Grand Junction

by Maurice G. Dantec

  The snippets that remain etched on his memory, without having any specific relation to his own existence, still illuminate the profound mystery of it. They are snippets, but they seem more complete than his whole history as a man in the Territory.

  They traverse the limbic zone between the murderous light of that morning and the saturated colors of this evening irradiated by love.

  They give a secret meaning to all the other secrets.

  They seem able to explain the surprising actions of that very morning and his internal state at the time without ever actually evoking their occurrence.

  They are the lost squadrons, the squadrons of words and concepts launched like fleets of kamikazes with no hope of returning.

  They are what the men of the Territory can still do that is good, for now.

  Like the Professor’s retort to one of Chrysler’s questions concerning the Book of the Apocalypse:

  “That is why the biblical appellation of ‘Beast’ only works if we consider that it was very difficult at the time, even impossible, to conceive of a ‘living thing’ like our computers, and later the Metastructure, not to mention androids. What you call ‘the Thing’ doesn’t really work much better, except that we can say that this paradoxically dead-thus-alive entity contains, as a process of deproduction, the Four Beasts described in the Apocalypse. The Four Beasts are the four phases of the Thing. But again, you can’t consider the process from a linear point of view; the Four Beasts are phases of the process, which means that they divide and subdivide endlessly.”

  The Professor had then tried to concentrate his attention on the Scottish theologian on the basis of whose writings he and Milan Djordjevic were trying to develop a theoretical response to the challenges posed by the Thing to the Last of Humanity.

  Yuri had suddenly realized, stunned by the massive blow of the revelation, that science and metaphysics could in no way be separated, ever, without both losing all reason.

  The shock wave would last for days, and maybe even my whole life, he had said to himself as he listened to the Professor.

  “You have to understand what men like Duns Scotus said about the ‘First Principle.’ They often took inspiration from the Kabbalah. For example, the fact that the Unique and Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is the Creator of the World but was not created Himself, and so is not part of the Creation; this God is metacosmic. But being of this nature means that he gives rise to all phenomenal causes, even the first ones, and all principles, even the first ones. He is thus strangely connected to the Nothingness. Since he comes before the One, he must be considered as the zero. This, precisely this, is our most common error. And it was also the one made by the Dominican Saxon Eckhart. Because he does not come before the One; because it is the whole, simultaneously One and Infinite, numbers that come after the Aristotelian infinity, contingent infinity. It is the infinite whole of transfinite numbers. And so it is a sort of anti-zero, because zero is a number that also corresponds to a whole, the empty whole that is an absolute inversion of infinity. In a way, Duns Scotus perfectly anticipated the mathematics of Cantor and Dedekind, six centuries before them.”

  Later, an exegesis by Djordjevic had tried to illuminate the vast shadow areas that surrounded the infinite light of Transfiguration. Yuri had thought it resembled something like poetry.

  It was truer than nature.

  “Duns Scotus was, according to us, a worthy successor to the doctors of the classical Church, such as Basil of Caesarea and Athanasius of Alexandria, who were known for their treatises on the Holy Spirit and the Incarnation of the Word; in other words, on the mystery of the Trinity. Don’t forget, man was made in the image of God. That is important because Christ is God, and so we were made in the image of Christ. Which doesn’t mean, obviously, that we are gods, or ‘Christs.’ But we are Images—material images—that goes without saying. Which means that we are a translation of that divine nature within matter, within the Created World, with all the problems associated with that. But the image is analogical and antagonistic: the nature of Man is obviously completely distinct from that of Christ. But a principle, the principle of individuation, permits us to remain Images of the very process of Divine Creation. For Duns Scotus, this principle makes us unique beings via the relationship—singular each time—that we establish with the Multiple, through the Infinite. Just as in Christ, human nature and divine nature are one while remaining absolutely separate and immiscible. It is the same for the ‘individuated’ body of man. This body is also a soul. Note that I said is, not has. That is my Scotist predicate. The individual is infinite by nature because it is act and identity, and because it is thus beyond the conflict between One and Many, singular and universal, body and spirit. The soul is not a sort of ‘pilot’ contained inside some ‘intelligent’ part of the body, any more than it is everywhere while being nowhere ‘inside’ the human organism, or any more than it is beside us like a ghost or, like the monopsychists think, inside a sort of exterior entity that thinks through us. For Scotus, who continued the work of Saint Thomas on the question of the Universals, the soul and the body in man are two infinitely intertwined principles that are really only one, while yet being completely separate. The proof is that the body dies, that the soul is reborn, and that on the Day of Judgment, souls and bodies are called to be reborn and reunited.”

