Mindwarp

by James Follett

  “It annoys me. You annoy me. That’s enough reason.”

  He propped himself up on his elbows. “It’s a serious question. We’re now allowed to do all sorts of things that we weren’t allowed to do when we were kids. I don’t think you’re ticklish. You play silly games on the pyramid, which is pretty physical, and yet it annoys you if I touch you. Why?”

  Jenine brushed her hair from her eyes. She still had the mass of natural blonde curls that Ewen remembered when they first met ten years ago at the selection centre. “Is it important?” she demanded. “And what’s brought on these stupid questions anyway?”

  “I didn’t tell you about my field trip with Father Winim yesterday. It was boring really. We went to the Keltro chord-metro station to fix a mag-lev’s sliding doors. There was a couple sitting on a bench - a boy and a girl about our age. Naturally, they moved away when they saw us, but not too far. I watched them while Windbag Winim tested the doors. They were kissing each other. On the mouth.”

  Jenine shuddered. “They do that on the outside. How can they? And the clothes they wear-”

  “My mother designs clothes,” Ewen pointed out.

  “Clothes which encourage their awful breeding habits. There’s those tops that show women’s… you know. It must be horrible having those awful growths on your chest.”

  Ewen didn’t share her feelings of distaste. His mother’s breasts looked wonderful, but he always kept such thoughts to himself. Nevertheless, the ten years at the Centre during their formative years had institutionalised both of them almost to the point of no return. “It wasn’t just the kissing. He was tickling her as well, and she seemed to enjoy it.”

  “So?”

  “So I merely wondered why she liked it, and you don’t. It’s not like kissing.”

  “Because we’re different. We’re special. Our brains are special; our bodies are special; we don’t have body hair; women don’t have those growths- “Breasts,” Ewen interjected, rolling the word off his tongue with mischievous relish, knowing what her reaction would be.

  She stared at him and grimaced. “Even the word’s horrible. I don’t know how you can say it. You don’t have to shave like men on the outside - like the others. We’re the GoD’s chosen ones.”

  “I upset poor old Windbag,” said Ewen pensively.

  “So what’s new? How?”

  “There’s a screw on the doors which is in difficult place. Windbag said that they were always a problem so I said, why not alter the design of all new doors? He got very angry. “Alter the design without the consent of the Revelation Centre?” he squawked, and went on to give me a lecture about tampering with the word of the GoD.”

  “He’s right,” said Jenine seriously.

  “I hardly think changing the position of one screw is challenging the GoD.”

  “It’s not for us to suggest such things, Ewen.”

  “Come and lie beside me.”

  “What?”

  Ewen repeated his request. Jenine gave a sigh of exasperation. She never had understood Ewen’s favourite mode of relaxation. Her one-piece white recreation suit rustled as she stretched out beside him on the floor near the open window, taking care not to touch him. She was nearly his height but much thinner. The harsh white zargon light reflected from the inside of the huge faculty dome hurt her eyes. She closed them tightly.

  “Now what?”

  “Now nothing. Just relax. Pull faces at the emperor if you must have something to do.”

  “We’ve got our 10th year finals-”

  “We’ll walk them,” Ewen interrupted. “Can you feel it?”

  “Feel what?” Jenine was getting impatient with his infantile games.

  “The warmth…”

  “Well there’s bound to be some, you idiot. It’s midday and zargon light is only 71 percent efficient. There’s a four percent invisible spectrum loss, and the remaining 25 percent is lost in the infrared part of the spectrum as heat. Some heat is absorbed through the dome, and some is reflected. That’s what we’re feeling. Okay?”

  Ewen’s next question was wholly unexpected. “Do you ever wonder what’s beyond the domes?”

  “Rock, of course.”

  “And beyond the rock?”

  Jenine’s reply was scolding. “Have you forgotten everything from our second year? Rock is infinite. It goes on forever. It’s been mathematically proven.”

  “We ought to explore the rock.”

