“Before you do anything, allow me to explain,” said the Sandman. “You may think that you had a terrible experience in your manipulated dreams. But first of all, you should know that you brought this upon yourself, and you will remember this soon. Second of all, you should know that you had it very easy. I heard that worker who just left telling you about how most people have to go through 20 to 30 lifetimes before they are able to go free. Think about that for a minute.”
“I don’t care,” Karena said furiously. “What you did to me was still wrong.”
“What I did to you was right. Listen. Normally, you would have had to stay in the cycle for 20-30 lifetimes. But I was the one controlling you, and I was the one who thought that it was wrong to keep you in there for so long. That was why I said I could help you, because I was the one who sped up the process and ensured that you could get out of there quicker.”
Karena refused to believe what the Sandman was saying, appalled that he was trying to defend himself and saying that what he had done to her was somehow magnanimous. This was the man who had chased her in the night, who had caused her all her suffering. This was Shawn, who had betrayed her so deeply that it still hurt. There was no way this creature could have been taking pity on her in doing that. It just felt wrong in every way.
“What cycle?” Karena decided to ask out of the millions of questions swirling in her mind. “You said you sped up the cycle. What exactly was the outcome you were looking for?”
“It wasn’t the outcome I was looking for; it was the outcome this group was looking for. And that outcome is anxiety. They wanted to create the feeling of anxiety in you, as strong as possible, and they felt that the only way to do that was to keep repeating one’s life over and over again for absurdly long amounts of time. But I was the one who wanted to prove them wrong. So I decided that instead of prolonging your anxiety, I would try to put it all into you in a big rush, in just four lifetimes, something the others said would never work. But I did it. By the end of your fourth life I had created the correct amount of anxiety levels for you to be released early from your sentence.”
“So you didn’t help me at all!” Karena cried, triumphant that she had discovered that the Sandman actually hadn’t helped her. “You still created anxiety in me, which was exactly what they wanted you to do! And now I’m going to be killed sooner!”
“Yes, but you have to understand something. If they had been in charge of your sentence, who knows when you might have gotten out? The anxiety levels required for your sentence were far greater than any other’s sentence. The way I did it, the anxiety levels could have been reached for a normal prisoner in just 2 lifetimes. You had to do double. That was why it was so unbearable for you. But nonetheless I helped you by getting you out sooner.”
“Wait, why did I have to serve twice as much anxiety as other people?”
“Because of what you did.”
Karena’s heart rate picked up, or at least the equivalent of her heart rate picking up happened. She wasn’t even sure if this body had a heart. But she was sure that whatever it was she had done, she would be shocked by it. Something that was so awful that she would have to serve double the regular sentence of a standard criminal wasn’t anything she could begin to imagine. “What did I do?” she asked, and brace herself for the response.
The Sandman paused. He sat there on the floor, his small, blobby body hardly moving at all. And then, he made his reply.
“You were charged with assassination,” he said. “Assassination of the most important figure in the universe. And that was why you were going to be killed directly after your sentence was up. You wouldn’t even have a chance to remember what you did. But since I’m in charge of you, I have the power to tell you what happened.”
Assassination!? Karena couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had assassinated someone? And not just any old someone, but rather the most important figure in this world? Just moments ago it seemed she’d been in that large, open area, surrounded by Sandmen, about to be killed. And now that she had the truth she found it utterly impossible to wrap her head around. There was absolutely no way this could be true, and there was a long silence as she tried to think of what this could possibly mean. About why she would possibly do such a thing.
“Why are you helping me?” Karena was barely able to ask this over her shock.
“Because I don’t think you did it,” the Sandman said.
“What?”
“I don’t think you’re the one who assassinated the most important figure.”
63
Karena’s mind was in a whirlwind. First, Shawn had betrayed her by turning out to be the Sandman. Then, it turned out that the Sandman had actually been trying to help her all this time, and that she had been the assassinator of the most important figure in the world. And now it turned out that the Sandman didn’t even think she’d done it. It was too much information at once, and she had to force herself to slow down for just a moment, to not ask another question for the time being, and to try to understand what was going on. But she didn’t need to ask a question, because the Sandman spoke first.
“I looked at the evidence, and even though you went to court and were deemed guilty as charged, I suspected that there was something more to it. You weren’t the culprit. Very soon you’ll be remembering all of this, and you’ll remember exactly what happened. I intend to let you live.”
Karena couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The Sandman had not only shortened her sentence, but was also not going to kill her, despite the fact that she’d been accused of murdering the most important figure in the world. She didn’t know what to say. She was sure that she would never do anything like murder, it wasn’t like her. And so this creature, the Sandman, was saving her life. It seemed hard to believe that this was the actual Sandman, and the scar that he had left on her life was still there from all those horrible years. But now that she was in reality, it was as if she was coming to the light and could see things from an entirely new perspective. It’s like when one wakes up from a dream and discovers the truth about everything that had happened in the dream, and that their thoughts in the dream were misguided. Indeed, that’s exactly what it was. She understood now what was going on, crazy as it may be. The Sandman actually had helped her.