  “Monopsychism?” Yuri had asked.

  “Yes. An old theory of an Arab Aristotelian, Averroës. In simpler terms, in the debate about nature and the process of creation of the individual, monopsychists claim that it is a ‘separate intellect,’ an autonomous psychic substance, that individuates in humans and gives them their singularity. For them, individual thought is only a particular image of the relationship instituted by this ‘intellect agent’ with consciousness. That is what Professor Zarkovsky and his team stumbled on despite my warnings. They were not responsible for it, though. The basics had been proposed more than twenty years earlier, by the first designers of the Metastructure. But its update was the accomplishment of the phenomenon. And its accomplishment meant its death. And its death meant its accomplishment.”

  Then the Professor had picked up the thread, imperturbably.

  “The entity acts at all levels of reading/writing in the World. It works in machines and human beings, and it is continuing to extend its reign of ‘hyperactive’ nihilism, except that it is also keeping it up in an ecological sense.”

  “Nihilism?”

  “Negation of the Created World. All the ideologies that eventually created the Pseudo-World of the Metastructure came from this denial, this ontological refusal, this impossibility of affirmation, this bitterness, according to the philosopher Nietzsche—whose works, Milan tells me, Link has begun reading. He was also the one who, with reason, compared nihilism to an ever-growing desert. Except that it isn’t a metaphor anymore. The American desert has already crossed the Ohio border; its front line is now thirty kilometers inside the southern part of Pennsylvania. The problem is that I say now, even though this desert is one of the fastest-growing geological phenomena I’ve ever heard of. When I stayed on the Ohio border waiting for Pluto’s taxi, I could see it advancing daily, but it was as we crossed Pennsylvania that we really realized the extent of it. Entire areas that were hard ground less than a week before had been swallowed by sand. In compiling various visual data—observation of the progression of the frontal line of dunes, approximate wind speed—I concluded that this front line was advancing at the terrible speed of one kilometer per day. That is huge. It’s thirty kilometers a month. Three hundred sixty a year.”

  And now Yuri, while he spends long moments observing the young girl in the glowing light of the setting sun bathing the glass walls of her veranda, Yuri, while he realizes, with the violence of erupting reality, the incredible, supernatural beauty of this girl, Yuri, terribly and joyously alone, realizes that this day, which has marked his life forever, this day, the last before their odyssey to the Gaspé Peninsula, this day,
which began with a double murder accomplished with the naturalness of one of the territory’s poisonous plants, this day of traps and plans, is ending with the unanticipated splendor of what cannot be foreseen by any plan, what can be trapped by nothing, even by itself.

  He realizes, dazed by the implications of his discovery, that love is the greatest of all traps.

  It is the trap that traps the traps of the world.

  And it gives him a glimpse into the only area of resistance possible to the postmechanical entity, to what the Professor and Djordjevic call the Antichrist.

  This, as they explained to him, should be perceived according to several perspectives.

  It can rise up in a cataclysmic, global, ecological way, as the Thing has done.

  It can, more simply, come alive in common human creatures, like the two men he had to kill this morning. Or like himself, maybe, at the same instant.

  But an “entity,” its perfect antinome, continues in spite of everything to exist, to resist, to subsist.

