Mindwarp

by James Follett

  “I’m Technician-Father Gilith.” He smiled again. “A bit of a mouthful, eh, Ewen?”

  “You can read?” the boy asked.

  Father Gilith toyed with his medallion. “Why, yes. All technicians can read. And if you’re selected to become a technician to serve the Guardian of Destiny, you too will be taught to read and write at the GoD Centre.”

  Ewen said nothing.

  “So what do you think of my little toy?” Father Gilith nodded to the dancing ball.

  Ewen took his eyes off the medallion to give the ball an indifferent glance. “What should I think of it?”

  “It stays up without anything you can see that holds it up.”

  Ewen shrugged. “I’ve got a toy balloon at home that stays up anywhere. Not just in one place.”

  Father Gilith wished that he hadn’t had the cornea re-profiling operation to correct his shortsightedness. Polishing the spectacles he used to wear would have given him time to think. This boy was different.

  “What do you think holds it up, Ewen?”

  “Hot air.”

  “No - not your balloon,” said Father Gilith patiently. “I mean that ball.”

  “The jet of air coming from that hole in your desk.”

  A surprisingly prompt answer and it got the test underway.

  “Really, Ewen? So, without touching the ball, how would you prove to me that a jet of air holds it up?”

  Even before he had finished the sentence, Ewen had leaned forward and cupped his hand over the hole. Air hissed around his surprisingly long fingers. The ball dropped. Ewen turned his hand over quickly and caught it. He smiled sheepishly at Father Gilith.

  “Sorry - I touched it. I thought it might break.” He positioned the ball in the jet of compressed-air, watched it settle into place, suspended above the desk, and sat back in his chair.

  Father Gilith wondered how many children had he had interviewed since taking this job five-years’ ago. 500? 1000? He had no idea. What he did know was that not one kid in that five years had done what Ewen had just done. Sure, there had been a few who had eventually worked out what held the ball up. About one in a hundred, and that was usually after a guessing game with plenty of prompting. Although those kids had invariably been selected, not one had ever followed through his or her reasoning with a practical demonstration. And so quickly.

  And none had ever put the ball back!

  The technician pushed a box of plastic sticks of uniform length across his desk. “Take out three sticks please, Ewen.”

  Instead of counting out three sticks one by one, Ewen picked up a small bundle and allowed the surplus to fall back into the box until he was holding three sticks.

  Numeric subtraction! The boy understands numeric subtraction!

  Unaware of the inner turmoil he was causing, Ewen placed the three sticks on the desk and looked inquiringly at his interviewer.

  Father Gilith kept his voice calm. “Very good, Ewen. Now I want you to arrange them into a triangle using all three sticks.”

  It was the easy part of the test. Ewen looked faintly contemptuous as he arranged the sticks.

  “Now take three more sticks from the box.”

  Ewen did so.

  “Do you know what sort of triangle that is, Ewen?”

  Ewen shook his head.

  “It’s called an equilateral triangle. The three sides are of equal length. Now listen carefully, Ewen. You already have one equilateral triangle on the desk. Using the three extra sticks, I want you to make three more triangles, all the same size as the one you have, so that you end up with four triangles.”

  A girl Father Gilith had interviewed an hour before had solved the problem within the allowed time. After playing around with the sticks on the flat surface for about three minutes, it had eventually occurred to her to think in three-dimensions. She had stood the three extra sticks up to form a tripod with the apex supported by her finger, and the end of each of the three legs touching the corners of the triangle on the desk. The result had been a pyramid with three sides and a base, making the required four triangles.

  But Ewen did not go through the two-dimensional stage. Without even pausing to think, the moment Father Gilith stopped talking, he arranged the six sticks into a three-dimensional pyramid.

  “Well I’ll be…”

  Ewen took his finger away, allowing the tripod to collapse. He looked worriedly at his interviewer’s thunderstruck expression. “Was that all right?”

