by Kyte, Adrian
‘I just want to be returned to my old body. I have no strategy other than to seek freedom and enjoyment.’
The commander laughed uproariously. ‘You know what? I think I actually believe you.’
‘In that case, you must remove my other version unless you want the Elusivers to take control once again.’
The commander stroked his pointed chin. ‘I’m afraid that will not be quite so simple. Your … other version is in stasis, whilst a copy of his mind in running in a simulation of Earth.’
‘Fine. If Central Council are okay with that then so am I. Better that they are informed though.’
‘Mr Chanley, I shall see to it your stay here is as comfortable as possible. A new quarters has been assigned. I will personally keep you informed of events.’
The commander stood up, nodded to his guards. Roidon followed them out, disappointed and doubtful that the Council would even be informed of what he had told, much less that anything would change, at least if he did nothing. But then, would they really expect him to comply?
* * *
48
I can go back.
Roidon couldn’t stop him. No one could stop him. But right now Torbin could not face going back into that sweltering desert. Right now he was in an air-conditioned underground laboratory, sat in a relatively comfortable plastic chair with a glass of water he never imagined could taste so good. Roidon was seated at a work bench, running through some calculations. Torbin didn’t understand any of it. Apparently he was supposed to understand quite a lot about this stuff.
‘Your amnesia I’m sure is temporary,’ Roidon assured him.
‘How would you know that?’ Torbin questioned of the younger man.
‘I know about the crash.’
‘Crash?’
‘I read your employee psych report. Had to do a bit of digging into the system of course.’
‘I don’t remember any crash?’
Roidon nodded, again in that knowing way. ‘That’s because you have been suffering from amnesia.’
Torbin thought back over events of the previous weeks. He’d taken time off, that must be why. He was recovering. Could it be that he’d completely blanked the memory of an accident from his mind?
Roidon said, ‘I know this must be troubling for you. But I can assure you you will recover.’
Roidon seemed very confident. Yes, confident was the word to describe that man; it bellied his youthful appearance, which maybe he had mistaken for arrogance after all.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Roidon, but I really don’t think I am up to the job.’
‘Nonsense,’ came Roidon’s swift reply. ‘Take a look at these duotronic response figures.’
A mass of point numbers blossomed before him, plotted on a basic x & y graph – joined on a wavering line. What he saw made no sense, to begin with. But then something strange happened. There was a familiarity developing before him. These were references to time fractions. The horizontal line referred to graviton intensity, the vertical: generated power.
‘That’s time being slowed,’ Torbin realized ‘Those figures refer to photon velocity.’
‘Correct. But that’s just the start.’ Roidon waved his hand in a sweeping gesture, and a floating screen appeared. ‘I recorded my first successful temporal erasure experiment.’ It showed Roidon placing a child’s doll in the pod he’d previously seen. He then retreated to the console array and said, ‘Execute program alpha 48b.’ Then the camera turned back to the pod, focusing on the doll inside – an approximation of life that had a curiously macabre quality. It simply vanished, there was no flash or noise. The screen then disappeared.
‘What happened to it?’ Torbin asked.
‘That’s the thing,’ Roidon admitted. ‘I cannot be entirely sure. It may have been erased from time or simply to an earlier moment, whereupon it would simply be subject to the same experiment – in a temporal loop if you like. Accuracy is very much the missing factor here. It took hundreds of experiments – adjusting input levels – just to get that doll to disappear at all!’
‘Interesting.’
‘That was hardly worth noting,’ Roidon emphasized ‘You wouldn’t be quite so impressed if you’d remembered the work we’d previously done.’
‘You do look familiar to me,’ Torbin found himself saying. ‘I don’t quite understand, though. I remember my past. No, I think I … certain details aren’t there.’
‘That’s not important now. We should just focus on the future.
‘My future is not entirely this … project,’
‘It is more than merely a project, it is the future of humankind.’
Torbin raised himself off the chair. ‘Oh, how very … grandiose. Well, excuse me for not having a level of trust in you to go along with this … assignment. But really I’m not convinced.’
Roidon nodded in that familiar way that was really starting to annoy Torbin. ‘Too much too soon. I quite understand.’
‘Good. I’m glad you understand.’ Torbin then headed for the door.
‘Don’t be taken in by the surface appearance of things,’ Roidon said as Torbin was about walk through the door. ‘The truth will reveal itself.’
‘I will bear that in mind.’
As he stepped out in the searing heat, Torbin had a moment of panic. How do I locate my car? That thing: a tiny triangle tattooed on my wrist, speak into it. ‘Car. Come to me.’
His car landed before him in less than a minute. He rushed into it, panicky and nauseous. ‘Up, ten thousand metres,’ he told it.
‘Inertial compensators engaged,’ it informed him helpfully.
It occurred to him that rather than evading detection he’d more likely achieved the opposite. But now he couldn’t think where to go. Back home; Emelda waiting, promising what he wanted more than anything, what she’d been denying him for quite some time now. He couldn’t think why. His memory – it really was letting him down; things he sensed, crucial but uncomfortable as if obscured by some fog, always out of reach. Maybe there was something he was keeping from himself, something so deeply wrong that to know it would break him.
