by A. I. Zlato
When she came out of the Tower, gloom percolated into the First Circle, though the sun was still high in the sky. The last sunrays feebly lit the top of the structure and intensity diminished every moment. The rays were now hidden by the height of surrounding buildings. She crossed the space that separated her from her house and took the upward rail to her floor. She entered her deserted apartment. It was too early, and Lars was not home yet. Their last conversation did not go really well.
He was not happy that she had had a discussion with Iris without telling him. She understood his anger, but the investigation took much of her time. And it was so important. Usually, Lars was the understanding type and would not mind if she focused exclusively on an ongoing investigation. Not this time.
He had changed, or she had. She was well aware that the Problem had invaded her privacy, and that there was more room left. However, she had a serious trail, and everything would be over soon. She could again spend evenings with her husband ... until the next assignment.
Baley took time to prepare a real dinner, her first in a long time. Leaving the cooking proceed automatically, she decided to finally update the pantry software. She had postponed this task too many times, and she was annoyed to see the absurd suggestions that the obsolete software gave her concerning the composition of meals. She placed her hand on the door and sent the update via her chip. It took her a minute to do the update, and she wondered why it had taken her so long to do such little task, and found no valid reason.
The software, with its new programming, gave her an appropriate suggestion based on her nutritional needs. Baley then completed her dinner based on the recommendation.
She sat with her hot meal on the couch, determined to relax to better face tomorrow. She swallowed her food absentmindedly, while letting her brain wander.
Iris came out her room, startling Baley.
“Good evening, darling! I did not know you were back. You want to have some of my dinner?” Baley said, showing her daughter the plate.
“No, I am not hungry.”
“What's wrong?”
“I'm not hungry, that's all. Is it really necessary that I explain everything?”
“No, you are right. Sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Apology accepted? Funny way of talking, you sound like the Machine.”
“Everything cold and logical is not necessarily Machine-like.”
“Com’on, Iris. What is wrong with you?”
“I am different.”
“How?”
“You would not understand.”
“Do I have to worry?”
“That would not change anything.”
“Now, I am really worried!”
“Worrying about one’s offspring is very human.”
“What? Of course, it is human!”
“I am different.”
“What are you talking about, finally? Aren’t you human? What did they do to you; someone brainwashed you? Your new friends, they are part of a cult, right?”
“You project your own fears onto me. These are only real in your mind. My new friends, as you say, had nothing to do with my change.”
“Let me repeat my question: should I worry?”
“I can look after myself, no problem.”
“That means no, right?”
Baley said to herself that Iris’ anti-system rebellion had reached a new level. Now she was seeing herself as above humans ... things could not get any worse. She would have to spend more time with her daughter once the investigation is over. Meanwhile, she let her daughter go, refusing to extend this skirmish.
She was alone again in front of her warm meal, which she quickly finished. She still had more than ten hours to wait, during which she was supposed to sleep. Instead of sleeping and expecting rest that was eluding her, she went to set her equipment up.
Outside, night had fallen, and the lighted windows of the buildings drew bright halos on the ground, which faded in the shade of buildings. She went to the Second Circle, to the warehouse where lay the equipment she needed. The building was empty, but she could access it through her chip. The Machine had given her a single-access authorization, without specifying the date and time. Baley could therefore safely enter the warehouse. In the darkness, her chip boosted immediately her eyesight, and she could easily move between storage racks.
To transport the equipment, she activated one of the available containers. Moving via air cushion, remotely controlled, the container would carry all the equipment into the park. She pointed to the desired placement for each material, and the racks started discharging their contents into the metal container. She came out of the warehouse, followed by the container, which moved in a slight hiss. It headed to the transportation routes for goods, while Baley hopped on a rail. Upon arrival, she moved each piece of equipment carefully. She lay on the floor to monitor the installation, and waited.
The day dawned, and she sat up, numbed by hours spent waiting while lying on the floor. She felt hunger biting her but refused to leave, even for a few minutes, to look for breakfast. She would not leave her equipment unsupervised. The stakes were too high.
She paid no attention to the City that was waking up, to the ambient noise. Focused on her goal, she was indifferent to the surrounding world. She only had to wait for two more hours. She walked around her installation as a watchdog on guard, checking the time at every turn. The clock was not ticking fast enough.
She checked once more all recorders and sensors installed near the public garden. Different kinds of equipment were scattered in and around the area within a radius of five hundred metres, to avoid missing anything during the event. The set connected to a terminal on which Baley could see all measurement data on a single screen. The terminal itself connected directly to the Machine, via the nearest rail.