  “All right?” Father Gilith recovered his composure and beamed at the boy. “Yes… That’s very good indeed, Ewen.” He slid a datapad and a stylus across the desk. “Do you like making pictures?”

  Ewen nodded. “If you mean drawing, yes.”

  The technician shot a glance at the boy to assure himself that he wasn’t being facetious. “Good. Have you ever tried to draw yourself?”

  Ewen gave a little smile and shook his head.

  “Well now’s your chance, Ewen. I want you to draw a picture of yourself.”

  The boy touched the symbol on the tablet that gave him a broad line, and starting sketching quickly, using bold strokes. He drew the outline of the head first, full face, and added the eyes in the centre of the head. Father Gilith leaned forward. Remarkable. Truly remarkable. Even adults rarely realised that the eyes are actually located on the head’s centre-line; they usually drew them too high. Also the boy had captured his own hollow-eyed expression with astonishing accuracy.

  After a minute Ewen had completed the rest of the features and selected the tablet’s colour palette. But instead of adding garish flesh tones like most children, he filled in the background with a blue wash. He gave the tablet back. Father Gilith hoped his astonishment didn’t show. The sketch was an amazing likeness. It was a plain picture without great detail or expression although the hair looked untidy, but what detail the boy had shown was sufficient. The blue wash background puzzled him, but there was no blacking-in of the face or other additions that indicated a disturbed state of mind. One child that morning had drawn herself in a cage.

  “That’s a remarkable likeness of you, Ewen,” said Father Gilith admiringly. He was not supposed to ask questions about the children’s pictures but he couldn’t help inquiring, “But why the blue background?”

  “It’s the inside of a beautiful blue dome,” said Ewen simply.

  The man smiled. Only a kid could think that something as alien as a blue dome could be beautiful.

  “And your hair looks ruffled.”

  “That’s because there’s something wrong with the dome’s air-conditioning so it keeps getting blown about.”

  Father Gilith threw his head back and laughed. Among the boy’s many qualities was a delightful sense of humour. But, of course, there was a definite hint of fun in those intense blue eyes that were regarding him with great seriousness.

  There were several more tests that Ewen solved without hesitation or difficulty although the last one, arranging coloured squares to match on the six sides of a plastic cube, took him the longest. 210 seconds according to the stopwatch display set into Father Gilith’s desk. But still a record.

  The technician took the cube and beamed. “Excellent, Ewen. Now sit back in your chair and keep your head still just for a few moments.”

  Ewen did as he was told. Father Gilith touched a control on his desk. The boy felt a sharp buzz in his head that was gone before he could even wince.

  An usher entered the room. “Thank you, Ewen,” said Father Gilith. “That is all for the moment. The usher will take you back to your mother.”

  Ewen stood and experienced a moment’s dizziness. He noticed that his badge had changed from bright blue to bold black and white stripes.

  “That means we want you to wait a little longer,” Father Gilith explained in answer to the boy’s puzzled expression.

  The moment he was alone, Father Gilith checked Ewen’s astounding score. Both he and the girl would be sent to the GoD Training Centre immediately. But
Ewen’s score had been the maximum attainable. He called up his standing orders and read through them before touching out a number on his data screen. He hesitated before pressing the last digit. What if he were wrong? What if the mindwarps in the interview chairs weren’t working properly and that the boy knew from other kids what the questions would be? But that was impossible, of course; all the interviewing technicians had checked their mindwarps that morning. The standing orders for all selection examiners under circumstances such as these were unequivocal. They also stated that the First Secretary always made himself available on selection days for such an eventuality.

  Father Gilith had no alternative but to touch the final digit.

  First Secretary Caudo Inman’s gaunt, timeless face appeared on the desk screen. The lights glittered menacingly on his rimless spectacles. Father Gilith shivered inwardly and with good reason. In addition to being First Secretary to the Emperor himself, and Vice-Chancellor of the GoD Training Centre, Caudo Inman held all the highest offices in Arama. Not a man to be trifled with.

