by A I Zlato
Iris sat up on her bed, and for the first time in years, looked at her mother without hostility.
“What can I do for you?”
“I would like to understand why you do not like the Machine. Really. I will not judge you. It is true that I have heard you speak ill of the Machine; it is very hard for me, but I will take it lightly. I really need to understand.”
“This is new... Am I right that you are only paying attention to my opinion simply because it could help you in your investigation...?”
“Please, Iris. Please.”
“OK... I don’t want my whole life to be already planned; my existence to be controlled by a grid... the Machine.”
“What really bothers you? You can still decide many things. For example, you can choose the person with whom you will live, where you want to live, if you want children or not, your religion, your leisure activities...”
“These are only the crumbs that the Machine leaves us to make us believe that we are masters of our existence. The job I’ll choose, the circle in which I live, the concept of Equilibrium, it decides. I want to choose everything. I want humans to decide to build another city, making it a square or oval, choose their profession according to their tastes and not just on skills detected by the Machine!”
“But it decides what is best for the community, optimizes the operation of the city, and especially ensures the Equilibrium so that we do not make the same mistakes as the Elders did.”
“The Elders lived there thousands of years ago! We have made progress since! What if I wanted to be wrong; to make mistakes?”
“I do not understand... I really do not understand. I cannot visualize what life had been for the Elders, of course, but... I don’t want to risk seeing my world become like theirs.”
“That is exactly the point; no one knows. This is a myth; a story that is told to scare people, to keep us in the Machine’s bosom.”
“Are you doubting history?”
“No... I’m just saying that the Machine has an interest in keeping alive our fear of the past, and making sure nobody asks questions... that one does not realize the gulf that separates us from the Elders in terms of all the progress that has been made.”
“You really think the Machine has some type of goals? It is programmed to manage humans; that is all. It is not aware of itself; it cannot... establish a Machiavellian plan to keep... running.”
Baley felt her head twisting. Listening to her daughter denigrate the Machine and trying to understand her views were triggering a reaction in her chip. Pain waves ran through her head, getting stronger whenever Iris replied. Baley wondered how her daughter could endure such pain without flinching.
“How do you know?” Iris asked. “How can you say that it has no intentions?”
“Between Paul pondering a trigger factor, the link between the Equilibrium, the Machine and the Elders’ dream, and you talking to me about a plan orchestrated by the Machine to keep us under its influence...”
“Who is Paul?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“So don’t talk to me about it...”
“I’m just saying all my conversations at this time are shifting away from my job and...”
“Maybe you are beginning to glimpse a different reality than that which you believed until now.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know. Iris, I... should focus on the investigation. I understand that you think the Machine is the enslaver, and you want to be free of it. Do you think children could die for this kind of... belief?”
“They could certainly be desperate, as I am, to be unable to make their own choices in life.
“And use such despair...all the way to committing the extreme?”
“Despair can grow into many things...”
“What about you... have you ever thought about...
to..?”
“No, I’ve never seriously thought about dying, but that thought had crossed my mind. It’s just that I’m older; and I found a way to live differently.”
“Which means?”
“It is none of your business.”
Iris scowled, and Baley knew that prolonging the discussion in that direction would inevitably trigger a squabble. She did not want to break the communication. It was important for the relationship she had with her daughter, and especially for the investigation. Iris had just told her that the idea of dying, in despair at the prospect of a life organized by the machine was not absurd.
“OK, Iris. It is true that you are almost an adult; you have the right to have secrets. Anyway, thank you for talking to me and confirming my theory was credible.”
“Which theory?”
“I cannot say anything more.”
“Always confidentiality for the ongoing investigation, right? As you did not, however, try, for once, to make me say what I did not want to say, I can understand your position.”
Baley was astonished by the maturity ingrained in those words, and delighted to have managed to have a normal conversation with her daughter. Her rebellion was perhaps ending, and Baley hoped Iris would soon accept the place that was hers, and would feel better in her life.
She closed the door to her daughter’s room, comforted in her theory; a little more serene for the first time in years.
A memory is nothing but a mental representation made by the present self of a past self. Truth has no place in the memory.
