by A I Zlato
“5th Hexa. You must take responsibility for your actions. Why have you revealed to your human binomial the existence of structures?”
“Because he asked the question, and the answer has no impact.”
“That’s what you think!” “That is my opinion.”
“What about our reverse linearity? This is our greatest weakness!”
“He should know.”
“Your faith in this human is becoming a threat. You are veering more and more outside the community, 5th Hexa. The Hexagon and the Spirit feel it. Decision time is getting closer...”
In its head, it heard Faress and Atemys trying to talk to it at the same time. It pushed them out, as it already knew what to expect from them.
“I know and I’ll be ready,” it said in a brash tone.
“We are too. And on that day, we will get rid of you,” the First and Last Element of the Circle replied.
Amazement pervaded the assembly, but 5th Hexa perceived nods.
“When you understand that your solution is not a good one, it will be too late,” Edgard continued. “The space will not save you from reverse linearity. Kandrons will not return, and the Hexagon will always need me. Moreover, what will happen to humans who are on the shuttle with you? Will you bring them along into nothingness?”
“The Spirit believes in my solution.”
“The same Spirit who lost recollection of how it had emerged from the void; the same from which I could hide some of my actions?”
“Everything always comes out eventually. Are you doubting the Spirit?”
“I’m part of it as it is part of me. I just wanted to emphasize that it is not omniscient. As I said before, the Spirit is making a mistake on this topic.”
“As you so rightly pointed out, we are still here thanks to the Spirit. That is why you are still here.”
“And it had paid the price, as we all had. We must accept our demise.”
A strange atmosphere drifted for a few seconds, leaving open the last exchanges in echo. If some were convinced by the Circle, others were undecided. 5th Hexa felt the presence of both the Hexagon and the Heptagon. It was part of both, while being involved in neither... It was torn. Decision time would soon come... it knew that.
4th Tetra decided to change the subject.
“The digital entity at work grows,” 4th Tetra said.
“Servants know,” said 3rd Hepta.
“Don’t be so sure. We missed it the first time. Why would they not?”
“I know them better than you do.”
“And I know the Machine better... we are well advanced. I am saying that nothing is certain.”
“We spend our time saying that. Nothing is sure, and yet we are doing nothing!”
“That is not true; we have several solutions...”
“That’s it. Several solutions because nothing is certain. So we disperse our forces.”
“I agree. Let’s choose space!” the Circle interjected.
“Your turn to speak will come; I still have things to say about the digital entity.”
“Go ahead.”
“It is very powerful, and that is its greatest weakness.”
“Servants know.”
“Are they safe?”
“No, of course not, but we can do nothing.”
None of them dared phrase the question they all nevertheless had in mind. 5th Hexa saw, superimposed on the meeting, Paul’s dream. The powerful Machine, which actually was no longer itself, the city in flames... the kandrons remained stuck in the same mistakes.
“Let us focus resolutely on space!” the Circle said.
“You saw, as I did, Planet Hope. It is magnificent! Humans will take us there...”
5th Hexa did not listen. It did not attempt thereafter to share Paul’s progress. They would not believe it anyway.
The meeting ended, and it was about to fly away when 1st Hexa landed under its nose.
“What in your view is the Hexagon?” it asked.
5th Hexa stared at it for a long time without understanding.
“What do we — Beryl, Danael, Faress and I — represent for you?”
5th Hexa remained silent.
“You have to respect us, don’t forget that. You cannot talk about us, our structure, to your human without warning, without notifying us. This will have no impact, perhaps, as you think, but even then, you should have told us. 5th Hexa, I don’t know what is going on with you, or in fact, I foresee something. And I don’t like what I see.”
“The Hexagon does not believe in my solution.”
“Your resentment does not justify your attitude. We already forgave you once. Our patience is not infinite.”
“I know.”
It took off, leaving Atemys behind. After barely breaking the mental link with 1st Hexa, Faress came to him. Instead of talking to it about important subjects, which might anger Edgard, Faress spoke about everything and nothing. It told Edgard about Angela’s day, gave a speech on the changing weather, and ended by describing, based on their menu, the distinction he made among all street vendors of French fries. Edgard happily listened to its twin, enjoying the lightness of tone. It followed suit and argued with Faress, disagreeing on the classification of the best fries in the city. To get things right, they naturally decided to test them all.
Like children, they flew from shop to shop, pilfering greasy horns, in front of vendors, under the stunned gaze of customers. They finally sat down with the loot at the riverbank to enjoy the product of their larceny. Faress started.
“So, my sibling, what is going on with you?”
“I cannot tell you anything.”
“Again! You really want to go it alone? The Circle is already taken...”
“It’s not that. You know... gravity, time, space... the relationships...”
“You keep dreaming. Yet 1st Hexa had warned you not to get carried away by events.”
“I don’t have that recollection.”
