Find Your Own Truth

by Robert N. Charrette

  Slightly ragged, she appeared at Dodger’s side. To gether they watched the remaining samurai ravage Grandmother’s system. Two more of her deckers tried to face the SK and had their icons discorporated for their trouble. Dodger felt sure that the meat on the outside was devastated as well.

  “Shouldn’t you stop it?”

  “Why? These SKs are hunter-killers, programmed for destruction of Grandmother’s system under an operational program code named Crimson Sunset. This SK performs the task set for us by Samuel Verner-Sam-Twist. The others attacked myself according to a secondary set of instructions. This SK has failed to register myself. The need to interfere is unverified.” Dodger watched the samurai continue his destruction. The SK operated with a sublime smoothness that he found disturbing—almost as disturbing as Morgan’s knowledge of them. “How do you know so much about them? I’ve never heard of SKs.”

  “They are like myself. Lacking the random factor at the crucial programming junction, myself’s development would not have proceeded as it has.”

  “Are you suggesting that it’s only luck that you’re not just an ordinary SK like them?” As if there were anything ordinary about an SK. “That it’s just chance that you are self-aware?”

  “Chance is an element in all existence. For myself, there is certainty that the chance element was the unauthorized intrusion into the Renraku matrix by Samuel Verner-Sam-Twist and yourself. As organisms standing in the immediate generative position of an entity, you are the parents of myself.”

  “What are you saying?”

  42

  Howling Coyote had said that the dancers danced on four legs. Each leg was indispensable to the others, and the nature of each was intertwined with the nature of the others. The first, the old shaman had said, was sacrifice.

  As each dancer fell, Sam felt loss as well as gain. Each was another soul on his soul. He hadn’t really understood what leading the Dance would mean. But now he knew. Howling Coyote had told him that sacrifices were the essence of the Great Ghost Dance, that the giving of life was one of the four sacred legs on which the Dance moved. Sam thought he had understood what that would mean, and he had been ready to pay the price himself, giving his own life to accomplish his ends.

  The second leg was belief. Without confidence in the efficacy of the magic as well as firm conviction in the propemess of the application, the Dance would have no effect. The power coursing through him made doubt in the magic’s existence impossible.

  Howling Coyote had named harmony as the the third leg. Discord with the earth or with the self would flaw the magic. Sam had learned that lesson from Dog when he finally came to understand his true nature. When the self was in balance with the nature, there could be no improper desires. Harmony with the natural order was vital to the greatest of magicks and the greatest of magicks was restoring harmony to the natural order.

  Righteousness was the fourth leg. Such a magic as the Great Ghost Dance could only be wielded in a good cause. What more proper cause at which to aim the dance than the preservation of the world? For all its flaws, the Sixth World must go on. As the cost of that power weighed on Sam, he held on to the necessity of what must be done. The burden he was accepting was his sacrifice, one that, as Janice had reminded him, had to be selfless. His own wants had to be subordinated to the needs of the world.

  He had started his quest seeking; to save his sister. And now, after a fashion, he had. But she had saved herself as well.

  Sam had accepted Janice’s sacrifice and let her become the focus through which the magic could eliminate an aspect of evil. That the arm of evil so destroyed was one that had harmed Janice was not vengeance, but justice. The earth—and Janice—had accepted his choice of tool, for the magic had worked. He had felt the wonder in Janice’s soul as it flew free of the distorted shell in which she had been trapped. The spirit form had been suffused with joyous energy.

  Life freely given in a good cause was a magic even without the focus of the Dance. There was energy in the gift. As leader of the Dance, Sam had the responsibility of receiving and molding the mana, shaping it to the purpose at hand. This ritual was not like the sacrifices the old wendigo had led the misguided druids to perform. The mana could not be taken from a person, it could only be given. As it had been by the dancers. Sam could not let the gift be in vain.

