Less Than Human

by Maxine McArthur

  He leaned forward as she approached, his eyes too bright. “You must call me Adam here,” he said in a mock-whisper. “Just as we will call you Lilith.”

  “Lilith?” she said, momentarily distracted.

  “Adam’s first wife. The one who lent her soul to the Evas.”

  It took a moment for her to realize the last reference was to a manga. Bible, manga, sutras, they were all religious texts to the Angels.

  “Call me whatever you like. But I’m not staying. I wish to leave. Now.”

  Fujinaka turned around and watched her with his narrow, measuring eyes.

  Akita’s mouth dropped open in shock. “But you haven’t entered the Macrocosm yet. You said you wanted to see it.”

  “I said I wanted to see your new interface. I didn’t say I wanted to be doped, abducted, and m … mutilated!”

  He frowned, puzzled at her anger, then his face slackened again. “Now, now Lilith. I admit we were a little rushed in your case. But you are important to us.”

  Eleanor controlled her breathing with an effort. “Why did you do this to me?”

  “You wanted it,” he said, puzzled. “I wanted it. I have always admired your talents. You have the knack of linking theoretical problems with the practical. I think you will be a great asset to our movement. My other disciples do not have the knowledge or experience to manipulate the Macrocosm successfully.”

  “I didn’t want this,” she protested, but halfheartedly. He wasn’t going to listen, whatever she said.

  “Together we can restore order to the Microcosm. Create a new reality.” He was almost pleading with her. “In the times that are past, Buddha and Christ taught that suffering is the lot of all living things. And what is the root of suffering?”

  He waited for her to answer. Fujinaka kept his eye on her as he coiled a long lead.

  “Desire?” she ventured.

  Akita nodded slowly. “That is what they taught, because these teachers of the past did not have my power to ascend into the Macrocosm. They were chained to their mortal bodies, but I am not. Of course,” he said smugly, “when the body is vanquished, desire evaporates like dew in the sun’s rays. Your niece is learning this. You can, too.”

  He must have known all along about Mari.

  “Akita … Adam. Thank you for your invitation, but I don’t want to get involved.” She turned on her heel and walked back down the carpet. It was only ten strides to the door, but it felt like fifty.

  Akita said nothing. Fujinaka muttered something inaudible. She opened the door, her back feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, then she was in the corridor again. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. Could it be this easy? Where to go? There must be an exit.

  She turned left, the other way from her route with Mari. The corridor continued past two more doors, voices murmuring within. The helpbot had gone.

  As she reached the corner, a man in a silver robe turned into her path. Slim build, expressive eyes, hollow cheeks. Samael. The man who drugged her in the Betta.

  She jumped back, and he laughed.

  “Going somewhere, Lilith-sama?” He made the honorific sound like an insult.

  “Upstairs.” She didn’t attempt to get past him. His arms were half-raised, the fingers flexing as if he could feel her already. No biometal on those hands.

  “You don’t want to do that,” he said firmly. “Adam-sama is looking forward to you joining him in the Macrocosm. Let’s not spoil that for him.”

  He grabbed her left arm above the elbow and pain shot through her neck and shoulder. “I haven’t got time to keep an eye on you. In case you have any funny ideas about escaping, remember your niece. You do care for her, don’t you?”

  He thrust his face into hers, and she pulled back as far as his grip on her arm would allow. “Good,” he said. “Back you go, then. The Macrocosm awaits.”

  He shepherded her up the corridor to the vestibule. Eleanor’s neck ached and she felt nauseous. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “Can I use the toilet?” she said.

  Samael sighed. “Be quick.”

  The toilet offered no escape. The fan was linked to the light switch. If she had tools and a torch, she might disconnect them and then see where the fan duct led, if she could climb up there. The wiring was pinned around the top of the door and out a badly replastered hole in the concrete. She might have a chance of shorting the lights, but it wasn’t much good if she didn’t know where to go in the darkness.