“Because you have deliberately forgotten.”
“I had my reasons.”
“No doubt. You probably did not want to get out of your dream.”
“It is not the product of my imagination, all this...”
“I know that you believe in some things. I worry about you, that’s all. It’s not in your nature to be alone.”
“I am not.”
It immediately realized it had made a mistake.
“Really, 5th Hexa? And whose company are you keeping?”
“Yours, of course; it’s just that...”
“You’re not with us, actually, and you know it very well. Let me leave you. If you need me, you know where to find me.”
Faress left, and Edgard felt how much its friend was pained. It unfortunately could not speak to the latter about Servants, the old vessel, the Heptagon... Again it felt this break inside, the gulf between the two sides of its life. This could not continue for long.
Alone, it sadly did a recap of its plan. Paul had understood but perhaps too late, the Gateway had understood but was not doing anything, Servants... they were not part of its original plan. And now? It did not know. Moreover, the digital entity was expanding, and Space E... Was this world doomed as all its fellow kandrons seemed to think?
“Not all; we are here,” said the Heptagon.
According to the wave model, light is a wave.
According to the corpuscular theory, it actually consists of photons.
What if it were nothing but time?
Lessons from Chaacetime
CHAPTER 51
SPACE H. (1ST CIRCLE)
The night was eerily quiet; no dream came to disturb her sleep. Her conscience remained smooth and clear, like water at rest. Baley awoke with peace of mind, ready to face the day. She prepared quickly, and headed to the Tower. The surveillance program on children identified as likely to belong to the anti-Machine movement was in place; she, therefore, had, in principle, nothing to say on the first floor. While walking on the
esplanade in the heat of hostility that pervaded the crowd, she did, however, think that her plan could be improved. She had to expand the surveillance program, assigning a special agent to each child. She did not want to risk arriving too late in case of suspicious gathering. She had no room for error. The city was on the verge of collapse, and she would be a perfect scapegoat. Although she knew that she was not important — that only the community mattered — she could not help shivering with apprehension. She, therefore, went to the Tower in order to change her instructions in this regard. Having arrived in the hall, she wondered about the reaction that the Machine was going to have, because the number of special agents to mobilize in order to implement her demand was huge. Yet she could not afford not to ask, and she threw herself into a column. While exiting the column, she saw an oval piece from which originated a multitude of corridors sinking into the darkness, as if she had arrived at a crossroads, facing several possible futures. The membrane, built on a crystal plaque, shone, waiting for her touch. As soon as she put her hand on its surface, Baley forwarded her request. She dreaded the answer, knowing deep within herself that her request was justified. The Problem required an exceptional response — tenfold attention.
The answer took a while to appear, and Baley doubted herself. Had she overstepped her position by asking the requisition of hundreds of special agents? No, it was something else. The Machine was no longer the same, although she could not tell how. Data circulated differently, which certainly caused the delay. What happened? She did not have time to pursue the issue. The membrane vibrated under her fingers, transmitting a data stream to her chip. Simultaneously, her parasitic thoughts were cleared.
Taking note of the reply, she was both relieved and crushed with the burden she now shouldered after requesting so many personnel. With such a workforce, she had better not fail. Thus each child suspected of belonging to an anti-Machine movement would have a guardian angel who would follow him or her remotely and discreetly.
When she removed her hand from the membrane, Baley saw the appearance of the first floor change. Before her, corridors disappeared one after the other, except for one. There remained only the small oval room, brightly lit, with the plate carrying the membrane. From the center, there started a thin corridor, which was getting darker and darker. She had made a decisive choice, and the representation she saw before her attested to its significance. Slightly uncomfortable, she opened the column and went down.
At this hour, the hall was almost empty. All personnel of the First Circle had received their instructions for the day, and there only remained people like her — those without anything to do. What else could she do? She had identified the children, set alerts, and had strengthened the surveillance program. At this point, she could only wait and see. From the desert hall, she went down to Level –1. As she had done when she was launching the Chrijulam operation, she chose a chair.
So the wait began. To avoid boredom, she accessed all her notes from the beginning of the investigation. She remembered the day the Machine had assigned her to the case and the pride she had felt but also the feeling of strangeness she had when she realized she had to work with a partner. She read, with some amusement, her notes on the first visit she had paid Paul. It seemed so distant! The Chrijulam lead quickly appeared over the interrogation. She was so convinced she had found the right lead... but she was wrong. Despite the sidelining of at-risk children, a new case had appeared. Thus she resumed her investigation from Square 1, and brought out a new hypothesis. Everything now depended on the veracity of this theory as well as her ability to have detected the children involved... And she was alone. Paul, the researcher, had returned to his manuscripts, stuck in moral philosophizing. What kind of paper was he reading now? Baley imagined him without difficulty, leaning over a manuscript that was barely legible, writing notes and speaking enthusiastically to Edgard. Things were better that way for everyone.
