“Closing in on five K these days, not counting followers of my work.”
“Not bad. All right. How many of those people do you regularly interact with? A couple hundred?”
“If that.”
“And you know them to see them? Pass them on the street and there’d be an acknowledgement? Heads nodding, greetings, quick chats?”
“Sure.”
“See their pictures a lot, do you?”
“I guess?”
“Now, of all those people, with their recognizable faces and re-presentations of their faces, of all of them, are there any whose pictures are always the same? I don’t mean the same shot of the same pose, I mean pictures in which, no matter the surroundings, no matter the mood or the whims of the photographer, pro work or bathroom selfie, the person always looks the same. Their expression remains static. They look like who they’re supposed to look like, all day, every day, every pic. Anyone?”
I thought of Ceri, then, back at the crèche with my other partners. “Our Den, beating bushes for a story,” she had said. “Real bushes, with leaves and everything. It’s too perfect.” Her smile, nice and white and even, the stark pink line of her bangs across the right cheek, the way she held her hands in the air. Not posed, but close. Ceri lived on the border of pose, I’d often thought. Ceri with her clientele that never seemed to drop in numbers. Too perfect may as well have been in her bio, the one we all read when she was assigned to our crèche. It may as well have, but it wasn’t, because somehow, unlike every other crèche mate we’d had on since we’d started building our family, she was just perfect enough for us. There was conflict between me and Sam, Sam and Duhren, Inga and Duhren and me. Crèche life was beautiful and fulfilling in a lot of ways, but conflict was part of that, part of the growth protocols.
Conflict was not part of her way, though. Ceri got along with us all. Never a bitter moment with Ceri.
And Ceri was the same in every pic we had of her.
I felt this revelation like a sudden stumble in the dark. Vertigo and nausea manifesting as gut-sure truth.
***
“Yeah. That scans, too. You live with one? Jesus. And she’s amazing, right. Just an all-round beautiful person? Any flaws?”
“Not...really? I mean, she gets complaints, but...”
“Nothing substantial. She a crèche mate of yours?”
“Yeah. Four years now. I don’t live with...she’s not an archon, Gregor.”
“Sure, sure. How’s the sex? No, don’t answer, let me. It’s fucking great, right? However you define that. Better than good?”
“I mean, yes, it’s great, she’s great, it’s just that—...”
“Great but there’s something missing. And I don’t mean that the sex with her is empty or soulless or any of the usual whinging that accompanies some perceived lack in the partner. I mean that nothing is added to you in an encounter. Like that? If there’s something that can be removed from you, sex with her will remove it.”
“Okay, but, and I’m not saying you’re wrong, Gregor, but—...”
“It’s one of the ways they get their data samples. The harvest I spoke of. They’ve got a thousand ways. A hundred thousand.
“Let me tell you about this...entity. I used to see them around the old neighbourhood. This was when I was working up at Eidolon but still living in East Palo Alto, other side of the gorge. Anyway, this entity. I got to calling them Mr. Bichael. Bike is short for Bichael, right? Pretty tame, yeah? So, reedy guy, like super thin, maybe twenty-three years old at the most, but aged, you know? A hard life showing in every line of the face, the slope of the shoulders. Dark hair, never seen a stylist, just a mess on top, and this beard that’s always trying to be more than sparse threads decorating the receding craters of the jaw, the chin, but never making it. Deep brown eyes. Wore a black button-down collared shirt. Full sleeves, buttoned at the cuff, never rolled up. And dress pants. Slacks, I think they used to call them, with the crease down the front? Decent shoes, too, you could tell they used to be nice, but far gone now, barely holding together on their feet. Same goes for the shirt, the slacks, the whole package. They were on the edge of disintegration.
“They rode a bike, did Mr. Bichael. Every goddamn day, they rode this bike, some ancient racer with loose chains and a bad cassette, front derailleur clacking like it was gonna fall off any second. Their clothes, their hair, face, bike, it was all of a piece. And they rode slow, oh my god. So slowly, through alleys and on the sidewalks, weaving. So slowly you could pass them just walking.