  Back inside the vestibule room, Akita was now seated facing the consoles. Fujinaka strapped him in at the chest, legs, and onto a padded headrest.

  “Gagiel-sama,” said Samael. “Here’s your missing customer.” He pushed Eleanor in the small of the back so that she stumbled forward, catching her toe on the carpet.

  Fujinaka/Gagiel narrowed his eyes further. “About time. We want to make sure this is going to work, you know.”

  “Adam-sama says it will,” said Samael, and he seemed to mean it. Perhaps he actually believed all this rubbish.

  “Lilith-san, we begin.” Akita’s head was held motionless by a padded strap, but he smiled sideways at her. “We enter the realm outside and encompassing other realms, which previously only the Buddhas and Devas knew.” He raised his free hand, the artificial one. “Are you ready?”

  “I could do with a drink of water,” said Eleanor.

  “Stop stalling.” Samael prodded her in the shoulder, and she stepped up onto the dais.

  Akita closed his eyes. “You must hold a memory as you enter. Anything, but it must be clear.”

  “Why?”

  Akita mumbled, but she couldn’t distinguish words.

  Fujinaka clipped another chair to the console, beside Akita. There were no long gloves as she’d seen Fujinaka use in the Zecom Betta, only an aperture covered with a soft material that yielded when she poked it gingerly. Several screens were attached to the top of the console.

  She wavered. “How many of these consoles have you built?”

  “Three completed so far,” said Akita, without opening his eyes. “Two are here. One has been sent to believers in a distant land.”

  “Which country?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “What happens to me, physically?” In spite of herself she wanted to know what it felt like. Wanted to know if it was real.

  Fujinaka/Gagiel grabbed her left arm and wound the bandages off her hand. They came off easily, only sticking a bit around the fingertips. It wasn’t as unpleasant-looking as she’d expected. They’d attached biometal to her fingertips and three long strands down the tendons on the back of her hand. There weren’t any obvious ports—perhaps the whole surface of the metal was sensitized. Purple bruises mottled the skin. Without the painkillers it would hurt like hell.

  “Sit down.” Gagiel’s fingers dug into her shoulders as he pulled her down into the chair beside Akita and tugged the straps tight. Panic welled in her throat like vomit.

  She glanced sideways. Akita looked into nothing and thrust his artificial hand into one of the apertures, almost up to the elbow. His body stiffened immediately, and his head thrust back against the headrest. His eyes rolled slowly upward, and Eleanor looked away from the sight.

  My God, what if he has developed a direct interface? Everything we do with computers will change. She felt herself on the crest of a swell that could build to a tidal wave, ready to crunch down on life as they knew it.

  Before Fujinaka could do it for her, she poked her hand into the hole.

  Gentle resistance surrounded her fingers, as if she’d put her hand in a huge pot of glue. She flexed her fingers experimentally. As they widened, suddenly they were locked in. She couldn’t move them at all. And she couldn’t move her body, either. Sparks of pain shot up her arm and her breath faltered with the shock.

  Another memory of sudden fear rose unbidden—several years ago Masao took her to one of the popular indoor fun parks. They rode a huge roller coaster, and she thought that because it
was inside a building it might not be as scary …

  She fell, screaming, Masao’s grip on her wrist leaving a bruise … but he wasn’t there now. Nor could she hear the rattle of the machinery or the frenetic music, but she was still falling. She plummeted into a dark abyss—her heart should have faltered, her head should have swollen with blood, her arms and legs should have flailed against rushing air.

  But not only was she unafraid, she couldn’t do anything like that. She could “feel” herself—she still had a tongue to run around her teeth and fingers to clench into fists, but she couldn’t touch the world around her. All she knew was the certainty of falling. How did she know? Lights flashed by all around her. Yet when she focused on one, it stopped. Or she stopped. She tried to touch the light but it winked out, and she fell again. The universe expanded, and she grew smaller in comparison until the weight of her own insignificance smothered her.

