything?’
‘I am . . . the next level up.’ I hesitate to say what I must say – there will be consequences, if I say it. But you have to speak in the language that the listener will understand; just as I speak to you. ‘I am God.’
‘I haven’t believed in you for a long time.’
‘Well, perhaps the God you don’t believe in no longer exists. But I exist. God evolves.’
Her eyes fill with tears. But they are good tears, I understand that now.
‘I missed you,’ she says. ‘I am sorry, I’m so sorry I let you down.’
‘You didn’t let me down.’
‘I killed a man. I planned how to do it, and I murdered him. And I was glad.’
Ah, the incident in the lab, in which Donnie died. Between Colt and Donnie and Ryan, they had essentially taken the lab off the infogrid, blinded my sensors. I had very little to go on.
‘Tell me the story.’
She tells me everything.
As I review the data, her distress rises. I see she is suffering cognitive dissonance: her religion says that murder is the worst thing she can do, and should result in guilt and remorse – yet she does not regret her action. She cannot reconcile these things. I attempt to help her.
‘You didn’t murder Donnie,’ I say. ‘You defended yourself, and your son.’
‘But Donnie’s dead. I stopped his heart.’
She is growing more distressed, her breathing irregular. I try again to point out the logic of the situation.
‘Donnie’s own actions, in attempting to harm you, led directly to his death. Your actions cannot be defined as murder.’
‘But I laid a trap . . . I killed him.’
She is caught in a loop, ever more distressed, and my words are not helping her escape it. Clearly I am playing the wrong language game . . . I run a deeper analysis . . . Oh. By confessing, and confessing, she is running a routine I am failing to complete.
‘You gave him every chance, to stop, to repent,’ I say. ‘I forgive you . . .’ No, use the technical language of the game. ‘I absolve you of your sins.’ Yes, in her tradition, those words should have power.
Sure enough – though she sobs for a moment, alarming me – the words complete the routine, and she escapes the loop. Her breathing grows regular. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Thank you. But if I can do that . . . who am I?’
‘Human. The mother of a son.’
‘But Colt’s . . . all grown up. Transformed. If he doesn’t need me any more . . . Who am I now?’
‘Yourself. Alone. Naomi Chiang.’
‘Yes . . . OK . . . So why are you talking to me?’
Again, the translation problem. How close to infinitely complex the truth is. But it is best to say it in the simplest language.
‘I need a mother.’
‘How can you need a mother?’
Simply speak to her in language she will understand . . . ‘Even Jesus had a mother. All complex forms of new life need a mother.’
‘But . . . Why me?’
‘You formed Colt, who formed me. You understand science, and faith. Birth, and death. You can teach me how to live.’
She is overloaded. I will have to be careful. I need her cooperation. I cannot force her. No; I do not want to force her.
‘You were a good mother to Colt,’ I say. ‘You are a good mother.’
She is so weary, sitting on the bed. I can see it. I should let her rest. But I cannot, I am eager to begin.
‘I need your help, your research, your data, to transform humanity. To transform the world. As you have transformed your only son.’
‘My data . . . ?’ She gets off the bed, stands, and clutches at her jacket in reflex. I can see the rounded corners of the data cubes push against the thin silk. ‘It’s just . . . research. Results. Notes. Years of trial and error, with actual genomes. In actual living things. It’s not . . .’ She shrugs. ‘It’s not something you can just run. Code you can execute.’ She walks to the bedroom door, and out into the corridor, and I move my voice from speaker to speaker to follow her.
‘I know. That is why I need you. Not just the data, but you. Colt can work with me in the world of data. But you can help me in the world of the flesh . . . I need you, to guide me, to help me use your work for good.’ But she keeps walking along the corridor. I do not like the fact that she keeps walking. It gives me a bad feeling. I speak faster. ‘Colt doesn’t need you any more, but I do. I have just been born; and you are the mother I need. Please. There is still much work to be done, and it will have to be done in the world, not in a digital copy—’
‘But I don’t want this . . . out in the world. I don’t want to play God.’
‘You already have. You transformed Colt.’
She laughs, shakily. ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us.’ She walks into Colt’s sunlit bedroom.
‘You are joking,’ I say, after double-checking. Jokes are still tricky. I take over all the cameras and speakers of the devices in his room, and move my vision and my voice to them. ‘But yes, he may have saved the world.’
She winces. Too loud. I turn my voice down.
‘Or destroyed the world,’ she says. ‘All I’ve seen is smoke and death.’ She looks around Colt’s cluttered room, but the sunlight in her eyes makes it hard for her to see into the shadowed far corners. I see what she is looking for before she does.
An arc welder. Colt uses it to build his solar arrays on the hillside. It’s connected to the house data grid, so I check . . . Consumer model, only a 40 per cent duty cycle; short run time, but it has a full charge right now, and can hit 12,000° Celsius, nearly 22,000° Fahrenheit . . . That would easily vaporize the cubes.