  The Beast will have to reckon with natural prodigies like Judith Sevigny. And supernatural prodigies like Link de Nova. And it will have to reckon with simple humans, acting on motives that the Thing, the Beast, the Post-Machine, whatever you call it, undoubtedly cannot comprehend.

  It could never imagine that a man like Chrysler Campbell would take such a sudden and intense interest in the durability of an academic medieval library.

  It could never imagine that a simple ray of light falling on the face of a very young woman adjusting her astronomical telescope would provoke an authentic cataclysm in a consciousness that is still young, but that has just tasted the eternal oldness of death.

  It could never suspect—the Beast, the Thing, the Post-Machine—that Beauty would always be able to appear as an authentic mystery, and that this mystery would always rise above it, because the very infiniteness of the Thing is this false Aristotelian infiniteness, numerical and quantitative, while what motivates Link de Nova and his paranormal gifts just as much as Judith Sevigny and her simple singular existence, is situated in this transfinite space, there where nothing can be added, there where quantitative infinity is exceeded from the outset, to cede its place to true infinity.

  The Beast, of course, because of Beauty itself, will always try to couple monstrously with it; it will try to take on its traits, the unique characteristics of its being, but its maneuver is destined for failure; it can create only a ridiculous mask of the sublime, a pretty false-front of splendor. Instead of infinity, it can create only numbers.

  So, the next morning, they will leave. Yuri will leave the Territory behind him; he will leave Heavy Metal Valley and Link de Nova, Junkville and the man with the red Buick, Deadlink and its masses of refugees, the necro Triads and the organ sellers, Neon Park and the two dead men in Row 299, Sheriff Wilbur Langlois and his Law of Bronze. And the glass observatory with its occupant, the stars’ younger sister.

  He will leave men susceptible to the Thing.

  He will let the image of Judith Sevigny recede, slowly, in the rearview mirror.

  26 > DIESEL POWER

  Sainte-Anne-des-Monts.

  Dawn plunges the landscape into the heart of a pink cloud. The city is appearing at the bottom of the butte where they have just stopped. The river is very wide here, in the estuary—that is, facing the ocean. The small city is a port, huddled beside the sea at the base of the Chic-Choc Mountains, the eastern counterparts of the Notre Dames. It features a true breakwater, structured around a dike and a large loading dock. There are several churches there, typical of the old Quebec from before the twenty-first century, with their silvery bells that gleam softly in the early morning light. A dozen windmills of all generations turn their helicoidal stars whose silhouettes are delicately sketched against the blue-orange background of the coming day.

  No pirates control this city, and its local militia is reputed to be fairly easygoing. It is here, at the departure point, that everything can play out.

  “There it is,” Campbell remarks. “We’re here.”

  Yuri sends a message in plain English to the Chevrolet Silverado following two or three kilometers behind them. “Junction to Alberta. Junction to Alberta. We are in view of the goal. Repeat: we are in view of the goal.”

  Then they wait calmly for the sheriff’s men to arrive.

  Langlois watched over them until the very last minute, ensuring rigorous compliance with procedure. Yuri had said to himself at the time that they might be leaving HMV, but the Law of Bronze would follow them wherever they went—he also knew, though, that the sheriff wasn’t acting that way out of a simple, crazy obsession with order.

  The Law of Bronze of the Territory will be their shield.

  If they respect it, they have a chance. A chance to get back with the library. A chance, at least, to get back alive.

  Five or ten minutes before their actual departure, the sheriff had gathered them all near the vehicles parked side by side, as if on invisible starting-blocks.

  “Don’t ever communicate entirely in plain English. No proper names, no ranks, no places, no identifiers. Yuri and Campbell, you’re the ‘Junction’ group—after all, you are the ones who will be officially contacting the truck. So Junction-1 and Junction-2, individually. The tactical intervention group’s Silverado will be called ‘Alberta,’ for obvious reasons,” Langlois had said, indicating his huge deputy with a glance. “Once the connection has taken place, the truck will be ‘Convoy,’ with the same procedures, and that’s the minimum I ask of you. Also, go right to the target. Mr. Campbell, you are the titular head of the operation, but questions of security will be primarily decided by Slade Vernier. Let me be clear about this—as long as everything is going well, Mr. Campbell, you’re in charge. If any threat arises or you’re under fire, the tactical team takes over. Obviously, this is not negotiable.”

