He lay in her bed, his eyes unfocused on the ceiling. Parts of this new life were wonderful, but other parts were not so nice. He realised that this was indeed a significant cost to such a life. To live without fear meant that one lived rather perversely, in constant fear. Living without fear was not the absence of fear, but simply the wilful denial of its ability to affect one. Its otherwise corrosive dulling of the human will. Knowing this made it no easier, but at least it helped him understand his situation.
Worse was the constant sense of foreboding, as if something, just out of sight, was busy preparing itself to seal his doom. That feeling only ever went away when he was with Sally or Fulvia. And that situation had its own share problems and worries. He might love them both, but his duplicity towards Fulvia nagged at him. Yes, Sally knew, and seemed to accept his relationship with Fulvia, though he doubted that she could really not feel the slightest jealousy for the time he spent with her. But in her turn, Fulvia knew nothing of his dalliance with Sally. And he could find no way to tell her, to make it right.
Yet it tore at him, to look into the love in her eyes, and not reciprocate with honesty.
He rose, and prepared a light breakfast for her, then opened the French windows to the balcony. They would eat here, and watch the city come to life.
Far off in the distance he could dimly make out the outline of one of the peaceEnhancement observation blimps, hovering near the horizon. From this distance he could not see the vast array of camera lens pointed ground-ward; could not see the multiple antennas protruding from its underbelly. But he could sense its predatory nature, its cold eternal stare. From where it orbited the city it could follow every action, scrutinize every citizen, and when necessary fire one if its serenityIncentive missiles. Its presence only added to his sense of lingering dread.
Fulvia woke when the first light chill of the breeze mussed her hair. “Mmmm. Hey, come back to bed.”
She looked oddly beautiful in her drowsy state, and he could not help but smile.
“Wake up sleepy head. I have made us breakfast. I thought it would be nice to eat it on the balcony.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “No, don't be a meanie! It is too cold this morning! I'll freeze to death out there.”
“Just wrap the duvet round yourself, you will be perfectly fine. And the tea is steaming hot!”
She snuggled into the sheets, and then rose from the bed like some modern day Hellenic deity; a walking statue of radiance. He could not help himself and his breath caught in his throat.
“God, you are beautiful.”
She came over to him and reaching up on her toes kissed him. “You make me beautiful. Now, let’s eat!”
Afterwards they had showered together, and he had found it impossible to keep his hands to himself. But in the end they had to stop, or risk being late for work.
She wanted them to go in their own separate cars, so that no one at work would suspect what was going on between them, but he had overruled her. He had insisted that they go in together. For some reason the fact that he accepted their relationship, and was happy for it to become public knowledge, reassured her and seemed to make her feel even closer to him.
So he drove her electroZev to the office.
As they passed through the grey overcast morning she laid her head upon his shoulder. “I thought I would feel sad at the ending of our weekend. But now I find myself here in this car with you, on our way to work, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He wrapped one arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer, “It is my first day in my new position, so I am not sure what to expect. But I am content just to see what happens,” he turned to kiss her forehead, “and to look forward to our lunch, of course.”
She squealed in delight. “You are going to have lunch with me?”
“This lunch, and I hope, many more thereafter.”
“Does this mean we are, like, dating? Does that make us a couple?”
The troubled furrow returned to his brow, and he looked out of the side window to avoid her seeing it. “Yes, I do believe it does.”
He need not have worried, for so exited was she, she would not have noticed if he had grown a pair of horns.
She hugged his arm tighter, and her eyes burned with the inner flame of her hope for the future. It was as if she had arrived at her destination. Nothing else really mattered. The rest of her life was just window dressing and furniture that did nothing more than to highlight that transcendent moment when everything came together; when everything finally made sense.
He felt her fingers entwine with his, like a promise of devotion.
He drove on.
“Revolution,” she said, “is no longer possible.”
Mr Smith was sitting with Sally on a small terrace in front of an upscale coffee house. Wind flipped at the table cloth from time to time, and at this late hour few passers-by troubled them. He did not really feel the urge to reply, but she seemed to expect a response.
Unsure, he replied, “We have found each other, what more could we require?”
She flashed daggers at him, her hackles raised. “How dare you! Anthony! How dare you!”
His face reddened, and he sat up straighter. Clearly this was something important to her, and he felt that he had rather dropped the ball.
“I have not spent this much time and effort on you for you to just accept things as they are. Most of what you have been given was given to you by the swarm, and they gave it to you, and to me, for a reason; so that we would take action. Do you not understand? Do you not get it? This is mankind’s last chance. If we do not act now then the final bricks that make up the prison of the panopticon will be cemented into place. Once completed, it can never be broken, can never be escaped from and can never be undone!”
He looked up into the night sky. This was not what he expected. To break a few morality rules was one thing, but to talk of open revolution – insurrection – that was treason, sedition!
“Even if that is true, as you said yourself, revolution is no longer possible. We are too small, too insignificant, to change the world.”
“Do you think that an ant thinks in that way? Does the termite that burrows through the foundations of a house imagine that it’s mammoth task is too great a burden for it? Does it give up before even starting the job, sure of its' ineffectiveness? No! And we are surely more, surely greater than an insect. To us falls this burden, and to us will be granted this honour. This is our life; this is our time; and this is our calling!”
He face was flushed from the passions within, and her eyes raged anger at him. More than her words, her face possessed him.
“Then what are we to do? How in a world so constrained, so regimented, can we make change? That panopticon will always have us in its sights.”
She gazed up at the large spreading chestnut tree that gave this café its name, and smiled inside. “That is where the swarm comes in.”
Epilogue - Compulsion
The Kubic Kat Page 18
