Collective Mind

by Klyukin, Vasily

  It was preferable to get back before the administrator became seriously concerned. The risk wasn’t very great, but the less time she searched for Pascal, the better. It would be good if she didn’t call the police. Pascal’s mobile phone was here, charged. If she called, Pascal would say he was all right.

  After a sleepless night and the nervous strain, the monotonous journey exhausted Isaac and he fell asleep. He was woken by someone tugging on his sleeve. It was Pascal.

  “Isaac, where are we?” he asked.

  “Are you awake? Well, thank God. In principle, you ought to be as quick-witted as you were before. You just need to rouse yourself a bit, have a coffee. Right now it’s like you’ve woke from a dream, plus you’re reacclimatizing.”

  “Who are these people?”

  “This is Bikie. And there’s Professor Link himself,” Isaac said with a smile. “We’ve brought you back from being a Happy.”

  “From where?”

  “Have you forgotten? You became a Happy. Now you’re normal again,” said Isaac, beaming. “My God, Pascal, I can’t believe it’s you again.”

  “Isaac, I don’t remember how I got here. Where are we going, and just what has happened?”

  “It’s hard to explain. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I remember going to the Agency. And where’s Eva? Why isn’t she here?”

  Isaac went silent, bewildered. Those questions sounded a bit strange, especially the one about Eva.

  “Pascal, do you remember your swanky house?”

  “What house? You mean the apartment?”

  “Hang on a moment, I’ll explain everything.”

  This was troubling. Could it be from the sleep? Or the download operation? Isaac shook Link awake and shared his ideas with him. Link frowned and sat down beside Pascal.

  “Pascal, I’m Professor Link. Yes, yes, that professor. You were a Happy. Yesterday evening we transferred your OE back into you. Do you remember what year it is, or the date?”

  “Of course, I do.” Pascal confidently named the date when he parted from his creativity. “I downloaded my creativity yesterday. You don’t forget that kind of thing.”

  “Hmm, I see. You have amnesia, Pascal… Isaac, stay with him, I want to check a few things.”

  Isaac didn’t know what to say or how to behave with someone who had lost his memory. Maybe if Pascal wasn’t a Happy any longer, and could think clearly, it was best to tell him exactly how things were? He would have to learn the truth anyway.

  “Pascal, its two years since that happened.”

  “Two years since what happened?”

  “Since the day you went to the Agency.”

  “What? Are you making fun of me?”

  “Hang on, let me tell you everything in the right order. I’ve got a bottle of old whisky ready. Will you have some?” Isaac pulled the bottle out from under the seat.

  Pascal nodded.

  “If you are up for a drink, you’re definitely not a Veggie anymore. It looks like we’re in for a very long conversation,” Isaac said with a sad smile.

  The conversation ahead would prove a lot more difficult than expected. Two years of amnesia is no joke. Isaac had to try to jolt Pascal into remembering something. And it was really important to figure out the reason for his loss of memory.

  Link sat down beside them. He was holding a downloading helmet, which as they now knew, could also be used for re-inputting OE. A few new little wires had appeared on it.

  “Pascal, I need to take a tomographic image of your brain. To see if there’s any damage, tumors or any other anomalies. We have to find out the reason for your amnesia.”

  The professor put the helmet on Pascal’s head and attached various sensors to it.

  “Try to move as little as possible. That way the image will be sharper.”

  Link ran various tests, took notes and compared diagrams. Half an hour later he had finished and disconnected all the wires.

  “There’s good news, very good news and bad news. Which shall I begin with?”

  “The bad news,” said Pascal, alarmed.

  “I don’t think we can call your loss of memory amnesia. You won’t recall anything, because… because you don’t have any memories of the last two years. The good news is that your brain couldn’t be in a better shape. It’s absolutely fine. We didn’t damage it during the input process. The right hemisphere, left hemisphere, and cerebellum – they’re all perfect. And the very good news is that your level of creativity has not changed, you got back everything that you had before.”

  “What’s the conclusion?”