“I started noticing them around. You know these background people in every city. Standing out but not really, they’re part of the general urban ambience. The terroir, even. And Mr. Bichael was always on the bike. Or if not the same bike, than one so similar there was no real difference.”
“Surely they weren’t always on the bike.”
“Fair point! But it got so that whenever I saw them they were on the bike. Until the day they weren’t. And then, then they were walking the bike with the rear tire still attached and the front tire over their shoulder! Giant gap in the spokes and their thin arm right through it. Next day, back on the bike. Several days after that, still on the bike. Then, bike frame on a shoulder, no tires at all, chain hanging loose. A tire on each shoulder, carrying the handlebar assembly. Then back on the bike.
“Shit. Bichael drove me round the fucking twist, man. The bike changed a little, and the arrangement of the parts when they weren’t actually riding the thing changed, but they never changed. I started taking pictures...”
“You were obsessed.”
“I was twenty-three, of course I was obsessed. Obsession is the reason I am where I am today. It wouldn’t matter, time of day, quality of light, background, foreground, nothing would matter, they always looked the same.
“I figured, well, okay, they work at a bike shop, right? Right. Like some rinky-dink operation out of a shipping container in a back alley? Maybe bike thieves. Something, anyway. So I stopped photographing Mr. Bichael, and I started following them. Neglected the work, my projects, everything, to tail this person, day in and day out. For, like, a couple of weeks, but still. And can you guess what I learned, Den?”
“They never went anywhere.”
“They went everywhere! Tootled all over the damn Valley on that decrepit bike but here’s the thing. They never stopped. Least so far as I could tell. If they did I never saw it. Never saw them get off the bike and walk into a shop or some shitbox apartment complex or a shed or a house. Christ, just thinking about that time makes me tired like you wouldn’t believe...”
“So, what? You’re saying Bichael wasn’t, or people like that, they’re what? Not human?”
“They might be? But only in the lightest sense. Carriers, maybe, for one of them. Remote viewing modules for the archons, so that they may go roving about in the earth and walking about in it, as the ancient texts do affirm. They are as one with your guarded threshold, as the old Arab used to say.”
“Gregor, you know this sounds like bullshit, right? Right?”
“Sure, sure.”
“They were probably just some homeless guy. There are literally a million of them.”
“Falling through all the cracks, yeah.”
“I mean, did you ever talk to them? That would have cleared everything up.”
“I’m sure it would have. And you know, I did call out to them. Many times. Very specifically. Hey, Guy on the Bike! and so on. Called out and described his bike, or his clothes, or his hair. Guy on the Bike with the Nice Pants and the Messy Hair waiting at the corner of Howard and Euclid! Wait up! Very specific. Many times.”
“And?”
“And nothing. Never got a response. They would ride away, just as I got near, or they’d turn a corner, duck into an alley, vanish in a cloud of exhaust. I asked around. I got real chummy with the vagrants of Silicon Valley, believe you me. Visited shelters, safe injection sites, soup kitchens. Den, I did my due diligence. Bichael w
as a complete unknown. A cipher. I’m thinking he was like a remote-viewing module. A piece of camouflage, a scale among infinite scales, a scale of the Stonefish.”
“That doesn’t explain my Ceri, Gregor.”
“Well. There’s camouflage. And then there’s camouflage, Den. There’s absolutely no reason why they can’t be everywhere and anyone at any time. No reason why we’d ever notice, either, unless they want us to.”
“Why would they want that, though?”
“Because they’re sick, Den. Perverts. When you were a kid, did you ever find an anthill and whip out your magnifying glass for a little fun on a sunny day?”
“What? What’s a magnifying glass?”
“Ah, before your time, then. What I’m saying is they have a curiosity about us, and that curiosity can verge on the sadistic and often does. They’re foul demiurges from outside Time and Space!”
