The Enlightened

by Dima Zales

  Is he trying to talk to me? This makes no sense.

  Then I notice he’s not looking at me, but at something beside me. This could be a trick to distract me, but I don’t see the point.

  Things begin to fall into place when I see a red laser pointer dot on his forehead. Holding my breath, I follow his gaze.

  The relief I feel is overwhelming. It’s Thomas. He has a gun pointed right at Kyle’s head. My friend must’ve limped his way here while I was keeping Kyle busy. That trip must’ve hurt like hell.

  “Don’t do it, Thomas,” Kyle says. “Don’t shoot. There’s something important I have to tell you.”

  The look of disdain on Thomas’s usually inexpressive face is all the answer he needs to give. His right index finger tightens around the trigger.

  “I’m your father, Thomas,” Kyle shouts. “You’re about to shoot your own father.”

  The look of disdain vanishes from Thomas’s face. It’s replaced by one of utter confusion, the same look that must be adorning my face as well.

  I so badly need some extra time to think that I feel that near-phasing-out feeling again. I’m breathing so fast I wonder if I’m hyperventilating. It reminds me of the Bellows Breath exercise Hillary taught me, only I’m not doing it on purpose.

  I need to digest what Kyle just said, but time is the one thing I don’t have.

  If Kyle is lying to confuse Thomas, he succeeded.

  I begin raising my gun, but it’s too late. Before it’s raised even a foot, Kyle capitalizes on the confusion he created and throws the knife at me.

  Instead of pain, though, something very strange happens—something I experienced a long time ago, back when I was a kid.

  I’m in what my kid-self would think of as the about-to-die mode, though now I have a better term for it.

  I’m about to phase in.

  And, like all those years ago, the transition is not instant.

  Given how close I am to Kyle, the knife should’ve reached me before I even had the chance to think, but instead, I have enough time to watch the knife as it flies toward me at a millimeter per second. It’s going to rotate in the air, I realize with wonder. The whole thing reminds me of watching one of those high-speed-camera movie clips that show you things in slow motion.

  I use this time to think.

  About how Thomas is half-Asian and my mom Lucy is Asian. About how Thomas, like me, was adopted. About the rape I witnessed in Lucy’s mind. About the baby she was forced to give up—Kyle’s baby.

  Can it be?

  Now that I think about it, some of Thomas’s mannerisms are a lot like Lucy’s. They even share the same stony expression.

  Could Thomas and I be related? Could we be stepbrothers of sorts?

  As I watch the knife penetrate my shirt, I realize it could be true. Kyle might be telling the truth.

  As the knife pierces the top layer of skin, I focus on the horror of what’s about to happen. Once this thing reaches my heart, I’ll die in the Quiet and become Inert again. I’ll be vulnerable right when I need my power most. Not to mention that with my mom in the hospital as she is, I can’t run away to another vacation spot and hide. Nor do I want to hide. I’m through with hiding.

  And then, as the pain of the stab wound slowly registers, my world goes completely black.

  Chapter 22

  The world isn’t just black. The world isn’t here.

  I can’t hear anything. I can’t smell anything. I don’t have any awareness of my body, not even things like my face or the top of my head. Because of this lack of body sensation, I also can’t tell where I am in relation to anything else, nor if I’m lying down or standing up. Nothing. I can best describe this feeling as a sort of floating sensation, though that’s a crude approximation, since when you float, you know exactly where you are. You just feel weightless. Whereas the best way to describe my current state would be as nonexistent.

  Did the knife kill me? What I feel is how a disembodied ghost might feel, if such a being existed. But that’s silly. I couldn’t have died from the knife wound. That’s not how getting killed in the Quiet works. After getting killed, I’m supposed to return to my body in the real world, albeit regrettably Inert.

  This is not that. The knife didn’t even get far enough into my body to kill me before whatever this is happened. This must have something to do with the world slowing down around me, and the near-panic attack I was having at the threat of becoming Inert again.

