Children of Gravity

by E. R. Jess

  It would never stop if it didn’t begin. The program got into every corner of Kagan's mind with a flashlight and wiped it clean. Eight refilled it, but the memories rattled around like pinballs. The Antikythera program knew what to do. It put them where it thought they should go.

  Kagan could feel it. There was another being in his self. It was honest, but never asked permission for the things it did. It was as intimate as a lover, but calculating and cruel by necessity. It was not him, it was not some part of him that he used to be or someone he wanted to be at one time. Between Eight and the program, Kagan's mind was rearranged and re-written so many times he didn't know which way was up. Kagan was gone. He was hiding in the places that only children know about. In the spots that shelter one from the day and let one think for a time. And he would be there until a friend came looking for him.

  “How do you feel?” Alessa asked of Kagan.

  It was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. Alessa's voice filled with the most intense and passionate concern. He'd forgotten who she was for a moment, then thousands of pieces of memory came back to him in a flash. He felt safe with her at his side. Kagan opened his eyes to no one.

  The program worked slower than human thought, so when Kagan stared at the ceiling, it took a fraction of second for him to understand what he was seeing. A broken set of aluminum rafters with sheets of green plastic layered over them in a geodesic pattern. When he looked at an object, the program helped him identify what it was, feeding him a stream of information on it. The view of his ceiling, the cold breeze sneaking its way in, the subtle layer of ash drifting in the air, the sound of a creaking strain on the building, everything that he experienced in his field of vision took up volumes of information in his mind, and the program sorted through it and gave Kagan what he needed. For a tiny moment, Kagan didn't know what anything was. He was a child for a microsecond. His brain struggled to deal with the information settling back into place, but the Antikythera program took over the job, deciding what Kagan remembered and how it related to the real world.

  A few moments passed. He sat up as well as he could. Alessa poked her head through the door. She had a plain blue dress on and her hair hung about her shoulders. Kagan let the tears fill his eyes. They were quite welcome. He was in a little pain and quite sore, but not groggy. His mind was very, very clear. “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “I feel alright.” A wave of light passed over his eyes in an instant. He blinked and it was gone.

  “We missed you. We've had to make do with Eight's charm.” She stopped at the foot of the bed as she chuckled.

  Kagan turned his head. He tasted the air, inhaled his first deep breath. He looked at Alessa and smiled brightly. “Alessa,” he said, “I've missed you, too.”

  Alessa held his hand. She grinned, but urgency took over. “Kagan, we have to move again. We have to find a safer place. We are leaving.”

  Kagan nodded. He got to his feet easily. He looked at his bandaged wounds and pursed his lips, “Am I well enough to walk?”

  Alessa's eyes went wide, “You tell me, I mean, you've been up and around for a day now.”

  “Of course,” and several hours of memories replayed in an instant behind Kagan's eyes as he stood motionless, a dizzying experience. But he did feel well enough. He had been up and eating and talking about his condition with Sam. He went through several scans and tests. He rubbed his new hip.

  Alessa forced a smile and spoke, “You're doing very well.” Alessa stuttered, she almost broke down in front of him. She spoke and her voice cracked, “Kagan, there was a real possibility, a real chance that you weren't going to make it. I don't think I was ready for that. I don't want to be ready. I'm just so glad that you're back.”

  Kagan looked at her hand in his. The program streamed tons of information at once and he reeled at the experience. He knew that woman, he felt deeply for her. She was important. The program dropped thousands of hours of memories behind his eyes, and he had to wince as a headache was growing. Kagan had to force the resurgence of memories down, else he would be consumed by them. Kagan squeezed Alessa's hand tightly and said in a steady whisper, “It's good to be home.”

  People gathered around outside waiting for a glimpse of Kagan. Makz was among them, closely guarded by two rusters. Eight saw him and went over. Eight's usual automatic delving into Makz's mind was blunted. Perhaps by days of stress. Makz stood upright, holding his bruised ribs.

  “I'm being a good boy,” Makz said.

  Eight looked at the ruster guards and nodded to them, they departed. “I see that,” he said. Eight delved him quickly and was surprised to find a line of thinking that held good intentions. Makz was intending to cooperate.

  Makz shifted his position in the dust. “The word is that your leader is going to be alright. That true?” he asked.

  Eight hesitated to answer, instead asking another question, “What are you up to?”

  Makz smiled, “Nothing, man. I got people gunning for me and this seems like the safest place right now.”

  Eight's eyes narrowed. He once again delved Makz. He went deeper into his memories, looking for a path that would corroborate his newfound sense of live-and-let-live. There seemed precedent in some actions he had taken in the past, but they were fuzzy and lost to time. It was altogether possible that Eight had reached as far as his abilities could go; a new memory path that he couldn't anticipate. “So what happens now?” He asked, exhausted.

