The Paratwa (#3 in the Parawta Saga)

by Christopher Hinz

  "Is there anything you do recall?"

  "Very little."

  "We're off to a piss-poor start,” warned the midget.

  "It's here!” shouted the cheerleader at the keyboard.

  "Freebird!” added the other.

  Lester Mon Dama lifted a shaking hand toward his face. The sergeant instantly grabbed his wrist. A second guard pointed the tip of a small scanner at the priest's speckled beard.

  "Nothing,” said the guard. “Still squeaky clean."

  Huromonus raised an eyebrow. “You did do a full scan?"

  The sergeant nodded. “Right before you got here. But sometimes it pays to double check."

  Huromonus nodded with approval.

  "Care to talk about Freebird?” asked Nick.

  The priest was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his words seemed distant, obscured by some invisible curtain. “Although you may disbelieve me, I truly know nothing about this program, other than the mere fact of its existence."

  "How long have you been in this house?” asked Nick.

  "Many days. Jalka instructed me to hide here after I made contact with Gillian."

  "When we drove Freebird out of the archives, why did it come to this specific terminal?"

  "Through this terminal—through me—Jalka monitors Freebird. I suppose that this was the natural place for the program to hide."

  "What do you know about the sunsetter?"

  "Only that it has been attempting to destroy Freebird."

  Huromonus frowned. “Does Jalka contact you through this terminal?"

  "Yes. Or through other terminals."

  The E-Tech director assumed his best prosecutor's tone. “Am I to understand that you know where Jalka is right now, but that you are unwilling to provide this information?"

  "That is correct."

  "At this time, is there any information about Jalka that you wish to volunteer?"

  Lester Mon Dama's shoulders jerked violently and then a look of deep sorrow appeared on his face. He glanced at the busy cheerleaders, then turned to the wall of telephone directories. Sadness colored his words. “All of us maintain certain loyalties. I am sure that a person of your position can well appreciate this facet of existence."

  "Of course,” soothed Huromonus.

  "I can tell you nothing of Jalka. But I can offer my cooperation in other areas.” He faced the sergeant. “Please remove the protective wrap from the directory labeled Bell Atlantic."

  Huromonus nodded to the sergeant. The guard with the scanner carefully unsealed the ancient book from its preservation envelope and flashed his probe across it.

  "A sad day,” moaned the priest. He stared up at them. “I am sorry ... truly sorry. I know that you do not understand, but these books are pre-Apocalyptic. They are representations of a time before time. They are very precious to me."

  The Lion glance at Nick. A deep frown had settled on the midget's face.

  "Book's clean,” announced the guard.

  "Would you hand it to me?"

  Huromonus nodded and the guard carefully deposited the artifact in Lester Mon Dama's open palms. Gingerly, the priest peeled back the covers.

  "Bell Atlantic,” he murmured. “My entire collection consists of system-wide Yellow Page directories, all produced in the early years of the twenty-first century. They contain no individual phone listings, only corporate display ads. By that era, few items such as these were actually being produced on paper. The demand for all printed directories had almost disappeared—especially for ones such as these. They are incredibly rare."

  "Fascinating,” said Huromonus, maintaining his accommodating tone.

  Nick, looking more agitated by the moment, turned to the cheerleaders. “How long yet?"

  "Real soon,” said the female at the back of the terminal. “Simple stuff—we're past the outer checkpoints already. No serious roadblocks."

  "We'll have Freebird up on the screen and ready to ream in five minutes flat!” added her male counterpart.

  Lester Mon Dama apparently found the page he was looking for. He squinted, then shook his head. “I'm sorry. My eyesight ... the tension. I have somewhat of a headache. You'll have to read it for me. Page three thirty-eight. The display ad in the upper right hand corner."

  The sergeant waited for Huromonus's signal, then gently picked up the book and began reading.

  "Kawaniam Aquatics ... Designers and Builders of Custom Concrete Pools ... Construction, Renovations, Maintenance..."

  A spasm passed through Lester Mon Dama. The priest bolted upright in his chair.