Forgetting. Isn’t that what keeps us sane?
Well, he knew there was something not entirely right at home. It felt like there was a truth about their relationship that he didn’t want to face. Was it the accident? Had it meant he was no longer able to please her? Pretending this morning that everything was fine. But when he had wanted her so badly, it was like he’d returned after years away even though he remembered the previous days, the unremarkable days there to recount but as if in monochrome – more like a dream without emotional resonance. A day at work, an evening of relaxing at home – eating, watching some holo-drama with no recollection of a plot. As far as he knew they had not made love in a long time, just another vague memory that might have itself have been a dream. Had he not tried? Been upset about it?
For now, he could not go back home. It would be the first place his boss would look, and he could never explain his sudden absconding, or admit he was not able to do his job. He’d needed a way back in, somehow pick up where he’d left off.
‘Need more time to think,’ he told himself.
There was only one place he knew to find solace from – from the confusion that was his life.
‘Take me to the forest,’ he told the car.
It seemed to know what he meant, moving swiftly, no more than a second after his command – pushing him back in the seat despite inertial damping – as if it sensed and reinforced his urgent need to be there.
Under a forest canopy, a thousand thoughts competing for his full attention. The past; the future; the truth. The lies? None of these resolving in his mind. Now he wanted to shut them all down. Now he just saw what was around him. Birds fluttering, chirping; indifferent to his presence.
Something odd, though. One bird kept repeating its pattern of chirps. Another one flew past him at exactly the same angle, every twenty seconds. Even the way t
he leaves rustled had something of a repetition about them.
Am I going crazy? He had to swill that thought around in his mind, test it against what he already knew.
But what he knew didn’t quite add up.
* * *
49
It was a curious thing. After the white light of pure blissful oblivion, she had a moment, here in this seemingly ordinary bedroom, of a newness of being. No sense of a past, or a future. There was just now. Not even the worried confusion of not remembering.
A freshness. It was lovely.
It faded. Memory seeped back in a flourish as if a dam collapsed; a program kicking in. The mission; the experiment. Then a momentary relief at the success of having been ported in to a virtual realm and still retaining awareness. One of only two in a virtual Earth with such knowledge? But the only one truly connected to a body in the real.
Zoraina turned over to look at the other side of the bed. She was alone. Of course; she had a mission. No distractions. The thought occurred that this porting into the Earth program entailed a submersion into a life, just as it had with Torbin or even Roidon. The idea of being part of a couple seemed rather appealing, suddenly. And even though the concept of being a wife was not one cultural practice the B’tari found attractive, it did have a certain appeal. Not that she’d ever consider being subservient, or being defined by who she was married to, or given status therein; or even being bound into fidelity and conjugal duty. Not in real life. In the real world that would be unconscionable. But here was an opportunity to play at being in a role, perhaps in a way she’d have liked as a child who, like so many, studied planet Earth. That fantasy of having a family, a child of her own. Perhaps an embracement of some nascent biological urge. But it wore off. Instead, she’d devoted her life to academia. Anthropology allowed her to take her study of humans to the kind of obsessive depth that she at least hoped would fulfill a longing.
Except it didn’t. She had to go one step further. To be human, to make love to a human (and to think of sex in such a human term). But even that wasn’t enough. She was never really immersed into their world.
Well, now could be different.
Now she had a mission. Except this time no one was telling her what to do. She knew what to do. Well in actual fact there were two options: find Torbin Lyndau or find Roidon Chanley. And then what?
Roidon appeared to have a plan. What she knew from records, he was not a man to be dissuaded from his objective. But she knew somehow he had to be kept in check. Torbin: he was bound to be in trouble. If it wasn’t for Roidon and his plan, it may have seemed more wise, more ethical to simply suspend the Earth sim. But would doing that make her into some kind of god? What if they were given a warning that their existence were to cease, even if only temporarily? Many would simply not be able to conceptualize that, like many can’t imagine the total oblivion of the materialist-atheist death. What was the word they used? Permaperceptuality. We all must be inclined to that, she reasoned.
She got up, went through the usual routines now in her rather idyllic cabin with windows onto a likewise mountain vista, putting off facing the possible realization that on this planet she would not be equipped with B’tari standard tech. The most advanced technology she found in this house was an Earth-standard computer terminal, with an ethically compliant subsentient AI.
Eventually she forced herself to leave the cabin. There was only an Earth-standard vehicle. Its hatch opened to welcome her as if she were its true owner, the thought now strengthening that she had not been adequately prepared, that her commander would not even approve. How he’d like to say ‘told you so, for going it alone’ in some more formalized way. Well, she was in effect suspended from official duties. This was a chance for redemption – the superficial reason, she told herself, compared to what really mattered.
‘You’d better work for me,’ she told the car’s console. ‘Give me the location of Torbin Lyndau.’