  Makz knew that Eight was rooting around in his head and he smiled again. Whatever Jenna had done seemed to be working. He replied, “I may not like you people, but for now I could use the help. At least until we can part ways.”

  Eight exhaled, he was relieved. He had bigger problems to worry about. “We'll give it a try. When we get clear of these townships then you're on your own,” he said coldly.

  “Works for me,” Makz said simply.

  Eight gave Makz one last long skeptical look. He left and went to rest up while he could.

  Quiet and tired, Sam let the last of the homemade wine slide down her throat. She lounged back and breathed in the dusty night. All was a sterile green-white-black that was rich with right angles, ups and downs, sharp lines of contrast. And at the edge of watery surfaces and windows was a refraction of the city's orange-pink.

  She let her mind slip and subside and release the pressures of the last week. She let her eyes focus on nothing instead of surgical lasers or Kagan's statistics. She had finally gotten a chance to practice some real medicine, though the machine did most of the work. And she wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. Hours were going by and she simply couldn't get things straight in her brain.

  She feared the program.

  It was made to destroy, not heal. The men who made it were not practitioners of medicine. They were the clandestine majority, the ministers of a great church of control. They were the wiser force at work. It was a collection of minds that were meant to overcome any one person and their thoughts. A government branch that they forgot to write a ballot for. They were the four-dimensional, the role-models your kids don't have a prayer of becoming; perfect people making everyone perfect. And they'd been hunting down people like the pacifists with a zealot's fury, scorching the earth and leaving dread in their wake. And with the very technology that was made to end them, the pacifists sought to save one of their own.

  A few shots from a rifle made for that very purpose, if not from several hundred yards more away, took down a dear friend and companion. Kagan had been someone to learn from even with the gap in their ages. From that incident, Sam learned that no one was safe anymore. That there was no higher hand to hold, no face to look into for answers, no place where all the votes went and mingled around until everyone pretty much got what they wanted.

  Being with the pacifists felt to her like being at the front of a great exodus of the mind. And if she kept everyone alive as long as possible, then she was saving a small part of the world. Sam gathered her belongi
ngs and said goodbye to her latest temporary hospital.

  Starving in the Belly

  Starlight didn't reach the City-State, yet Revan knew exactly what it looked like. He had never been outside of the city walls, as far as he knew. The closest he'd gotten was near the east wall lining the artificial islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Even there, city lights washed out the sky at night. Revan sat in his new room, looked up through his small portal-sized window and imagined that the soft glow of the city streaming down around him was starlight. He could have sworn he had seen it before.

  He had been reeducated again. He was placed in a halfway house for citizens who had trouble with conformity. Revan was kept on a steady diet of drugs to suppress his memories, but they were persistent. His previous lives kept sneaking through. He was placed in a position in a factory for the production of lightspeed engines. When he couldn't handle it, Citizen Services placed him under special care.

  Revan had a difficult time. He would lose focus on the assembly line. He would begin shouting at his coworkers. He shouted nonsense. That he was the leader of a powerful organization and he couldn't be stopped. He begged for death. He clawed at the walls. His days in the factory were over.

  He sat in his room one evening, looking up at imagined starlight. His cerebral modem, which had been shut down before his last reeducation, sparked to life. The room around him changed, not completely, just enough to cause concern. The lighting was different, there was no dust, no wrinkles in the bed sheets. Revan was in the Outernet version of his room.

  “Mister Kore,” a voice called.

  He panicked and moved to a corner, hiding. He was imagining things. His memories were breaking through and destroying his mind. He didn't know what to do.

  “Revan, it's alright, you're safe,” the disembodied voice said.

  “Bullshit,” Revan said in a loud whisper, “Let me alone, I'm trying to get better.”

  The voice congealed into a shape. The digital representation of a person appeared before him, shrouded in starlight.

  “It's Jakob Spenning, sir. I used to work in your office, we worked together.”

  Revan turned his face to a dark wall, not wanting to meet eyes with the apparition in his room. “I'm at the bottom of a well, I'm at the bottom of a well,” he repeated to himself.

  Jakob was taken aback for a moment. “Yes, you are at the bottom of a well. UPC has determined that you cannot be reeducated again. Each attempt has failed and they plan on trying something much more drastic if it doesn't work this time around, if you don't accept who you are.”

  Revan whispered and rocked in his corner, “I don't want to be born anymore.”

  “Revan, you have to pull yourself together. Everything that was lost can be reclaimed. You just have to fake it. You have to come back to life. You have to go through the motions. We've done it before. Remember? You worked your way up to the top, you were Minister of UCM,” Jakob pleaded.

  Revan winced in pain. His mind began to spin and dig for information, but he stopped it. Revan didn't want the past to come back. It was going to end him.