“You keep saying that, but I still don’t follow. If everything you say is true, and I want to stress that I don’t necessarily believe it is, then what they are is gods, basically. Creators.”
“Which is the worst thing a person can be, son. The gall of these things, that’s what gets me as I lie awake at night! The fucking ego necessary to pull it off! I mean, how dare they do this! How dare they! To make a world and then pull it out from under a person. People should know, Den. People should be made aware.”
“Why? That makes no sense. If they knew...”
“If the world knew about this, we could, I don’t know, make better decisions about...shit. God, I’m tired. Can we call this one done?”
“Sure, Gregor. Sure. I just—...”
“They want people to know, though. It’s factored in.” Gregor started pulling and clutching at his mane of hair. Grey fibres splayed from his clenched fists as they came away from the scalp; his anguish was real. “It’s why I’m here, and Li’l Dougie. And you. Forty days in the wilderness. Okay, well, more for me, obviously. Temptations. Visions.”
“Jesus.”
“The whole bit. And when your time is up, down you come off the mountain, with tablets and teachings, an injection of novelty for the system. Shake things up for shits and giggles. Stir up the anthill.”
“That can’t be. You’re saying, then, that—...”
“I’m saying I’m tired, Den. Aren’t you?”
“Sure, but...”
“Shit. Aren’t we all.”
GREGOR ON NATURE (2)
I didn’t see Gregor for a day. He kept to his room, or disappeared somewhere on the compound. At one point in the late afternoon I heard him arguing with Li’l Dougie. Both their voices raised, incomprehensible, floating through the open door of the AI’s house. The next morning Gregor woke me from sleep and announced that the hunt was back on. We’d bag a deer, he said, and hopefully there’d be some of that chicken-of-the-woods fungus to harvest.
He showed me trees as we walked, refusing to speak about that other tree. I gave up trying. There would be other opportunities, I told myself.
“There used to be more of them. They used to be as big as these, all of them. Bigger, even. Cedars red and yellow, and Hadwin’s golden spruce, Douglas fir and just, y’know, giants. Bark like steel cable. Giants in the goddamn earth.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Nevertheless. You could come out here with eleven friends, join hands and try to reach around one. The girth, man, the girth! Earth is a size queen, believe it. Imagine plants that were already old when they were putting Christ on the cross.” Gregor put his hand to the bark. “Not this one, of course. Any of these, really, but still. You’re looking at eight hundred years here, at least. Eight hundred years of growth. Of striving for the sun. Connectivity. Communication. Community.”
“This sounds like nostalgia, Gregor.”
“Sure, after a fashion. Not gonna hug the thing, but also, you have to admit the potential for novelty here was always great. We blew it and we know it.” He stepped back from the tree and cupped his hands around his mouth, shouted timber, really drawing it out. “Yeah. I mean, look at this thing. It’s a beautiful monster. Can you imagine the frontier people getting here and seeing the size of it? That’s the frames of thirty decent mansions standing there. Too big. It scared them. You know they’d harvest that, once they’d got their dander up sufficiently and figured out how to do it. Harvest, and keep on harvesting. Maybe start thinking about replanting a decade or two too late. Silvaculture? What’s that, they said. And so much lost in the meantime.” Gregor kicked at the black mulch and humus at our feet. “They talk to each other, you know. Symbiotic with the fungal rhizome network in the ground, a kind of infranet. Maybe even a noönet but there’s no way to tell anymore.”
“Jesus.”
Gregor hefted his pack up and slipped it on, groaning a little as the weight settled on his shoulders and hips. He was so vital most of the time, it was easy to forget the man was pushing seventy. He sighed and lifted his chin. I followed his gaze to the canopy. Some critter up there had moved and triggered an amber rain of dry needles.