Finally, she sputtered out: “Thank you.”
“Yes, well, it was only logical that you shouldn’t be killed since you didn’t even commit the crime. So really there’s no need to-”
“I don’t care.”
Karena could hardly believe her change in feelings towards the Sandman. Just like that, she found herself trusting him more than she had ever trusted anyone else except Shawn. The most ironic thing perhaps was that he was Shawn, and had been the entire time.
“Come with me now,” the Sandman said. “I need to get you to somewhere I won’t be questioned by the others.”
The creature took off, and Karena had a hard time keeping up with him as he practically whizzed down the hallway in the direction he’d come, even though it was apparent that he was trying to make an effort to slow down for her. She found that she could go quite fast in this cord body of hers, though not as fast as the Sandman was able to.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” said the Sandman as they flung themselves down the seemingly endless corridor. “You have several transmitters inside of you that will track you wherever you are, and so of course these need to be removed if we’re going to have a successful escape. I already disabled my own transmitter so that other humans can’t hear what I’m saying. But of course, they’ll be suspicious, because we’re only supposed to turn it off in extreme circumstances, so we need to hurry. Also, we need to disable a shield around the facility that will vaporize anything going in or out.”
“Wait, anything leaving this complex will be vaporized?”
“Yes, except for a 15-minute window at the end of the day and at the beginning of the day when the employees switch shifts. Other than that, we’re
stuck in here.”
Karena’s mind was in a whirlwind. This entire thing was crazy. They were escaping the facility, actually escaping, after being held there for so many years. And they had a chance. But Karena still had a burning question that she needed to ask.
“Why am I a bundle of cords?” Karena asked as they continued on their way.
“I’ll explain everything later. And anyway, you’re going to get your memory back soon, so there won’t be any need for that. We need to focus on getting out of here now.”
“Please, you can explain while we’re fleeing. There isn’t any guarantee that we’ll actually survive this.”
The Sandman was silent for a moment. “I know,” he said finally. “And it’s insane that I’m risking my life for this. But I suppose I can tell you this now. So long as we don’t run into trouble for the time being.
“There are two main inhabitants of the planet Earth,” said the Sandman, speaking very quickly. “There are the humans, such as I, though we are not the sort of humans you would be familiar with, as your dream took place in the 21st century, correct?”
“Yes, but wait, you’re a human?”
“I am. You, on the other hand, are a phericke, which basically started out as an experiment to create an efficient machine that went horribly wrong. It is clear to us now that it is impossible to create sentient life through science. Numerous experiments have shown this. However, somehow the phericke became sentient, not through the doing of science. We can’t explain this, really, but the point is that now there are almost just as many pherick on earth as there are humans.”
Karena had a hard time taking this all in as she continued to fling her way down the hallway. Very soon, probably even within minutes now, she’d get her memory back, and she’d know all about this new world. But like she’d said, they might not make it, though she didn’t dwell on that prospect long.
All of a sudden, Karena felt deja-vu. It was similar to that time all those years ago when she’d had deja-vu at her second birthday party. There was a sudden feeling inside of her, a feeling that she’d done this before. A feeling that she’d seen this place before now.
Phericke. She had heard that strange word somewhere before. But where could she have heard it? There was no way she could have remembered that from her past life. Did this mean that her memory was returning?
“Why have you stopped?” the Sandman asked from ahead of her. Karena found that she had, indeed, stopped. But she hardly cared. Something was coming back. She was sure of it now. It was as if an entity was within her brain, trying to push its way out slowly.
“Quick, Sandman,” she said. “Do I have a name?”
“A name? Well, yes it’s…”
The name said by the Sandman is, I’m afraid, impossible to write down here. Some words in the language of earth in this time period can be written down, such as phericke, but the name spoken by the Sandman is not pronounceable in regular English. You will just have to imagine that the creature said this by rippling its flesh, and that immediately Karena recognized it.
Karena recognized the name the Sandman had said. At first, it was unclear where she’d heard it. But the name triggered something within her, something she couldn’t explain, a strong feeling of recollection, thought she couldn’t quite grasp what it was she was recollecting. She searched deep into her thoughts, trying to come up with where she’d heard that name. Could that have really been her name, in another time and another life? A life in this strange world of humans and phericke?
And then, all of a sudden, she remembered. In a burst of realization, Karena wanted to smack herself for being so stupid. Of course that was her name. She remembered everything about this world, about the humans and the phericke. She remembered the court case where she was accused of murdering the Figure, where she’d been sentenced to death after serving a long sentence in the dream chamber. She remembered it all.
“What is it?” the Sandman asked her, seeming to forget about the urgency of the situation for a moment.