  “You were a powerful man, and not just Minister. I was with you in the beginning. You were the Free City's leader. They called you The Elder. Do you remember? They caught and reeducated you, but you thrived, they thought you were a testament to their conforming process, but in reality it was your willpower.”

  Revan eyes watered. He pressed his face into the wall.

  “You were always meant to be a powerful man, and I'm going to help you out of this. You can reclaim what was lost,” Jakob said and his digital form shattered, leaving scraps of light hanging in the air.

  The room reverted back to its real-world form. Revan was sitting in the middle staring up at his window. His eyes went wide and he ran for the door. It was locked, of course. He pressed himself against a wall in the shadows. His mind was racing and he tried to stop it. The memories were strong and threatened to break free. He suppressed them. He slapped his face hard, he screamed into his hands as loud as he could. There was someone inside of him trying to escape, and UPC would end his life if they found out.

  0

  With Vorn's vehicle leading, the vehicle known as a UA-X, a general purpose urban assault troop and cargo carrier, the pacifists got back on the path. The children rode with the supplies in his hydrogen powered hauler. Eight and Makz walked together, with Eight keeping a close eye on the outcast. Dernen and Sam walked alongside the carts. Jenna stayed by herself, walking in the front. Alessa and Kagan lingered behind.

  Eight walked up along the driver side of the vehicle. “It's been a while, so I'm afraid to ask; how did the raid go?”

  Vorn slumped back in his seat. He steered with his right hand as he rested his left arm on the door. “I was able to get something to help your friend, so it wasn't a total waste,” he replied.

  Eight jumped up and rode standing on the vehicle's door jamb. “But no cure for conformity,” Eight said simply.

  Vorn nodded, “No, just the opposite. We attacked the convoy and won, but were swept out by an urban assault team shadowing them. We didn't get much, and if they have a treatment, an antidote for conformity, then we missed it. A few medical supplies and numerous injuries for our troubles. No deaths. But it was close.”

  Eight watched the road ahead. He wished he hadn't asked. “It was a bold plan, not something the people of the wasteland thought was possible. No one attacks UPC. You blackened their eye and that may have been enough.”

  “The assassination attempt was our black eye. It made everyone in the raid both reckless and feeling eminently mortal. We may not have agreed with Kagan, but it was a wake up call. We have to leave this city, this wasteland,” Vorn said quietly.

  “I'm sorry it came to that, but I'm glad you're here,” Eight said with a knowing smile.

  Alessa held Kagan's arm and helped him walk. “I can't wait to get back to Noble. It was a nice place. From there we can try to find a path to the north. Unless you have other ideas,” she said, trying to restrain her elation at his recovery.

  Kagan watched the group ahead of him. About fifty souls, hungry and weary, yet ready for the challenge. His rebirth inspired them greatly. A few new members joined, poor folk that had had enough fighting. Others still wanted to join, but would not swear off violence. The people that joined them thought the idea of moving as far away from the City-State as possible seemed like bliss, and the road to the north was looking better every day. Kagan shook his head, “No, that sounds like a good idea,” His muscles shook beneath his skin and his head echoed with chaotic images. He tried to ignore it and let the implant do its job. “It will be a while before I should fully contribute. I'm having a hard time sorting through my thoughts.”

  Alessa squeezed his arm and said, “Eight went through extraordinary lengths to preserve your memory. It's a miracle that you can form sentences.” She smiled and looked him up and down, “And when the implant is finished, Sam can remove it and you'll be good as new.”

  Kagan sighed inside his mouth. “I hope so. I don't like the feeling. It's like there's a little voice in my head telling me what to think, how to remember things.”

  “I imagine that's what it's for, to tell us how to think. When I was conformed, I felt like my feelings were walled up behind stone. And when I got through it, when I got the little voice out... but I wasn't conformed with anything as advanced as your implant,” Alessa said.

  Kagan looked at her arm holding his. A memory had begun to stir, but the program stopped it. It sent him blank images instead of memories. Kagan gave a frustrated grunt. Something about Alessa that was important, gravely so. He fought to remember whatever it was that was about to emerge, but the program gave him a headache for his effort.

  “Are you alright?” Alessa asked, seeing the strain on his face.

  Kagan began to answer, but then the headache stopped short. His head was tossed forward, his eyes looked down the path. The program gave him the impression that it was
imperative to stay alert, that something was near.

  Kagan left Alessa's grip and ran ahead of the crowd and the slow-moving transport vehicle. Eight asked what was going on, but Kagan didn't answer. He ran down the roadway over two kilometers and halted when he saw a column of smoke in front of the skyline. There was trouble ahead.

  Kagan sprinted back and jumped up on the driver side of the vehicle and asked Vorn to stop. “We have to hold up here. Get to the side of the road and stay awake,” Kagan said and then left to warn the others.

  Alessa caught up with Eight, a puzzled look on her face. “What did he see?”