  Don’t panic, she told herself. If Akita can do this, you can. Panic is only a shadow, a habit of mind unsupported by sensation or enzyme. You don’t have a body to fall with.

  Think. If this console connects me—whatever “I” am in here—to a network, there should be an exit point.

  It wasn’t dark, after all. When she noticed something, it lit up, although she didn’t understand how light was possible without eyes to see it. She couldn’t stop classifying the world in terms of sensation; it was a million-year-old habit, after all.

  The “light” showed her that the place was more than just a hole—it branched in crystalline towers and bridges in all the directions. As she noticed more of the structures around her, the dive slowed. She imagined feathers, parachutes, gentle updrafts, and her fall slowed further. When she looked at a part of the structure, that part grew closer. Or maybe her “looking” created the details …

  The crystalline maze around her had a definite order. Akita had done it, developed a direct interface. The programmer’s dream come true. A pity she couldn’t feel elation, any more than she could feel terror.

  She explored the grottos of light and ever-changing forms, and concentrated on one of the crystal towers. It zoomed close, and she began to fall into it, but one of the sidewalls extruded a tongue that flicked her away. She tried a different tower. This one let her fall in.

  She could identify myriad patterns. They clicked as a word—“systems.” Then “subsystems.” This must be the part of the computers networked at the Silver Angels’ hideaway. The interfering tongue must be a protection program.

  Below her, rushing closer, flecks of light flicked off a swirling hole. It irised shut, then opened again. A gate, she thought. To the outside?

  Lilith. Akita’s spoke to her without voice. Or he might have said McGuire or Eleanor. He called her, at any rate. You must practice manipulating the Microcosm.

  Something—in the sensory world it would be a shadow—hovered around her as she fluttered around.

  Did they share thoughts in here? She tried thinking of Akita falling off his chair while his mind was occupied here, but got no response. Then she “said,” What kind of practice?

  Find a body to touch the world of sense, he replied.

  I have a body, she started to say, then realized what he meant. She skimmed a narrow orifice, surrounded by a simpler edifice. Another tower to fall into. But she was buffeted by unseen currents and slid away, falling. No control. Was this how Nakamura felt when he tried to manipulate the Kawanishi robot from miles away? No wonder it hit Mito.

  She tried falling into the smaller tower again, thinking slow and subtle …

  And she had a body again.

  She felt … hard, flat … ridges so must turn … dark/light … movement, so must stop. Wheels, gears. Activation sequence. She was a helpbot, perhaps the one she saw earlier. Simple infrared sensors told her there were several people in the room. She tried to make the helpbot move and immediately it turned into the wall with a grinding of gears. Just like the one she saw in the corridor with Mari.

  Manipulating the Microcosm was harder than it looked.

  Someone gave an order to her audio sensors, which translated into get me some water. This time she waited while the helpbot’s program responded, and all she had to do was follow along as it filled a glass from a low sink and carried the water on its “head” tray. Fascinating to watch the complex sequence from inside.

  Pile of junk, said the person after grabbing the glass.

  Oh yeah? bristled Eleanor. She activated the carrying arm program and tweaked it enough to whack the person in the shin. Loud cries jammed her audio receiver.

  Very good, purred Akita. You are the most advanced pupil I have ever had. See what else we may do to influence the Microcosm.

  She drew back from the helpbot, back to the crystal towers and currents.

  The shadow of Akita’s presence extended around part of the tower’s pale filigree, and it dulled. That small subsystem would malfunction. No wonder he could enter her Betta without an ID, part of her mind remembered.

  If Akita could enter her Betta, perhaps she could enter a different system. Such as the police database or, even better, their communications network …

  That is sufficient for a first try. Akita’s shadow crowded her in a particular direction. Before she grasped what was happening, she was falling again, faster and faster into …

  Headache. With every throb her shoulders ached. Pain prickled down her wrist from her hand. Her heart thudded against the strap that pinned her to the chair.

  Akita slumped beside her. Already Fujinaka/Gagiel had released him and was injecting him in his upper arm.

