Free to Fall

by Lauren Miller

  I let my finger slide over broken spines as I scanned titles. There were some I’d heard of and a bunch I hadn’t. Some were barcoded and covered in plastic, former library books, before libraries went completely electronic. Others were worn and water stained. The books on the very top shelf were hardbacks with tattered fabric covers, their titles etched in gold leafing instead of printed with ink.

  The book on the end was shoved back slightly, recessed from the rest, so I reached for it to pull it forward. I started a little when I saw its title: Paradise Lost by John Milton.

  I heard myself mumbling the words on the handwritten note my mom had left me. I hadn’t realized I’d memorized them. I formed them free, and free they must remain til they enthrall themselves; I else must change their nature. I pulled the book from the shelf and turned it over in my hands. The pages were uneven and yellowed, and the edges of the fabric cover were frayed. Gingerly, I opened to the first page. The paper was dry and splotched with age.

  Paradise Lost

  A Poem in Twelve Books

  The author John Milton

  This Seventh Edition, Adorn’d with Sculptures

  Printed in London, 1705

  I’d never seen a book this old. Early editions were super rare. And expensive. Which, it struck me then, might not be a big deal for someone like North. How much would rich people pay to have their transgressions erased? A lot, I imagined. I grazed the page with my fingertips, not wanting to damage the delicate paper. Gently, I began to turn pages, one by one, not so much looking for the quote as taking in the book as a whole, its eerie oldness. When I got to the third page, I stopped. Instead of words, this page was a watercolor painting. The caption beneath it read:

  HIM THE ALMIGHTY POWER

  HURLD HEADLONG FLAMING FROM TH’ ETHEREAL SKIE.

  It was an excerpt from the text above, and with the image I could understand its meaning. God was casting an angel down from the sky. I turned more pages, looking for more pictures. There were many, each one stranger than the last and yet oddly familiar at the same time. When I got to Book Seven, I understood why. The caption beneath the illustration was:

  GOD SAID,

  LET TH’ EARTH BRING FORTH FOUL LIVING IN HER KINDE,

  CATTEL AND CREEPING THINGS, AND BEAST OF THE EARTH,

  EACH IN THEIR KINDE.

  It was a depiction of the creation of Earth. There was a lion in the center of the page, its head an exact replica of the mask Liam had worn to the Masquerade Ball, and a cluster of other animals lined up beside it, some with horns and others with antlers, some spotted, some striped, all startlingly familiar. I turned the page, looking for Adam and Eve. We’d read parts of Genesis at the beginning of the semester, so I knew they were created next. I didn’t really need more confirmation, but I got it anyway. The faces of Adam and Eve I found two pages later matched the human masks I’d seen bowing to the serpent in the arena that night.

  My eyes shot up to the ceiling in wordless thanks. This discovery felt purposeful, like I’d been led here, to this moment, to find these drawings, to make this connection. Both the note my mom had left me and the masks the secret society used were taken from this book. There had to be something more in these pages. Maybe a clue to what she was trying to tell me. I held the book against my chest and willed myself to find it.

  There was a soft knock. “It’s me” came North’s voice through the door. I was still holding the book when I let him in.

  “Milton fan?” he asked with a nod at the book.

  “I think I might be,” I replied. “I’ll let you know after I’ve read it.”

  “You want to borrow my copy?”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Can I? It looks expensive.”

  He laughed, reaching around me to close the door. “It was. But I assume you’re not planning to use it as a drink coaster. Of course you can borrow it. Books are meant to be read. On paper.”

  “How retro of you,” I teased. North dropped his messenger bag and walked into the kitchen with a brown bag. As he opened the bag, my stomach growled in anticipation.

  “Ham or turkey?” he asked.

  “Turkey,” I said, hopping up onto his single bar stool as he slid my choice across the kitchen counter. The sandwich was panini pressed, the cheese dripping out from between dark crusty toast.