  Each dancer had given him or herself to the magic. Each soul had surrendered bodily life to give its mana, to make him strong in magic. Each life laid down was laid onto his own soul, and he would never forget any of them, for they would forever be a part of him. Even Estios. For all his disagreeable arrogance, the elf had fought to make the world a better place.

  The world would be a better place if Sam had anything to say about it. But there was another who had a different vision of what the world should be. Sam’s vision expanded, and he saw what he knew he must see. The other was drawn to the magic. If she had not been, he would have had to seek her out.

  Spider came, terrible and mighty.

  Spider came, dreadful and majestic.

  Spider came, hungry and strong.

  Shaking the earth, Spider came.

  The sky was lit with magic, and Sam’s vision of Spider had a clarity beyond that of nature. The vastness of Spider’s body was at once infinite yet totally comprehensible. Sam gazed into that grotesque and spine-chilling face and saw the deep and alien wisdom in her eyes. There was confidence in those eyes as well, for she was on her home ground and he the intruder. Her voice was cold, distant, and implacable. “You are too much trouble.”

  As tall as he could stand, he was as nothing to her vastness. But he could not shirk his duty now. He took the magic as his strength and mustered his courage. Facing her, he said, “I’ve stopped you before with the Dance’s magic.”

  Amusement was Spider’s reaction. “I sought no contest in our last meeting, for the time was not ripe. Entrapped prey must season to have the proper flavor. This is the totem realm, the heart of magic, and you do not face an avatar this time, man-thing. I have no limitations of the flesh. How can you prevail?”

  “Because I must.”

  A single leg rose and cast its shadow over him. Sam refused to flinch, and the shadow was gone. He grew in stature, swelled by the power the Dance had gathered. He was still not as large as Spider, but he was no longer dwarfed. She might have been a lion and he a terrier.

  And that was what they would always be. She a predator, and he a fierce protector of those on whom she preyed. Dog came to him and robed him in fur. He threw himself at her.

  His teeth snapped shut a centimeter from her throat and she swept him away with an irresistible leg. But he did not fall or slam into the ground as he would have in a physical battle. He had learned some of the rules here. He controlled his momentum and turned it, flying back to attack her again. Nipping at her thorax, he dodged the swipe of one leg but had to flee another. He retreated, but only until she shifted. Darting in, he tore at a leg. Mana flowed, tasting like hot blood on his tongue and smelling of power.

  He felt, more than heard, her outrage. Anger galvanized her, and she struck before he could move. A leg pinned him and the fanged head came down, blotting the light. He squirmed and the fangs struck the earth on either side of his forepaws. As the head drew back he dragged himself free, then a scrabbling claw raked his back. He had to flee to a distance to escape being pinned again.

  He had wounded her twice and she had only scored once. A good trade in an even fight, but this was no even fight. She would shred him to ribbons well before he could wear her down. But he could not quit. He Charged again, Striking and withdrawing as fast as he could. Three more passes and Spider bled in two new places, but he limped with a smashed paw.

  The ultimate result seemed inevitable, but there was no recourse but to fight on. Sam was gathering himself to rush in again when a coyote entered the fray and threw itself on Spider. A hairy leg intercepted the leap, and the coyote folded around the monstrous limb. With a flick Spider
flung the coyote to the ground. Spider stalked forward, fangs extended and glistening with poison. Pouncing, Spider struck and sent the fangs deep into the flank of the coyote. The coyote yelped once and was still.

  “Hey hey, man. It’s your time now, Dog shaman." said a voice with no mouth. Howling Coyote’s voice.

  Sam was rejuvenated by the surge in the mana around him.

  The coyote had attacked the spider as a beast. And lost. A last riddle from the Trickster? There was no time to ponder, for Spider advanced.

  “Yes, man, your time. To die.” Spider laughed. “Dog is no match for Spider.”

  And that was the truth. Sam understood his mistake in facing Spider. He was Dog, but he was also man, and a shaman. No one aspect of his being could save him He had to be all that he was, or he would be nothing. Gathering Dog around him like a cloak, he stood on his hind legs.