  “Yes…?” said Inman testily. He glanced down at a monitor. “Gilith, isn’t it? Why have you called this number?”

  “I have a recording that I think you should see, sir.”

  3.

  Kally was distraught from the moment Ewen had returned with his badge showing black and white stripes. She had a vague recollection that her badge had changed to such a pattern after her selection test but her memories of that day were elusive and refused to be pinned down. “But surely you remember what they asked you?” she asked.

  “It was lot of questions,” said Ewen.

  “What questions?”

  “Don’t remember.”

  There was that look of defiance in his intense blue eyes. That familiar jut of his jaw that she knew sprang more from quiet determination rather than arrogance. Ever since Ewen had learned to walk and talk, Kally wished she knew more about her son’s father. All she had been told at the AI centre was that he was an extremely intelligent, ambitious man.

  “But you must remember, Ewen!”

  “Well I don’t!”

  Tarlan started jeering. “Stupid! Stupid! My brother’s stupid!”

  Kally rounded on her youngest. Tarlan saw trouble looming. He sat back in his chair and clamped his mouth shut, swinging his legs in sulky annoyance.

  Tears prickled Ewen’s eyes. That he could remember nothing of the interview frightened him. Even the interviewer’s face was lost in a strange fog. He could remember the blue dome but that was a part of his recurring dream. “Honestly, mother… I can’t remember anything.”

  Kally saw how upset Ewen was and wanted to put her arms around him, but any more displays of motherly affection would only make Tarlan worse. If she wasn’t absolutely even-handed in her treatment of the two boys, Tarlan could become even more of a monster than he already was.

  She stood abruptly and the wrinkles smoothed out of her elegant bodysuit. She looked around the hall. There were now half the numbers of parents and their offspring present that there had been when they had arrived. “This is ridiculous. Come on. We’re going home.”

  An usher blocked the revolving doors. He gestured to Ewen’s badge. The stripes had started flashing as the boy had approached the exit holding Kally’s hand.

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t leave yet,” said the usher, his eyes appraising the hologram flames that danced on the young woman’s bodysuit.

  “We’ve been here longer than anyone,” Kally protested. “Surely my guardian angel can arrange another appointment?” She made a move to push past but the usher stood his ground.

  “I’m very sorry, but you cannot leave yet. Please take a seat. I’m sure you won’t have long to wait.”

  They waited another hour with Tarlan getting so difficult that Kally was sorely tempted to break Arama’s strict taboos against violence by smacking him. By now the hall was almost empty and the slightest scrape of a chair produced intimidating echoes.

  Ewen spotted a fair-haired girl about his own age. She was playing an imaginary game that involved hopping up and down the aisle on one leg. She chanted an old skipping rhyme under her breath as she hopped along the aisle:

  Outdoors! Outdoors!

  Full of fire and fear,

  Outdoors! Outdoors!

  Where sinners disappear!

  Ewen noticed that her badge was striped like his. She was aware that he was watching her but chose to ignore him.

  Outdoors! Outdoors!

  Hell fires burn within,

  Outdoors! Outdoors!

  Throw the wicked in!

  “What are you doing?” Ewen demanded.

  Outdoors! Outdoors!

  Where flies and birds do dwell,

  Outdoors! Outdoors!

  Another name for hell!

  “Well?”

  The girl stopped chanting. She lowered her foot to the floor and regarded her interrogator with suspicion. She had bright, jade green eyes, and her hair was a mass of natural blonde curls. Her undoubted prettiness was lost on Ewen.

  “Playing,” she retorted. “What does it look like?”

  “Playing what?”

  “Playing at pretending to only have one leg.”

  The imaginative leap that it took to pretend that one had less legs than one really did would have been beyond most children, but Ewen merely gave an indulgent smile. “A stupid game,” he observed.