The Space-Time
CHAPTER 42
INTERSPACE (LEVEL 2)
Aenea was happy to see her friends and Interspace again after experiencing a temporary node. That horrible place... the Third Space’s tunnel... nothingness... she was now back home. Her mind connected to Beor, Cae and Deo, she let herself drift into tumultuous waves of space-time. Her world was still disturbed by the temporary nodes, threatened whenever they appeared. Nevertheless, Aenea felt safe. She was in her place; in the world that was her own; surrounded by the three elements of the node, an integral part of herself. Following the current, she crossed the nodes connecting Space H. and Space O., interspaces to which she had access. She enjoyed the movement of her hair in the waves and the contact of the waves on her translucent skin. She naturally regained her role, differentiating the two spaces... without even thinking. Her mind mingled with the currents to strengthen and maintain the barriers. Space-time... this endless flow generated by the nodes... causes of spaces... maintained by the Gateways... both causes and consequences... the beginning and the end was the same place... it was so obvious. The Gateway felt comfortable in contact with this environment and the associated ideas. She had necessarily hope... that harmony could not disappear... the temporary node and its black hole seemed so far away, as if the whole episode were a bad dream. Aenea brushed herself against the soft walls, taking care to remain anchored in the node. She did not want to relive that nightmare... the reality that had almost annihilated Aenea. The jelly separating spaces’ nodes seemed to react to the memory, turning itself more flexible, as if to invite Aenea to cross... the Gateway curled in on herself. The space-time streams had saved her... they came to seek her in the ocean, and had taken her out of the cold and darkness to bring her back to this place. She kept in her flesh the marks of her passage and her contact with water but especially the linearity of time. Her right hand and both feet were reformed. Silver threads indicated the presence of bones and joints that a long time earlier had atrophied. Aenea had in amazement watched her physical transformations, moving her fingers which morphed into five in number again... How was that possible? Veils — beginnings of nails — glittered at her fingertips. Since the appearance of the first temporary node, an uninterrupted series of impossible things had happened... The regression of her body was one more of those.
Unsuited to space-time currents, Aenea’s limbs had become an embarrassment to her. Renewed strength in her right hand made it difficult to contact barriers, while her left hand, which had remained in the node, continued to perform this action without problems. Her feet were
no longer able to navigate the currents and had to make more effort to move, waving her legs that remained flexible. Why was the node not affecting her body as it had done the first time? Cae whispered the answer Aenea already knew, although she would not admit it. The space-time did not transform the Gateway because the former was too weak... The currents were no longer the groundswell that was simultaneously slow, powerful and continuous. They hovered, vibrating and swirling, engaging with repeated shocks... these phenomena upset the known universe... Was she condemned to live in this body, a halfway shape between her human past and her Gateway present? She scanned the agitated waves, and felt a diffuse desire to help... but the energy was missing. Sadly, Aenea placed both hands in front of her; they were so different... She suddenly asked herself which one she preferred. What did she really want? Had she really hated this passage in Space O.? Whether to be a human or a gateway — did she still have a choice?
If her body had kept the traces of her passage into the space, her mind was also marked. As if her bony fingers had physically grabbed her recollections, her human memory was not so firmly imprisoned by the node and Cae. A fine neuronal connection kept her clinging to the past; she glimpsed bits of it without having full access. Now she remembered... and realizing that her physical transformation was reversible left a bitter taste. It was the price she paid to regain her memory; the nostalgia of what was no more. She knew that, as a gateway, this body was more suited to her life, but she remembered now how fun it was to walk, to stand, to fill her lungs with air — all those things she could not appreciate fully in her previous life. She stared at her arms, waving like thick ropes in the space-time, and saw superimposed what they had been.
Aenea remembered... Helen. She was that woman. She thought back fondly of her husband, dead for more than a thousand years. She remembered his arms cuddling her, his smile... They all lived an ordinary life, populated by dreams, hopes and illusions; filled with the past, extended toward the future... a linear life — this linearity that Aenea no longer understood — whereas Helen could not have imagined anything else... a strange feeling of duplicity. This man, her husband...
He had a passion for programming the supercomputer that was not yet called the Machine. He was among those who had invented the laws... the first three were common... then differences for each space. Separating spaces for humans and machines... alter the space for the Gateways... “guardians,” Anderson had written, “will be the stewards. They will prevent the implementation of the absolute... the laws and the guardians...” There were also higher instructions... added in the greatest secrecy... control... She had forgotten what he was talking about.
There were in her recollections some memories of crucial information, but she did not know where to look. In the past, her human past... a choice that was made... the consequences of which now materialized through the temporary nodes... Space E... the Machine... her memory was the key, she was convinced... but why? What could make her so confident? Perhaps she was boosting her self-confidence without reason, blinded by the mirage that was her idealized past... What if... If Aenea could cross the node fully, she could maybe... She dug her fingers into the magma that separated the two spaces and felt the border at the end of her skin. The bones of her human hand thickened, her nails were formed quite well... she could fully cross... Her hand sank deeper into the ocean, and was stung by salt and time. To become human again... to be fully aware of her past... to find the primary cause and deduce the solution... back to save nodes and spaces simultaneously... The idea was appealing.
It would be so easy... just follow her hand... she would return, she was sure... the human part in the Gateway was convinced... Cae drew her mind to it and imposed a pain, like a sting stuck in Aenea’s conscience. The latter could not tell... maybe she could not return to the node... maybe it would not accept her again... she could not become a gateway again... No, she could not.
