Ascension

by Jeannie van Rompaey

  Mercury grins and squeezes my hand but I don’t return his smile. He is excited about leaving here. He doesn’t seem to realise how much I am suffering.

  ‘And now Odysseus.’

  Odysseus opens his mouth and shuts it again. I know what he’s thinking. He can’t bear the thought of deserting his treasures in the histo-lab.

  ‘Don’t worry, Odysseus,’ Ra says, as if reading the chief chronicler’s mind, ‘I am moving you to a research centre better equipped than the present histo-lab. You may have wondered why work has not begun here on the proposed museum. That’s because there’s been a change of plan. The compound that is to be the site of the new museum is Durga’s, C98. In fact construction is already well underway. As soon as it is ready you will be considered for promotion to chief curator, a post for which you are well suited. I assume you would like your assistant, Isis, to accompany you?’

  Odysseus exchanges a look with Isis. ‘Thank you, Ra. I’m grateful for your faith in me and yes I would like….’

  Ra cuts him off in mid-sentence. ‘As for you Heracles, you are an impetuous young mutant humanoid. You have a good brain, but I cannot allow you to take matters into your own hands as you have done. Much as I’m tempted to get rid of you, I’m going to give you a chance to redeem yourself. You have certain skills that could prove useful to us. Consider yourself on probation. I cannot allow you to return to C99. Not yet, anyway. You have forfeited that privilege. You will go to Headculturedome where, among other things, I hope you will learn to control your temper and your impulses.’

  Heracles looks straight ahead and makes no response. He’s got off lightly.

  ‘Fellow mutant humanoids, that is all for now. Long live Worldwideculture!’

  The screen goes black.

  Sati skips off, her arm linked in Jagadgauri’s. ‘Come, Jaga, I’ll show you around,’ she says, ‘and explain what I’m planning to do.’

  She can’t resist throwing a smug smile in my direction but, although it makes me sick to think of her in charge of my sectoid, I manage to stare at her fiercely until she is obliged to look away.

  So, I’m to go to Headculturedome and Mercury and Heracles are to come with me. I look round the RR and stride through the compu-centre where my previous colleagues are already at work. A couple of mutant heads look up as I pass and give me a rueful smile. I do not react.

  I shall be sorry to leave here, the only home I’ve ever known, but I have no choice. With Mercury trotting along behind me, I leap down the silver cylinder for the last time and give a giant hop for good measure, my power not over yet. My head held high, I make my way to Man1, the teleport and a new life.

  Chapter Seven

  Mr. Suit

  (according to Mercury)

  I’ve never seen a non-mutant humanoid. Not in the flesh. Only in filmograms made before 2020. Until today that is. I suspect the other students here in Headculturedome are as amazed as I am to see him. There he stands on a raised plinth in the conference hall staring down at us. We stare back at him and see a humanoid with two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two arms and two legs. Dressed in a silver-grey suit, neatly pressed trousers, jacket to match and a pristine white shirt and purple tie, he reminds me of Daniel Craig as James Bond or a chat show host. Not a politician. The latter are usually tie-less, shirtsleeves turned up a bit to show that they are of the people and therefore for the people. Though no one is fooled. Think of Cameron or Obama. But this man – let’s call him Mr. Suit – makes no pretence of being one of us. No dumbing-down for this smoothie with his sleeked-back hair and chin held high. He’s a cut above us and makes sure we know it.

  We’ve been instructed by auto-put to assemble here. A special visitor is to address us. And here he is. His slate-coloured eyes scrutinise each of us in turn as they sweep in a wide arc reminiscent of that long one-camera shot of Gene Kelly dancing in the rain. Maybe his eyes are mini-cameras. Implants. Recording our every expression, noting our body language. Even here in Headculturedome we are not privy to every new technological advance, so I have no idea if it is possible for humanoids to have camera implants in their eyes or not.

  I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but I sense that as those steely eyes retrace their route, anti-clockwise, they linger a little longer on my face than on the others. The mini-cameras move on and swing back for another look. No doubt about it. Mr Suit is focusing on me, little Mercury.