  Keeping still for any length of time was beyond Jenine. She sat up and looked worriedly at Ewen. “What do you mean, we?”

  “Society.”

  “What? To make new domes?”

  “Or chord-metro tunnels,” Ewen suggested.

  “Why would the Guardian of Destiny authorise such waste? Imagine the cost in materials to build boring machines, and the energy they would use. We have a stable population; we recycle all materials. We don’t need new domes or transport tunnels.”

  The two climbed to their feet and stood at the window, watching students battling to reach the pyramid’s apex. The harsh, white zargon light glared on the dazzling glass pyramid and cast strange light patterns on office buildings and lecture halls that surrounded the campus’ central open space. There was a ring of ten light batteries grouped around the campus at strategic intervals, their huge lenses directed up at the great dome so that their light would be reflected down to the best advantage.

  A foul by the Energy Conservation team was being hotly disputed, and all activity stopped. The glass pyramid had been intended as a symbol of the triangle stick test that the Centre’s students had passed although none could remember the test. Over the years it had become a challenge to physical prowess. Rules had been evolved; now the strange structure was the centre of inter-faculty tournaments.

  “Do you know what I miss most since I came here, Jenine?”

  The girl pulled a face. “If you mean home life, no I don’t miss it. My parents are old, and forgetful, and argumentative. Their house is small and cramped - as soon as I go in the door, I want to rush out. I hate home visits.”

  “Dreams.”

  Jenine gave a sudden laugh.

  “We don’t have dreams, do we?” said Ewen seriously.

  “Dreams fantasies are for them on the outside,” said Jenine distastefully. She added with a vehemence that surprised Ewen, “Dreams can be disgusting. The others may enjoy them, but we’re better off without them.”

  “Hey! My dreams weren’t disgusting, madam.”

  “You can remember them in detail?”

  Ewen stared at the far side of the great dome with unseeing eyes. He nodded. “Vividly. And it was nearly always the same dream.” He had never brought up the subject before and he didn’t know why he wanted to talk about it now.

  Jenine grimaced. “I don’t think I want to hear it. I’m sure all our dreams before we came here were nasty.”

  “Well mine wasn’t. It was nearly always the same. I was lying on my back, like just now, and I was under a huge dome… Really huge… I was lying beside a recreation reservoir. A huge one with lots of water. I could always hear children playing nearby. Shrieking… making a terrible noise but I never minded.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a very interesting dream,” Jenine remarked uncomfortably. She didn’t like the conversation, nor did she like the strange, faraway look in Ewen’s eyes. There was a lot of work to be done preparing for their finals which she wanted them to get back to. Keeping Ewen on the straight and narrow was hard work.

  “Dreams don’t have to be interesting,” said Ewen. “They’re out of body experiences. In my case the experience was lying under a vast blue dome. And there was warmth, but much more warmth than from the zargon lights. You’d like it there, Jenine - lots of space. And there was something else… My hair was blowing about.”

  Jenine laugh was scathing. “There you are. You were born to be a technician. You dream about a dome which is the wrong colour, and it has something wrong with its air-condition
ing.”

  Her mocking tone annoyed Ewen. “No… It seemed right…” His face twisted in frustration. “I wish I was good at explaining to you, Jenine. I wish I could make you see what I see.”

  “You mean, what you used to see?”

  “Present tense is correct,” Ewen answered. “I’ve been having those dreams again.”

  Jenine became serious. “You should see the doctor. Maybe your food needs changing.”

  “But I like my dreams,” Ewen protested. “They don’t do any harm.”

  “Well I don’t think I’d want to see a blue dome, even if it was spacious,” Jenine replied tartly. “I don’t think anyone would. It sounds like the sort of place where flies and birds live. I can’t think of anything more horrible or unnatural. Blue! Ugh!”

  “But it seems so right! So beautiful. Perhaps I could draw it for you?”

  “I wouldn’t want to look.”

  Her words hurt Ewen. He reached for her hand, but she recoiled sharply from him as though he were a fly that had buzzed in through the window. Her jade green eyes flashed angrily.