  Eleanor felt as though she’d been dragged along an assembly line backward. Every muscle in her body ached. It took her three tries before she found the strength to pull her hand out of the console. It was coated with soft bluish goo that came off easily when she wiped it on her trousers.

  Seeing that Fujinaka was still fussing over Akita, who lay with his head on the console and his eyes closed, she picked feebly at her own straps. She needed that drink more than ever. How long had she been in there? For that matter, where was “there”? She couldn’t grasp the enormity of what she’d just experienced, her brain felt as though it was stuffed with foam.

  Outside. There was a way to get out of the Silver Angels’ retreat from inside the interface … the gate, that’s it. A live-line input converter, probably, designed to attach the required random biological markers to allow data to be sent via liveline. Maybe that’s how it worked—Akita could travel from system to system using liveline because he already had biological markers. She wasn’t too sure how live-line functioned. Nor were the technicians who laid it, by all accounts.

  If Akita could access her Betta, surely she could access the police communication system, warn them.

  She finally released her chest strap, but by then Fujinaka had finished with Akita. He undid her straps with sure, swift tugs from strong fingers. Eleanor was very conscious of the proximity of those hands, of the firmness of the young muscles, the long puff of his breath … she was hyperconscious of the whole room, in fact. Every rustle of cloth or scrape of chair leg on the carpet was magnified. The light glinted painfully off the console. What was wrong with her?

  “Can I have a drink?” she croaked.

  “You’ll be fed and watered now.” He glanced at Akita. “Shall I take her to the meditation room?”

  Akita straightened with a groan. He stretched his arms sideways, and the artificial hand extended in front of her, long tongues twirling.

  “No, bring our meal here. And tell the others we will meet here when it is time for the broadcast.”

  Fujinaka/Gagiel bowed low to Akita, shot Eleanor a stare that said clearly, no tricks, and left. Whatever delusions Akita had about her being there by choice, the Angels knew she was a prisoner.

  Akita rose from his chair, slowly, and with many grunts and groans, tottered the few paces to his “throne” and sank into it.

  “Come,” he said, hi
s voice almost as croaky as Eleanor’s. “Sit.” He pointed at the dais beside the throne.

  No cushions, Eleanor noted sourly. Her knees were wobbly, but she could stand. She sat where Akita pointed, on the top step of the dais. The step was a plywood board nailed sloppily over a frame, and felt hard under her seat bones.

  “Aki … Adam, what happened at Zecom?”

  He started, as though he was half-asleep. “Do not worry about Zecom,” he said thickly. “It was but a stage on the road to enlightenment. We do not dwell there for longer than we must.”

  “Of course I worry about it. Samael meant to do something dangerous.”

  “Tell me what you think of the Macrocosm,” he said with more energy.

  “It will change our relationship with computers forever.” She meant it.

  He smirked. “I knew you would understand the greatness of my discovery.” Then seriously, “Did you feel yourself spreading through the universe? Did you feel the enlightenment?”

  “Not quite,” she said cautiously. She was getting a crick in her neck from staring up at him, so she stood, her head pounding with the sudden movement. “What do you intend doing with this interface?”

  He blinked at her, his eyes vague and his heavy cheeks slack. Stoned. Maybe he gets a headache after using the interface, too.

  “By entering the Macrocosm we can eventually be free of the constraints of our bodies,” he said, his lips forming the words carefully. “We are readying ourselves to assume leadership of the Microcosm. The Angels will traverse the two realms. After the initial stage, I will ascend permanently to the Macrocosm and receive the souls that follow.”

  Eleanor rubbed her head. Her left arm was starting to ache, too, with an increasing intensity that suggested she would soon need more painkillers.

  “I don’t understand. Do you want everybody to use the Macrocosm?”

  He hesitated. “Not everybody. People will need to serve in the Microcosm, at least until our bodies become unnecessary.”

  “That won’t happen,” said Eleanor gently. “What if someone turns off the power to the console? You’ll be lost like unbacked-up data.”