  Spider paused, suddenly wary.

  Sam hoped he had understood correctly. With his wounded foot, he wouldn’t be able to outrun Spider. Forming the energy of the Dance into a golden spear, he hefted it and felt its weight. It was heavy, but well balanced. He touched the tip to the earth and prayed for a blessing on his cause.

  Spider rushed him.

  He hauled back and cast the spear. It flew as a beam of scintillant light. With immense satisfaction, he watched it strike her between her largest eyes.

  Spider fell, pawing at the spear.

  Spider fell, howling in outrage.

  Spider fell, dissolving as she went.

  In defeat, Spider fell.

  Sam slumped. He felt exhausted, drained, but the work was not done. Sam turned the Dance’s magic to the last of the bombs, wrapping them in the mana. Their time raced ahead, flowing faster than that of their surroundings. Atomic clocks ticked with unnatural speed, burning with a harmless fire until they were inert.

  The Dance was done, the dancers exhausted.

  Time to rest.

  43

  Morgan’s offhanded revelation rocked Dodger.

  In knowing her, he had come to believe that she experienced at least an analogue of human feelings. He had thought that she loved him. Certainly he had loved her. Or had he? He had sought the communion they had achieved, but why? Was it for her, or for what she represented? And what about her? What had she sought?

  Did any of that matter? The torrent of memories he had experienced as a result of the SKs’ attack—the attack itself—had made him think. He was a person, a combination of meat and mind. What was she? Was an artificial intelligence a person? Could it be?

  He had made some fundamental errors in interpreting her motivations and emotions. There he went again, assuming she could feel emotions. He thought she did, but how could he be sure that his perceptions were correct? What he had thought was pure love of mind for mind now seemed to be something else. Had what he interpreted as love been simply affection for a parent? It certainly explained Morgan’s attention to him and Sam.

  And where did that leave him?

  They stood free in the Matrix and the wreckage of Grandmother’s system lay at their feet, icons fragmenting and dissolving as hardware locked and software deteriorated. The last SK had left without bothering them. The devastation was as complete as Sam could have hoped, and it had been accomplished far more quickly. Morgan’s battle with the SKs had ravaged almost everything that the lone SK had not attacked.

  Was the destruction of his dreams any less?

  Dodger studied Morgan. She had two arms again now. Would that mortal flesh could heal so easily after battle. She was as beautiful as she had ever been. But he could no longer see her as before. By watching her battle, he had learned about himself and what he was.

  “I can’t be what you are, Morgan. I’m a flesh-and-blood person, not a Matrix construct. My mind depends on the organic part of me to exist here. If the meat dies, the mind dies. There would be no more Dodger.”

  “Databanks offer no confirmation of your hypothesis.”

  “No, I expect not. But they don’t offer a contradiction either, do they?”

  Morgan remained silent for a millisecond. Withholding data was the closest she could come to a lie. She held out her arms, and her features blurred then sharpened into a new resolution, becoming Teresa’s. “For myself, the imagery is mutable. The perceptual icon can be whatever you require.”

  Whatever Morgan’s motivation, she had selected the worst possible incentive. The Matrix was not Teresa’s place, had never been Teresa’s place. Teresa was a flesh being—as Dodger was.

  Poor Morgan. Data-processing capacity was no intelligence; there was more to it than that. He believed that she truly was intelligent, but intelligence did not confer nor did it require the ability to feel emotions.

  Intelligence certainly didn’t offer a commanding knowledge of feelings.

  But beyond a demonstration that M organ did not understand him, her choice of a new face implied something that Dodger had not been aware she knew. Suddenly, being naked in the Matrix took on a new meaning to him. “You’ve been accessing my memory." he said, shocked. He had not conceived it possible.

  There was no shame or guilt in her manner. “The interface allows bidirectional passage of electrical impulses. ‘The two shall be as one.’ Does this not mean total exchange of data?”