  A shiver runs through my body. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. That reaction will no doubt be recorded too. Or at least noted.

  What is Mr Suit planning? Who is he? What is his position in the hierarchy of Worldwideculture – above Ra, our three-headed CEO, or beneath him? I look at Kali but her face is a blank.

  Since she lost her position as chief administrator of C55 and came here to be retrained, she’s been a different person. She has fallen into a kind of depression, unable to come to terms with the change of direction expected of her.

  Mr. Suit has stopped his perusal of us and is making a speech. He speaks effortlessly, unlike our jerky efforts at communication. ‘Good evening, fellow humanoids,’ he says. ‘My name is John Smith and I’m delighted to have been invited to Headculturedome to see for myself the incredible progress you are making.’

  Fellow humanoids? John Smith? He is a politician after all. He’s trying to show us that he is an egalitarian, down-to-earth guy, but I sense something patronising about his attitude as he continues to feed us the same old stuff, the same old Worldwideculture line, talking in clichés, about how we are all pulling together, working side by side to create a better world. Blah, blah, blah.

  He is generous with his praise. ‘I am very impressed by your diligent and enthusiastic work and I thank you for that from the bottom of my heart.’

  Smooth. Definitely a politician. Next thing I know he’ll be taking off his jacket and tie and rolling up his sleeves. Lulling us into a false sense of security, that’s what he’s doing, treating us as equals when we all know that, even among mutant humanoids, some are more equal than others. Orwell knew what he was writing about in Animal Farm.

  His voice drones on, uttering generalities. More of the same. Blah, blah, blah. I can’t help wondering what hidden agenda lurks at the back of Mr Suit’s mind or in the minds of the other non-mutant humanoids he represents, for surely he cannot be the only one. At times his voice wavers a little. His hands are never still and there is something in way he leans slightly away from us that suggests he’s not completely at ease. Not used to being in the company of mutants is my guess, as wary of us as we are of him. A wonder he doesn’t talk to us from behind shatterproof glass for protection, if not from bullets – no guns here – but from breathing the same air as us. We are different from him and, deep down, under that arrogant exterior, he is afraid of that difference.

  Once or twice during the speech, I imagine his camera-eye rests on me again, but it doesn’t linger, soon moves on. He is summing up now, coming to the end. He thanks us all for our attention, treats us to a self-satisfied smile and strides off without a backward glance as if, having done his duty, he can now get on with more important matters.

  A buzz of chatter as he departs as everyone speculates on the reason he is here and where he’s from. I sit for a moment and wonder what it could be about me that caught Mr Suit’s attention. It comes to me that the reason he gave me a second look could be because, at first sight, I don’t look like a mutant humanoid. True, I’m of diminutive stature and have rather large ears, but I only have one head and the requisite number of eyes and limbs. Yes, that’s it. He thinks I’m like him, a non-mutant humanoid. He’s wrong of course. He hasn’t heard me speak, is not aware of my high-pitched voice. Neither has he seen the erratic spurts of speed that constitute my efforts at moving about.

  What he doesn’t know either – nobody does apart from Kali – is the fact that I have lumps on my shoulder blades that, if not trimmed regularly, sprout feathers. Kali is my feather-trimmer. At least she was. The
y are badly in need of a trim now. If something isn’t done about them soon they will develop into fully-grown wings and I will fly away.

  As a child I used to beg Kali not to cut them. ‘Please Kali,’ I’d say, ‘let the feathers grow into big angel wings. I want to fly.’

  ‘Where would you fly to?’ she would ask. ‘There’s nowhere to go.’

  I didn’t want to go anywhere, I told her. I just wanted to fly round the compu-centre and the RR. For fun. For the sheer joy of it. She laughed at what she called my nonsense and made me lie on my stomach while she clipped those feathers as close to the bone as she dared. She’s not interested in clipping them now. And I can’t ask anyone else to do it. No one else knows about those feathers. Kali always told me to keep them a secret, although I doubt she cares any longer. She doesn’t care much about anything since she’s lost control of her sectoid. She certainly doesn’t seem interested in me. Ever since we came here Kali has spent most of her time lying on a double body-shaper, metaphorically licking her wounds. Heracles hovers close by. She takes more notice of him than of me but I do try to encourage her to take an interest in working again.