  “We used to hold hands,” said Ewen reproachfully.

  “That was a long time ago, Ewen. We’re different now.”

  Ewen nodded. She was right. They were different. Everything about them had changed.

  But the memories of his dream had never changed. After ten years his picture of the vaulting splendour of the wonderful blue dome was undiminished, and now the strange visions were returning. He longed to be able to share that wonder with Jenine so that she would understand.

  2.

  Ewen loved Technician-Father Regen Dadley.

  The kindly old housefather and been his mentor and confidant during his early years at the Centre. There had been times when Ewen had resented his protectiveness. But that was a long time ago. Now he felt nothing but warmth for the old man. But visiting him at the retirement home was painful. It was a pleasant enough place: corridors in pleasing pastel shades; small neat rooms with everything to hand. Paved walkways, lawns and fountains, pleasing light pattern screens. There was a wing where disabled ex-soldiers received loving care, yet Ewen considered it a cold, sterile place, its bleakness heightened by the thought that one day he would be an inmate.

  It’s where retired technicians go to live, they said. But Ewen knew better: it was where they went to die. The long chord-metro journey discouraged many visitors. Why hadn’t the home been built in one of the faculties? It would have been kinder and there was plenty of room. But to ask such questions would have meant questioning the decisions of the Guardian of Destiny.

  “He’s had a good day today, technician-student,” grated the warden, opening Father Dadley’s door. He was a giant, unsmiling brute, but with a greater regard for those in his care than his appearance suggested. He was known to the residents as the Laughing Gnome. “Shall we say… Ten minutes?” His phrasing made it sound as though the period of time was something they had both agreed to after an amicable discussion.

  “Ewen!” the old man exclaimed, sitting up in bed. The mattress whirred softly as its motors re-profiled to his new posture. “Lovely to see you. Sit down. Sit down.” He waved a gnarled hand to a chair. The Laughing Gnome withdrew.

  They talked for five minutes. Father Dadley was eager for news of the Centre. His body was wasted and weak, but his eyes were bright, and his mind alert. Ewen was telling him about his most recent field trip when the old man leaned forward suddenly.

  “Do you have it?”

  Ewen knew what he was talking about. “Of course, father. He felt in a pocket and handed over the radio capsule that Father Dadley had given him four years ago.

  “If you’re ever in serious trouble, Ewen. Big trouble. Squeeze the ends together hard and someone will hear. Now you must promise me that you’ll never tell anyone about it. If anyone ever finds it and wants to know what it is, you must say that you found it. Do you promise me?”

  And Ewen had promised.

  “I have a new battery for it.” The old technician fumbled with the device but it fell through his clumsy, arthritic fingers. He muttered a curse. “You’ll have to do it, Ewen. Just twist the ring at the base.”

  Ewen knew what to do; he had fiddled with the device many times, wondering at its effectiveness. Once he had even exposed it to X-Ray analysis, at a low level for fear of damaging it, but the capsule’s secrets had remained locked in its encapsulated interior.

  “There’s a new battery in the locker.”

  Ewen recovered the tiny tablet cell from the bedside drawer, and slipped it into the recess in the capsule’s base. The compartment was well-designed - polarized so that the battery would fit only one way.

  “Good. Good. Now put it away. It’ll be good for another five years.”

  Ewen slipped the capsule back into his pocket. “If I were to use it, father, who would hear?”

  “Someone I can trust. That’s all you need to know. Now, what of yourself? We’ve only a few more minutes before the Laughing Gnome throws you out. Tell me what you’ve been up to. How are things with you personally?”

  It was the opportunity Ewen had been waiting patiently for. He needed to unburden himself to this one person whom he could trust not to sneer.

  “Father, do you really believe that rock is infinite?”

  The old technician’s sunken eyes sparkled. “Ah ha. The difficulty of accepting the concept of infinity. The sign of a true thinker in the making. Although infinity defies shallow logical analysis, it stands up to disciplined analysis.”