  “In a minute I shall pretend to have six legs like a fly and I’ll kick you around the hall,” the girl retorted.

  The threat amused Ewen. His imagination could go even better. “And I shall pretend to have twelve legs like two flies and kick you right back. What’s your name?”

  The girl decided that she liked the impish twinkle in his blue eyes. “Jenine. What’s yours?”

  Ewen was about to tell her when a voice boomed around the hall. “Striped badges forward please! All striped badges forward!”

  Ewen and Jenine were the only children with striped badges.

  4.

  The hall was now virtually empty. Kally kept Tarlan quiet with a tight grip on his wrist, and threats while she watched the technician out of the corner of her eye. It wasn’t done to stare at a technician. He was talking to the only two parents left. They both looked too old to have such a young daughter. Suddenly the mother was crying. Her husband put a comforting arm around her.

  “But you can’t!” the mother sobbed loudly so that her voice echoed around the hall. “You can’t! You can’t! Jenine’s our only child! She came when we had given up hope of having a child! You can’t take her from us! It’ll kill us!”

  At that moment Kally remembered more details of her selection day - the anguish of her parents when the news had been broken to them. She watched the husband help his wife to her feet. They left the hall through the revolving doors. The reverberations of the woman’s misery gradually died away.

  The technician moved towards Kally, his medallion burning fire on his chest when it caught the lights. Kally unconsciously tightened her grip on Tarlan. Normally he would have been loud in his complaints, but he remained silent.

  A technician was coming! He was going to speak to her! It could mean only one thing!

  “Kally Solant, mother of Ewen?”

  He was a stocky man. Despite her dread, Kally couldn’t help noticing that his work suit was not a good fit and needed cleaning. He ignored the tantalising flames that twisted across her breasts when she moved. She heard herself say, “Yes?”

  “I’m Technician-Father Gilith. I interviewed Ewen.”

  Kally’s stomach turned to water. So they had found out. It was stupid of her to pretend that it could be hidden from them. They would lock Ewen away.

  “A most remarkable boy, Kally. You should be very proud.”

  For the first time she looked directly into the technician’s eyes. Instead of the expected coldness, she saw a friendliness that left her even more confused and frightened.

 
“I don’t understand…” she blurted.

  “Ewen is going to be a technician. A very special technician. He has been called to worship the Guardian of Destiny and will be trained in the GoD sciences at the Guardian of Destiny Training Centre.”

  “When he’s nine?”

  “Now.”

  Kally’s thoughts were a sick whirl. She suddenly realised why the other mother had burst into tears. “You… You mean, I can’t take him home with me? My angel told me that training starts at nine!”

  “That is so, Kally, but Ewen is special. Very special. We want to start training him immediately. We know how you feel. But you must be brave and proud.”

  I’m not going to cry… I’m not going to cry…

  She heard herself saying calmly: “But there’s a mistake. Like there was with me. I was selected then deselected. About an hour later, I think.”

  “Deselection is almost unheard of, Kally.”

  The quiet resolve was drowned by the swirling torment of misery that engulfed her; silent tears coursed down her cheeks.

  “You will be able to visit him, of course,” said Father Gilith blandly. “Your guardian angel will have all the details.” He smiled down at Tarlan who had been awed into silence by the technician’s presence. “See you here in two years, young man. Good day, Kally.”

  He turned and walked through one of the light polarizing doors. The opening, which had lit up momentarily at the technician’s approach, returned to black behind him.

  “They’re going to put him in a cage,” said Tarlan with relish. “And they’re going to poke food to him through the bars.”

  The savage comment did some good by jarring Kally back to reality. At least they’d never want Tarlan as a technician. Her fingers trembled as she unclipped her guardian angel headband from her hip and settled it in place.

  “Angel?”

  The warm, reassuring masculine voice of her guardian angel spoke softly in her ear. “Yes, Kally?”

  “They’ve taken Ewen from me.” She surprised herself at how steady her voice sounded.