  Getting progressively more anxious, I try to feel something physical again. I picture having eyes, ears, a nose, and the rest of it. Hell, I’ll even settle for feeling my left big toe.

  Suddenly, though I still don’t possess any of my senses, I’m aware of lights.

  Awareness is the best word for it, because I’m not really seeing those lights. The word ‘seeing’ is the only term I have for it. It’s like if I could suddenly experience echolocation like a bat and wanted to explain it to, say, Bert, who doesn’t have echolocation, I’d tell him, “Dude, it’s as though I can see in the pitch dark.” And this is similar. I’m aware of the lights, though definitely not via my vision.

  I’m distracted from worrying about how to define my experience when the lights grow brighter. Or to be a stickler, when my awareness of the lights gets stronger.

  Are these stars?

  No, stars are always above you, and though I don’t have any idea where up or down is, I have a contradictory certainty that these lights are not above me, but rather near me. I can’t explain this nearness, though. It’s mere intuition that if I needed to, I could reach the lights. And I can’t reach the stars.

  I exercise this ‘seeing’ sense by squinting my metaphysical eyes. The lights are actually broken into three largish clouds, like three galaxies, only as I said, I’m sure these aren’t stars.

  The lights are connected by spindly pathways comprised of fainter light. If I had to prove that these aren’t stars, these connections would cinch the deal, since stars aren’t connected by strings of fainter light. Or are they? One thing I’m not is an expert in astronomy.

  These spherical clouds remind me of something. The thing they remind me of is almost there in my mind, as if it’s on the tip of my tongue.

  A sense of anxiety threatens to overwhelm me as a simple explanation about what’s happening surfaces in my consciousness.

  For the first time since I met Mira in Atlantic City, I wonder whether I’m crazy after all. Insanity would explain pretty much everything.

  Worse than insanity are the other plausible explanations. What if I’m having some sort of medical episode? Something like an epileptic seizure or a brain aneurysm? What if I’m just a naked brain floating in a vat of chemicals, and the lights are electrodes they’re about to hook up to my neurons?

  “Nothing like that is happening to you,” a foreign thought states. I don’t know how, but I know with absolute certainty that this voice isn’t mine.

  The imaginary voice in my head garners support for the ‘I’m crazy’ theory.

  “No, you’re not,” the foreign thought states. “You’re not imagining this. You’re not schizophrenic. And I am real.”

  These thoughts aren’t spoken by a voice in my head at all. Strictly speaking, no words are being spoken. The meaning of these words is simply appearing to me in my consciousness.

  “Right you are,” the voice thinks into my mind. “These thoughts are mine, and I’m projecting them onto you.” A slight sense of warmth and camaraderie arrives along with the thoughts, like an extra texture layered on top of the meaning of the words.

  “Who are you?” I try to explicitly think back. To myself, I think, Wouldn’t an imaginary friend always say they’re real?

  “I am Mimir,” the thought comes. “We met yesterday. At that time, you thought I was imaginary also, but I assure you I am as real now as I was then.”

  “Oh,” I think. “You’re the manifestation of the mind merge between me and the Enlightened? The very good-looki
ng guy who was floating in the air?”

  To myself, I think, He wasn’t all that real when I ‘saw’ him last. Yet, despite my skepticism, I still feel a sense of relief at having someone—or something—familiar in this strange place.

  “That’s how you perceived me, yes,” the thought appears. “And you’re also correct in how you describe the way I came to exist. It was as a result of the Joining. And I did state that I am as real as when we last met, not more. Your definition of my realness at that time is another matter.”

  “Thank you for your warning, by the way,” I think at him. “My mom would be dead if it weren’t for you.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m truly glad you were able to save her.”

  “What is this place? Where are you? And what the hell is going on?”

  “Oh, come on, Darren. You already know. I gave you the necessary clue the last time we communicated. If not that, then think of what your aunt told you.”