  Ewen shook his head in disbelief. “So the rock that the domes of Arama are carved from, goes on for ever and ever? How can that be so?”

  The old man’s face became severe. “Because the word of the GoD tells us that it is so.” His features relaxed into a smile. “Not a very intellectually stimulating argument, I fancy. Let’s poise a little thought experiment. Can you imagine a straight line that goes from this room, right up through the building, through the dome, and extends through the rock?”

  Ewen thought for a moment and nodded.

  “Now make your line infinite in length. Make it go on for ever. Can you imagine that?”

  Another pause and Ewen nodded, his blue eyes fixed on the old man.

  “So you created your line in your mind. Now it must be surrounded by something, mustn’t it? So, logic tells us that it must be surrounded by rock. Your line is infinite therefore rock is infinite.”

  “But supposing the rock above us and around us eventually comes to an end?”

  Father Dadley chuckled. “Do I smell blasphemy? Okay - the rock comes to an end. To be replaced by what, Ewen?”

  Ewen shook his head. The argument was getting beyond him. “I don’t know, father. More domes?”

  “But domes are finite in size. The rock must eventually resume.”

  “There was a dome in my dreams. It wasn’t finite - it seemed to be vast - endless.”

  Father Dadley blinked in surprise. His crooked fingers played idly with the bedcovers. “Dreams. You have dreams?”

  “Before I came to the Centre I used to have a dream about a vast dome. So vast that you couldn’t see its surface. Those dreams have started again.”

  The old man suddenly looked haggard. “The colour of this dome is wrong. Yes?”

  Ewen looked at him in surprise. “Yes. It’s- “Blue!” Father Dadley pushed himself up on one elbow. “It’s blue! Am I right?”

  Ewen’s eyes had widened in astonishment. “How do you know?” He forgot the customary “father’.

  The old technician sank back into his pillow looking utterly drained. “There have been others, Ewen… Long before your time. Gifted students like you… They used to have similar dreams… A vast blue dome…”

  Ewen moved onto the edge of his chair in excitement at the thought that he was not alone. “Others? Others with the same dream? Who are they, father?”

  The sunken eyes that turned to Ewen were now filled with sorrow. �
�All so long ago… I cannot remember names…”

  “But the most recent! Who was the most recent? Surely you can remember!”

  Father Dadley waved his hand in front of his face as if the gesture would assist his memory. “Simo… Simo Belan. About fifteen years ago. But there have been others from other faculties.”

  “Where is he now? Please, father. I have to know!”

  The voice was tired. “Simo vanished, Ewen. They all vanished.”

  The door suddenly slid open. The Laughing Gnome’s intimidating bulk filled the threshold.

  “Time’s up, student-technician.”

  And he meant it.

  3.

  Ewen pressed an audio amplifier microphone to the thin partition wall that separated their respective bedroom and shower rooms, and listened to Jenine’s regular breathing. He slipped from his bed and checked the opposite wall. Deg Calen, the third student who shared the communal study apartment, was also asleep.

  Ewen was fully-dressed in black inspection coveralls, and black surgical gloves that would permit him to work without tactile loss. He picked up a bag that he had packed that day, removed his student medallion from around his neck and dropped it on the bed. He had no firm evidence but he was certain that the medallion could be used to track movements, just as the beacon transmissions from the guardian angel headbands kept tabs on members of the public.

  He left the study apartment. The corridor was deserted. At the far end, beneath the frowning picture of the emperor, was a door leading onto a balcony on the dark side of the students’ residential block. He stepped onto the balcony and grabbed the door as it slid closed to prevent its noisy impact on the stops.

  The campus was still and quiet, lit only by the suffused glow from a few low-power zargon night lamps. The buildings created pools of darkness. The bag contained a length of tough GoD power cable which he had knotted at intervals. He secured the cable to the balcony’s safety rail, dropped it over the side and checked that it was long enough to reach the ground four floors below. He slung the bag from his shoulder, and went nimbly down the cable, hand over hand.