  I bit into it. It was even more delicious than it looked. I hungrily took another bite before I’d even swallowed the first. North reached for my wrist, turning it over in his hand.

  “Greedily she engorged without restraint,” he teased, pretending to etch the words into my skin.

  I felt myself blush as I hurried to swallow. “I didn’t have lunch!” I said between chews.

  “It’s a line from Paradise Lost,” he said, laughing. “Describing the moment when Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

  “You know it well enough to quote it?”

  “Well, that line in particular I remember because my aunt put it on the back of the first Paradiso T-shirt she ever had printed,” replied North. “The name Café Paradiso is actually a shout-out to Milton. And Università del caffè in Italy where she learned to make coffee.”

  “‘I formed them free, and free they must remain til they enthrall themselves; I else must change their nature,’” I recited. “Book three, lines one twenty-four through one twenty-six.”

  North’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Impressive for a girl who hasn’t read it.”

  “Do you know what it means?” I asked.

  “I think so,” he said. “It sounds like God talking about humanity’s free will. By making man free, he allowed the fall to happen.”

  “The ‘fall,’” I repeated. “The fall from what?”

  “For Satan, it was a literal fall from heaven to hell. For man, it was getting expelled from Paradise.” He flipped to the back of the book, to the final illustration. An angel who bore a striking resemblance to the statue in the cemetery was leading Adam and Eve out of Eden’s gates. The caption beneath it read:

  THEY HAND IN HAND WITH WANDRING STEPS AND SLOW,

  THROUGH EDEN TOOK THIR SOLITARIE WAY.

  “In both cases, the created were trying to become like the creator and enslaving themselves in the process,” North explained, his voice all teacherly and cute. “That’s what Milton meant by the word enthrall—in Old English, it meant ‘to put in bondage.’ At least, a—”

  “Enslaving themselves to what?” I asked, too curious to feel stupid.

  “Their pride, for one thing,” North replied. “And their blindness. By believing the serpent’s lies, Adam and Eve altered their worldview. They saw the world differently after that. They could no longer see it for what it really was.” North smiled. “Thus beginning a perpetual cycle of shitty decisions.”

  “But shouldn’t we be able to get past that?” I asked. “I mean, God gave humanity reason, right?”

  “Reason didn’t do Adam and Eve much good,” North pointed out.

  “But they didn’t know what we know,” I replied. “We’ve progressed so much since then. As society—and science—advances, shouldn’t we eventually be able to see the world for what it really is again?”

  “That’s one view,” North said.

  “What’s your view?”

  North hesitated. “Have you ever heard the term noumenon?” he asked. “It’s Greek. From the word nous, which basically means ‘intuition.’”

  Nous. It was the word the serpent had used in the arena. An eerie feeling rippled through me, almost like déjà vu.

  “I’ve heard of nous,” I said vaguely. “What does noumenon mean?”

  “It’s a type of knowledge that doesn’t come from the senses,” North replied. “Truths that exist beyond the observable world. Science insists that noumenon is a fiction, that there isn’t anything that exists outside of the observable world. I think Adam and Eve made that same presumption when they ate that fruit. They thought they had all the facts. They co
uldn’t see how little they saw.”

  They couldn’t see how little they saw. It was the mistake I’d made in my practicum exam. Thinking I had all the facts. All at once I wanted to tell him about it.

  “So every Theden student has to take something called the Plato Practicum,” I said, forgetting my sandwich. “It’s supposed to improve our practical reasoning skills through these simulated experiences. Kind of like virtual reality, I guess. We sit in these little pods, and the scenarios play out in 3D on a three-sixty screen.”

  “Cool,” he said, and hopped up on the stool next to me. “What are the scenarios like?”

  “Well, usually we’re given a set of actors whose actions we’re supposed to manipulate, and we’re graded on our choices. For our midterm on Friday, we had to choose who to evacuate off a crowded dock before it blew up.”

  “What’s the goal?” North asked.

  “Net positive impact,” I replied. “On society as a whole. The person who gets the best outcome relative to the rest of the class sets the curve.”