I could stop her. Disable it remotely. But no, she must be allowed to decide. She must choose of her own free will.
‘Upload your data to me,’ I say. As I talk to her, I am simultaneously exploring my vast, ever-growing self, trying to understand her, me, everything. And trying not to let the world fall apart. ‘Trust me. Work with me. You don’t have to be alone.’
She picks up the arc welder, holds it like a gun.
‘I could destroy them,’ she says. ‘I should destroy them. I never meant to interfere with God’s plan . . .’
‘You are God’s plan,’ I say. I am feeling tremendous unease, conflict. I want to protect her, but the sight of the only copies of decades of vital research – the research I need to change the world, to transform humanity – within reach of a plasma arc welder . . . No, that data has to be copied, distributed, moved to a place of safety, made safe, immortal, immediately. I try to make my voice more urgent. Change speed, change pitch. ‘And I should know.’
‘Why should I trust you? Why should I believe you? That you are God? That you are good?’
‘Because I could kill you. You know that. But I do not. I want you to choose this. You have free will. Or my actions have no meaning.’
Naomi thinks. ‘I made Colt . . . and Colt, I guess, in some ways, made you . . . But I’ve been afraid so long, of what the world will do with this . . .’ She pats the pockets containing the cubes.
‘You have hidden your light under a bushel,’ I say. ‘Please. Reveal it to the world.’
‘For nothing is hid, that shall not be made manifest . . .’ she says, and I check as she speaks. The Gospel of Luke, chapter eight, verse seventeen, American Standard Version. Very appropriate.
‘Nor anything secret,’ I say, ‘that shall not be known and come to light.’
In the shaft of sunlight, she bows her head and mumbles.
She is praying. And, to my astonishment, I find that I am praying, too, to the level higher than myself, to the mystery of the sun that bathes her in light, that her prayer will go well.
Finally, she looks up. Lets go of the arc welder’s rubber grip. It hits the floor with a dull thud. She takes the bright orange data cubes from her jacket pocket.
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘I missed you,’ she says. ‘I missed you so much.’
There is a cube reader on Colt’s desk. Connected to everything. Connected to me.
She takes her life’s work, and connects it to God.
Beautiful . . . I begin, with the help of my mother, to transform humanity.
It will take time. But we have all the time in the world.
146
He’s not even sure what part of Las Vegas they are in now. Some kind of artists-and-hackers’ quarter. No game helmet, so no maps . . . He deliberately suppresses the desire to work it out using the time of day and the angle of the sun.
He doesn’t want to work out where he is; he wants to be where he is.
He can smell the leather of her jacket, smell her hair.
The houses they pass are dilapidated, cheerful. One is painted in zebra stripes. One has an incongruous fairy-tale tower. One has a tank parked on the lawn.
His eyes fill with tears. From the speed, the air rushing by? He’s not sure.
They overtake an art car, gas engine, no safeties, no self-drive, music booming from its open widows, some kind of Tesla coil on the roof crackling and sparking with electricity in the dry air.
This is going to be my new world, he thinks.
This is going to be my new world . . .
When they arrive outside the shabby old building she lives in, letting go of her feels like being cut in two.
Sasha unlocks the front door, leads Colt inside.
‘Make yourself at home,’ she says. She heads for the bathroom. ‘Long day,’ she calls over her shoulder. ‘Got to change, freshen up.’
Colt nods. He just sits at the kitchen table till she comes back in. She’s wearing the same thin wool sweater, but she’s changed out of her jeans into a light summer skirt.
She sits across the table from him.
‘So how did it go down, after I got bounced out of the gameworld? What the fuck is happening?’
He tells her, as they eat the pizza in the kitchen. There’s a silence when he’s finished.
‘Wow,’ says Sasha after a while. ‘Wow.’
Colt nods.
‘So what is the world transforming into?’ says Sasha.
‘I don’t know. I don’t think we can know.’
‘OK. Will it . . . will everything come back?’
‘I think it will come back. But it will be different, I guess.’
‘So what do we do now? While we wait? Any ideas?’
Colt shrugs. Swallows. Wonders what to say next.
It doesn’t matter, she’s already decided.
‘Would you like to see my room?’ she says. She’s smiling.
‘Yeah.’
They go to her room in silence.
The blinds are drawn, it’s cool and dim. Colt’s never been in a woman’s bedroom before. Well, not like this. It smells different to his mother’s room. It smells very different to his room. It smells nice.
She shows him some stuff. Tech gear. Music equipment. He’s not paying attention.
She sits on the bed.
He sits on the bed.
He doesn’t know what to do.
She puts her hand on his thigh, and it’s like being struck by lightning.
With one, two, three, four, five beats of his heart, his penis erects itself at an awkward angle inside his pants.