  I tell her about the great selection of filmograms available and the pleasure of research with no purpose other than to educate. Her black eyes dull to a smoky, lacklustre grey. She can’t see the point of working with no targets to reach. Making sure her workforce attained the weekly targets was the focus of her existence at C55. But I’m determined not to give up my efforts to revive her.

  To tell the truth, I’m worried about Kali. She’s changed from the caring mother and dynamic leader I once knew to a sluggish lump of flesh.

  My first real memory of Kali is the day I first arrived at C55. I have no recollection of my life before that. If the nightmares I suffered as a child were any indication of the previous time, it is just as well not to remember. For me, life began when Kali took me to her dormo-cube, sat me on the side of her bunku and introduced me to her snakes, one by one. ‘So that you need never be afraid of them,’ she said. Hugo, the fattest and longest, was coiled round her neck like a thick rope. Kali spoke to him gently and he stuck out his tongue and licked my cheek. Hugh and Henrietta were circled like mottled bracelets on her right wrist and Henry and Hannah on the left. They unwound themselves as she presented them to me, put their heads on one side and hissed a welcome.

  On that first day she piled cushions on a shaper and sat me at a compu for the first time. At first I only looked at the pictures, but it wasn’t long before I’d taught myself to read. I’d sit there all day, engrossed in my own little world, no trouble to Kali or to anyone else. So I’m told.

  It was Kali who named me Mercury even though my budding wings were on my back, not my heels. She used me to deliver the messages she considered inappropriate to send via the public domain of intercom-fone, auto-mail or intercom-net. She named me Mercury, she told me later, not only because I was her little messenger, but also because I suffered from a mercurial temper when crossed. ‘Mercury rising!’ she would say. ‘Just watch it.’

  The main cause of my anger was always the same. I didn’t want to do anything that took me away from my beloved compu. I remember one particular incident, involving Isis. She was still a child herself, only a couple of years older than me, but much bigger and stronger.

  ‘Come on, Mercury, let’s go into the RR and snuggle up on a double-shaper for a bit.’

  ‘Don’t want to,’ I said, not willing to be parted from the compu.

  Isis stroked my hair and wheedled, ‘Please Mercury. You can’t sit at the auto-put all day. It’s not good for you. Come and have a cuddle.’

  She ran the fingers of the hand at the end of her little arm through my spiky hair. All the female mutants seemed to like doing that.

  ‘Get off!’ I yelled, but she grabbed hold of me under my arms and tried to lever me off the shaper. I held on tight to the edge of the workstation, but she managed to lift me halfway out.

  ‘Leave – me – alone!’ I screamed. My legs and arms thrashed about all over the place, my nails scraped her cheek. Still she wouldn’t let go. I lowered my head and sank my teeth into the fleshy part of her short arm. She dumped me back down quick enough after that and ran off, limbs all over the place, screeching that I was a vicious little brute. She learnt her lesson though. She didn’t approach me again when I was busy at my beloved compu.

  Kali kept a close watch on me after that. Her swift warning, ‘Mercury rising!’ whenever I was in danger of spinning out of control, taught me to control my temper. I rarely lose it now, although there are lots of things in our world that make me angry, so I’m always aware that my anger could return. Funnily enough, Isis and I became good mates. I wonder how she’s finding things in C98. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.

  Unlike Kali, I love it here at Headculturedome. The dome itself is light and airy, the compus powerful, the screens massive. I’ve had access to more data in the last three months than in all my years in C55. Here we are positively encouraged to immerse ourselves in history, to watch old filmograms, political, sociological and geographical, to wander in virtual art galleries and museums and to attend concerts, both classical and popular. I’ve enjoyed concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic, watched with awe conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado and Simon Rattle as, their batons waving like wands, they magic incredible sounds from the orchestra. I’ve become a fan of the Rolling Stones, Cold Play and The Killers, all long gone, but made immortal by filmograms.