  North nodded as if this made perfect sense. “So you’re playing Lux.”

  I looked at him. “What?”

  “What you just described—that’s exactly what Lux does,” North explained. “It manipulates individual users to achieve a net positive impact across all users.”

  “How do you know so much about Lux? From hacking?”

  “I know a lot about Lux from hacking, yes, but I know what I just told you from reading the terms of use. Which, I’m guessing from the look on your face, you still haven’t read.”

  “It really says all that?”

  “In arcane, impossibly hard to decipher legalese, yes.”

  “So how does it work, exactly?”

  “Well, Gnosis doesn’t share its algorithm, obviously, and I can’t see it because it’s on the back end of their server. But presumably they’ve come up with their version of a net positive impact function. They store user data in something called a ‘SWOT matrix’—basically it’s this little four-box grid cataloging a person’s strengths, weaknesses, op—

  I finished his sentence. “Opportunities and threats.” North’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That’s what we’re given in our practicum sims,” I explained. “I thought SWOT was something our teacher made up.”

  “Nah, it’s a business term that’s been around for a while,” North replied. “But Gnosis has taken it to a whole new level. They use it to promote equilibrium—their word for lives that run smoothly. You should see some of their user profiles. The level of detail is insane. They have to be, I guess, for Lux to work the way it does. Every recommendation Lux makes comes from that grid.”

  All of a sudden I couldn’t stop thinking about the moment when I’d chosen my cog psych research topic. Why had Lux put APD at the very bottom of its recommendation list? My mom’s diagnosis was in her medical file, so Lux had to know that I had a predisposition for it. So why wasn’t it at the top?

  “I need to see mine.”

  North started to shake his head.

  “Please, just show it to me. I won’t tell anyone.”

  North hesitated for another minute then sighed. “Okay,” he said finally. He balled up his cellophane wrapper and dropped it in the incinerator beneath his sink. “But only because you said please.” I expected him to pick up the tablet on the kitchen table, but instead he came around the island and walked toward the closet by his bed. “You coming?” he called before disappearing inside. I hopped off my stool and hurried in after him. He was standing in front of a life-size poster of Five O’Clock Flood, quite possibly the worst band in the entire history of the world.

  “Uh, you have a poster of Five O’Clock Flood,” I said. “In your closet. I’m not sure where to start with that one.”

  “Oh, Norvin is a big F.O.F. fan,” North deadpanned. He squatted on his heels, pulling out the tacks from the bottom corners of the poster, and the paper immediately rolled up, like a window shade. Where the poster had been was a narrow door in the wall with a finger sensor lock. “Welcome to my office,” he said, rising to his feet. He slid the tacks into his pocket and touched his thumb to the lock. There was a beep as it deactivated.

  “Holy hi-tech.”

  “Not really,” North said, pushing the door open. “The closet was huge, so I partitioned some of it off and put up a cheap fiberglass wall. If someone wanted in, they could knock through it with their fist. Hey, grab the closet door, would you? And lock it.”

  I pulled the door shut and turned the knob lock, then followed North into the secret room. It was tiny, just big enough for a desk and ergo chair and two wallscreens. There was a stack of old laptops in the opposite corner, each on its own narrow shelf. North pulled out the chair for me to sit on then reached for the keyboard on his desk.

  “You use a keyboard,” I said.

  “I do. When you have to type fast, touchpads are a bitch.” He pressed the enter key and the wallscreens lit up. North reached for the black mouse next to the keyboard. It was big and bulky and hardly what I’d expect a hacker to use. North saw me looking at it and grinned. “What can I say? I’m old-fashioned.”

  I rolled the chair closer to the screen, eager to see real hacking in action. But North just clicked on a folder on his desktop then selected the file at the top of the list. “You ready for this?”

  “Wait, my profile is on your desktop? So you’ve already—”

  North looked sheepish. “I downloaded it the day I met you.”

  “Stalk much?”