  “There are several. As far as you’re concerned, you’re absolutely healthy. The input process works magnificently. But you don’t have any memories from your period as a Happy as if you’d been in a deep sleep. You could say – and I congratulate you – that you have emerged from a long-term coma. Since the brain is fine, I’m sure the loss of memory is a consequence of being a Veggie.” The professor started pondering. “I’ll have to make sense of that myself.”

  “But what about the two years?”

  “Forget them for now. But then, you don’t remember them anyway. It’s strange, of course. You should just live and enjoy life and be thankful we’ve pulled you out,” said the professor, glancing at Isaac in concern.

  “Be thankful to you? You’re the one who invented all this! It’s all because of you.”

  “Pascal, please, calm down. The professor’s a member of our team. That’s why he’s here. And our common objective is to put things right,” said Isaac, also trying to assimilate what had happened to Pascal.

  “But I lost two years!”

  “Some people have lost seven. And they will lose even more if we don’t intervene. We’re acting illegally. No one forced you to download in the first place. And you were paid a whole heap of money. What’s important now is that you are well. Consider that you’ve been reborn. Or survived a global catastrophe.”

  “Have some whisky, you’ll feel better,” said Isaac, handing Pascal a plastic cup.

  “Thanks.” Pascal sipped the whisky and winced, the taste was so unfamiliar now. But the atmosphere warmed up a bit.

  Isaac really wanted to discuss their discovery with the professor and Bikie. But he talked to Pascal all the way back, telling him what had happened during his effective absence. About how the world had changed even more, how it was still averaging down and getting more boring. Pascal listened in silence. The longer Isaac spoke, the gloomier Pascal became, as he realized how much time had really flown by.

  “I’m sorry, but you’ve missed a lot. Everything’s averaging down, total globalization is continuing. The main obstacle – the language barrier – has almost been erased. There’s a modern electronic interpreter far classier than the ones that used to exist. You stick a wireless earpiece in your ear, and away you go. No problems. Go to Japan if you like. Go to Peru.

  “There are plenty of different pluses but problems have come up too.

  “Veggies’ children are born without any OE, for example. The most terrible thing is that the Agency doesn’t have any opposition. There are individual dissidents, but until yesterday evening, no one had a single proof”

  Isaac told Pascal about how he had gone to download his own OE, but, in the end, had not done it. How he got to know Bikie and how they had found Link. Pascal listened attentively. He didn’t remember anything and he was horrified. Two years cancelled out of his life. Isaac told Pascal how he behaved when he was a Veggie. Calm, polite, always smiling and not interested in anything. He showed Pascal the video taken with the web camera.

  “And where’s Eva?” Pascal asked warily.” He had obviously wanted to ask that for a long time, but couldn’t bring himself to.

  “I’m sorry, Pascal. But Eva left you ages ago.”

  “Left me? What does that mean? But when? You mean, she… dumped me?”

  “No, she just left. I’m sorry.” Isaac was still apologizing a
s if he were to blame for something. “You haven’t been together for a long time.”

  “What about me? Did I try to do anything? Stop her?”

  “No. Nothing bothered you. Absolutely nothing! My Vicky needed an operation and I was flat broke. You told me to take a walk.”

  “Vicky needed an operation? What’s wrong with her?” Pascal asked in alarm.

  “Yes, Pascal, she did. And she still needs it badly now. It was because of her I went to the Agency to download. But before that I came to you, a millionaire and you gave me nothing. Your contract said you weren’t supposed to, you see.”

  Isaac finally poured out everything to Pascal. Everything that had seethed up inside. He ran through all his unsuccessful attempts to persuade Pascal. He told his dumbstruck friend about his resentment, all the sore points and he had accumulated a lot of emotions.

  “Isaac,” said Pascal, rubbing his neck: the mark from the sedative injection was no longer visible, but it still hurt a bit, “Please forgive me and thank you, my friend, for saving me. Give me the number of your account at the hospital and I’ll pay off everything today. I’ll have a lot of other things to make right, too. I’m sorry I keep asking, but where is Eva now?”