  I can find few, if any, examples of new performances of any kind after 2020. The world must have fallen apart soon after that.

  Here in the dome we make our own schedules, watch what we like, when we like. There are no targets to meet, although we are expected to keep a journal. It’s worth the trouble. I read mine from beginning to end each morning to remind myself how much I am learning. How lucky I am to have been selected to spend time here. I just wish Kali shared my enthusiasm, but she takes little notice of me. Heracles, that big three-legged oaf, always fickle in his affections, now fawns on her and she seems to lap up his attentions. He sits beside her and makes what he considers witty remarks. Once or twice he has managed to persuade her to leave the comfort of the body-shaper, sit at a compu next to him and watch comedy programmes. Frothy stuff: Saturday Night Live, Thirty Rock, Two and Half Men, filmogram-series from the early 21st century. It’s a start, I suppose. They lift her spirits and, because I care about Kali, I am pleased to see her smile, but I don’t trust Heracles. He may be good for Kali in the short term but Kali’s happy moods don’t last. She soon reverts to her customary inert state and sits, head in hands, unable to concentrate. The learning programmes that I find so riveting, leave her cold.

  I look around. Most of the students have drifted back to their compus or gone to the games room to play snooker or darts. On my way back to my workstation I see Kali, lounging in the RR, Heracles at her side as usual.

  I skip up to her in my usual manner, determined to make her move off the body-shaper. I stroke Hugo’s head. The other snakes look up listlessly. They’re sulking because Kali is no longer the feisty mistress she used to be. They’ve caught her mood.

  ‘Kali, guess what I saw this morning. A docugram. Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon. Listen to this, Kali, there’s a virtual programme – you put on a sort of helmet and experience for yourself what it is like to walk with no gravity.’

  I lift my knees up high and move my hands in slow motion. ‘Imagine it. A simulation of what it’s like to walk on the moon. How exhilarating is that?’

  I think of her signature movements, her hops, strides and leaps, the incredible way Kali defies gravity. Or used to. Surely she’ll be fascinated by the moonwalk.

  She waves me away. ‘If you find it so exciting, so – exhilarating – go back and play your little compu-games. Stop bothering me.’

  She exchanges a look with Heracles. To her I am just an irritating child. But I’m not a ch
ild any more.

  She sets the snakes on me, all five of them at once hissing and whistling. They don’t frighten me, these old mates of mine, but I do feel sad to be treated like this.

  I do give up on her, for the moment at least, and continue on my way, but before I reach my workstation there’s a vibration in my ear. The intercom-fone.

  It’s Mr Suit asking to see me in the guest suite. I glance over at Kali. I’d like to tell her that I’ve been summoned and ask her opinion on what to expect, but she doesn’t look up, her head lifted up towards Heracles. As so often these days, she isn’t giving me a thought. So off I dash, keen to find out what Mr Suit wants.

  Chapter Eight

  Mercury Rising

  (according to Mercury)

  The guest suite is large, furnished with what I take to be antiques, armchairs and sofas upholstered in fabrics embroidered with designs of flowers and leaves. They are not made for comfort like the spongy body-shapers, but for elegance. The wallpaper is decorated with leaves too, matching the chairs, and there’s a large old-fashioned desk and an upright chair with carved legs in dark wood, but no sign of a compu. Through an archway I glimpse a four-poster bed with heavy velvet curtains tied back. I imagine that at night they can be drawn to enclose the bed for privacy or warmth. I’m not sure I’d like that. The style of furniture in this dormo-cube or apartment is, I believe, what they call “retro.” I’ve only seen such things before in a virtual museum or in filmograms. I do my best not to stare. In the corner is a transparent box, its high tech design at odds with the other furnishings. The teleport.

  Mr Suit greets me but stops short at shaking my hand. ‘Mercury, delighted to have this opportunity to get to know you better.’