To kill time, she made a concentrated effort to put the events of the day in the right order. She had filed her report to the Tower, announcing her intention to explore the cyclone from all angles, while maintaining oversight of each of the children previously identified as part of the Anti-Machine movement. Done. No, it had not happened that way. Her memory, with the cumulative stress and fatigue, was playing tricks on her. She was leaving Paul’s laboratory when she was sharing the various stages of the plan with the Special Agents assigned to the mission. Each of them had the responsibility to prevent, by all means, the child they were monitoring to get in a five-hundred-metre radius closer to the park. Then only she had filed her report to the Machine, asking it to validate her staff requisition and the necessary equipment. Unless ... impossible to place each sequence in the correct order. Her neuronal system could not explain everything. There was something in the Tower, the Machine was ... no, there was nothing. She was just exhausted.
She contacted the Special Agents to remind them of their obligations. They had to prevent children from approaching the area. By all means necessary. Whatever happened. No exceptions. No room for error. Failure was not an option. No child should enter the perimeter. No. Had she been clear enough? They had an obligation to send her an update every five minutes. Yes, every five minutes, even and especially if nothing happened. She wanted to know everything, to be their eyes and ears, to oversee the entire operation. To control. To control everything. To master everything.
Only sixty minutes left before things kicked off. Baley had repeated the same orders over and over, as to ward off evil and ensure the success of the mission. While the Special Agents were supervising the children, she was in the public park, to observe the phenomenon and to try to see the creature Paul had previously seen, a creature that, in all probability, indicated the location of the cyclone to children and urged them to commit suicide via means unknown for the moment.
This drew the kids into a phenomenon, an offshoot of the Machine’s action, and the children’s anti-Machine inclination somehow took care of the rest ... This was not the right time for explanations or theories, but for action. While
she would be closer to the cyclone, the measurements of all thermal, infrared, ultraviolet, sound and electromagnetic sensors would be recorded. Nothing was left to chance.
All her muscles were tense as bow strings. She was ready to jump onto the thing, whatever its true nature was. Rage pervaded her veins, and drummed in her temples. Time passed with excruciating slowness. Seconds seemed like hours. In the park, nothing was going on, which could draw her attention. At this hour, children were at school and the place was deserted. Play sets were empty and still.
Bare trees lay ominously in the gray weather, a black shape stretched towards a low, dull sky. She began to count dead leaves on the ground, to pass the time. There was nothing more foolish than trying to occupy the mind with a stupid activity ... But what else to do?
A few minutes more. She asked, via her chip, locations of all children. To ensure a total and absolute control of the situation, she ordered each Special Agent to hold every child by the arm, and hold him or her firmly until she gave another instruction. Thus, children could not escape their supervision. While saying this, she knew the approach would attract the wrath of many disgruntled parents, who would undoubtedly talk about lack of citizen freedom, police abuse ... she did not care. She could tell them, looking into their eyes, that her decision had saved the lives of their offspring. Was it really the end of the world if a child was held static for a few minutes, as unpleasant as the action might be? Every Special Agent must hold the child he or she is responsible for! Do not let go! Right now! Go! This should be already done!She received all confirmations in seconds. Everything was in place. Under control. No child will die today.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Paul entering the park. What was he doing here? Another one of his interventions for the sake of morality, or...? There was no way he would derail her plan. She gestured, instructing him to stay away. Her threatening attitude had seemed to convince him, because he stepped back.
Without warning, the cyclone appeared at the place and time that Paul had determined. Baley ran in and got as close as possible. High winds swept over her face; she felt her feet dragging on the ground, drawn into the growing spiral of cloudy and icy mists. She leaned on herself in the opposite direction, and found an equilibrium point, curled up on herself. She looked into the eye of the storm, without perceiving the slightest presence. There was no indication, or suggestion, of some form, if only a shadow ... nothing. She refused to continue answerless, and then jumped inside the spiral, the heart of the phenomenon, and looked around her, not understanding.
Through the whirlwind, she saw the public park, windswept.
Paving stones were rising from the ground, steered by gusts, and smashed the surrounding elements a little further. Inside ... she screamed when she looked at her feet. She was not on firm ground, but above a blackish body of water. She would sink. Her feet touched the surface of the water, covered in wrinkles. She would soon sink into the dark and bottomless liquid. She tried in vain to move, to get out of the storm, but she could not. Updrafts formed an impassable barrier.
She frantically sought a branch, a fixed point on which to hang ... and found nothing. She would sink. She should have sunk. Nothing happened. Scared as hell, Baley looked up. Above her, there was nothing. She was staring at absolute nothingness, empty and motionless darkness. She could not take her eyes off this abyss.
Her anguish subsided; all emotions disappeared as if sucked. This outside nothingness matched the inside black hole, which she had had for some time in her mind. Both facets of emptiness were trying to band together, restrained only by the frail barrier that was her mortal coil. The Equilibrium ... the absolute ... the beginning and the end ... connections were nothing but an illusion ... the Machine was all ... the cause and consequence ... The Machine is different now ... very different ... all Machines were ...