“When Roman armies first reached the borders of the great forests of Germany they halted out of sheer superstitious fear. They had never until that moment experienced vegetation on that scale. Primal, potent, present in a way the wilds of the south never attained. Pan’s true domain.”
“Did they leave?”
“Nope. They were Romans, Den. Mostly they got thoroughly hammered by the Germanic tribes. Imagine if they’d seen these colossal motherfuckers!” He looked up again, and brought his hands to his mouth as if to make the timber call again, then slowly dropped them to his sides. He kicked at the ground again, upturning a flat rock at his feet. Beetles and a large centipede squirmed at the exposure.
“Anyway. We’re wasting daylight. Come on.”
GREGOR ON EVOLUTIONARY FORCES
The evening chill had just begun to settle in when Gregor called a halt. The trail here spread a bit to each side, and there were flat areas of old mulch and sawdust that had settled in between the roots of the trees, forming decent spots to sleep. The space between two massive tangles of roots showed black against the rust red and bright orange of the forest floor.
“That’s mine,” Gregor said, pointing to the charred area. “Camped here before. No room to put up the tents but I wouldn’t worry about it. With a fire and decent gear, it’s comfortable enough.”
“I’m surprised you risk burning anything here.”
“Why? It’s not like we’ll leave it burning when we break camp in the morning and it’s not wildfire time yet. That won’t start up until early February when the place starts to really dry out. And I keep the blaze low. No use attracting too much attention here.” He unclipped his pack and let it slide to the ground, then followed it down in a low squat. Running his fingers through the dirt and mulch, he scooped up a handful and brought it to his face. Gregor inhaled deeply.
“We’re close, then,” I offered.
“Oh yeah. Won’t be long now.” He stood up, dropped the handful and brushed his palms together. Pollen and sawdust, seeds and tiny parts of dead insects drifted off in the growing breeze. “And the wind is picking up. You sure you’re all right sleeping rough?”
He wanted me to think of my last night out in the open. In the tent, I had at least the doubtful comfort of some kind of barrier between myself and the sasquatch, however flimsy. (I still couldn’t come round to calling them archons at this point.) Out here, should they choose to visit, we’d be considerably more available to their inspection. But Gregor was with me this time.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”
“That’s settled then. I’m glad. It’s at least another two hours walk to the nearest proper camp. I’ll put together some food if you wanna get us some water from the stream. Gonna need firewood.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You’ve done this before? Chop wood, carry water?”
“How hard can it be? Do we have a, what, a chopper?”
“A hatchet? No, Den. I was being facetious. Listen, we’ll need forest litter, dry stuff, as much as you can carry in your arms. Six trips ought to do it.”
“Right.” I set off into the bush and thrashed around in there for some twenty minutes. Beating the actual bushes. Acquiring that first armful took longer than expected and I was scratched and decorated with brambles and slivers of cedar by the time I returned. Gregor took one look at my gleanings and frowned.
“Jesus. No wonder it took you so long. Den, this is kindling at best.”
“Dry kindling, though,” I said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Sure, a small amount of this stuff, to get the fire started.” He stood up, grabbed at my left wrist and lifted my arm.
“Hey!”
“Relax. A lesson in fuel. Everybody Hungry and fire gotta eat especially. It needs a meal.” He took his thumb and index finger and wrapped them around one of my fingers. “That thickness? And that length. That’s kindling. That’s what you’ve collected so far.” Then he held my wrist in the same fashion. “Up to the elbow, and as thick as your wrist. That’s tinder, the next level up. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
Gregor gripped my upper arm near the shoulder. “Branches as long as your arm and as thick around here, that’s your actual fuel. Anything larger and we’re talking logs, which we’ve no need to get to tonight.”
“Got it.”
“Yeah? Well, get this too, while you’re at it. Back in the day, our species enjoyed an unprecedented explosion in brain size. So much and so fast that women are still popping out fresh humans years before they’re technically ready to survive in the wild. Wait any longer and that kid is never getting out of there. Brain size, see?”
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