Ash Ock

by Christopher Hinz

  “But you can’t get away. I’m not done with you, orphan girl.”

  His last words did it. A fresh wave of fury suddenly washed over her, drowning her fear. “You’re a maniac!” she hissed. “That’s what my instincts are telling me! They’re telling me that I should have ripped your goddamn head off when I had the chance!”

  Timmy’s face seemed to glisten, ablaze with excitement. “Give me more, Susan! Speak to me! Tell me who you are!” He twisted the knife and she gasped as a wave of pain flashed across her mid-section. But there was something else as well, something beneath the pain; a strange sensation spreading out from the blade to envelop her entire body. She felt herself tingling from head to toe.

  “Come to life,” urged Timmy. “Emerge!”

  And then her inner voice—that odd little aspect of her being that psychplan counselors over the years had always explained away as a harmless byproduct of her complex neurosis, that voice that was always there when she was in trouble, urging and directing her, saving her life in Honshu, rescuing her from the murderous E-Tech officers in her apartment—that voice spoke again. But this time she recognized the words as her own.

  “I know who I am,” she gasped, aglow with wonder.

  An inner wall vanished, torn away by the mere effort of conscious acknowledgment. That strange tingling sensation, radiating outward from the bab knife, brought ripples of her true self, expanding blossoms from the core of her being, the vanguard of the real Susan Quint.

  She felt awash in revelation. Ecstasy. For the first time in ages, she felt totally in touch with herself, totally synchronized with the flowing majesty of her own soul, the élan vital.

  I am my body-thought.

  She became conscious of the bab knife, piercing the flesh over her stomach, and now she could even sense the four distinct razor edges of the blade, and the warm flow of blood as it coagulated along the outer edges of the puncture. The knife had not penetrated very far—a mere half-inch—and it was only her conceptualizing of future pain that had produced such dread.

  Fear what is, not what might be.

  The thought soothed her even more. And she began to perceive the needle in a new way, not merely as a focal point of pain, but as a real and living aspect of Timmy’s will. And she understood his intentions, seeing the bab as a tool, a surgical instrument. There was an ancient science she had once read about—acupuncture. She wondered if he was a practitioner.

  It did not matter. I am my body-thought. That was of overriding importance. And there was something else.

  I can take the pain.

  Pain was a grounding source, a direct organic conduit linking mind/emotion/body, and ultimately, folding that tripartite reality of human consciousness into the tapestry of life itself.

  She gazed upon Timmy, aware that he was waiting, and she saw that his left eye held guarded excitement. But the right one, the fabricated orb, contained no emotion. It was a machine, absorbing and translating details, but ultimately disconnected from the flow of life. It was not a part of Timmy’s body-thought, and never would be.

  A dead eye. It was so very obvious that she felt a bit surprised that she had failed to make such an observation earlier.

  “I’m still waiting,” said Timmy, and the words seemed to flow from his mouth, bubbling with barely contained needs and desires.

  “Your expectations betray you,” she said calmly.

  His left eye opened wide.

  Susan took a slow deep breath, preparing herself for agony. “It’s your choice now,” she explained. “Either release me or use the knife.”

  She felt the blade withdraw, the gauntlet retreat from beneath her chin. Timmy rolled away from her quickly, as if he expected a violent reaction now that she was free. But she saw no reason to hurt him.

  “May I examine your wound?” he asked gently, and she registered real kindness in his voice, real concern.

  “No. I’ll take care of it when we go back.” She sat up in the sand and crossed her legs beneath her. A hesitant breeze touched her cheeks, and she heard its melody—a whispering whine, a chorus of the wind. Her tongue tasted the muted flavor of sea brine. Flesh up and down her bare arms seemed to tingle, the skin registering even the faint change of temperature between the warmer sand beneath and the cooler air above. Not since childhood had she felt so physically alive, so gloriously attuned to her surroundings. And inside . . .

  A clarity of feeling, a freedom from the emotional seesaw that had seemed to drive her from the low points of pain and despair to the dreamy heights of loveless passion. She almost laughed, thinking how utterly ridiculous her preoccupation with the dark Shuttle Service VP had been.