  “She’s still living in Monaco. Only she doesn’t mingle and party anymore. She got herself a job.”

  ***

  That day at lunch the administrator did call the Agency after all. She saw the note from her ward and decided to seek advice. The elderly woman realized immediately that Pascal hadn’t spent the night at home: the bed was still made up from the previous day, the TV remote control was in the wrong place, and the same food as yesterday was still on the shelves in the fridge. He definitely hadn’t gone to bed and he hadn’t eaten breakfast…the first time in two years. Her other wards had never disappeared like this, and they always laid out all their things neatly in the right places.

  She didn’t go to the police since Pascal hadn’t disappeared after all, and he answered her call. He said he was OK and would be back soon.

  After spending half a day with the team at Wolanski’s place, at almost five in the evening, staggering slightly, Pascal went home. To a home that he didn’t recognize. Half of the bottle of whisky he had drunk with Isaac was sloshing about in his stomach and raging fury with the Agency had matured in his head. For the lost years, for the loss of Eva, for being awoken purely by chance. He transferred the money to the hospital account as the first step in correcting the mistakes he had made. It was the very least he could do for the time being. Link had carried out another dozen measurements and tests and was finally convinced that he was right: Pascal was healthy, and the amnesia was the result of being a Happy.

  Approaching the villa, he saw through the window the anxious administrator in the sitting room. He didn’t remember her, but he recognized her from Isaac’s description: constantly red face, plumpish, with grey hair in a bun. Pascal opened the door and walked in, glanced round at his home, at his computer, which had obviously not been touched for a long time, and at his “nanny”, who wanted to ask him something, and walked into the bedroom without saying a word.

  The administrator, astounded by the smell of alcohol, called the Agency and told them everything was alright, the Happy had come home.

  Chapter four

  That evening at the villa, Isaac’s team triumphantly celebrated their great victory. Initially, he wanted to invite Peter and Michelle but then changed his mind. First, he had to discuss everything with the professor and Bikie. He and Michelle had arranged to have dinner the following evening.

  But at Pascal’s villa, there was only Pascal himself, alone with his second bottle of whisky. He could have joined Isaac later, when it got dark and the administrator has left, but he wasn’t in the mood. He was drinking alone and did not want anyone anywhere near him. Apart from the girl who had left long ago.

  It was already sometime since he realized that he was not dreaming and that Eva, his beloved Eva, for whose sake he had downloaded his creativity, was not with him for two whole years. It would be wrong to say that he did not remember his Veggie period very well. Rather, that period didn’t seem to have taken place at all. His memory stopped dead at the moment when he downloaded his OE. When he woke up he was the same as “yesterday”, a twenty-something-year-old guy, head-over-heels in love with his girl. “Yesterday” she hugged him and kissed him, they made love, he cracked jokes and she laughed vibrantly in response. It was impossible to grasp that she had left and was living with someone else, eating breakfast with someone else, having supper with someone else, sleeping with someone else, screwing someone else. The pain was appalling. Pascal flung his unfinished glass at the mirror above the fireplace. A spray of glass and liquid flew across the sitting room and the mirror tilted over and cracked right across, with a gaping hole at its center as if from a gunshot.

  Monstrous cubic pictures goggled down at him from the unfamiliar walls of his luxurious home. A few old photos on a chest of drawers, only one photo of Eva, but before, in the little old apartment, there had been lots of them.

  Pascal picked up the photo. Eva was so dear to him, so precious, so unbearably beautiful. That smile of hers… Pascal poured himself another glass.

  Isaac told him she has been seeing a doctor for a year already and had moved in with him. That gave Pascal a strange feeling. Betrayal? Almost. Something like betrayal, probably. His rational mind understood that a lot of time had gone by, that it was really all in the distant past. But for him it was all as if she had dumped him just yesterday. Yes, dumped him! That was the way it was for him. Yesterday he had hugged Eva, said goodbye cheerfully and promised to get rich before the evening came. He wanted to surprise her.