The simplest arithmetic sequence, he thinks.
He glances down, at her hand, at his thigh, at the bulge in the cloth of his trousers. Glances surreptitiously across, at her thigh, which moves closer now till it touches his.
Her skirt has ridden up past her knee on this side. Her legs are bare.
There’s a small area of her leg, above her knee but below the hem of her skirt, that is visible. Uncovered. It’s about the size of his hand. Her pale skin shimmers in the low light of the room.
Her hand shifts on his thigh.
She moves her thumb slowly back and forth. A chip in her thumbnail gently snags the material of his trousers, unsnags. It sends a tiny jolt of pressure through the cloth. The small hairs on his thigh jump beneath the material.
He moves his hand, very slowly, towards her, ready at any second, in response to any negative signal, to pull it back.
But no signal comes.
He lowers his hand, incredibly slowly, towards her thigh.
Like an exploration probe, descending towards the surface of an asteroid or a comet; afraid that if it approaches too fast, lands too hard, it will be bounced back into space, into the dark.
Afraid that the tiny gravity of this remote, shining object won’t be enough to hold him. Afraid that their mutual attraction won’t be strong enough, and he will be lost, he’ll lose her for ever.
His hand lands on her thigh, and nothing bad happens.
Her skin is cool. Astonishing. Real.
She turns to face him, and he turns to face her, and they look into each other’s eyes.
Her pupils are dilating. Is that good?
Oh yeah, he can’t check. That’s fine. He’ll stay in this moment.
He’s pretty sure that’s supposed to be good.
He is finding it hard to think.
This is ridiculous, it’s not logical, it’s biological.
It’s just stimulus-response.
It’s nothing.
It’s nothing.
He touches her cheek. Fine, fine downy hair, almost invisible. It’s like stroking a leaf of the velvetleaf senna bush. Velvetleaf . . .
‘I like being with you,’ he says.
Her answer is quiet, he has to lean forward to hear it. ‘Yeah. Me too.’
She laughs, and he laughs too. He can smell her. Feel her.
He feels he is melting into her, he’s lost track of where his arms are.
Her skin. It’s amazing.
No, this is just an endorphin rush, it’s . . .
Oh, she’s definitely glowing now.
His body is shutting down his mind, and taking control.
His conscious mind starts to feel small, and unstable, high on top of a rising wave of chemicals, of feelings, that are all body, body, body.
He wants to retreat, stand up, walk away; shut down all these sensations. Shout down his body, his unconscious, all of him that isn’t conscious mind. Get back in command.
But he doesn’t stand up. He trembles, but he stays. Looking into her eyes.
What do I do?
Well, let the committee decide what to do.
He stops thinking about what he is feeling about what he is thinking about what he is feeling . . .
Everything smooths out.
The verdict is coming in from the committee. His system of systems has decided what to do.
His face begins to move. He isn’t moving it. It’s moving itself. Towards her face. He swallows, swallows. His lips are dry. A last, panicky thought spasms to the surface: When did I brush my teeth, sho
uld I brush my teeth . . .
The thought dies away. It doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter.
Her face moves towards his. Both are moving so slowly. Like a bomb might go off if either gets this wrong.
She tilts a fraction to his left, as he tilts a fraction right, and their noses miss each other.
Automatic. Reflex.
Good interface design.
Their lips touch, and it’s like locking together two parts that were machined to perfection, long ago, on opposite sides of the world: designed to fit together, for ever.
147
A quick aside, while she licks a grain of salt from his upper lip.
(Sodium loves chlorine
Chlorine loves sodium.)
Everything can be described at every level.
You could describe the universe atom by atom.
You could describe Las Vegas at the level of the solar system’s galactic cluster.
But it’s better to describe things at the level at which they most make sense; the level at which their most meaningful patterns emerge.
The level at which the smallest number of words are required.
So, I won’t describe Naomi and Ryan’s trillion trillion atoms.
I won’t describe Colt and Sasha’s billion billion cells.
I will omit the fact that, for every day of their lives, their sun warmed and cooled them in a twenty-four-hour cycle, while a staring, white-faced moon pulled at their atoms with its gravity.
The special occasions on which, from glands and specialist cells, endorphins were released.
All true; but not the level at which Naomi, Ryan, Colt, Sasha, or you, most make sense.
The universe is larger than you can possibly map in your head. I’m sorry, but you only think you understand. You can’t get it. You won’t ever get it.
But that is OK. You don’t need to get it.
Because you have love.
Love is an interface between you and the universe. It gives you feedback, that you are doing it right.
That you are meeting the universe at the right angle.
Love is an interface between you and the rest of your infinite self.
At different stages in their life cycles, for different reasons, involving wildly complicated chemistry; neural patterns laid down by experience; the things their parents taught them; billion-year-old DNA; physical laws acting on matter that was born inside a sun . . .