  Nick's agitation peaked. His eyes widened with sudden comprehension. “No!” he cried out. “Stop reading!"

  "Kascht moniken keenish,” uttered Lester Mon Dama, in a voice that sounded as if it came from far away.

  "Get a medic!” yelled Nick.

  The priest arched backward, then collapsed forward. The sergeant and a guard grabbed him, prevented his body from tumbling to the floor.

  Nick gripped Lester Mon Dama's wrist, checked for a pulse. He laid his other hand across the priest's forehead. “Son of a bitch!"

  "What happened?” demanded Huromonus.

  "God damn it!"

  "Sergeant,” ordered the E-Tech director, “get a med team in here at once. And have them prepare a revival unit at the nearest location—"

  "Don't bother,” muttered Nick, his fury abating. “There's nothing to be done for him. He's dead and he's going to stay dead."

  The Lion ventured a guess. “Mnemonic cursors?"

  "You got it,” said the midget, shaking his head. “I should have suspected. The phone books, the way he kept referring to this Jalka as his master. Shit! I should've read the clues."

  The Lion tried to console him. “You couldn't possibly have known."

  "Yeah, maybe."

  "I'm not sure that I fully understand,” said Huromonus.

  "It's simple. Lester Mon Dama was being controlled by implanted mnemonic cursors. I mean really controlled. When you do an autopsy, I'm willing to bet you're going to find enough remnants of mnemonic cursors to stock a warehouse.

  "This poor bastard was being governed from the word go. These phone books all must contain numerous sets of code sequences, disguised as simple display ads and such. When Lester was confronted by certain situations, the mnemonic cursors directed him to open particular books and read specific selections. Those selections, in turn, triggered other sets of mnemonic cursors, which then forced him into new patterns of behavior."

  The Lion shuddered, recalling pre-Apocalyptic tales of such things.

  "A retroslave!” chortled the female cheerleader.

  "Yeah,” muttered Nick. “That's what they used to call them ... back in the good old days."

  "Simple data processing and storage technology!” proclaimed the male cheerleader, grinning weirdly. “The phone books provided an almost infinitely large memory—gigabytes of usable data, with the mnemonic cursors themselves serving as the core drives, able to access the massive memory network upon proper command sequencing."

  "More like old-style CPUs than core drives,” corrected the other cheerleader.

  "I don't think so. Historically, central processing units predate the introduction of true core drives—"

  "Enough!” commanded Huromonus.

  The cheerleaders shrugged and resumed their work at the terminal.

  The E-Tech director faced Nick. “Why can't we attempt revival?"

  "Look at his forehead."

  "Bright red,” replied Huromonus, feeling the priest's brow. “He's burning up."

  "It's a particular type of mnemonic cursor known as a consummator. Anyone implanted with one possessed a code—a phrase that can be used to arm the actual cursor. In this case, a particular advertisement for swimming pools. Upon reading that phrase—or hearing it read—Lester Mon Dama was obliged to utter the final sequence, which triggered the consummator.

  "When activated, a consummator causes massive neurotra
nsmitter activity throughout the brain. Widespread synaptic ravagement is the result—a fever of brain cells, quickly destroying most memories. Even if you managed to revive him just to the point of being able to do an RNA scan, there wouldn't be any useful information left to access. You might be able to revive his body, but you'd have nothing less than a total vegetable on your hands."

  "He knew,” whispered the Lion. “He couldn't bring himself to read the words of the ad. Deep inside, some part of him must have recognized that he was bringing about his own death. He complained of a headache, of not being able to read."

  "That's right,” said Nick. “In the end, that was all the freedom he had left to him, the only way of resisting his own suicidal actions. Being captured by us must have triggered the actual self-termination sequence. His body tried to fight it, but he was in a no-win situation. Poor son of a bitch."

  "An entire life of manipulation,” murmured the Lion. By comparison, the Lion's own recent troubles—his cowardice—seemed terribly irrelevant.

  "This Jalka must have been responsible for the implants,” said Huromonus.