  That bastard of a doctor! The Count of Monte Cristo and his Mercedes surfaced from the depths of Pascal’s memory. His Eva did not wait for him either. The feeling of hurt consuming Pascal was amplified sequentially by love, hate and a whole slew of other emotions. He compared himself to an abandoned cripple, a missing person, a shipwreck survivor cast away on an uninhabited island, whose love had left him for someone else. His heart refused to accept that he had been a living vegetable with no chance of experiencing emotions and mutual affection.

  How long had she waited for him, how long had she been with that doctor? Why? Where did they meet? These pointless and agonizing questions were literally eating Pascal. The bottle was empty. His body, not used to alcohol, had struggled to get through it. Pascal suddenly felt sick, and he went dashing to find the toilet.

  After taking a shower, Pascal went back to the sitting room. He felt dizzy and he did not want to drink any more. He would not be able to get a drink down. There was a foul, bitter taste in his mouth. And in his soul.

  For a while Pascal pondered over whether he would get her back, even though she was with someone else. In his despair, he had decided that he wanted and was able to forget. But the alcohol had embittered him. No, she used to be his woman, only his. Now he couldn’t say that anymore, remembering that lousy, rotten doctor all the time. His mind conjured up pictures of her in passionate embraces. Her and that creep of a doctor. No, he could never come to terms with that, he could not live with it, he was too self-respecting. If he has lost her, then let it be. An egoistic inner voice whined despairingly: you’re a smart, attractive young guy, you have money now and you will forget and find yourself another one, lots of others. The voice of reason argued: forgive her, she is not to blame! It is all your fault! His feelings muddled reason, he wanted only her, he wanted to turn time back and delete this period from his life. A kaleidoscope of love, hate, grief and alcohol…

  Pascal fell asleep in an armchair in the sitting room. He had a dream that had no torments or love in it. But it was still some kind of a nightmare. He dreamed of airplanes, crashes and wrecks, a conflagration. All in color, and all so lifelike. His brain could not blank out the anguish, but it had blocked out the original cause, in an effort to protect his nervous system the best it could.r />
  Isaac came to wake Pascal at half past eight in the morning, half an hour before the arrival of the administrator. He had to help his friend to convincingly imitate a Veggie. They have not yet decided what to do next, so for the time being it was best to keep everything secret. The door was not locked, so Isaac walked in and saw the terrible mess in the room.

  “Pascal, what have you done? Get up, your nanny will be here soon! Where do you keep the vacuum cleaner? God, you reek of stale whisky, like an alcoholic. You’ll give yourself away and all the rest of us too. Veggies don’t drink!”

  Pascal jumped up and looked around. A completely unfamiliar pad. He remembered absolutely nothing about living here for more than two years. All this electronic gear everywhere. He didn’t have any clue where the vacuum cleaner was, or even the mop.

  Ten minutes later the mop had been found, the broken glass removed and the bottles thrown into a garbage can in the street. Isaac poured half a liter of strong coffee into Pascal and forced him to eat two cheese sandwiches to make the smell of alcohol disappear.

  The administrator was five minutes late. Walking into the sitting room, she stared in surprise at Isaac, then turned her eyes toward the broken mirror and Pascal’s slightly puffy face.

  “Hello! I broke that, I’m sorry,” Isaac said confidently. “How are you doing?”

  “Hello, Isaac. I’m doing fine. But what are you doing here so early?” The administrator’s voice was thick with suspicion.

  “Pardon me, but I came to see Pascal, not you” Isaac snapped back. “We’re going out for a stroll. Will be back this evening. Or tomorrow morning.”

  The administrator glanced at Pascal in surprise, but he nodded in confirmation.

  “Let’s go, Pascal. You wanted to visit Vicky, right?”

  And before the administrator could ask another question, they left.

  ***

  Commissioner Pellegrini read the report on the call that Pascal’s administrator made to the Agency reporting his overnight disappearance. Strange that she haven’t called the police. Pellegrini already knew that Pascal reappeared.