  “With ten minutes to departure, Sheriff,” Campbell had said. “I don’t think I’m in any position to argue.”

  The truck is waiting for them at the predetermined place. A bit to the east of the city, on a secondary street. The meeting has been planned for the early morning, before the city really wakes up.

  And sure enough, the truck is there. At the appointed time. Orbital rendezvous 100 percent normal.

  Yuri sees it as they round a bend, parked on the side of the road. A typical European truck, with its flat hood wedged vertically just under the wide windshield, the engine in the rear under the cab. Military green. He notes the arms of the Lombard army, a few examples of which he has seen printed on old duffle coats in the Djordjevic home and on Link de Nova’s shoulders, as well as a small gold-and-silver heraldic plaque he doesn’t recognize in the very center of the radiator grille.

  The region is wooded, its flora nourished by the oceanic humidity, which creates a dense curtain hiding them perfectly from the city and the coastal road. Webs of purplish fog drift among the tree-covered buttes all the way to the banks of the estuary. An immense sparkling-blue mass, touched with quicksilver sparks, extends far beyond the horizon, more than a hundred kilometers wide. This river is a piece of the ocean.

  Chrysler’s plan is working perfectly, thinks Yuri.

  There it is; the “junction” worked. They are meeting the library from Rome and the men who brought it here.

  Soldier-monks, Djordjevic had explained succinctly.

  Soldier-monks.

  Soldiers?

  Monks?

  He remembers Campbell’s intuition, his own questions. His acts, his thoughts, his nonthoughts. He remembers why they have come here. Them, and no one else.

  If it took soldiers, soldier-monks, to escort this library, it is not only because the books are worth a lot—commercially or otherwise.

  It is because they are an army in themselves.

  Soldier-monks.

  Two men. Fortyish. Dressed in black uniforms, long as dusters, with heavy hoods.

  Soldier-monks. Shaved heads. State-of-the-art binoc
ulars hanging from cords around their necks. On their shoulders, the same gold-and-silver emblem as the one on the truck’s grille. They work directly for the Papacy; that’s all I can tell you because it’s all I know, Djordjevic had said.

  They stand face-to-face. The four men from the Territory and the two from the Vatican. Two worlds. Two worlds in full-on collision.

  Above them, high-altitude clouds, light and quick like celestial racehorses, shingle the azure sky. The sun is pale yellow. Nature is waking; birds shake the treetops with an endless, ever-changing cacophony. The fog retreats slowly, in cottony wisps mingling with the clouds, sea spray, the Nordic wind. Blue-green lichen dangles from the branches of the maple trees and ancient surviving firs.

  This universe is still beautiful.

  Soldier-monks.

  The library.

  The Convoy.

  We, the Escort.

  We, the Secret Human Army.

  This new morning, as sublime as yesterday’s, and that of the day before.

  This universe that stubbornly remains so beautiful in the midst of disaster.

  Organization: Follow the commandments of the Law of Bronze and the sheriff’s orders to the letter. Yuri and Campbell, “Junction,” drive two or three kilometers ahead of the convoy, as the advance men. Slade Vernier and Lecerf-le-Français, “Alberta,” are behind the truck for rear protection. In “Convoy,” the soldier-monks relieve each other at the wheel every four hours, with the passenger serving as copilot and especially as possible firer of 5.56-caliber NATO ammunition.

  Introductions: Quickly dispensed with. Indication of names and functions. Rapid briefing on the situation. Exchange of certain vital information, the opening of a dialogue:

  “Our real identities are secret. My name is Francisco Alpini, because I was a member of the Alpini division, the Italian mountain troops. We learned to march, ski, kill. To kill while marching, kill while skiing. To ski while marching.”