  "Bet on it.” Nick cast a steely gaze at the slumped over priest. “Jalka—whoever you are, you've just made my shit list."

  "Freebird!” cried the male cheerleader. The terminal screen dissolved into a sharp blue sky dabbed with puffy white clouds.

  Huromonus turned to the sergeant. “Remove the corpse. Then wait for us outside."

  The sergeant and the guards picked up the priest's body and bore it from the room.

  "Program's open!” yelled the female. “Ready for serious reaming!"

  "Good work,” said Huromonus.

  "Nothing to it,” she replied. “These rescue programs are holy terrors inside large networks, but once you trap them in a small system, they're bird shit on a pogo stick!"

  Nick stepped up to the terminal, began pecking at the keys.

  Freebird's signature blue skies vanished. A menu appeared.

  "Cute,” said Nick. “Freebird is offering multiple output modes for its data. Looks like we have a choice of about sixty major languages, plus seven mathematical formats and something referred to as ‘Os/Ka/Loq base iconic.’”

  "How about standard English?” suggested the Lion.

  "Sounds good to me.” The midget typed the command.

  Words appeared. A long document. They began reading.

  It was a tale from the pre-Apocalypse, written by the Ash Ock Paratwa, Aristotle. It was a revelation of life amid the Royal Caste, telling of manipulation and deceit on a scale heretofore unimagined.

  It told of Sappho and her tways—one, a beautiful and seductive woman; the other, a tiny deformed girl, born without appendages. And it told of another breed of Paratwa, called the Os/Ka/Loq.

  "By the memory of Ari,” whispered the Lion, as the significance of what they were learning penetrated consciousness.

  Huromonus's voice quivered. “This is ... unbelievable."

  They read in silence for a long time. When they reached the end, Nick was the first to speak.

  "I think I know what they fear,” he said solemnly. “We may have found a way to defeat them."

  At what price? wondered the Lion.

  O}o{O

  The oval chamber, barely large enough to contain teacher and student, brewed a malignant odor from its quivering sof-floor, from the inverted valley of its illuminated dome, from its walls draped in late-California nouveau plastique embroideries.

  Empedocles, upon entering the cramped space, realized that this was where his obese instructor must sleep. Timmy would have grown accustomed to the smells; intrinsic aromas would have steadily retreated from his field of awareness, entering a vast and expanding zone of disused social graces, a place of decaying dreams.

  The smells of death.

  Timmy assumed the lotus position, leaned against the wall at one end of the oval, spread his gray robes across his lap. Empedocles sat down on both sides of his old proctor, forming an obtuse triangle with Timmy at the vertex. The monarch's quartet of ears discerned the faint slithering of the entry flap resealing itself, coalescing back into a seamless whole.

  His instructor began. “I am going to tell you a story that you have never before heard. It concerns the long-hidden truths of the Paratwa. This is a tale known in its entirety only to Sappho, Theophrastus, and Meridian. And to the Os/Ka/Loq."

  Empedocles, believing that a few bytes of personalized rhetoric would help Timmy render his tale with ever greater lucidity, made an offering through his Gillian/tway. “I am glad to be with you again,” he said. “I recall with fondness our walks through the forests ... our long discussions while hiking the trails of Thi Maloca."

  Timmy's natural eye compressed; a pained grimace appeared on that side of his face. “Yes, I recollect some of those walks, even though it was Aristotle whose company you actually kept. My monarch has been dead for a great many years."

  "So you have stated."

  "Obviously, I still have access to his memories.” Timmy squinted. “Yes, I remember ... the Amazon basin. Aristotle must have found it most enchanting. The sunsets through the forest trees, the waterfalls.” He gave a vigorous nod. “Yes, it must have been very beautiful."

  "Yes,” said Empedocles.

  Timmy closed his natural eye. His artificial one responded by opening wider, as if some complex internal equilibrium needed to be maintained. “It was the last decade of the twenty-first century, in those final years before the decimation known as the Apocalypse.