  And finally, a clarity of intellect, a metamorphosis encompassing her entire being, focusing the power of her will into a clear stream, bubbling outward from the needs of her body to become a raging waterfall, gaining sustenance from its very turmoil, until finally flowing into an ocean of infinite knowledge.

  I am my body-thought. She felt awe-struck—reverent of the very concept of life itself.

  And that clarity of intellect provided answers even as it generated questions. She faced Timmy.

  “It was no accident that we met.”

  He smiled. “Of course not. Do you know what mnemonic cursors are?”

  “No.”

  “Tiny organic nodules—secret command programs residing in the deepest reaches of the mind. A mnemonic cursor was implanted within your genetic matrix when you were still a fetus, injected into your mother’s womb during her earliest weeks of pregnancy. She never knew, of course. Your parents had absolute faith in their priests. And when Lester Mon Dama suggested a specific doctor, your parents naturally agreed.”

  Susan shook her head, thoughts churning. “So Lester Mon Dama is a part of . . . this.” This what? she thought. This conspiracy encompassing my entire life?

  “There are code words . . . phrases,” continued Timmy. “These serve as keys—opening circuits directly into your subconsciousness. The particular mnemonic cursor that resides in you contains a graduated set of these code triggers. One after another, these mnemonic phrases led you to me.

  “Think back, Susan. The first mnemonic phrase? Can you recall what it was?”

  She thought for a moment. Then: “Lester Mon Dama!” Even as she uttered the priest’s name, a warm feeling coursed outward from her neck, spreading all the way to her loins. Pleasant thoughts accompanied the warm glow: Safety. Goodness. Helpfulness.

  Timmy smiled at her reaction. “Lester Mon Dama—the first code phrase, the first emotional trigger. You were compelled to think of the priest if and when you reached a certain critical threshold of confusion and frustration.”

  She remembered. “I was in that bass cabaret, on the outskirts of North Epsilon. I was feeling very helpless. I didn’t know whom to turn to for help.”

  “Yes. Your circumstances forced you to recall Lester’s name and then seek him out.”

  “And it happened once before,” Susan murmured, aglow with the insight. “When I was eleven, when my parents died—back then I also sought out Lester Mon Dama.”

  “Yes. But back then you were too young to be of use. Lester did not take the next step. He let you go.”

  Too young to be of use. The words sent a faint chill through her. But she felt no bitterness, no anger at such manipulation, although she realized that such feelings could arise later on. For now, however, she was simply overwhelmed by curiosity. Scattered pieces of her life—fragments of a puzzle—were in the process of being reassembled.

  She nodded. “But this time I did fit into your plans.”

  “Yes. So Lester uttered the second trigger phrase.”

  “Seek sanctuary,” Susan murmured. Everything seemed so obvious now that she felt amazed at not being able to comprehend these things sooner.

  “Seek sanctuary,” Timmy repeated. “Lester used that mnemonic key to unlock your emotions even further. You were compelled to trust the priest, desire him
. In that frame of mind, Lester found it easy to persuade you to visit the cloister.

  “The first two mnemonic triggers brought you to me. Once you were in my presence, however, I was able to utilize a more direct method of control.”

  He pointed to his right eye—the artificial one. “This wetware orb contains an optic projector—a subliminal coding device that flashes messages that your own eyes cannot see—sort of like an invisible Morse code enabling my very thoughts to activate your mnemonic cursor. This gave me the ability to control you in a number of ways, not the least of which was making certain that you felt the urge to join me out here on the beach every day.”

  She shook her head, stunned. “And when you made me go into the water, you uttered this very odd—”

  “Kascht moniken keenish,” said Timmy, and Susan felt a weird tremor pass through her entire body, and she sensed that those harsh sounds possessed a power even greater than the other trigger codes.