‘Do you wish his location to be your destination?’
‘Yes I do!’
Her car then obliged without further questions.
Torbin peered up in bemusement as her car landed in the forest clearing. Zoraina had no real strategy regarding him. But she felt responsible for him, for his existence – in a curious way. He would not exist (this copy) if she had not given into Roidon’s persuasion. And now seeing him hunched alone in a forest he cut a uniquely pathetic figure. She suspected Roidon was behind this; somehow his influence had permeated Torbin’s fragile psyche.
Her car landed silently a few metres from the troubled man. He got to his feet, standing straight as if in some gesture of formality.
She took the few tentative steps towards him, raised her hand in a semi wave, and said, ‘You may not know who I am. I’m Zoraina Zardor, your liaison officer.’ She waited for a reaction.
Torbin’s expression reverted once again to nonplussed, he cocked his head sideways to study her. Was he appreciating her preternatural human beauty or merely appraising her credibility? He said eventually, ‘Liaison? Between who?’
‘An eccentric megalomaniac named Roidon Chanley.’
He lurched forward, arms out as if he was about to grab her. She took a step back. ‘That man,’ he said. ‘What is it with him? Can I trust him?’
‘I wouldn’t. But then I would be speaking on behalf of the female population here. In terms of work, he is an extremely competent man. He knows his stuff.’
‘What do you know about me?’ His eyes were wide; beseeching.
‘That you are also a highly competent physicist, and that you care about what happens to life on this planet.’
‘Something is wrong with me. With this – here. My life. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
He was having doubts about this reality. Troubling.
‘Oh. You’ve been having problems. Since the accident, right?’
‘I can’t do this. I just want my life back.’
She chanced a reassuring touch on his shoulder. ‘And you will get your life back. You’ll be fine.’
‘So you’re working for that man Roidon? But you said you don’t trust him.’
‘I wouldn’t trust him as – in a relationship sense. But as a colleague, he is dedicated.’
It only happened for a brief moment, perhaps no more than a second. Torbin’s form flickered, then shimmered like an ancient cathode ray image for a few seconds more. When he returned to normal his expression seemed unchanged.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said. She realized she must have been staring at him in an odd manner.
‘Oh ... erm … nothing.’
‘Did I zone out? I did have this weird feeling; kinda faint.’
‘But you’re fine now?’
‘I … guess. Maybe it was some kind of after effect from the accident.’ He looked at her intensely. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘No.’ she tried to think what she should do. Clearly there was a problem with the sim. Maybe only a random glitch. There was just no way to get a diagnostic from in the system.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Then I guess you’ll be going.’
‘Is that what you’d prefer?’
‘I’m not fussed either way.’
‘You can’t just stay here. I can take you back to your home.’
‘I think I might have some explaining to do to my wife. In any case I have my own car.’
‘Take care, Torbin. I will be in touch.’ Then just as she was turning to leave, Torbin shimmered again along with the rest of the scenery.
Zoraina made a dash for her car through what had become a psychedelic wavering and fusing of meadow flowers and trees. Her car was flickering in and out of existence; there seemed no way to be able to board it. She turned back to see the distant figure of Torbin; he had become the detuned old-set image, until he simply vanished. She couldn’t imagine what that must be like, there were no comparisons, maybe Torbin’s mind would simply interpret that through some human rat
ional way as so often happens with paranormal experiences – if he ever would return.
Her surroundings were losing objects; the landscape becoming bare, all but grass and even that was losing definition. No car now. She collapsed to the grass which itself disappeared. And then the whiteness – the near oblivion.
They were peering over her with concerned expressions. For a brief moment she thought this was an operating theatre. Then the man in the white lab coat became prominent, a detached if mildly concerned expression on his face. The chief scientist. ‘Zoraina. Back to reality,’ he observed. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I think I am.’
‘The sim appears to have become unstable: most likely a loss of integrity in the core matrix from too many simultaneous subroutines. We’re running a diagnostic.’
‘Packed too much in, right?’ she said. ‘Needs a larger vessel.’
‘Quantum interference. Quite possibly,’ the scientist acknowledged.
‘Then find a bigger vessel. This sim is far too important to leave to disintegrate.’
‘There is a backup copy.’
‘No, that’s just an outdated scan. Have to restart this one.’
‘We’ll see.’
There was something in his dismissive tone that irked Zoraina. She forced herself off the couch; only then did the background listlessness really take hold. She felt the life drain out from her as if pulled away by gravity.
Now the world drifted away.
* * *
50
Roidon had made up his mind. The fact that he was essentially a prisoner, however comfortable these new quarters were with their specially adapted total immersion entertainment, made him all the more resolved that he’d never accept being confined to this gilded cage.
Yes, perhaps this was a change. A sense of purpose now, a greater purpose than pleasure – which had been enough, or at least enough when he sought it out on his own terms rather than have it offered to him as a pacifier. There was a greater objective, one with potential rewards that no virtual program could offer.