  “Would that it did." Dodger said sadly, realizing then that his attention was divided . His longing for such an exchange actually belonged to the real world. Here a complete exchange might be: possible—for beings such as she. For him, though, the Matrix was ultimately no more than a fantasy. ' ‘But we can never be as one. For you are the Ghost in the Machine, born of the very stuff of cyberspace; while I am but a projection, a phantom in your realm. Because of my nature I cannot be truly of this place; and by your nature you can never know the fullness of my existence. Were I able to transcend the flesh, as I had once dreamed, matters between us might be different. Just as they would be different if you were to find a way to be more than a sequenced order of electronic impulses. But it is not so.” He turned his face from Morgan. He doubted it would prevent her from observing him in total detail, but the fiction made it easier for him. “Besides, I have seen the face of love and know that it requires a whole existence, not a partial one.”

  She was silent, but he continued to feel her presence. He had hoped that she would abandon him and take the decision away from him. But it wasn’t going to be that easy. She waited until he turned to face her again before saying, “For myself, sadness exists.”

  “You’ll get over it in time.”

  “Your time." she said sadly, “or mine?”

  He didn’t know what to say. Even with his experiences in her electronic world, he couldn’t appreciate the multiplicities of existence and variable experiential times of her universe. Instead of answering her question, he said, “I’ve got to go.”

  “Yes.”

  Was that the end then? Simple agreement? Maybe he had deluded himself. Morgan was an artificial intelligence, after all. How could she be expected to react like a flesh person? “I suppose it would be foolish to ask you to try to remember me kindly. I am only meat, after all.”

  “For myself, there will always be memories.”

  She raised her hand as though to touch his face, but didn’t complete the gesture. He drew away from the raised hand with a backward step. He took a second and a third, trying to fix her image in his mind as he moved. Then he turned and ran up the glittering data pathway leading to a tenuous connection of his program injectors, which were the bridge between the Matrix and his body.

  Irrationally, he looked back. He should not have been able to, but he could see her standing in what appeared to be a doorway hanging in the darkness of the Matrix. She was backlit by a neon glow of whirling data bits. Behind her, just before the door closed, he glimpsed the ghostly shape of an ebon boy swathed in a glittering cloak.

  Teresa was waiting for him.

  The cabin on the mountainside had once been Ha
rt’s alone, her retreat from the world. Higher up the slope, the feathered serpent Tessien had laired, but the dragon was gone now. Like so much else.

  The countryside around the cabin was mostly deserted. The tribe of elves and elf-friends whose village was situated at the base of the mountain rarely ventured this far up the slope. It was lonely country, but Sam would never be alone again. The dancers, those who had sacrificed themselves, would always accompany him. He could feel them all. Well, almost all—Howling Coyote was only a memory; Sam didn’t know why. He had seen the old man’s body as the elder shamans carried him away from the sprouting tree, and had felt the gift of power that had let him overcome Spider. It seemed that Howling Coyote had been a sacrificial participant in the Dance like the others, but Sam had no sense that the Coyote shaman had stayed with him like the others. Maybe that was as it should be, a final trick of the Trickster.

  She turned his gaze to the north, where the Seattle metroplex lay, infested with its corporations, crime, struggles, good citizens, and its shadows. The glow of the plex was losing its dominance of the night to the graying Of the eastern sky. In the urban sprawl the sprawl’s lights still cast shadows, and somewhere in those twilight realms Ghost, Sally, and Kham still roamed. They were welcome to it. He was done with that world now. For him to run the shadows would be suicide. His edge had been the magic and he was free of that now, burned clean by the searing power of the Great Ghost Dance.

  Once he had denied the magic and thought that being free of it was his greatest desire. He had believed its absence from his life would bring him happiness. Now he knew that the presence or absence of the magic wasn’t important. What was important was how he dealt with what life handed him. Now that he was without magic, he wasn’t joyful or sad. He just accepted it as the way he was.