  “That phrase,” continued Timmy, “is from a root language—a phonetic, protolingual tongue that was created to speak directly to any mnemonic cursor, no matter whom that cursor is implanted within. A language that even the emotions are unable to fathom, for it appeals directly to the syntactic substrata of the human reptilian brain, where an implanted cursor usually resides. A language of pure vocalization, capable of surging into the deepest levels of the psyche.”

  “You can make me do whatever you want?” she challenged.

  “No. All mnemonic cursors have limits, even when the root language is used to enhance a particular verbal suggestion or enforce a command. And there is another logic inherent to all mnemonic cursors. For the most part, their power remains inversely proportional to the consciousness of the controlled subject.” Timmy grinned. “In other words, the more attuned you are to your body-thought, the less power a mnemonic cursor can exert over you.”

  Susan nodded silently, absorbing his words. Her next question was obvious.

  “Why, Timmy? Why? All this trouble . . . all this manipulation . . .”

  “Body-thought!” he exclaimed, his left eye flashing with excitement. “Body-thought so swift that a normal throw of a stone from ten feet away can’t touch you. There exists a great power within your very cells, the power to move like the wind. And until you blundered into that Honshu massacre over two weeks ago, that power had remained almost totally latent.”

  Susan whispered, “I’m a genejob.” It was the only possible explanation.

  “Yes. When your parents conceived you, your genetic structure was normal. But while in your mother’s womb, your fetus was given a series of injections, which altered your genetic makeup. Your entire neuromuscular system received modifications that accelerated your reaction time—endowed Susan Quint with the potential to equal even the swiftness of a Paratwa. Your mnemonic cursor was simply a part of those genetic enhancements.

  “You are, indeed, in the popular idiom, a genejob. You are not, however, the only one. In fact, you were just one of hundreds of female fetuses that Lester Mon Dama, through the auspices of his priesthood, arranged to be brought to one of our doctors over a five-year period. The mothers were all devoted followers of the Church of the Trust. Unsuspecting. They all received injections. Their unborn children were all enriched.

  “And all those modified fetuses are today young women. In fact, Susan, you are not even the first of them to grow conscious of her power in some way, thus triggering her mnemonic cursor and compelling her to seek out Lester. But you are the first who truly appears suitable for our plans.”

  Our doctors, she thought. Our plans. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want of me?”

  He turned away for a moment, gazing out over the lake with what she took to be a peaceful expression. But when he faced her again, his countenance had hardened.

  “Susan—you now speak from the confidence of your body-thought, and you must always remember that that is a power that can never be denied. But you are also driven by deep-seated needs, driven in a way that none of the other young women whom Lester brought to me could even remotely match. You are fueled by your own pain and that pain makes you into a fiercely burning star. Suffering has opened depths within you that most human beings remain forever unconscious of.

  “I am the roots of your life, Susan Quint. I am the man whose genetic matrix was injected into your fetus. I am, in very real terms, your third parent.”

  “My third parent,” she whispered.

  He turned away from her again, and his finger pointed out over the water, tracking a pair of imported white herring gulls as they skimmed across the quivering surface. “See those birds? They are examples of natural body-thought—creatures interlaced to the purity of the moment. They could not be otherwise, for they lack the mechanisms of human-style consciousness, the ability to separate their needs from their wants. They are unaware of their own racial heritage. They cannot know that their ancestors were saved from extinction by humans, granted haven in the Colonies, and that they are the first of their species in over a quarter of a millennium to again soar over this lake.”

  The gulls raced high into the air, disappearing behind the hulk of the revivifier. When Timmy continued, a forlorn echo of sadness seemed to trail his words. “A long time ago, Susan, I was like them. But then the transmutation came upon me and I was made different. I was changed . . . beyond the mortal imagination of even my own profoundest conceptions of change. Now I am something else.” An odd smile crossed his face. “Now I am the freebird.

  “Once upon a time, Susan, before there was Timmy, there was the other. He was just like me, yet he was unlike me. And until his final days, he lived in a world of apparent freedom. Like you, Susan, and like the gulls, he remained unaware of the larger sphere of consciousness that surrounded him, controlling and influencing all aspects of his existence.”