  I suppress my panic to reflect. And then it hits me.

  “I remember now,” I think in relief. “When I asked what would happen to you in the long term, after the Joining was over, you said you’d phase into the Quiet, to what I, after talking with Hillary, call Level 2. This is the other tier, a deeper version of the Mind Dimension.”

  If this revelation is true, the implications are truly unfathomable. It would mean that I did it. I am what my Enlightened grandparents wanted to breed—but a generation earlier than they had thought possible, thanks to my mom’s super-long Reach. This is just as Hillary suspected. After a number of close calls that felt like I was hitting a brick wall, I finally phased into the Quiet—while already being in the Quiet.

  “Correct,” he thinks back. “My phasing in was a success, and so was yours after the threat of going Inert, as well as other stresses, finally allowed you to phase into this place as I knew you had the capacity to do. Though I must add that I loathe the term ‘Level 2.’ If nothing else, this is tier three of reality, as you began in the real world.”

  “Okay, but what exactly is this? Where is everything?”

  ”The short answer would be that everything is here. The longer answer would take longer and sadly, like the last time, we must keep our conversation brief.”

  “Why?” I think disappointedly.

  “Because I have no idea how long you can stay here.”

  “Does Depth get used up quicker here?”

  “Yes, or at least, we suspect it does,” Mimir thinks at me. “Though since you’re the first and only person I’m ever going to meet here, the theory is not testable.”

  “Why am I the only person you’re ever going to meet? Aren’t there Guide Elders who can phase into Level 2?”

  “When someone is in a Mind Dimension, it’s their own personal space, not a shared place—”

  “But you’re here,” I interrupt. “So either I’m in your Level 2, or you’re in mine.”

  “No. The situation is a little stranger in our case. I’m a part of you, remember? So where I am, you can be, and vice versa.”

  “So, in theory, if my grandparents could phase in from the Quiet, you would be in the same Level 2 as they are?”

  “Yes, but it’s only hypothetical, since they don’t have the required Depth. Which is why I stated that you’re the only person I’ll ever interact with.”

  “And yet you don’t think I have a lot of time here.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “How much time do I have?”

  “That’s hard to say. To start, we don’t know how much Depth you’re currently using up. Even if we did, we don’t know the limit of your Depth, even in the regular, Level 1 version of the Quiet. The furthest you’ve ever Read someone was Lucy, and you went a couple of decades back—”

  “Wait, how do you know—”

  “What you know, I know,” Mimir thinks. “I thought that was obvious by now.”

  “Right,” I think. “You’re part of me.”

  “The reverse. You’re a part of me. Knowing what our subparts—you and the others—are experiencing is one of the rare forms of entertainment my kind and I have. Which reminds me, please protect your grandparents and their Enlightened friends. I know you hold a grudge—”

  “Your kind?” I interrupt again. “You mean there are other beings like you, here on Level 2?”

  “Time,” he reminds me. “We don’t know how much you have.”

  “You’re just dodging the question,” I counter. “I think every time the Enlightened do their Joining, one of you turns up, and you can probably all hang out here because you have parts in common, or rather, people that make you up in common.”

  “It’s an interesting hypothesis.”

  “If I’m right, is there a version comprised of me and Caleb here someplace? Since I Joined with him?”

  “There is. Every Joining produces one of us, but the resulting beings can only Split into this realm when the cumulative Depth of the Joining participants that make them up is strong enough. The other cases are rather cruel twists of fate for the thinking creations that—”

  “Wait,” I think. “What’s this Caleb/Darren thing like?”

  “The dumbest among us, but a good lesson in human nature,” he thinks. “But seriously, we might not have too much time...”

  “Can you at least briefly tell me what this place is? What’s the nature of Level 2? Why is it this way? How does it relate to the regular Quiet? And most importantly, what am I supposed to do?”

  “You can be very amusing,” he thinks. “You’re treating me as though I’m omniscient.”

  “Meaning you don’t know?”