  "You were still at Thi Maloca. Your training had almost come to an end. In a short while, you were to have been brought into the larger world, gathered into the Ash Ock fold. But like Aristotle and Codrus, you too would have been denied access to the true plans and objectives of the Royal Caste.” Bitterness darkened Timmy's words. “For the actual determiner of Ash Ock destiny remained Sappho, and only Theophrastus and a handful of the Paratwa lieutenants were entrusted with the secret knowledge.

  "Eventually, however, Artistotle learned the truth. But by then it was too late. My monarch did not perceive the nature of the trap until the snare was about to descend."

  Timmy bowed his head, fell into silence. Empedocles waited impatiently, eager for continuation but aware that it would be a mistake to wring history from this obese artifact.

  At last, Timmy looked up. Both eyes opened wide. “And so the trap closed on my monarch. And he was destroyed."

  Empedocles interjected via the Susan/tway. “Then your other half was indeed lost back in the days of the pre-Apocalypse?"

  "Yes."

  "And Jalka, the surviving tway, later fused with Aristotle."

  "I became Timmy,” he replied, in a voice brimming with great sorrow.

  It's so sad, thought Susan, sensing echoes of grief in the hush of Timmy's solitude. It must have been terrible for him.

  Gillian projected agreement, then repeated his earlier warning. Beware of exposing your emotions too openly. If Empedocles senses our feelings, he will use such knowledge to maintain the monarchy.

  Susan imagined herself nodding her head, knowing that Gillian could clearly understand such mnemonic gesticulation.

  You're right, she said. I'll have to keep my feelings gagged ... no matter how much I hate such self-repression. It reminds me of my pre-Timmy life—

  —You're doing it again, chided Gillian.

  Sorry.

  Timmy's like a fractured amalgam, instructed Gillian. He's a recluse destined to scavenge amid junkyards of former glory, forever searching for tarnished parts, knowing all the while that there is no hope for authentic reconstruction. Gillian paused. There—did you perceive how I did that? I subsumed the emotion content of my thoughts within a strict informational mode.

  Yes ... I think I understand. She gave it a shot. I, Susan, am like a tree whose roots have been torn from the soil, whose physical adoration for her newfound love, Gillian, has been abruptly—and despicably—rendered platonic.

 
; Gillian cast a wry smile toward her, keeping it faint enough to avoid Empedocles's attention. That was pretty good. Just be careful with the more potent feeling-oriented words, like despicably. Words like that can easily convey emotional charges if you're not careful.

  What about love? she asked with care.

  That word also requires prudent handling.

  She vowed, I will make greater efforts toward perfection in this area.

  A weirdly cheerful grin blossomed on Timmy's face. He gazed back and forth between Empedocles. “It is still hard for me to believe that you have returned. All these years ... all these efforts ... But success has come at last. You are whole once again. Your glory has been restored. It is good to have you back."

  Empedocles rested a hand from each tway on Timmy's shoulders. “It is good to be back,” he uttered in stereo, thinking: This fool requires the humors of sentimentality and nostalgia to maintain clarity of thought. He is like a child who needs constant encouragement.

  Timmy cleared his throat, forced composure. Empedocles withdrew his hands, dialectically painted Gillian/Susan with expressions of sadness/expectant delight. “Please go on,” he urged.

  "Yes,” said Timmy. “I must go on ... to a time before Aristotle's demise. I must begin the story there, in the year 2095.

  "The Earth is almost finished. Techno-madness is engulfing the planet, mindless mini wars are being fought everywhere, and even the most optimistic human senses that the end is drawing near. The world is being ravaged by the twin cancers of unrestrained progress and unlimited profit. The individual reigns supreme even as the fabric of society disintegrates. Balance has been lost. Chaos awaits.

  "And Sappho ... she secretly welcomes these things; she revels in the very idea of total nuclear/biological decimation, the termination of all life on the planet.

  "She was the true overseer of the Royal Caste, although her leadership was carefully filtered through a decision-making process involving all four of us. She was most subtle in this. Even Aristotle, in the beginning, did not comprehend that most of our actions ultimately coincided with Sappho's desires.