Baley felt that her whole being was contracting to its simplest form; only a small glimmer of consciousness indicated to her that she was still alive. However, what was life, after all? How important was it? Why try moving? To remain still, in contemplation of nothingness, non-life ... Her spirit touched the outer nothingness, and she was tempted to throw herself into it completely, abandoning her body, becoming nothing but a bubble of consciousness in this infinite ...
Everything was so immobile, unchanging ... the non-evolution of the circle ...
How long did this awesome contemplation last? Impossible to say. Suddenly, she felt an intrusion into her chip. A digital link was formed, as when she was in the Tower. The data circulated in it, following neuronal connections until her chip. It was not the Machine, but it was also digital ... more ... less ... it was different. She felt a multiple stream ... it was nice ... it was talking to her ... she should not stay there ...
The data flow violently pulled her, as if it were a real rope, coiled around her skull. She was thrown on the floor, which she hit sharply. The digital link disappeared. The cyclone also.
To replace them, there was nothing, just the park. Everything was in order, the trees, the games, and the gray, motionless sky. Dazed, she slowly sat up and felt her body aching. The fog and the wind had chilled her to the bone, and her vain efforts to exit the cyclone had strained every muscle. Her chip still disseminated a strange echo that stung her temple. Walking with difficulty, she stumbled on an asperity on the ground and flopped. She was not lying on the floor. It was not an asperity, it was, it was ... something ... else. In horror, she jumped away. This was not possible.
Her mind did not accept what her eyes were seeing. To go from emptiness, from such soothing nothingness to this … no. She took control of her breathing, to impose calm in her body, and closed her eyes. It thus took her a few seconds to regain control of her body, hoping that the nightmarish vision would disappear.
No…
Children. Thirty. Lying in three circles. She had stumbled upon one of them. Small bodies had arisen after the storm faded, like last time. She did not, however, see anything in this storm, no presence, no creature, which could have drawn children into ... What was the takeaway here?
Looking around, Baley saw no Special Agent. None. She scanned each child, to know their identities. They were all part of the list ... the Special Agents should have been there! Each was under surveillance! They had to grab the kids by the arm! She needed to find answers to all her questions, answers to such nonsense.
She had to move, find a trail.
She ran to the terminal and wanted to review the scene footage. She wanted to check the last hour of recording. According to sensors, nothing had happened in the last sixty minutes. She rewound two hours back, to no avail. Feverish, she checked devices one by one, launching test sequences. Panicked, she called Special Agents and asking them to come in as soon as possible. While awaiting them, she leaned against a wall and slid to the floor, trying to gather her thoughts.
What had happened? What had she seen exactly? How long had she stayed there?
One after another, the Special Agents arrived at the scene, in silence. They bowed their heads as she approached them. They all filed their respective report. She listened in silence, completely stunned, dejected, angry… as each chronicled his or her event. For them, Baley had given the order to stop the children the day before. Like last time, a time lag had distorted perception of reality for all Special Agents. She did not know exactly how long she had stayed inside the cyclone, but it certainly did not exceed ten minutes. Twenty minutes perhaps, but no more.
The thirty individuals standing before her were all claiming, however, that these events had taken place twenty-four hours earlier. They had already experienced an hour defer before, but this time, it was a whole day of defer. How was that possible? She recorded the information and decided to deal with it later. She first needed to understand what had happened during her absence.
Everyone had waited several hours, and children, surprised at the beginning, had begun to struggle. Yet all Special Agents kept their cool and held their grou
nd, unwilling to repeat their previous failure. There was no question of losing sight of any youngster and give him or her an opportunity to run to his or her death. The rumour had spread into the City, alleging that Special Agents working for the Machine had retained children by force. Journalists then rushed to the scene, and the Special Agents had to answer their pointed questions, and to reassure people while revealing the least possible elements about the ongoing investigation. So they waited, each with a child screaming and crying, surrounded by journalists, some angry parents and curious onlookers… they waited for Baley’s instructions.
After two hours, they received a priority order ordering them to release the children, and they complied. Children then flew away, journalists had followed them, and passersby left the scene.
“A priority order? What kind of priority? Our operation is the top priority. No one had the authority! Except me! You knew that, didn’t you; you knew!”
“I ... we ... yes, we knew that you were the head of the operation”, said one of the Special Agents. “But ... I ... we ... we don’t know. We talked among ourselves, but nobody remembers where the order came from. We just remember having received it; however, it feels as if that order had never existed. We just heard the order to let the children go ... and that's what we did.”
“This is not possible that; it's just ... not possible! How can you remember an order that never existed? What prompted you to execute an instruction that did not come from me? Damn, am I still the operations chief here or not? This is my investigation! And it is a priority investigation! You did not even try to contact me to confirm the order?”
“Well ... it was a priority order ... so ...”
“So that did not even cross your mind ... and all that was yesterday! What has happened since?”
“Nothing. The children went home. Parents protested; the news channel cover the subject for several hours, and then it was over.”