  “I can tell you my personal theory. But I’ll have to simplify it so a lesser mind like yours has the chance to understand it.”

  “Did you get your sense of humor from me?” I think irritably. “It sure sounds like something I’d say if I were in your position.”

  “A tiny portion of my sense of humor came from you, sure. In any case, here’s what I think. When you’re in what you call the Quiet, your mind is in fact only partially there. That part clings to the comforts of your common, everyday reality and, using something like the mechanisms responsible for dreams, makes up that familiar ‘time-stopped’ world for you.”

  “If the Quiet is a dream, then what is the reality?”

  “That I am less sure about, but whatever it is, it’s a lot closer to what you’re experiencing now. I think here, on Level 2, some of the false veneer the mind clings to is gone.”

  “But this place doesn’t make sense,” I think. “All I see are lights.”

  “Those lights are neural networks, but you already knew that. It was on the tip of your brain.”

  He’s right. In hindsight, the ‘galaxies’ with interconnected lights are reminiscent of the pictures I’ve seen in textbooks and online of the electrical activity of the brain.

  “You got it,” he thinks. “And more specifically, that bright constellation closest to you is you. The one closest to that version of you is Thomas, and the slightly farther one is Kyle.”

  “So if I could see myself right now, I’d see one of those neural-network-looking things?”

  “Only yours wouldn’t be slowed in time the way theirs are,” he thinks. “It would be a kaleidoscope of firings between the neurons via the synapses. At least, that’s what I imagine you’d see, if you could see it.”

  “You make it sound as if that’s not your experience. And what do you mean time would be slowed? It’s stopped, isn’t it?”

  “What you see is not the same as what I experience, but mine would be impossible for you to comprehend. And I am not teasing in this case. My point of view would be as foreign to you as yours would be to, say, a guinea pig.”

  “Are you saying that time isn’t stopped?” I think insistently, refusing to feel insulted.

  “What you’ve always perceived as time stopping, both in the Quiet and here, is an illusion. The truth is that time passes much faster from the re
ference point on the inside of the Quiet.”

  “You mean to say that if I watched the world from inside the Quiet long enough, people would actually move?”

  “You’d get bored waiting for it, and it would take a monumental amount of time, but yes, in theory, that’s the case. The ‘time-stopped’ people are actually super-slow-moving people.”

  “Wait,” I think. “You phased out a day ago. Doesn’t that mean you’ve spent a lot of time in here?”

  “In a way, yes. But the way I experience the passage of time is different from the way you do. And speaking of time, we don’t have a lot, remember?”

  “So you keep reminding me whenever I ask you something about yourself. Let me guess, we don’t have time for you to show me what you look like either?”

  “On the contrary. I would love to know what you would ‘see.’ So if you insist, why don’t you try to become cognizant of me? A lot of things work by a matter of will around here.”

  I try to see him, to become aware of him, and as soon as I do, a cacophony of light appears.

  Lights surround me from every angle. Then the lights move into the distance, and I see the whole entity. If the other networks—the ones that turned out to be Thomas, Kyle, and me—look like galaxies, then Mimir’s looks like the image of the early universe, but a dozen times brighter and with dozens more interconnected clusters.

  Then the lights surround me again and he thinks, “You flatter me when you compare me to the universe.” The ‘stars’ comprising him fade. “We really ought to get you started. There’s something you must do.”

  “And what would that be exactly?”

  “Use your powers to your advantage and then figure out how to get out of here. That sort of thing. Unless you have a better idea?”

  “Why should I learn how to get out of here when you keep saying that I’ll exit on my own when I run out of Depth?”

  “Because you don’t want to become Inert, do you?”

  “Of course I don’t. But won’t I be Inert regardless? The knife Kyle threw at me in the Quiet is going to enter my body when I return.”

  “Phasing out of here might take you straight back to reality,” he thinks. “In one of my theories, anyhow. So that’s an incentive to try.”