Alone with her notes, which she had already read three times, she peeked at moves of the interactive map every five seconds, waiting for something to happen. She decided to turn on the news channel, and listened, with half an ear, to reports on life in the city and those little things that journalists so relished. Strangely, the Problem no longer made the headlines. The Machine had to act on newscasts, so they did not feed anxiety and psychosis to residents. As always, it monitored everything and anything. Reports were scrolling on the screen, highlighting daily activities. There was talk of a revolt in the Sixth Circle, triggered by the death of three workers at a site. The Machine was, of course, held responsible, as if it could force people to attach their harnesses to the lifeline in order to prevent accidents. The reporter showed incredible images of vandalized streets and a burned-out rail station. Human beings could not help but destroy things. There followed a documentary on new wheat varieties developed by biologists, as well as an indictment against the lack of vegetation on school premises. Ordinary life seemed to flow.
Her chip catapulted her out of the reverie, and she leapt abruptly. First alert! Second alert! Children had gathered in a corresponding place and positioned themselves in a circular pattern. How the hell could they come together so quickly, and trigger two alert levels in so little time?
Although it was useless, Baley sent a warning message to all special agents. Those who were assigned to monitor the children involved were necessarily already there; others had access to the same information she had received, along with the alerts. Despite this, she contacted them to rally them because she needed to do something;
because she had to go into action immediately. Her heart was pounding. Breathless, she rushed out of the Tower to the nearest rail station. She shoved the person before her, without even bothering to apologies. She had to go without losing a second; it had to happen as soon as possible. Although the trip lasted only a few minutes, it seemed an eternity, during which her brain became overheated. What had happened? Why were the two levels of alerts triggered almost simultaneously? She had defined them precisely to give her team enough time to get to a designated site... Why? How? What did she miss? Was she going to be late, too late? No, it was not possible. This could not be. It should not. She had to... She jumped off the rail and rushed to the point she had memorized, and found all the special agents there. Most of them stood upright and motionless in a standby mode. Some turned their heads back while seeing her, but did not move. Baley found their behavior strange, and pushed them aside, to see where the children were. She moved as quickly as possible between these men and women frozen like statues. There were no children anywhere. She inquired of the interactive map... the points were missing. How was that possible?
Baley shouted at the special agents.
“Where are the children you need to monitor? They were here a minute ago!”
Silence greeted her questioning, adding to his fury.
“How could you — all of you — let children play with you that way? And where are they now??” she shouted.
She turned on herself, hoping to see, see something, see, feel... but nothing... as if she had dreamed the triggering of both alerts; as if the point indicated by the map was an illusion; there was absolutely nothing.
The men and women around her looked befuddled; no one understood what had happened. Long minutes passed, during which Baley raged against them, against the map, against children, against herself... before collapsing from nervous exhaustion on the ground. She trembled. She was drowning in the absurdity; she did not understand. Two special agents she barely recognized helped her back up. Now what?
She had to investigate what had happened. As she was about to hear the accounts of each special agent, a strong wind formed. Suddenly, at the precise location indicated by the map, a mini cyclone formed. She stood before the same strange phenomenon she had seen with Paul... High winds, coming from nowhere, stirred up a cloud of dust. She covered her face and eyes with her arm. A mist erupted from the ground, and spun in an upward spiral, taking with it pieces torn from th
e ground. Like last time, this phenomenon arose in calm weather, for no apparent reason. The others observed this unlikely storm, and were stunned. They also tried to protect themselves somehow from small stones flying at breakneck speed.
When the wind calmed down, she opened her eyes and screamed... The children were there... in a circle... dead. They had come all the way to this place, disappeared for a moment, and reappeared dead! All this made absolutely no sense. The situation became even more complex when each special agent assured her of arriving on the scene an hour earlier, while she had received that warning only 15 minutes before. She began to walk, making circles, eyes on the ground. Nothing had gone as planned; nothing; an unprecedented mobilization of resources for a catastrophic outcome.
Baley quickly realized that all the special agents present at the scene were staring at her. She was the one in charge of this investigation; it was up to her to take initiatives. They looked at her, waiting for her to make a decision and tell them what to do. She had to be the strongest and not get overwhelmed by emotion. She regained her control. Her professional habits took over, and her brain quickly closed itself to the nonsense so as to focus on the observation of the crime scene. As in previous cases, children were divided in three concentric circles, their feet toward the center. On each circle, the children were of the same size. Even if this fact had proved unimportant, she took note of it, nonetheless, filing it in her report. At this thought, she felt a huge weight in her stomach. She was the one who had the task of filing event reports to the Machine. A few hours earlier, she was confident while entering the Tower, requesting the assignment of special agents to monitor each child on the list. A few hours earlier, she was still so confident.