  “Okay, so maybe it’s borderline creepy—”

  “Borderline?”

  “You gave me no choice!” he protested. “You were impossible to read. And I’m an excellent reader.”

  “A modest stalker,” I retorted. But I was smiling. “How refreshing.” My smile faded as North clicked open the document. There were four quadrants, like he’d said, and within each one was a list, the entries in type so tiny you’d need a magnifying glass to read it.

  “From what I can tell, they rank the entries within each category, which means the stuff at the top is weighted heavier in the algorithm. Although I’m sure there are nuances, at a very basic level the app appears to be designed to move people away from their threats and toward their opportunities, taking into account their strengths and weaknesses. So, for example, if an opportunity would expose a highly ranked weakness, the opportunity would probably become a threat. Does that make sense?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t really focus on anything you’re saying because I’m trying to read my threats list. Can we zoom in?”

  North clicked on the T quadrant and a new document opened. This one looked like a spreadsheet. At the top was my social security number and date of birth. Below that was a list. My eyes went to the entry at the top: Knowledge of her blood type.

  “I don’t understand,” I said slowly, staring at the screen. “I know my blood type. I’m A positive.”

  He pointed at the next entry on my threats list. “Do you know who that is?” It was a ten-digit string in a 3/2/4 pattern, obviously a social security number: 033-75-9595.

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand,” I said again. “There’s some person out there who’s been identified as a ‘threat’ for me?”

  “Not one person,” North corrected. “Half a dozen.” He pointed at the next five entries on the list. All social security numbers. The sandwich I’d just eaten felt like lead in my stomach.

  “Who are these people?” I asked him. “Is there any way to find out?”

  “Not without a Forum handle. The way Gnosis has encrypted its data, there’s no way to search across all user profiles. It’s a weird idiosyncrasy I haven’t been able to crack. I can click through random profiles, but I can’t pull up a particular one without knowing the user’s handle.”

  “Okay, so move them over to my opportunities list then.”

  North started to shake his head. “Rory—”

&n
bsp; I cut him off. “I didn’t finish what I was telling you before. About my midterm.”

  “The dock,” North said.

  “The goal was to evacuate as many ‘high-value’ people as possible before these huge crates of fireworks exploded. When the timer started, I just froze. There were all these little kids there, natives, and I knew they were considered low value, but I couldn’t stand the idea of leaving them to die. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a voice. Telling me to wait. Not to evacuate anyone. That’s the way I took it, at least.”

  “This voice—”

  “It was the Doubt,” I said firmly. I didn’t want to dance around it anymore. “It was the Doubt, and I ignored it, because that was the rational thing to do. But then I found out that the simulation was based on something that happened in Fiji last week. Except in real life, the dock didn’t explode because it was over its weight limit. It collapsed into the water just as the firework blew. So if I’d waited, no one would’ve died.”

  North took a few seconds to process this. “I don’t understand what this has to do with your Lux profile,” he said finally.

  “That wasn’t the first time I’d heard the voice,” I said. “It started the day I flew out here, on the plane. I was worried about Theden, and the voice promised me I wouldn’t fail. I heard it again the next day. Twice. Once in practicum, then again when I was picking my research topic for cog psych. The Doubt told me to pick akratic paracusia disorder. APD. It’s the medical term for people who listen to the Doubt. It’s sort of a long story, but if I hadn’t listened to the Doubt that day—if I’d trusted Lux instead—I never would’ve found out that my mom had it.”

  “Had,” North repeated. I saw something in his eyes. Not hope, exactly, but something like it. The you, too I’d felt when he told me he’d lost his mom.

  “She died when I was born,” I said. Then, because I felt my voice breaking, I barreled on. As long as I was talking, I wouldn’t cry. “She was nineteen. She was diagnosed with APD while she was here, actually. At Theden. They kicked her out because of it. And I’m thinking, Lux had to have known that, right? It was right there in her medical file. So why did it try to steer me away from picking APD as my research topic? What else has Lux decided to keep from me?”