“I remember,” Karena said. She didn’t even think of herself as Karena anymore now, of course, but for the purposes of the book I will put down that name instead. “Well, you all did go and wipe my memory after all. Oh well. At least I have a plan B.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you seriously think I was just going to let myself be killed by you all? Did you think that I wouldn’t get out of here? I had planned to get out before you put me in the dream, but I don’t suppose it’s any matter now. By the way, how long was I in there?”
“Just a few months. But you have to listen. I’m not going to let you be killed. I just told you, I know that you weren’t the one who assassinated the Figure.”
“Oh?” Karena said. “Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
The Sandman didn’t speak for a second. His motions conveyed that he was unsure about what she was saying, in quite a state of surprise. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked very quietly.
“What I just said,” Karena replied. “You think that I wasn’t the one would assassinated the Figure, and I’m telling that if I were you I wouldn’t be so sure that I wasn’t. And the reason for that is that I did do it. I assassinated the most important figure in the universe.”
64
The Sandman could not believe what he was hearing. All these months he’d been trying to help this phericke, to shorten the time that it would be in the dream chamber and to try to decrease its suffering, and even to save its life, and now it was full-out admitting to him that it had assassinated the Figure, that it was, indeed, guilty as charged. He’d gone through all the pressure to go to the council and try to persuade them to believe that his plan of shortening its time would work, despite the fact that it went against regulations and protocol, and now everything had changed. He’d risked his job and even his life in trying to help it escape, and now it was betraying him.
“That’s right,” Karena said. “I’m surprised, frankly, that they were even able to find out it was me in the first place. After all, I made sure there was a lot of evidence to show that couldn’t possibly have been me.”
“But…” the Sandman stuttered, which was something that only very rarely happened to humans. “But you were a mile away when he dropped dead. You were in your house. There was no earthly way you could have killed him. I was there. I don’t know who did it, but it couldn’t have been you.”
“That’s what I wanted people to think,” Karena said. “And it would’ve worked if I hadn’t been betrayed.” Here it paused for a minute, appearing to be quietly reflecting on a certain incident that had led her to be betrayed. “Anyway, I did it a way no one could possibly dream of, not even one of you humans.”
The Sandman was terribly worried now. In an instant, he decided that he would ensure this phericke did not escape from the compound. He decided that he would buy some time. “How did you do it?” he asked.
“Well, let me just put it at this. The phericke were created through experiments, trying to create an effective machine, correct?”
“Yes,” said the Sandman. He found it strange that he had been explaining this to it only moments before, and now it was explaining it to him.
“Well, it was never publicly released what these machines were supposed to be doing. After all, something went wrong, and that’s what happened. And yet some of them still fulfilled their original purpose, because some of them were taken back to the laboratory and experimented upon, just to see what would happen. Of course, the fact that the machines had developed a conscience posed quite a problem. However, the experiments went on, nonetheless, and the original purpose was fulfilled in some of the phericke. I was one of those. They took me back to the experimentation facility and performed numerous tests on me, trying to create what they had failed to do with the first experiments. Except this time, they succeeded.”
“What was the purpose?”
“They were intended to be used as a weapon. A
weapon that nobody had ever conceived of, save a small group of elite scientists in a secret underground compound, all hidden from the public. And because they experimented on me and implemented that weapon into my body, I was able to quite easily assassinate the Figure.”
“But how does it work?”
Karena turned around. “I’ve told you too much already. I have no reason to tell you about how it works. Besides, all you’re doing is trying to stall for time while you desperately rack your little brain trying to think of a way to prevent me from escaping. Well, you should know two things. First, I’m not interested in escaping. I’m here to do something else. Second, you couldn’t prevent me from escaping even if I was trying to. So now if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving here.”
With that, Karena zipped away quicker than any human could ever go, and she wasn’t going down the hallway, but rather up. Since she had regained her memory, she now had perfect control of her body, and what the Sandman could see that she’d done was uncurl one of her cords, wrapped it around a beam, and flew up to the ceiling at lightning speed, all in a matter of less than two seconds. And then she was gone.
At first, the Sandman was too shocked to speak. He’d been so sure that this phericke was innocent. He’d been almost 100% positive. And now it had gone and done this. Admitted that it had assassinated the Figure, that it had special abilities and weapons implanted in its body, and then had disappeared just like that. The irony, perhaps was the worst thing. He’d betrayed it by acting as Shawn for a long time, through many of its lives. But now it was betraying him by grinding to dust all his hard work of the past few months in trying to save it. Except this betrayal was far more real. He wasn’t able to move, so great was his shock.
And then, he sprang into action. He activated his internal communication device and spoke into it. “I have a tan alert on corridor 32,” he said as quickly as possible. “One of the convicts has escaped. It’s a phericke, and I have to warn you it claims to have some sort of special powers.”
Translucent Page 17