  Timmy’s words grew bitter. “And then came the betrayal. And his brothers, whom he had trusted so implicitly, forced the other into transmutation. And the other was destroyed.” The pupil of Timmy’s natural eye dilated; his face twisted into a grimace as flesh recalled ancient pain. The wetware orb remained motionless.

  “Once, Susan, I was of the mighty. Once, I could be both singular and plural. Once I was Aristotle, Ash Ock Paratwa of the Royal Caste.”

  She just stared at him, finally overwhelmed by the very magnitude of his revelations. “What happens now?” she heard herself ask.

  “Life, Susan. Life and consciousness. And a journey beyond your dreams.”

  O}o{O

  One of the guards leaned his head into the open door of the Lion’s private study. “Sir, they’ve arrived.”

  “Have them come in,” ordered the Lion, his gaze drifting from the flower garden, visible through the slab glass wall, to Nick. The midget sat on the edge of the meeting table, his tiny fingers pattering nervously against the compressed lunar shale, his boots—a foot short of the floor—kicking back and forth in steady cadence, like a pair of dueling pumps powering some ancient machine.

  “Are you sure you want to be here?” the Lion asked.

  A lazy grin settled on Nick’s face. “That’s the third time you’ve hit me with that question.”

  The Lion sighed. “I know. But his condition . . . we really don’t know . . .”

  Nick shrugged. “Would there be any point in trying to hide from him?”

  “I suppose not.”

  Two guards, armed with thruster rifles, entered the study. Gillian walked a pace behind them. Buff brought up the rear.

  The Lion nodded to the guards and they shouldered their weapons and exited, closing the door behind them.

  “I’m glad you’re unharmed,” began the Lion, watching Gillian closely, looking for some sign that Empedocles had arisen, or that Gillian’s own emotions had been stirred into a dangerous turmoil. But his face revealed nothing. Cold, thought the Lion. Inaccessible.

  Buff stopped right inside the doorway and folded her thick arms across her
bosom. She was easy to read; pain etched a clear story across her face. The handle of a gun was visible beneath her open jacket.

  The Lion moved toward her, shaking his head in genuine sadness. “I am truly sorry about Martha.”

  “Yes,” murmured Buff, turning away, avoiding his gaze.

  “I never dreamed it would turn out like this.”

  Gillian crossed the room to stand before Nick. “Aren’t you going to welcome us back?”

  The midget stared up at him. “Rough day, huh?”

  “You could call it that.”

  “I suppose I owe you an explanation.”

  “You owe me nothing,” said Gillian, and the Lion had no trouble reading the emotion in those words. Hatred. And barely contained.

  “You feel betrayed,” said the Lion, thinking back to his own childhood—age twelve—to a time when he had desperately needed a friend, to a time when Gillian had been there.

  A bitter laugh filled the study.

  “You have a right to feel the way you do,” the Lion continued. “Nick and I knew about Cochise—at least we suspected. But we thought that the best course of action was not telling you.” He shook his head. “Or perhaps it was just the easiest course. I truly don’t know.”

  Nick shrugged. “I did what I had to do, Gillian. Your condition . . . you were in bad shape. And we weren’t sure about Cochise . . . it was just a hunch. I made a decision to the best of my abilities, based on intuition and the available facts. I make no excuses for it.”

  “An honest answer?” snapped Gillian. “That’s something new for you, isn’t it?”

  Nick did not reply. Gillian turned back to the Lion.

  “How many were killed, out there on the street?”

  “Early E-Tech reports suggest at least a dozen fatalities,” said the Lion. “The freelancer channels are reporting higher figures.”

  “Do they know who was responsible?”

  The Lion nodded. “Shooter was seen, of course, but he disappeared shortly after heavy E-Tech Security forces began to arrive. You’re the only one who saw Slasher and he’s vanished as well. Also, the latest reports indicate that there was some kind of explosion in Slasher’s—Cochise’s—office, which caused massive destruction to that entire floor of Venus Cluster. The final death toll will undoubtedly be higher.