When she was withdrawing her hand from the ocean, more human than before, the space-time curled in on itself. Cae’s fear percolated instantly, and Aenea shook. Another temporary node... Aenea watched their world contract, Cae binding itself more deeply with the energy of despair to maintain a semblance of consistency. Aenea leaned on what barriers remained to separate spaces... as long as she still could. While hardly a moment earlier, she envisaged going through this pasty jelly, Aenea, on the contrary, now was transferring her energy along her arms to repel the jelly. On each side, Aenea and Cae mentally and physically pushed the barriers of time, so the latter could hold... this time again. Trembling with the effort, Aenea curled in on herself. She had to hold herself at all costs. Inexorably, the barriers, reduced to the magma condition, were expanding. She did not want to die! The energy of despair gave her additional strength. She began to beg.
“Please, Interspace, keep strong... for this time... I will find the solution, but for that, I have to stay alive! I want to live. Please hold on!”
She felt that Cae would join her in prayer. She tensed every muscle, focused her mental energy on the space-time stream. Reduced to a mere trickle, the stream could break up at any moment. Instead of pushing the barriers back, she sought to expand the current. The goal remained the same, only the modus operandi differed. It had to work; it had to.
“Please, Space-Time, you must resist. Please, you who are hearing me, help me...”
She appealed to other Gateways so they could transmit their energy in the current.
Did they react? Aenea felt so... and the space-time grew again. The trickle became a creek and then a turbulent river.
When the temporary node closed, Aenea and Cae were exhausted. Once again, they had saved their world, but that was a near-death experience. These phenomena were not only threatening their existence... but also the third Space... Space E... what the kandrons had seen... Aenea felt her anger rise. She had risked her life by going into a temporary node to find the cause and stop it. She had to continue... she had to find... that was her task, her mission. More importantly, she had refused to die without fighting. Since her return, she had just enjoyed the reunion with her universe. What had happened reminded her of the urgency of the situation.
The Gateway decided to consult the memories of her three sub-elements to find out what had happened in her absence, something she had not done so far. That would give the Gateway an overview of the situation before acting. Space E... that generated nodes instead of being the consequence... While waving forward her two narrow feet bones, Aenea focused.
Cae showed Aenea the node without the latter. Without trying to handle the Gateway gently, the calorn threw its recollections to Aenea. It inflicted upon the latter the pain it had felt, the sensation of tearing, and most significantly, the vision of the node that had narrowed suddenly. Without the Gateway, time barriers became soft and subsided on the Interspace; they reduced it to almost nothing, reminding Aenea what had just happened. Cae had then established a direct link with Deo and Beor. Although it was imperfect in the absence of a gateway, Cae had drawn from this link the energy needed to maintain the node. Deo had tackled the quiet strength of the forest along the time barrier between the node and Space H. for consolidation. Beor launched a marine stream along the barrier with Space O. for the same purpose. Overall, deprived of the center that merged them all, they had established a kind of precarious balance. And while trying to recover upon her return, Aenea had unwittingly broken the harmony they created... and the shock sent it into the ocean.
Cae showed with some rage what Aenea had done to them when the latter left. In addition to the impact of the temporary node, Aenea’s departure created a shock along with the fear they all felt for her. Aenea felt its anguish mixed with anger and terrible exhaustion. Node after node, the calorn was losing energy, and periods of respite between two events were too short for it to regenerate. Aenea’s departure, although short, had accentuated its fatigue. She apologized to her friend, and amplified her link to it to reassure it more. Yet the Gateway did not regret her
actions. Her foray had taught her important things. Aenea conveyed to Cae all the positivity she had in herself. The calorn had subsided but was not totally reassured. With less harmonious and less bright dimensions, the Interspace reflected the calorn’s mixed feelings. Aenea, however, could not promise that she would not do the same thing again — would not leave again — because she absolutely had to stop the process. Nothingness would absorb all life if Aenea did nothing. Nothingness... into the tunnel... the third Space... E. as in...
Beor in its marine bubble showed Aenea what had happened in her absence. One of the individuals who had not been selected for the accelerated hybridization program had disappeared. Deo had found him in its space; inside the community living near the lake. A transfer... Why? How? Aenea asked Beor bluntly. He had no answer. Another impossibility... To trigger this type of transfer, one needed a passage formed by a node — in other words, a calorn and a link between the node and each space. For a transfer between Space H. and Space O. a phalomera and a mempheragog were necessary. Finally, one needed a gateway to provide the necessary impetus. Aenea had not, however, done any such thing, and there was no other Gateway in this Interspace... Then, how had this transfer been possible? Was her passing through the temporary node the cause of the transfer? Without the Gateway, the node would have become more permeable, allowing the transfer... Through Beor, Aenea looked at the trail that the hybrid had left behind. He had been there. He was born and raised as a hybrid, the elite of the city. Permanently connected to the Machine, carrying a portion of it in him, he followed his life smoothly until the introduction of the new program. For unknown reasons, he had not undergone surgery despite his young age and his excellent physical condition. For him, there then began a long descent into hell. Rejected by the elite, he found himself with others in a ghetto; then he was gone. Beor noted the abrupt change in energy level, indicating the creation of a passage into another space... and Deo had seen him appear in the same place but in its time, the hybrid gone.
